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I wrote the article below primarily for Chinese American parents concerned about college admission question for their children. I post it here for information purpose only for my Chinese blog readers.

Yesterday the US Supreme court (SCOTUS) re-affirmed the U.of Texas affirmative  action  decision which allows race and ethnicity as afactor in determining US college  admissions. This means Asian-American applicants to US colleges (particularly  Ivy League colleges)   may at the discretion of the universities required to climb a higher threshold for admission  than other applicants – an issue of great concern to AA parents.  This is because many colleges already have a large (compared with population averages) Asian-American student population reaching 20-40%. In the name of diversity,  they want to limit the  AA student  ratio (see the latest from thecollege point of view  http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2016/06/affirming-whole-person-admissions/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=06.24.2016%20%281%29 ). In other colleges where financial issue comes into play, rich mainland Chinese students that can pay full tuition have an advantage over local Chinese-American applicants who may need scholarship help for admission http://www.economist.com/news/china/21644222-yearning-american-higher-education-has-driven-surge-overseas-study-georgia-their .All these reasons, now supported by the SCOTUS decision, cause undue anxiety/stress for parents and students.

I’d like to say something about this issue from the viewpoint of someone who has  served on the Harvard Admission Committee and has experience with educating students  for 50+ years.

1.   The US is the land of opportunity. Admission to prestige undergraduate  colleges is only one of many factors for future success in life. How many President of the US went to  Ivy league colleges for undergraduate studies?

2.   If you know you are going onto graduate school, then where you  did your  undergraduate  matters far less. Do you know the UG school Clinton,  Bush, andObama went to? Of course you know they went to Yale Law School, Harvard Business School, and Harvard Law School respectively for graduate studies.  In fact , for Harvard graduate school  admission, being a Harvard undergraduate is  actually a disadvantage. because in the  name of diversity, Harvard graduate schools bentover backwards to admit students from  other colleges and limit the Harvard UG applicants.

3.   For college admission, the saying is “The Chinese are the Jews  of yesteryears” In early 20^th century, Jews were discriminated in Ivy League college admission (in fact, geographical diversity in admission was originally invented to limit admission of Jewish applicants who were mostly concentrated in NYC).However, through integration and organizing for  political power, discrimination against  Jews in admission disappeared in mid 20^th century. Harvard even had a Jew-American President coupleof decades ago.  As the saying goes “you don’t necessarily get what you deserve, you get what you can negotiate”.Asians must learn the same lesson to gain equality in treatment.

4.   Decades ago, Asians were the beneficiaries of Affirmative Action hard fought  and won  by African-Americans. Now it seems to work in reverse against  Asians  in college  admission. If you did not do much in enjoying the benefit, you have less of an  argument  when it is applied against you and when African and Hispanic Americans  feel  AA students are taking places of applicants of their race. This is a give-and-take issue.

5.   I have also written about college admission from an insider viewpoint. See http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-621163.html ,http://blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-1565-951994.html, and more generally about  life, career,and success based on my 66 years of experience living in the US. http://blog.sciencenet.cn/home.php?mod=space&uid=1565&do=blog&id=274536 .This may be of help to recent immigrants young and old alike.