IQx.com – Colleges Information Online

Tag: undergraduates

  • Racial Admissions

    You have a lot of bad luck if you were born into an Asian family. If one of your parents is white, then you should claim that you are white instead of Asian when you apply to a college. Better yet, if you can find a way to claim that you are x% of American Indian, you have many more ways to get financial aid. Some say Asian-Americans are being denied spots at top colleges to keep their numbers in check (Asians make up 5 percent of the population). The following are percentages of Asian undergraduates at selected colleges, according to the New York Times, Jan 7, 2007:

    Stanford: 24%

    Harvard: 18%

    Princeton: 13%

    M.I.T.: 27%

    Asian-Americans are the odd group out, lacking the racial preferences enjoyed by other minorities and the advantages of wealth and lineage accrued by upper-class whites. Asians are type-cast in college admissions offices as quasi-robots programmed by their parents to ace math and science.

    The UC system (the University of California) announced a new admission policy (effectively reducing the number of Asian student population). Currently 36 percent of those admitted to the university system in 2007-8 were Asian Americans. In contrast, white applicants made up 34 percent of those admitted in 2007-8. Applying the new admissions standards, that percentage for Asian would drop to 29-32 percent. Under the proposed reforms, white applicants would have made up 41 to 44 percent of the entering class. So is this the case of “good” students are being denied admissions in favor of “mediocre” ones? Is it fair for the Asian American students who worked so hard but have disadvantages at attending their dream college(s)?

    Well, quite simply, the world is not fair. Many who pay their mortgage on time year after year, will need to share the burden of other foreclosure expenses by other people. If you are rich, then you need to pay more tax. If you are smart in one social group, then you have disadvantages to your college applications. If Obama was not black, did he have a chance? Is the Obama Presidency the end of Affirmative Action?

    This is not a new problem as there were many law suits filed before. Yale’s freshman Jian Li has filed a federal civil rights complaint against Princeton for rejecting his application for admission, claiming the University discriminated against him because he is Asian. The complaint, which was filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights on Oct. 25, 2006, alleges that the University’s admissions procedures are biased because they advantage other minority groups, namely African-Americans and Hispanics, legacy applicants and athletes at the expense of Asian-American applicants. However the most recent UC’s admission policies would legalize such practice and deny Asians’ chances.

  • Best Valued School

    Which school has the best value? Value is what you got for what you had paid. It is about spending less money and getting more than you paid. The more grants the school provides to you, the better value to you. You can always borrow money, but that does not lead you to a better value. This is especially important during current recession.

    The No. 1 Best Value for public schools is the University of Virginia. This year’s tuition, fees, room and board totaled $18,499 for in-state students and $37,749 out of state. The average grant UVA offered (including scholarships) totaled $9,531. The average 2008 graduate’s debt was $16,847. At top-rated private college Swarthmore, with 1,480 undergraduates for the 2008-09 year, the total cost is $47,804 (with large portion $36,154 — for tuition). But the average grant is $30,073, this is very attractive. The school did not report the amount of student debt, but at each of the top two campuses, about 70% of students graduated debt-free in 2008.

    The Princeton Review’s aim was to determine the average annual cost that a freshman paid for the 2008-09 school year. The selection criteria looked at academics, costs and financial aid, using the most recently reported data from each institution for its 2008-09 academic year. Overall selection criteria included more than 30 factors in three areas: academics, costs and financial aid. Academic ratings were based on student surveys about such issues as professors’ accessibility and class sizes, as well as institutional reports about student-faculty ratios and percent of classes taught by teaching assistants. The financial aid rating is based on a combination of school-reported data and student surveys. Tuition, room and board, and required fees, as well as book costs and other factors, are included in the financial measurement.

    The TOP 10 best value schools from Princeton Review are listed below.

    PRIVATE School;

    1. Swarthmore College (Swarthmore, Pa.)
    2. Harvard College (Cambridge, Mass.)
    3. Princeton University (Princeton, N.J.)
    4. Rice University (Houston, Texas)
    5. Yale University (New Haven, Conn.)
    6. Williams College (Williamstown, Mass.)
    7. Amherst College (Amherst, Mass.)
    8. California Institute of Technology (Pasadena)
    9. Pomona College (Claremont, Calif.)
    10. Stanford University (Stanford, Calif.)

    PUBLIC School

    1. University of Virginia (Charlottesville)
    2. New College of Florida (Sarasota)
    3. College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Va.)
    4. State University of New York-Binghamton
    5. Florida State University (Tallahassee)
    6. North Carolina State University (Raleigh)
    7. University of California San Diego
    8. City University of New York — Hunter College (New York, N.Y.)
    9. University of Georgia (Athens)
    10. The College of New Jersey (Ewing)