Chinese students are products of an educational system that, for all of its high achievers, is built to suppress intellectual curiosity, creativity and individuality – the very qualities that American admissions officers value most. 

The fairly well documented[0][1][2] truth here is that American universities are using qualities like "leadership" to justify what is really a quota on Asian students.

I totally understand that none of the evidence is conclusive, but the fact that this is happening to Asian American students, who for the most part never go through the Chinese educational system this particular article blames, should at least cast a good amount of doubt on their claim.

[0] http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harberson-asian-a...

[1] http://www.wsj.com/articles/asian-american-organizations-see...

[2] https://priceonomics.com/post/48794283011/do-elite-colleges-...

Private universities can also say that one of their main purposes is to educate the population of the countries that they are based in.

None of this justifies discriminating against Asian-American students, which is truly unjust, and shouldn't be confused for justifiable discrimination.

The first point is easy to prove - every admissions-rate breakdown suggests that many colleges apply a substantial penalty to Asian students, equivalent to ~100 points of SAT score. (Elite colleges also have distorted admissions percentages for Asian-Americans, but this SAT penalty can't be calculated cleanly; scores are bounded at 2400 and many applicants are >2300.) Other people have linked plenty of sources here, and I'd like to hear a counterargument if there is one.

If you mean the second point, it shakes out of affirmative action arguments pretty directly. The question is whether we accept affirmative-action-as-erasing-privilege (which shouldn't penalize Asian students) or affirmative-action-as-increasing-diversity (which I suppose would try to mirror population percentages regardless of privilege). Plenty has been written on that, but I can see how one might accept the "Asian penalty" on a diversity argument.

disclaimer: this is conjecture, so please humor me. I don't have citations. this is a thought experiment for the sake of discussion.

suppose that the aspects by which Asian-American students claim they excel in, and claim as the basis for why they ought to have higher acceptance rates at certain universities, are actually not considered very valuable by those universities?

example: standardized test scores. SAT or ACT or some similar thing. maybe its true that the average standardized test score amongst Asian-American university applicants is higher than that of the general population. what advantage is that if the standardized test score itself is not something being highly valued by the admissions officer?

what would falsify that claim? examples of applicants from other cohorts being over-represented at the same average standardized test score levels.

under-representation of another group with similar test scores would not falsify the claim that standardized test scores are not considered valuable. if they're not important than there is some other criteria being selected for.

over-representation of another cohort would, however, evidence some kind of discrimination. the claim is that over-performance in standardized test scores ought to lead to over-representation in admissions. if it does for one group that over-performs but not another that also over-performs that does look like discrimination.

under the usual AA paradigm, wouldn't an over-representation of any particular group demonstrate unequal privilege?

The reality is they accept far more students from 'prep' schools than average and those prep schools don't have the same ratio of Asians as the Ivy applicants. ex: Harvard get's ~17 percent of it's students from New England even though less than 5% of the US population is from New England.

PS: There is also likely an applicant bias where Asians may be culturally more likely to apply when outside of these feeder schools.

http://www.usaschoolinfo.com/school/phillips-exeter-academy-...

Be an interesting person, and your likelihood of getting into a given school increases dramatically, and the odds of getting into at least one of a few that your friend applies to approaches 100%.

Feel free to ask more about what "interesting" means.

> [...]

> Feel free to ask more about what "interesting" means.

For reasons that are of no relevance here (for the simple reason that this would be rather off topic) I think I know what "interesting person" means here. Perhaps in the future I will be sitting in a panel and be obligated to apply these criteria. But deep inside I think these criteria are a really limited perspective on what an "interesting person" is (I actually often find the kind of person that is selected by these criteria as not too interesting, but I digress).

For example what about the kind of people who have rather interesting views on a topic, with which universities often prefer not to be associated with? Or do things that are rather illegal (in terms of law), but can morally be justified? An example: Aaron Swartz and his Guerilla Open Access Manifesto (https://archive.org/details/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto and https://archive.org/download/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goa...). Or Aaron Swartz' JSTOR action: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Aaron_Swartz&oldi... and https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=United_States_v._...

Or what about people who have a vocal opinion on a topic that is so far off the typical opinions that one will hear in society that they will polarize people a lot - even though their opinions are very interesting to those who can handle them?

Or what about people who tried ambitious things multiple times, but failed at them, stood up again, failed again, ... In other words: Were of the kind that did not fall under the survivor bias/bias for success stories that admission panels select for?

TLDR: There exist a lot more kinds of "interesting persons" than what admission panels consider as such.

> Aaron Swartz

Admissions committees LOVE applicants like Aaron Swartz. Note that he enrolled at Stanford despite dropping out of school after 9th grade or so. He also had a lot of support from powerful people both at MIT and Harvard. He is an Ivy dream applicant.

That said, my understanding of the biggest problem that Aaron had was that: 1) he was breaking the law, 2) he was caught, told he was breaking the law, and was asked not to do it again, and 3) he did it again. This is why MIT went after him and why some of his support dried up (or at least became more subtle).

Large institutions with very public profiles have a right to draw the line at illegal activities that happen under their names or on their property -- some would say an obligation. On a personal level, I have found that many places are ok with gray area stuff, but blatantly illegal activity even after being warned is typically a no-go.

> vocal polarized opinions

I think this group is largely sought after. It's tough to say without specific examples. Let me try a few.

First, I have heard that one of the Beastie Boys (Mike D?) was accepted to Harvard in the 90s. The Beasties were extremely politically incorrect in a very PC time. This acceptance would not surprise me.

Second (a made up example), let's say a person of Sudanese descent supported female circumcision and wanted to advocate for this position. Depending on how their stance was presented, I think that this person could get in. If they said something like "this practice is important to me for xyz reasons, and i would like to go to [elite school] to help me learn about [specific topics] that will help me communicate my message in a more compelling manner", then that's probably a strong application. If they say something like "This practice is important to me, and I think all people in my culture should be forced to do it" is probably not a strong application. So there is a range of possible outcomes even on controversial topics. I think the key points are that the applicant needs to be curious about learning (esp. something that the specific school can help with), and the attitudes should probably be based on something of perceived high moral ground (law, human rights, etc.) rather than an individual's personal beliefs that may come across as being arbitrary. It can be a fine line.

A third (real) example is an applicant to a HYPS grad school who was accepted against all odds and violated most of the "rules" that people think exist.

The person in question was a minority rights activist -- the stuff they did was super cool. That said, this person had bad grades and unbelievably bad standardized test scores, neither of which were explained (e.g., illness, personal protest, etc.). The recommendations all said that the person worked on cool stuff, but was decidedly not academically oriented. They also said that the applicant struggled to write clearly, and this was easy to confirm based on application essays that were tough to read and full of technical errors and questionable decisions on style (but were still fascinating once they were understood).

This person was accepted and offered the best minority scholarship we had -- full tuition and a very healthy stipend. The applicant ended up not matriculating.

I give this last story as an example of how far some admission committees will go to admit interesting people. Granted, had this person been white or Asian, the rules probably could not have been bent this far. That said, I assure you that the "limits" can actually be quite loose even for these groups... if they are interesting enough.

> multiple failures

Yeah, this might be a group that falls through the cracks, but I would also consider this group to collectively be a corner case -- there just aren't that many of them. That said, I would suggest that if someone truly tries and fails multiple times in high school, then maybe their process has major flaws (e.g., too ambitious, poorly structured, etc.), and this might actually signal a hard limit on their ability to get things done.

Even then, it wouldn't be a terrible application to reflect on these failures and point out that the target school has one or more things that might help address these points of failure.

I'm open to other ideas or examples in this area.

SUMMARY

I certainly hope that you get to sit on an admissions committee one day. I think that you will find that most applicants are not interesting and/or not qualified and are relatively easy to reject. The interesting candidates are easy to spot and typically are easy to accept. They toughest part is filling in the bottom 30% or so of the class -- there will be no truly good options.

I can see giving extra help to historically marginalized races at the expense of whites, but why ding Asians? They weren't responsible for racism in the US. They weren't the ones stealing resources from other people.

Do correct me if I'm wrong but your post seems to amount to "a lot of Asians work hard and are smart, so let's have a quota on Asians because they're hardworking and smart in a way I find boring".

By the way, as a matter of policy, it seems fine to me if people can become doctors who are smart and who only worked hard because they wanted to become doctors. When I go to the doctor I care mainly about whether they know their shit, not whether they were subjectively "well-rounded" at age 18.

White twenty-something college students had nothing to do with this either. I'm against any type of extra help for anyone based on their race. Rather grant extra help based on economic situations.

This is the heart and soul of why we no longer tolerate "a homogeneous student body". Because we know how that plays out.

That's ahat eventually happens when you don't havr diversity.

for which definition of racist?

the same thing that's wrong with homogeneous anything: too focused on fitting existing patterns, and not very good at adapting to new situations.

1. Most applicants to elite schools lack social capital and have not demonstrated the ability to develop it (imho, this is what "leadership" is the code word for, at least in part). The so-called Asian clones fit this description perfectly -- so do many whites, blacks, latinos, etc. I personally don't think it's a race thing, I think it's the universities understanding what got them to where they are (hint: it's their social capital). Most of the Asian-Americans I have met at elite schools don't really come across as tiger-mom clones at all. On a personal level, I found some of the prep school folks to be more like clones and much less interesting as a group (although they have their cool and interesting people, too) -- I assume that many of them are bringing substantial social capital to the table.

2. If someone wants to be a doctor who mostly sees patients, they probably shouldn't be going to an elite school. The trajectory for elite med schools is to do great research in medicine. As such, it is unlikely that you will have an appointment with these folks as a patient. There are plenty of schools that let in "smart and work hard" people who will become great practitioners -- please don't waste a valuable elite school slot on those people. Give it to someone who demonstrates a desire to advance the field (yes, even as an 18 year old, this is possible, these people exist, and many of them are incredibly cool people).

Overall, i feel like many of the people who complain about elite school admissions don't really understand what makes these schools tick. While there are certianly parts of the process that could be improved, chalking up rejections to ignorance or racism on the part of the school or the admissions officers just seems very far off the mark.

[edit: spelling]

Admissions officers at the most elite universities absolutely do take subjective factors into consideration. If they did not, they would end up with a lottery system choosing randomly from a pool "objectively perfect" candidates.

The dirty little secret that most people don't talk about is how many/most elite schools struggle to find the best ways to fill out the bottom 30% or so of their classes. The stand out applicants, the recruited athletes, the connected people, and the demographic people are all accepted, but there are still slots open. This is where the admissions committees take calculated gambles, and it's why some people who are admitted might seem to be headascratchers.

Contrary to what many people believe, this is where the subjectivity of admissions is greatest. Be an interesting applicant, and you will be much less exposed to the subjective aspects of admissions to elite universities.

E.g. How would you categorize someone who's half black, half Asian?

Also, Asian-Americans being the model minority are far from universal. Many (especially those from Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos) are the children of refugees and grow up facing significant hardship.

What if the incoming class only has space for 1000 students? 500? 100?

They're 18. What do you want? What authentic motivation did you have when you were 18?

When I was 18 I had an authentic motivation for studying math and computer science (which I did; German's admission procedures for courses of studies are different from how it works in the USA).

What I did not have was something that made me look very social, outstanding, future leader etc. I was (and still am in many senses) the kind of rebellious, cynic, scientifically brillant (at that time without any opportunity to show) nerd who finds working in science much more exciting than about anything else.

P.S.: I was never the kind of person who can serve as a role model, since the only advice I can give is the ones my father gave me (he, being a working-class child, worked his way up): "There is always someone who will be better than you, but not being the second-best is failure." and "If you don't work harder than everybody around you, it is no surprise if you fail.". This is not something that people want to hear from role models - they want to hear things that are more socially compatible.

Seriously. My thoughts exactly. There are obviously some 18-year-old college students who know exactly what they want (some of them are replying), but even many of those will change their minds. When I was 18 I had no idea what I wanted to do (except perhaps get laid), but it was clear that college was "the next step."

On a tangential note, this thread reminds me of writing admissions essays. "Why do you want to come to this school / program?" You can never say the obvious: "Cause it's the most prestigious (or cost-effective) school I think I might get into."

For a graduate program, fine. For an undergraduate program? There are a handful of acceptable cases (Stanford makes you apply to a major), but mostly it's either "it's a good school that I hope I can get in to" or "it's a mediocre school and I need a safety for when Harvard shoots me down". These are places that let you spend 2-3 years 'undeclared', but they put on a song-and-dance about high school students having specific goals.

I'm sure some of them want applicants who do have a specific reason to attend Blah, but even then there's no excuse for the usual system. You can't plan your life around Professor X at Blah, because Blah has a 15% acceptance rate and accepts among qualified students more or less at random.

I remember that UPenn in particular had an essay prompt which was effectively "We're insecure, please praise us for 500 words."

Surely they'd like you to write about environment or purpose, but like with a first job as a kid, I think "the other place sucked / the classes weren't any good there" should suffice.

The Common App didn't save time for most students, it let them do more applications via the same number of essays. So yeah - those essays exist as a transaction cost to weed out the uncommitted.

For some, the answer is something specific like being a certain major for a certain reason (e.g., career path). For others, the answer is simply along the lines of "I want to explore a certain resource or resources you have and see where that takes me".

Elite schools have tremendous resources available to undergrads that simply don't exist in the same quantities or qualities (or even at all) at other schools. Besides the libraries and professors, there are also research institutes and labs that take in curious and hardworking undergrads. Many of them work on really cool stuff.

I realize that all people accepted to elite schools don't answer this question in a particularly interesting way, but this question is a trivially easy way to stand out in a positive way to reviewers.

Said another way, demonstrating that an applicant is genuinely curious about something that is a long suit at a given university is not really fluffing the university admissions officers -- it's just a practical thing to communicate.

In some sense, this is my actual complaint. I'm good at answering this question, but my ability to answer it wasn't actually a representation of my interest in a given school. All it took was finding something fairly impressive and unique about a school and talking about it with a mindset of "this is more appealing to me than the unique perks of other schools". Doing that was pretty easy even without actually caring about the school, so it felt more like a test of my creative writing than an expression of interest.

I suppose there were a few places that got closer to honest signals from me - they weren't the top of my list. Those were the ones that probably had best-in-class offerings, but didn't have any truly applicable to me, so my honest viewpoint was "if I don't get into X or Y, you have the third-best of this thing I want". For any top-tier place, though, I think I could have been convincing even with no intention at all of attending.

As for the UPenn essay, that one in particular felt more like fluffing than creative writing. I'd have to try to and dig up the specific prompt, but the distinction was basically that it didn't say "Why are we right for you?" but instead "Why are we objectively the best for anyone?"

Gah... I hope that has never been an actual question. That's terrible.

From http://www.admissions.upenn.edu/apply/whatpennlooksfor/essay...

The current questions on the common app are:

Common Application Essay Prompts for 2016 - 2017 (250-650 words)

1. Some students have a background, identity, interest, or talent that is so meaningful they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.

2. The lessons we take from failure can be fundamental to later success. Recount an incident or time when you experienced failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

3. Reflect on a time when you challenged a belief or idea. What prompted you to act? Would you make the same decision again?

4. Describe a problem you've solved or a problem you'd like to solve. It can be an intellectual challenge, a research query, an ethical dilemma-anything that is of personal importance, no matter the scale. Explain its significance to you and what steps you took or could be taken to identify a solution.

5. Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family.

And the Penn-specific question is:

How will you explore your intellectual and academic interests at the University of Pennsylvania? Please answer this question given the specific undergraduate school to which you are applying. (400-650 words) *For students applying to the coordinated dual-degree programs, please answer this question in regards to your single-degree school choice. Interest in coordinated dual-degree programs will be addressed through those program-specific essays.

Have they changed since you last saw them? These all seem reasonable.

Prompts and questions are designed purely to give someone a chance to pander and make nice sounding things up, rather than say the bald, simple truth.

No wonder some people found Trump appealing -- at least his pandering and lying was refreshingly frank and direct.

People like me exist. We are real. We exist in the blind spots of your world, taking genuine interest in things. Learning for no other reason than that we simply want to know more. To understand more. To have a fluidity with more knowledge, more understanding. You just haven't noticed. We don't have a manifesto or a webpage because we've got more interesting things to do.

You might have misunderstood my statement.

No, it means their parents and teachers scheduled their every waking minute and forced them to study.

> violin/piano implied artistic talent

No. The parents said they had to study it, nolens volens. Showing up for three years of violin classes you hate does not show talent.

> wanting to become doctor/lawyer suggests drive and ambition

Yes, their parents' drive and their parents' ambition.

Some answers of people I actually know were:

- conduct bleeding edge genetics research

- develop bespoke computer-based learning tools for schools (ones that were backed by amazing data and met the schools' sometimes overly specific legal requirements)

- influence directly and indirectly policy and laws related to the Internet (e.g, as a consultant to lawmakers, a professional witness, etc.)

While I realize that these examples are perhaps not the norm, it is not uncommon to move the needle in some field in some way for a high school or college student. Most people that age simply don't think big enough.

Even if applicants don't demonstrate these characteristics in their application, it's usually enough to show that they have some potential and/or desire to do these sorts of things.

I think really big, I believe. The problem is: I am not the kind of charismatic personality that is able to convince fellows to participate (friends would rather describe me as "brilliant scientist who tends to polarizes (in both positive and negative sense of the word) people"); so I am rather completely on my own - and the day only has 24 hours. :-(

EDIT: And what about people who honestly say that they are open to such ambitious projects but honestly admit that they first have to learn the ropes and if they get to a sufficiently high skill level, they will think about such ambitious question (in other words: It makes no sense thinking about these questions as long as you don't have the skills to work on them).

- If you haven't already, read more about Aaron Swartz. He was good or became good at persuasion.

- If you are "on your own", then you might just be wrong-minded or maybe just a poor communicator. The scope of what is possible on a figurative island is really small (in most fields) compared to what can be done by a group/team. Persuasion, communication, and leadership are high value-add skills. It might be prudent to learn about them and practice them.

- Ambitious projects are fine. Needing to develop skills is fine. Focus on taking small steps that you can actually take and succeed in to show that you are moving in an interesting direction. Read the PG essay "startup = growth, specifically the section on compass. He talks about hill climbing and local maxima in an interesting way. Work your way up the hill of good ideas gradually -- don't try to take a helicopter to the summit.

- I don't know what space you're working in, but there are almost always small neglected spaces in the sciences that will welcome a young no-name to do meaningful gruntwork that no grant-writing professional scientist can afford to do. Do this work, embrace it, and publish it. You will be loved.

I would not consider myself as not a poor communicator per se - people say my slide presentations are really great. It's rather that I really don't understand how other people work.

> Persuasion, communication, and leadership are high value-add skills. It might be prudent to learn about them and practice them.

I surely already read a lot more on this topic than most "good leaders" have. Of no avail (?). I try to convince people all the time to join my projects - of no avail.

People tell me the way to get better in leadership, communication, ... is tro practise more (IMHO a rather outlandish advice). I try it all the time - of no avail. I often cannot even imagine how other people think (and I am not able to reverse engineer based on their behavior what their inner thoughts might be). I typically have to go completely against my feelings and gut insticts when talking about or understanding feeling. But treating other people how I want to be treated is often a recipe for doom.

> I don't know what space you're working in, but there are almost always small neglected spaces in the sciences that will welcome a young no-name to do meaningful gruntwork that no grant-writing professional scientist can afford to do. Do this work, embrace it, and publish it. You will be loved.

I already do this in some sense (doing PhD on some very theoretical questions in some area of applied mathematics that few people on the world actually care about - still the questions are very exciting :-) ). The problem is that I have good reasons to believe that my days in science are numbered - and in the meantime I tend to believe that this might actually not be the worst thing, since how science is organized is IMHO broken in far too many ways and I believe I have found a potential secret emergency exit where I might work afterwards.

College admissions is more complicated than a GPA and a few checkboxes at ultra-competitive schools.

They absolutely are.

As someone who has been involved in this process, this is without question the biggest challenge for Chinese students to apply to top schools. They simply do not have the individuality and intellectual curiosity that US universities want. The reason is because having those qualities is totally incompatible with high achievement in the Chinese educational system up through high school. The high scoring Chinese students were either never interested in critical thought or they completely repressed that tendency at an early age.

What you call "critical thought" is what I would rather call "'critical' thought in what is the currently an opportune fashion". I know lots of people who have critical thoughts, but not in the sense of what admission panels like to see as "critical thought".

I attended a rather prestigious Graduate School program in the Liberal Arts at a state school. Education specifically. Campus population in the tens of thousands.

In some classes, I actually felt like part of a minority. There were consistently large populations Asian nationals in the field. Many nationalities, mind you, such as South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and maybe one or two others. Teachers in their home country, they were attending to get the US Masters/PhD with every intention of returning home and getting a raise.

Yes, they did participate well in the learning environment, language issues aside, but more than one got homesick and would quit the program due to culture shock of living in the US for 2+ years. I can sympathize.

My takeaway was that the University was very happy to take the (presumably) higher tuition from foreign students primarily interested in the Degree for status advancement than turn them away. It could help keep a department going in a way, and, in turn, the University didn't worry that these graduates were going to stick around and try to get US jobs on those degrees. It kind of wasn't the bargain.

It is worth noting, I think, that most of the Asian national students in my program or field were in their 30s or 40s. They had life experience, families, professional careers...I guess the point of the reflection is the University got a good revenue stream and the Graduates got their Degree for status back home. Win-win? Ehhhh...

They go down the rabbit hole of America's broken immigration system, starting with OPT visa, then H1B (read lottery luck, not based on skills) & then the country based quota for green card currently 7 to 9 years for EB2 categories for India & China. Did I forgot to mention the exorbitant out of state tuition fees and the loans they took for it in their home country ?

I had a lot of close Chinese(PRC) friends in college, and most of them were extremely rich. I know it's anecdotal, but I find it hard to believe a lot of Chinese exchange students are going deep into debt to afford US schools. From what they describe, the student visa interview process favors financially sound students.

That being said, what you've said about the visa system rings painfully true.

Lets think outside of America for this one. Lenders outside America are not idiots. Most of them lend on a solid collateral and someone from the family will have to have co-sign the loan, especially if its a huge sum.

How exactly do you specify on your application who your parents are?

I remember the process at Oxford, there wasn't really a way to say "oh btw my dad is a rock star" other than the personal statement. And it's hardly going to impress the person who's interviewing you to blurt out something like that, because all the questions are technical.

If your dad is Mick Jagger, the last name will probably suffice. Less facetiously, there are still Roosevelts and Cabbotts and Coolidges out there and those names do carry weight in some places. I imagine there are some names which would go pretty far at Oxford too.

If your parents are more self-made (or the last name doesn't reflect the lineage), the personal statement can absolutely cover this. "Growing up in the shadow of my family" is partly about personal development, but partly a way to say "check out my family".

Honestly, though?

In the US, this gets handled via side channels. Our applications have a space for 'legacy status', where you list past attendees in your family. Anything counts, but rich and famous alumni are especially good. And if your family is important enough, they'll probably have talked to the school completely independent of your application. Likely, they'll have started years before you applied.

I know several people from top US colleges who have a story about meeting some strangely unqualified classmate, and then discovering that they shared a name with some building on campus. At the very top end, there's certainly room to pave the way with donations and personal friendships.

1. Parents are known. Think Chelsea Clinton.

2. Parents are known social elites within the school's geographic circle. Usually trustees will get involved, sometimes writing recommendations.

3. If parents are elites outside of the school social circle, this is often handled by folks on the local/regional admissions boards (the ones applicants interview with). They can provide a lot of insight in this area.

The kid's parent or an agent (e.g. alumni donor) calls admissions to endorse or negotiate. This happens even if your parents are "famous" and you check the [x] for legacy applicant because the admissions team is screening tens of thousands of applicants.

Going to Seattle, the guy was nice this time. He said he'd let me know why I got pulled aside for the extent that he was legally able, because being pulled aside had ruined our ability to go to the Boeing Future of Flight Center, which closed entry by a certain time. Apparently, going to China so often flags me. As well, the fact that my dad and I had just visited Turkey also. OK, I get if there are reasons that I get flagged, and most of these guys are just doing their jobs. But don't be a douche like the first guy. Be nice like the second guy.

huh?

>casual border crossing racism by the CBP.

I had an "immigration office" tell me "you will be kicked out like dogs if these documents don't verify". My dad swore off visiting me in America due to his similar experience, I don't blame him. What decent person would put up with this, why do they do this?

> huh?

There were a couple (at least 2, maybe 3) of high-profile murders of Chinese grad students at UCLA within the past couple of years, which is my guess about what OP is referring to. The victims were targeted for their perceived wealth and/or foreignness.

But the "hackled or killed in the streets." What does that refer to?

Not being a native English speaker, I had to look up the meaning of "to heckle". Before I looked it up, in the context with "killed" I thought it would be a cynic derivation from "Heckler & Koch" (a gun manufacturer), just as "to hoover" (in British English), "to taser" or "to google". :-)

There was a study a decade(?) ago that took a look at 'Top Schools' and instead of looking at the best students, they took a look at the worst students. They took out the legacy children, the athletes, etc, and only looked at the kids that got in on their 'merits'. Typically, the schools will have a ranking system that combines GPA, ACT, SAT, etc. The researchers (out of Michigan, maybe?) then looked at the bottom people in that ranking order that accepted into the schools.

I read the popular press article about it (Wired?) where they focused on a kid from Arizona that got into Stanford. He was super passionate about this park near his house that he hiked in. His grades and whatnot were average at best. When budget cuts closed the park, the guy fundraised and solicited the state house until the park re-opened. He applied to Stanford on a lark, and got in mostly based on the essay about the park closure.

The researchers concluded that the 'bottom' kids that got into super elite schools were are very unique, but similar in one way: They were super passionate about one specific thing. These kids were really spiky, not well-rounded. Effectively, Stanford et al. were actually asking the kids to come to their schools. These kids really didn't need the schools to begin with, they were going to continue doing their thing anyways. But those schools wanted those kids because of that passion.

So maybe then we should be trying to go for that approach when it comes to education for our children. Maybe we should be trying to make them super passionate about one specific thing and not trying to be well rounded; a 'T' shaped mind where they have a little bit of know-how about a lot of stuff and a lot of know-how about one thing instead of a '---' shaped mind where they know a little bit about a whole ton of things.

If anyone knows where the original paper is, PLEASE link it!

I would rather conjecture that many well-rounded pupils will get admitted plus a few (but not more) "special characters". Thus it would be a bad strategy if you want to go to Stanford to become passionate in only one thing.