College admissions

Dear Editor: The Los Angeles Times (Feb 15, 2015) wrote an inspiring story about a Hispanic student from an impoverished family who has been admitted to Harvard University because of his academic success (he has a 4.25 GPA). This student deserves praise but the article does not tell the whole story.

Those of us who earned a college degree, own a house, managed to save some money and live under solid middle-class values are castigated by the “holistic” selection criteria used by Harvard, Stanford, USC and other top prestigious universities.

Our children with higher academic success than the one in this story will not stand a chance in the Harvard selection process because their parents sinned by having gone to college and by being financially responsible. Harvard is the school that rejected Warren Buffett, an achievement similar to USC’s rejection of Steven Spielberg.

To add insult to injury, the Times (Feb 22, 2015) reports that Asian students are penalized in their SAT scores by 50 points. African American students received a “bonus” of 230 points and Hispanics received a bonus of 185 points. Succinctly speaking Admission Offices discriminate against Asian American applicants for being smart and disciplined in their pursuit of academic success.

This dumbing down of college applicants is reminiscing of the “No child left behind” program and its emphasis in the Lowest Common Denominator in students academic achievement.

I find it very hard to accept that Asian American students are denied opportunities at prestige universities for being too smart. These actions do not benefit our society. Our bright students should be applauded not discriminated against.

The “holistic” selection process used by Harvard, Stanford, USC and other prestigious universities has not produced spectacular success for their alumni. According to the Financial Aid Newslettter (April 2014) none of the top 12 executives in the US attended Harvard, Stanford.USC or other prestigious universities. Perhaps it is time for those schools to review their admissions criteria.

Jorge Montero

Downey

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Published: March 5, 2015 - Volume 13 - Issue 47