The enrollment controversy*
Worries that efforts in the U.S. to limit enrollment of Asian students in top universities may migrate to Canada
When Alexandra and her friend Rachel, both graduates of Toronto’s Havergal College, an all-girls private school, were deciding which university to go to, they didn’t even bother considering the University of Toronto. “The only people from our school who went to U of T were Asian,” explains Alexandra, a second-year student who looks like a girl from an Aritzia billboard. “All the white kids,” she says, “go to Queen’s, Western and McGill.”
Alexandra eventually chose the University of Western Ontario. Her younger brother, now a high school senior deciding where he’d like to go, will head “either east, west or to McGill”—unusual academic options, but in keeping with what he wants from his university experience. “East would suit him because it’s chill, out west he could be a ski bum,” says Alexandra, who explains her little brother wants to study hard, but is also looking for a good time—which rules out U of T, a school with an academic reputation that can be a bit of a killjoy.
Or, as Alexandra puts it—she asked that her real name not be used in this article, and broached the topic of race at universities hesitantly—a “reputation of being Asian.”
Discussing the role that race plays in the self-selecting communities that more and more characterize university campuses makes many people uncomfortable. Still, an “Asian” school has come to mean one that is so academically focused that some students feel they can no longer compete or have fun. Indeed, Rachel, Alexandra and her brother belong to a growing cohort of student that’s eschewing some big-name schools over perceptions that they’re “too Asian.” It’s a term being used in some U.S. academic circles to describe a phenomenon that’s become such a cause for concern to university admissions officers and high school guidance counsellors that several elite universities to the south have faced scandals in recent years over limiting Asian applicants and keeping the numbers of white students artificially high.
Although university administrators here are loath to discuss the issue, students talk about it all the time. “Too Asian” is not about racism, say students like Alexandra: many white students simply believe that competing with Asians—both Asian Canadians and international students—requires a sacrifice of time and freedom they’re not willing to make. They complain that they can’t compete for spots in the best schools and can’t party as much as they’d like (too bad for them, most will say). Asian kids, meanwhile, say they are resented for taking the spots of white kids. “At graduation a Canadian—i.e. ‘white’—mother told me that I’m the reason her son didn’t get a space in university and that all the immigrants in the country are taking up university spots,” says Frankie Mao, a 22-year-old arts student at the University of British Columbia. “I knew it was wrong, being generalized in this category,” says Mao, “but f–k, I worked hard for it.”
That Asian students work harder is a fact born out by hard data. They tend to be strivers, high achievers and single-minded in their approach to university. Stephen Hsu, a physics prof at the University of Oregon who has written about the often subtle forms of discrimination faced by Asian-American university applicants, describes them as doing “disproportionately well—they tend to have high SAT scores, good grades in high school, and a lot of them really want to go to top universities.” In Canada, say Canadian high school guidance counsellors, that means the top-tier post-secondary institutions with international profiles specializing in math, science and business: U of T, UBC and the University of Waterloo. White students, by contrast, are more likely to choose universities and build their school lives around social interaction, athletics and self-actualization—and, yes, alcohol. When the two styles collide, the result is separation rather than integration.
The dilemma is this: Canadian institutions operate as pure meritocracies when it comes to admissions, and admirably so. Privately, however, many in the education community worry that universities risk becoming too skewed one way, changing campus life—a debate that’s been more or less out in the open in the U.S. for years but remains muted here. And that puts Canadian universities in a quandary. If they openly address the issue of race they expose themselves to criticisms that they are profiling and committing an injustice. If they don’t, Canada’s universities, far from the cultural mosaics they’re supposed to be—oases of dialogue, mutual understanding and diversity—risk becoming places of many solitudes, deserts of non-communication. It’s a tough question to have to think about.
*This article was originally titled “‘Too Asian’?” For our response to the controversy it has generated, click here.
Maybe the one that wrote this article is one of those failures that went to university for sex and beer. Failed out of school and couldn’t help but blame those who work hard.
Am I not reading it right or this artical is just full of confusion? White students go to other universities but U of T is because of there are way too many Asian students there. And yet you tell another story about Asian students tend to hangout with their own ethic group and not wanting to participate in other activities.
Unless you’re telling me that White kids are eager to make friends with Asian kids and they can’t do so because they only hangout with other Asian kids so they chose other universities but U of T otherwise I don’t understand you.
People just don’t like to see Asians everywhere, period. I bet you won’t find a article named “Too White?” about majority kids in a university are white and people don’t want to go there just because of it.
I definitely believe this article is making a mountain out of a molehill. If we have skilled academics immigrating to from Asia to Canada that is a GOOD thing. Who can complain about getting more skilled workers? Especially with the aging baby-boomers increasingly relying on social services.
This article I think is kinda missing the larger issue here. The larger issue is that we have too many people going to universities in Canada. There are many people that go to university who, quite frankly, do not belong in that environment and end up dropping out and losing a fortune in tuition fees. This is because in the last few decades universities have shifted from becoming the standard of education for theoretical, abstract and clinical professions to the standard for ALL professions. Right now virtually all mid to high income jobs want applicants to have a Bachelor degree at least. The problem is that universities are theoretical institutions and their primary purpose IS NOT teaching you applied that directly translates into a job. They are not meant to prepare you for working life, unless you plan on working in academics or going on to graduate programs like med school or law school that lead to a single well defined career (even then you will have to spend several years after school working as a resident at a hospital or a law clerk.) Look back in time 30 or 40 years and you can see that this was not the case. I am not saying that back then a university education was not useful when applying for certain jobs, but as many of the older people reading this will know, a university degree was not the be all and end all for all jobs that were not in the skilled trades the way they are now, and a college diploma went a lot further and in some cases was even preferred to a degree. (by the way people in the skilled trades can make huge amounts of money, so if you are reading this and in high school don’t over look them, I know a plumber who drives an Audi.) The more applied areas of the workforce are suffering as a result of this, because they are getting university students who have all sorts of theoretical knowledge which is useless in their profession, but none of the necessary practical knowledge. Case in point my mother just had to fire an employee in the IT sales sector who was fresh from getting his Phd, because he had no idea what he was doing, and had no prcatical knowledge of how to sell his product to other companies.
As too the Asian enrollment trend, I do not know why everyone is making such a big deal about it. I am a white, male who is in 2nd year life sciences at uoft I personally find that uoft (at least the downtown campus) is one of the most culturally and racially diverse schools I have ever seen, and I personally have seen absolutely no racial tension, I have white friend, black friends asian friends, it really makes no difference. I am not saying that there is or is not a disproportionate amount of asian students, but there are plenty of other university enrollment trends out there that no one seems to be panicking about (eg. 66% of university students are female) and I am not saying anyone should be panicking about them (I personally like the high proportion of women on campus-for obvious reasons.) but I do find it odd that this one has created such a stir.
Also you do not have to spend every waking hour studying to get into a top tier university like uoft. Many of their average acceptance grades range from a mid to high seventy to a low eighty and frankly if the work required to get that kind of grade is too stressful on your social life, perhaps university is not right for you. Remember top tier universities are referred to as top tier for a reason, and it is not because they admit people who just want to party.
By the way if you have any more detailed info on the above issues, particularly the changing role of universities please post it, because all the information I have posted is from my own experiences and I know of little hard data on the issue.
I have had the experience of observing an interesting phenomenon during my undergraduate degree in Computer Science and Engineering. What I noticed is that, while the Asians and Indians remained in the program after the “difficult” courses, the Caucasians had to switch to a much easier curriculum (Business, etc..). And thus …. I am calling this interesting phenomenon “white-out”!!
Example:
Alexandra: “Hey Rachel, how did you do in the engineering course?”
Rachel: “Oh I dropped out. Don’t you know, it’s a “white-out” class!
** And if you think generalizing a group to the drop-outs is racist, this is no different than generalizing all asians as being competent students.
University entrance is purely based on academic merit, and perhaps this can be tweaked. For the hard sciences (especially math, computers, engineering, physics, and chemistry)you do want to foster academic excellence to produce the next unidimensional brainiac like Bill Gates or Stephen Hawking. Who cares that these guys didn’t party all the time when they were in undergrad; they produced good work subsequently and broke new ground.
On the other hand, we have to produce the more generalized productive university grad. To me, this is the person who finished university, made friends, partied, played intramural sports, joined clubs or got involved in a non-academic aspect. To do this, perhaps a series of short 200 word responses to questions will give the university the ability to parse through their applicants. The obvious downside to this is the mountain of work it’ll create.
Medical schools have moved away from the heavily academic weighting of their entrance requirements, and have shifted to a more global requirement. What good is a technically smart physician who can’t communicate and connect with patients?
Doing well only academically doesn’t really help a graduate in the real world of interpersonal interaction, problem solving, etc.
So perhaps the crux of the problem is: What kind of graduate do universities want? A bunch of lab rats with no social skills? Or a more well rounded global citizen with a broad perspective of the social landscape of work life and everyday life?
Nice, Macleans, you’ve attempted to undo the past by changing the article’s title not once but twice. Stalin would have been proud.