To new immigrants-how to get your kid into HYPS (ZT from CC)

Well here goes. I may offend a lot of people and I apologize in advance. But I think this is valuable information for people who are looking for it.

How do you get your kid into HYPS? You have to examine what America values - across political categories. Here is what America values, in priority order, IMO. Some of these items, obviously, overlap, and I move from general to the particular in those cases.

1. Individual drive and unique perspectives.
2. Courage and persistence, against all odds.
3. Being better than other people at something.
4. Charisma.
5. Sports.
6. Entertainment.
7. Money.
8. Doing good.

Now why? Well, you have to remember, that although we have now developed a more mature privileged class, we started as a bunch of people who had to have enormous drive, the vision to believe what very few other people believe, enormous courage, and excellent skills of one sort or another. As I have said on previous threads, my family on both sides has been in America since the 1600's. But were they aristocracy in Scotland, Ireland and England, where they came from? H*** no. They were actually sheepfarmers, cheesemakers, and ministers. But they knew they couldn't get ahead given that they owned no land, so they took huge risks and set out across the Atlantic.

Subsequent waves of immigrants have done the same thing. The other Europeans - Irish, Italian, Eastern Europe. The Asians, the Hispanics. And each time a new wave comes in, those of us who are here try to keep the others out so we can have all the resources to ourselves. Sorry. Human nature, but disgraceful all the same. Did you know that the Irish were once known as the n****** of Europe? And I am not going to address slavery here, as Drosselmeier has done so intelligently and eloquently on other threads. He is right. No other group had their ability to form a sub-society completely destroyed over such a prolonged period. (You go, D.) I am just explaining to you how America works in my opinion.

Each succesful immigrant wave finds a way to get a foothold. Jews loaned money, Koreans started greengroceries, Irish became policemen and lawyers and judges and finally politicians. They stick together, help eachother out, and amass capital. Then their offspring can do what they want with it. But all these immigrant waves have shown the prototypical American behavior, drive, pig-headedness, creativity, etc. and in their individuality, become part of the whole.

This is important. College admissions offices value the same things that America values.

1. Individual drive and unique perspectives.
2. Courage and persistence, against all odds.
3. Being better than other people at something.
4. Charisma.
5. Sports.
6. Entertainment.
7. Money.
8. Doing good.

We, and they, do not value obedience, unless it is the obedience of the warrior, because it shows his individuality. We certain do not value dutiful. We do not value following the crowd, no matter who your crowd is.

So it's not about making your Asian kid choose non-Asian activities. It's not about making your Latino kid choose non-Asian activities. The admissions people want to see some evidence that your kid is an American. They want to see signs that he or she is an individual, one with drive and courage and their own, even contrarian ideas. They want to see excellence, but excellence driven by an interior spirit.

We all respect Marite enormously here. Her kid is brilliant and goes to Harvard. But he got there on the power of his own inner spirit. I remember a story she told about how the only way to get him to eat was to do math problems with him. That is not obedience. It is not dutiful. It is not following the crowd.

So if your Asian kid, OF HIS OWN ACCORD, is obsessively and even militarily involved with things Asian, phenomenal. They just want to see, assuming of course the standard checkboxes that indicate intelligence and capacity to handle the workload have been checked (SATs and grades), that your kid will go out into America and make an impact. To do that, you have to function in the American system, the American value system.

Whether it's sports or entertainment or law or science or whatever, doesn't matter. And sure, I'm not saying the stuff like racial diversity and donations and exceptional athletes don't matter, they do. But if your kid is not going to be on those pools no matter what you do, then remember, this is America, whether we have it right or wrong, IMO this is what we value.

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• 值得一读。多数亚裔，只在3和8上强 -听听意见- ♀ (0 bytes) () 12/18/2006 postreply 11:03:53