As a fellow Asian whose parents also sacrificed a lot, I'm sympathetic, but I would urge you to consider a couple things:
1. Like it or not, plenty of families in America have had it worse than you had, and would not find it at all impressive that you have never gone on a vacation or eaten out.
2. You should save your anger for the huge number of spots saved for legacies and athletes. Being the child of alumni means you have a 45% greater chance of getting into a college. (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/07/harvards-freshman-class-is-m...) If you must get angry at someone, don't get angry at the people who are struggling as hard, or harder than you are--get mad at the rich assholes who quietly sail into these so-called elite institutions.
3. If you have good grades and good test scores, there are tons of good colleges you can go to. They just might not be Harvard. Is not going to Harvard worth pushing yourself to the right? Worth aligning yourself with the guy pushing a trade war with China, which is going to do wonders for the image of Asians in America? Personally, I don't think so.
4. The adversity score is designed to ensure equality of opportunity, dude. If they were capable of making a good adversity score, they would certainly take into account your family's struggles. They probably won't be able to, because these things are unquantifiable, but frankly the SAT and the whole college admissions process are bullshit anyway, and you'll be happier once you let go of your belief that because your family sacrificed a lot, the system ought to reward you. It should, but it won't, because it's a capricious and unfair monster.
Lots of great points to consider here and I'll boost number (2). I'm struggling not to say something unforgivably cynical here.... .... ...so let's say this: getting the 4.8% of Americans who are of Asian descent to spend their time crapping on the 12.7% of Americans who are black, or even better spend extra time crapping on the 6% of college students who are black and at 'good' universities, is just wonderful for letting the overrepresented white population run away with the education and the money. Divide and conquer for the win!
Your use of white is sort of shitty here- While it may reflect the truth of the demographics, whiteness is not the salient point when we're talking about legacies and 'athletes'.
The point there is the power of wealth and social connections. Thats what is unjust. Dragging race into it sort of undermines the point, and it certainly hurts the universality of the point, as other countries have different dominant class identifiers.
> frankly the SAT and the whole college admissions process are bullshit anyway
What's crazy about this whole controversy is that HN is usually skeptical towards college anyway. Even beyond the pro-Peter Thiel arguments back in the day about how college is a waste of time, nowadays there are plenty of allegations on HN about how higher ed is a bubble. About how CS, or at least programming, can be self-taught. So I don't understand why so many people here are giving College Board and the college industry any credence here.
HN is skeptical towards the substance of college. I think most would recognize that going to Harvard or Stanford opens a lot of doors, regardless of what you learn or don't.
> What's crazy about this whole controversy is that HN is usually skeptical towards college anyway.
I've always thought of them as a loud minority and, to be fair, they're not wrong: a lot of web jobs, even well paid ones, really don't require that much education or even much in the way of cognitive acuity.
The people who actually need to use their college education, the FAANG folks and people in other cutting edge tech jobs, don't bother to be vocal about it.
> Is not going to Harvard worth pushing yourself to the right? Worth aligning yourself with the guy pushing a trade war with China, which is going to do wonders for the image of Asians in America? Personally, I don't think so.
Point of fact: the Chinese had tariffs on American goods long before the “trade war.” That isn’t fair and it’s correct to call a government out on that policy. China has been called out by the WTO on numerous occasions and now, somehow Trump is wrong for agreeing with the WTO?[1] France has had high tariffs on American products for a long time, but now Trump is the bad guy? I don’t agree with any tariffs, but when other countries use tariffs, it’s only logical to retailiate.
Secondly, you seem to be suggesting that the OP should just accept not going to Harvard as fair when other people who didn’t work as hard get to go? That is just un-American and the complete opposite of a meritocracy. What do kids that have lower grades and don’t score as well get a preference to the most elite schools in the country? We are outraged when rich people bribe their way into a school, how is this any different? These lower performing students could also go to state schools just as you suggest the OP do. What gives them a right to a school for which they wouldn’t normally qualify? There is real anti-Asian discrimination at many of the Ivy League schools. This is documented and is not unlike the anti-Jew initiatives of years past. May the smartest student win — and if that results in an entirely Asian class at Harvard, so be it. It isn’t like Asians have any super-powers in academics. They’re human like the rest of us, but it might seem that their cultural emphasis on education is paying off. Instead of handicapping Asians, why not try to change the culture of non-Asians to better compete?
> Worth aligning yourself with the guy pushing a trade war with China
Is it still worth to breath when we know Hitler breathed too? This was rhetorical and I apologize for starting a little blunt. There is no singular right wing like there is no singular left wing.
As I understand it, the parent is actually not talking about aligning with Trump, but rather their thought process is getting more individualistic i.e. more right wing in a broad sense.
1. Like it or not, plenty of families in America have had it worse than you had, and would not find it at all impressive that you have never gone on a vacation or eaten out.
2. You should save your anger for the huge number of spots saved for legacies and athletes. Being the child of alumni means you have a 45% greater chance of getting into a college. (https://www.cnbc.com/2019/04/07/harvards-freshman-class-is-m...) If you must get angry at someone, don't get angry at the people who are struggling as hard, or harder than you are--get mad at the rich assholes who quietly sail into these so-called elite institutions.
3. If you have good grades and good test scores, there are tons of good colleges you can go to. They just might not be Harvard. Is not going to Harvard worth pushing yourself to the right? Worth aligning yourself with the guy pushing a trade war with China, which is going to do wonders for the image of Asians in America? Personally, I don't think so.
4. The adversity score is designed to ensure equality of opportunity, dude. If they were capable of making a good adversity score, they would certainly take into account your family's struggles. They probably won't be able to, because these things are unquantifiable, but frankly the SAT and the whole college admissions process are bullshit anyway, and you'll be happier once you let go of your belief that because your family sacrificed a lot, the system ought to reward you. It should, but it won't, because it's a capricious and unfair monster.