I have heard many stories in which students were admitted to other prestigious universities after being denied at Cal. A neighbor's daughter denied at both Cal and UCLA, accepted at Wellesley (the parents are UCLA grads). An office colleagues son denied at Cal, accepted at Cornell (the parents are Colorado grads). Some years ago, I asked a number of other professional colleagues who were Cal grads if they perceived any criteria biases to the acceptance process. They agreed that there is no sure fire path, you had to start with an unassailable academic record and then cross your fingers.

txwharfrat;842111559 said:

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Did Cal even offer Lin out of High School? Lin claimed that all D1 schools paased him over ....

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It may be true that no D-1A school offered him a scholarship, but it may be a lack of mutual interest. Perhaps he has no interest in a scholarship from some school like Fresno State.
There aren't too many internationally recognized academic institutions playing high-level basketball.

LethalFang;842111829 said:

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It may be true that no D-1A school offered him a scholarship, but it may be a lack of mutual interest. Perhaps he has no interest in a scholarship from some school like Fresno State.
There aren't too many internationally recognized academic institutions playing high-level basketball.

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Lin just had very little interest in him. he cited possible racial barriers but i think the bottom line is that most werent projecting him as a D1 basketball player coming out of high school. i saw him play in the state championship. it was obvious he was a baller, but was one that was more deceptively quick. I never thought he would develop into a good nba player or ever end up in the nba.

The guy totally exceeded expectations and perhaps that wouldnt have happened if he hadnt been looked over by the pac-10 schools. im sure he used it as motivation which was probably better for him in the long run. for these types of things, theyre judgment calls by coaches based on their experience, perhaps based somewhat on biases, but im sure if they had thought that lin would have been an all pac-10 caliber player or nba talent, they would have jumped at a chance to get him. Even when he was a rookie with the GSW, i still didnt think he would develop into a good nba player. thought that he could be a servicable backup. the fact that he has developed into a good starting point guard is one of the more remarkable stories that the nba has.

gobears725;842111836 said:

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Lin just had very little interest in him. he cited possible racial barriers but i think the bottom line is that most werent projecting him as a D1 basketball player coming out of high school. i saw him play in the state championship. it was obvious he was a baller, but was one that was more deceptively quick. I never thought he would develop into a good nba player or ever end up in the nba.

The guy totally exceeded expectations and perhaps that wouldnt have happened if he hadnt been looked over by the pac-10 schools. im sure he used it as motivation which was probably better for him in the long run. for these types of things, theyre judgment calls by coaches based on their experience, perhaps based somewhat on biases, but im sure if they had thought that lin would have been an all pac-10 caliber player or nba talent, they would have jumped at a chance to get him. Even when he was a rookie with the GSW, i still didnt think he would develop into a good nba player. thought that he could be a servicable backup. the fact that he has developed into a good starting point guard is one of the more remarkable stories that the nba has.

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In terms of college recruiting, it seems that Jeremy Lin = Aaron Rodgers in that both were simply missed by collegiate scouting experts coming out of high school. He was a legit "miss".

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/opinion/asians-too-smart-for-their-own-good.html?_r=0

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Asians: Too Smart for Their Own Good?
By CAROLYN CHEN
Published: December 19, 2012

Fears of an Asian Quota in the Ivy League
With a disproportionate number of Asian-American students acing standardized tests, are top colleges limiting the number they admit?

AT the end of this month, high school seniors will submit their college applications and begin waiting to hear where they will spend the next four years of their lives. More than they might realize, the outcome will depend on race. If you are Asian, your chances of getting into the most selective colleges and universities will almost certainly be lower than if you are white.

Asian-Americans constitute 5.6 percent of the nation's population but 12 to 18 percent of the student body at Ivy League schools. But if judged on their merits grades, test scores, academic honors and extracurricular activities Asian-Americans are underrepresented at these schools. Consider that Asians make up anywhere from 40 to 70 percent of the student population at top public high schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science in New York City, Lowell in San Francisco and Thomas Jefferson in Alexandria, Va., where admissions are largely based on exams and grades.

In a 2009 study of more than 9,000 students who applied to selective universities, the sociologists Thomas J. Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford found that white students were three times more likely to be admitted than Asians with the same academic record.

Sound familiar? In the 1920s, as high-achieving Jews began to compete with WASP prep schoolers, Ivy League schools started asking about family background and sought vague qualities like "character," "vigor," "manliness" and "leadership" to cap Jewish enrollment. These unofficial Jewish quotas weren't lifted until the early 1960s, as the sociologist Jerome Karabel found in his 2005 history of admissions practices at Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

In the 1920s, people asked: will Harvard still be Harvard with so many Jews? Today we ask: will Harvard still be Harvard with so many Asians? Yale's student population is 58 percent white and 18 percent Asian. Would it be such a calamity if those numbers were reversed?

As the journalist Daniel Golden revealed in his 2006 book "The Price of Admission," far more attention has been devoted to race-conscious affirmative action at public universities (which the Supreme Court has scaled back and might soon eliminate altogether) than to the special preferences elite universities afford to the children of (overwhelmingly white) donors and alumni.

For middle-class and affluent whites, overachieving Asian-Americans pose thorny questions about privilege and power, merit and opportunity. Some white parents have reportedly shied away from selective public schools that have become "too Asian," fearing that their children will be outmatched. Many whites who can afford it flock to private schools that promote "progressive" educational philosophies, don't "teach to the test" and offer programs in art and music (but not "Asian instruments," like piano and violin). At some of these top-tier private schools, too, Asian kids find it hard to get in.

At highly selective colleges, the quotas are implicit, but very real. So are the psychological consequences. At Northwestern, Asian-American students tell me that they feel ashamed of their identity that they feel viewed as a faceless bunch of geeks and virtuosos. When they succeed, their peers chalk it up to "being Asian." They are too smart and hard-working for their own good.

Since the 1965 overhaul of immigration law, the United States has lured millions of highly educated, ambitious immigrants from places like Taiwan, South Korea and India. We welcomed these immigrants precisely because they outperformed and overachieved. Yet now we are stigmatizing their children for inheriting their parents' work ethic and faith in a good education. How self-defeating.

To be clear, I do not seek to perpetuate the "model minority" myth Asian-Americans are a diverse group, including undocumented restaurant workers and resettled refugees as well as the more familiar doctors and engineers. Nor do I endorse the law professor Amy Chua's pernicious "Tiger Mother" stereotype, which has set back Asian kids by attributing their successes to overzealous (and even pathological) parenting rather than individual effort.

Some educators, parents and students worry that if admissions are based purely on academic merit, selective universities will be dominated by whites and Asians and admit few blacks and Latinos, as a result of socioeconomic factors and an enduring test-score gap. We still need affirmative action for underrepresented groups, including blacks, Latinos, American Indians and Southeast Asian Americans and low-income students of all backgrounds.

But for white and Asian middle- and upper-income kids, the playing field should be equal. It is noteworthy that many high-achieving kids at selective public magnet schools are children of working-class immigrants, not well-educated professionals. Surnames like Kim, Singh and Wong should not trigger special scrutiny.

We want to fill our top universities with students of exceptional and wide-ranging talent, not just stellar test takers. But what worries me is the application of criteria like "individuality" and "uniqueness," subjectively and unfairly, to the detriment of Asians, as happened to Jewish applicants in the past. I suspect that in too many college admissions offices, a white Intel Science Talent Search finalist who is a valedictorian and the concertmaster of her high school orchestra would stand out as exceptional, while an Asian-American with the same rsum (and socioeconomic background) would not.

The way we treat these children will influence the America we become. If our most renowned schools set implicit quotas for high-achieving Asian-Americans, we are sending a message to all students that hard work and good grades may be a fool's errand.

okaydo;842111217 said:

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It was like 45 percent Asian in the 90s.

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No, it wasn't; it was closer to 30% in the 90's

barabbas;842112093 said:

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No, it wasn't; it was closer to 30% in the 90's

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More accurately, 29.8% in 1996 (pre Prop 209) to 37.47% in 2010.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/jul/12/opinion/la-oe-lehrer-affirmativeaction-20100712

Irishbear;842111481 said:

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Long time Cal football, basketball, men and women (great season, ladies), softball and baseball. And I never think about demographics until some idiot brings it up. Now I am taking a brief survey, and, by count, the teams seem to be disproportionate racially. My people are in the vast minority. I'm speaking of Irish-Americans, caucasians, or whatever label you choose. And who cares? We are bears. The qualified represent.
:gobears:

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Aha! Gotcha! "my people" vs. "you people". Just kidding :p

My background at Cal is in the area of Ancient History and Antropology and Classics.

We are all African Americans in a sense even the Native Americans. Since Homo Sapiens (no not that kind of Homo - not that there is anything wrong with that) evolved first in Central Africa (and not that long ago by geologic time a mere 100,000 years) then spread across the globe.
Our current racial issues are a lot like the Tom Smothers "Mom liked you best" disputes with his brother.

Well maybe not all of us; some of the Homo Neanderthal are still around but most of them attend USC. And I do not even want to discuss Homo Erectus since this is a family blog.

sycasey;842111443 said:

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What are your reasons for thinking he's an ass?

Every time I've seen him interviewed or read something by him he comes off as a thoughtful, reasonable man. Doesn't mean he's always right, but he doesn't seem like an ass to say the least.

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Because he tends to rant and preach, both with a heavy dose of arrogance.

Golden One;842112207 said:

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Because he tends to rant and preach, both with a heavy dose of arrogance.

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I don't think I've ever seen Zakaria "rant" about anything. His tone is always calm and measured, IMO. Example?

OskiMD;842111871 said:

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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/opinion/asians-too-smart-for-their-own-good.html?_r=0

OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Asians: Too Smart for Their Own Good?
By CAROLYN CHEN
Published: December 19, 2012

Fears of an Asian Quota in the Ivy League
With a disproportionate number of Asian-American students acing standardized tests, are top colleges limiting the number they admit?

AT the end of this month, high school seniors will submit their college applications and begin waiting to hear where they will spend the next four years of their lives. More than they might realize, the outcome will depend on race. If you are Asian, your chances of getting into the most selective colleges and universities will almost certainly be lower than if you are white.

Asian-Americans constitute 5.6 percent of the nation's population but 12 to 18 percent of the student body at Ivy League schools. But if judged on their merits grades, test scores, academic honors and extracurricular activities Asian-Americans are underrepresented at these schools. Consider that Asians make up anywhere from 40 to 70 percent of the student population at top public high schools like Stuyvesant and Bronx Science in New York City, Lowell in San Francisco and Thomas Jefferson in Alexandria, Va., where admissions are largely based on exams and grades.

In a 2009 study of more than 9,000 students who applied to selective universities, the sociologists Thomas J. Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford found that white students were three times more likely to be admitted than Asians with the same academic record.

Sound familiar? In the 1920s, as high-achieving Jews began to compete with WASP prep schoolers, Ivy League schools started asking about family background and sought vague qualities like "character," "vigor," "manliness" and "leadership" to cap Jewish enrollment. These unofficial Jewish quotas weren't lifted until the early 1960s, as the sociologist Jerome Karabel found in his 2005 history of admissions practices at Harvard, Yale and Princeton.

In the 1920s, people asked: will Harvard still be Harvard with so many Jews? Today we ask: will Harvard still be Harvard with so many Asians? Yale's student population is 58 percent white and 18 percent Asian. Would it be such a calamity if those numbers were reversed?

As the journalist Daniel Golden revealed in his 2006 book "The Price of Admission," far more attention has been devoted to race-conscious affirmative action at public universities (which the Supreme Court has scaled back and might soon eliminate altogether) than to the special preferences elite universities afford to the children of (overwhelmingly white) donors and alumni.

For middle-class and affluent whites, overachieving Asian-Americans pose thorny questions about privilege and power, merit and opportunity. Some white parents have reportedly shied away from selective public schools that have become "too Asian," fearing that their children will be outmatched. Many whites who can afford it flock to private schools that promote "progressive" educational philosophies, don't "teach to the test" and offer programs in art and music (but not "Asian instruments," like piano and violin). At some of these top-tier private schools, too, Asian kids find it hard to get in.

At highly selective colleges, the quotas are implicit, but very real. So are the psychological consequences. At Northwestern, Asian-American students tell me that they feel ashamed of their identity that they feel viewed as a faceless bunch of geeks and virtuosos. When they succeed, their peers chalk it up to "being Asian." They are too smart and hard-working for their own good.

Since the 1965 overhaul of immigration law, the United States has lured millions of highly educated, ambitious immigrants from places like Taiwan, South Korea and India. We welcomed these immigrants precisely because they outperformed and overachieved. Yet now we are stigmatizing their children for inheriting their parents' work ethic and faith in a good education. How self-defeating.

To be clear, I do not seek to perpetuate the "model minority" myth Asian-Americans are a diverse group, including undocumented restaurant workers and resettled refugees as well as the more familiar doctors and engineers. Nor do I endorse the law professor Amy Chua's pernicious "Tiger Mother" stereotype, which has set back Asian kids by attributing their successes to overzealous (and even pathological) parenting rather than individual effort.

Some educators, parents and students worry that if admissions are based purely on academic merit, selective universities will be dominated by whites and Asians and admit few blacks and Latinos, as a result of socioeconomic factors and an enduring test-score gap. We still need affirmative action for underrepresented groups, including blacks, Latinos, American Indians and Southeast Asian Americans and low-income students of all backgrounds.

But for white and Asian middle- and upper-income kids, the playing field should be equal. It is noteworthy that many high-achieving kids at selective public magnet schools are children of working-class immigrants, not well-educated professionals. Surnames like Kim, Singh and Wong should not trigger special scrutiny.

We want to fill our top universities with students of exceptional and wide-ranging talent, not just stellar test takers. But what worries me is the application of criteria like "individuality" and "uniqueness," subjectively and unfairly, to the detriment of Asians, as happened to Jewish applicants in the past. I suspect that in too many college admissions offices, a white Intel Science Talent Search finalist who is a valedictorian and the concertmaster of her high school orchestra would stand out as exceptional, while an Asian-American with the same rsum (and socioeconomic background) would not.

The way we treat these children will influence the America we become. If our most renowned schools set implicit quotas for high-achieving Asian-Americans, we are sending a message to all students that hard work and good grades may be a fool's errand.

---

What do you do when the Asian members of your club want to limit the number of new Asian members so the club isn't viewed as "Asian", and your club has adopted a non-discrimination policy?

wifeisafurd;842112242 said:

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What do you do when the Asian members of your club want to limit the number of new Asian members so the club isn't viewed as "Asian", and your club has adopted a non-discrimination policy?

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Add more black people to your club to scare them off :p

wifeisafurd;842112242 said:

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What do you do when the Asian members of your club want to limit the number of new Asian members so the club isn't viewed as "Asian", and your club has adopted a non-discrimination policy?

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More Pool Boys

My only concern would be is what percentage of the UC asian student pop. are California residents, v. foreign students that the University takes for the increased tuition.

wifeisafurd;842112242 said:

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What do you do when the Asian members of your club want to limit the number of new Asian members so the club isn't viewed as "Asian", and your club has adopted a non-discrimination policy?

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Take away the video games and invite more girls.