Re:What happens to Asian-American overachievers when the tes...
by Petrova on Thursday September 05, 2019 @11:37PM
(#20892819)
I actually think the Pwc partner example is a poor one. Not all people that work at Pwc want to become partner as it necessitates 4 months/year of 7 day 94 hour work weeks for 8-12 years. Most people get the brand on their resume and then leave.
Re:What happens to Asian-American overachievers when the tes...
by farazzz on Thursday September 05, 2019 @11:00PM
(#20892652)
> Almost all of the stereotypes about Asian people also apply to e.g. white software developers.
The argument is talking about a general stereotype, which means that saying some people don’t fit it is kind of meaningless. Also, White parents are not prohibited from raising their children in an Asian way, and some do. Relevant quote from Amy Chua, the “Tiger Mom”:
> I'm using the term "Chinese mother" loosely. I know some Korean, Indian, Jamaican, Irish and Ghanaian parents who qualify too. Conversely, I know some mothers of Chinese heritage, almost always born in the West, who are not Chinese mothers, by choice or otherwise. I'm also using the term "Western parents" loosely. Western parents come in all varieties.
https://web.archive.org/web/20120102062419/http://online.wsj...
Re:What happens to Asian-American overachievers when the tes...
by rdtwo on Friday September 06, 2019 @02:42PM
(#20898505)
That’s exactly what I was thinking when I read this. Basically 70% of the students that get admitted are Asian means that they are scraping more than the top 3% of Asian students. If the other racial groups are not doing cram school or equivalent test prep the the other students would likely be top 1-2% of their respective racial group. The difference there in just natural ability can be pretty large. That’s why it might seem like the white kids don’t have to do much to succeed where as what happened is you are comparing groups of people with significantly different natural ability due to selection bias.
Re:What happens to Asian-American overachievers when the tes...
by lozenge on Friday September 06, 2019 @04:43AM
(#20894050)
"Being a better test taker" means having the same aptitude as another person but scoring higher. That means that Asians in the incoming class, on average would have lower aptitudes, and therefore poorer outcomes in their career (if that aptitude actually matters to their career).
This is actually a noted phenomenon at Google where competitive programming experience correlates negatively with job performance, because by practicing the measure so much, you can display a stronger signal than you actually have (in other words, you can seem better than you are because you are highly practiced at the tests).
Also I think the author is off the mark with their generalizations of white people. Almost all of the stereotypes about Asian people also apply to e.g. white software developers.