Sometimes, Admission Odds Stacked Against Asian-American Students

When Amy Chua's "Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother" was released earlier this year, it got a lot of attention. Here's an excerpt:

"A lot of people wonder how Chinese parents raise such stereotypically successful kids. They wonder what these parents do to produce so many math whizzes and music prodigies, what it’s like inside the family, and whether they could do it too. Well, I can tell them, because I’ve done it. Here are some things my daughters, Sophia and Louisa, were never allowed to do:

• attend a sleepover
• have a playdate
• be in a school play
• complain about not being in a school play
• watch TV or play computer games
• choose their own extracurricular activities
• get any grade less than an A
• not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama
• play any instrument other than the piano or violin
• not play the piano or violin."

Well this month one of Amy Chua's daughters was accepted to Harvard and Yale. As Kate Swhartz wrote in Newser, "Take that, haters."

But what about those students who get straight A's, nail their SATs and still don't get into elite universities like Harvard and Yale because... well, they're Asian-American?

According to a recent article by Jon Marcus in the Boston Globe Magazine, Asian-Americans students make up approximately 20 percent at elite colleges and universities nation-wide. Meanwhile in California, where the University of California schools are now race-blind, Asian-American students make up 40 to 50 percent of the population.

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