Jon Wang, an Asian-American, achieved a nearly perfect sore of 1590 out of 1600 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test and attained 4.65 grade-point average in high school — well beyond perfect.
Most folks likely would assume that waves of red carpets would come rolling in from elite colleges that would love nothing more than to scoop up a student boasting such numbers.
Indeed, Wang told Fox Nation he applied to six “top-tier” institutions of higher learning — Harvard, Princeton, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the California Institute of Technology, Carnegie-Mellon, and the University of California, Berkeley.
But the verdict — despite Wang’s performance, which included a perfect 800 on the math portion of the SAT — was a resounding no from all six schools, the cable network program said.
‘Tougher to get in’
Wang — a Florida native and the son of two first-generation Chinese immigrants — told Fox Nation the rejections weren’t entirely surprising given that he spoke to friends and school guidance counselors amid the application process, and they all said the same thing.
“They all told me that it’s tougher to get in, especially as an Asian-American,” Wang told Fox Nation. “I just took it as gospel.”
Fox News’ Laura Ingraham said the Princeton Review — which provides college prep and test-taking advice — agrees with the concern, Fox Nation reported.
More from the cable network program:
A passage from its book “Cracking College Admissions” notes that the high success of many Asian-American students has generated concerns among some schools who allege there are “too many” on their campuses.
As explored in the Fox Nation special, the book says applying to college as an Asian American could be a “distinct disadvantage” at many elite schools. It also instructs applicants to refrain from including a photo of themselves in their application and withhold optional answers about ethnic background, if possible, as well as to avoid writing admissions essays about the significance of identifying with two cultures.
Wang took up the issue with Students for Fair Admissions, which Fox Nation said is working to bring race-based college admissions to an end.
“I gave them my test scores, and then they must’ve ran the model on that… [they] told me I had a 20% chance of getting accepted to Harvard as an Asian-American and a 95% chance as an African-American,” Wang told Fox Nation.
Wang now is among the plaintiffs challenging Harvard and the University of North Carolina in court over race-based admissions and affirmative-action practices, the cable network program added.
More from Fox Nation:
At stake in the Harvard case is whether the university violated Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by discriminating against Asian-American applicants. The UNC case, in contrast, looks at that school’s unwillingness to adopt a “race-neutral alternative.”
Either of the two cases could overturn 2003 precedent case Grutter v. Bollinger, wherein the court ultimately ruled that the use of race as an admissions factor was not unconstitutional as long as it was narrowly tailored to further the compelling interests of obtaining the educational benefits available in a diverse student body.
Finally, a home
As it turns out, Wang eventually found a higher-education home — the Georgia Institute of Technology (i.e., Georgia Tech), which specializes in engineering and other scientific- and technology-based fields, Fox Nation said.
But Wang told the cable network program he will see the larger fight through to the end: “I feel like, if I’m looking back, 10 or 20 years from now, if I didn’t do it [speak up], I’d be pretty upset with myself.”
Fox Nation said the decisions in the Harvard and UNC cases could come before July 4.
Here’s a clip of Wang speaking out about the issue last fall:
Jon Wangyoutu.be
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