‘Model minority myth’ hurts APA students, admissions experts say

Asian Pacific Americans were admitted to top-tier universities in lower percentages than expected, according to a Boston Globe editorial earlier this year.

The editorial by Kara Miller, an educator with College Match, a non-profit organization that helps low-income students gain admittance to highly selective universities, said that APAs are often subjected to the same difficulty that Jewish students once faced. She said they are perceived as a collective group that does better in academics, and are expected to perform better than their non-APA peers to gain acceptance to universities.

Stephen Hsu, a professor at the University of Oregon said APAs generally need to outperform other groups to gain admittance to top institutions in the United States.

“I think there are too many qualified Asian students, so you end up with a pretty strong overrepresentation if you base on merit alone,” Hsu said, also relating it to the Jewish student experience.

Dylan Winslow, a junior history major, said he sees APAs as exemplary students.

“They contribute to the academic community as good as any other group of people,” Winslow said.

For sophomore bioengineering and mathematics major Kaiyi Xie, the achievements he had in high school were not enough to gain him admission to the Ivy League universities he expected would accept him.

Xie graduated from Walter Johnson High School, a 2010 honorable mention award high school according to the U.S. News and World Report high school ranking study, with a 3.93 grade point average. He took 14 Advanced Placement classes and received the highest score possible on all but one of the tests.

His final choice came down to this university, UNC Chapel Hill and McGill, a top-tier university in Canada.

“Being an Asian American applying to college is equivalent to subtracting points from your score,” Xie said.

Xie added that his situation was similar to that of many immigrants.

He said many immigrants have pressure to succeed because they “left somewhere for a specific reason” and see education as an investment.

However, Xie also recognized limitations that universities face.

“I understand that all colleges and universities have the ability and right to balance their classes as they see fit,” Xie said.

“Even though it does hurt Asian Americans, this is the school’s prerogative. I understand,” he said.

Hsu said universities accept APAs in lower numbers than expected due to the type of diversity that campuses seek.

“Diversity proponents don’t consider Asians in enriching environments,” Hsu said. “They want a different balance of students on campus.”

Xie said he believes there is diversity on this campus, but said he wants to see students take more control of that diversity.

“If anything, it’s a stigma that goes back decades about Asian immigrants,” Winslow said. “It’s like they don’t want to make this school too ‘yellow,’ which is ridiculous obviously.”

Hsu questioned the goals of the university admissions department.

“If you’re trying to get the strongest students on campus, then that’s what you do and you don’t care what color they are,” Hsu said.