Rejected or waitlisted everywhere I wanted to attend due to my race

There's no way you applied to them and didn't take the SAT II. Calling BS

You're smart and in the land of opportunity. I'm sure you'll figure something out. The world won't end.

Boo hoo...you picked just about the most difficult schools to get into and you didn't cut it. Do you even know how many people have a perfect ACT or SAT score and 4.0 unweighted score? There were FIVE of them in my daughter's high school graduating class and 3 more in the other high school in town. Do you know how many high schools there are in this country, let alone all of the other countries that funnel students to the schools you mentioned?

Are you a great athlete or musician? Have you planted trees in Uganda? Did you start a business when you were 12?

Why does everything think they are owed a spot at Stanford or an Ivy League school. You applied. They said no. Move along.

why was this downvoted haha

Bull. According to the ACT people themselves, 5,579 got a perfect 36 in 2022. And according the the SAT people, around 300 people year get a perfect 1600. According to them a 1580 is in the top 0.2% (which is between 3400 and 4200 people depending on the year (between 1.7 and 2.1 million students take it a year)

American blacks are not against education. Very few groups in the US are anti-education (climate change denial is not being led by blacks). Most people including blacks value getting an education - getting through school and college and learning things that will help you make a living in the future. We have to acknowledge that lot of young American blacks that are good athletes have a potential alternative, so they value sports more than education, with more trying than will make it. Football and basketball players are among the highest-profile big earners in the US, and if it looks like you have the talent, that's where your hard work is going. American blacks that don't see a future in sports certainly do value getting an education. There's a difference between getting an education versus competitive education.

Kids like the OP from Orange County are trying particularly hard to get good grades, good test scores, and cram in extracurricular activities to try to look good on college applications. They are doing competitive education. They are trying so hard, they get stressed when they get into a couple excellent colleges, but not a bunch of other excellent colleges. Black kids (on average) in the US are not in that environment. They aren't playing the same game.

It's like kids on the track team thinking they are so much more talented than other kids at their school because they run a 4:30 or 4:20 mile. But 95+% of your classmates aren't training to run a fast mile. You are faster than people who aren't trying, or aren't trying as hard. High level education accomplishments are good, but it's like a similar top-5% of class high school runner. The OP is missing the perspective that most kids are not competing in education because he lives in one of the places, Orange County, where competitive education is epitomized.

I already gave an example of my partner being really smart, brilliant even (like her MIT scientist dad), though her high school grades were not as high as mine, and she didn't go to good colleges as an undergrad. She wasn't competing to get good grades, she had enough self-confidence not to, and she prioritized sport.

In my high school (again, one of the top public schools in CA), I saw he difference between my class and my brother's class, a year behind mine. I wasn't competing to be the top student, and few kids my class were. I ended up 8th out of 400. I'm clear thinking, but I know I'm not a genius. My brother's class was much more competitive - there was decent-sized group of kids trying to be valedictorian. If I were a year younger, maybe I would have been 20th/400? The difference wasn't that the kids in my brother's class were smarter. They were obviously trying harder, and there was a competitive feedback loop. That girl/guy is trying, so I have to try kind of thing. I saw my brother was caught up in that, even though he'd actually say that he thought I was smarter (or at least wiser) than him, which I thought was a generous thing to say. The kids in my class, including me, didn't really give a poop about being valedictorian.

An Orange County high school is the epitome of a place where a ton of kids are trying hard in competitive education. The OP himself said he was only top 5% in his class. That's a lot of kids with 4.0 unweighted GPA with/ahead of him. If you go out into a rural area, and you pick out the kid in the top 5% of the class versus the OP in the top 5% of his Orange County high school class, the OP would rightly be called more accomplished. But is he really more intelligent? That would be hard to say. If the OP moved to a small town or a small population state partway through high school and maintained the same study habits, it would have been a slam dunk to get into all those colleges. Colleges know there isn't that same competitive education going on in those places. More likely, he would have slacked off a bit with that kind of move because there isn't that competitive feedback loop with other kids and community, and maybe even the parents would be more laid back because other parents are.

If it weren't for affirmative action most of the top schools would be saturated with asians and white women, and not that many white men nor other minorities. So you are right in the sense that putting down that you are half asian, rather than just white, probably did lower your chances quite a bit. White men (in addition to black and latino people) also are let in to improve diversity. In the future you might consider just saying you are white. It isn't exactly a lie and it will help your chances under affirmative action if the lawsuits don't go your way.

Why be a jerk about somebody getting snubbed due to their race? Is that what you did as a child to blacks when they were discriminated against?

You're joking, right? If affirmative action were banned, top colleges would be ~47% each Asian and white. If every form of preference were banned (affirmative action, but also legacy + 'development' (megadonor)), top colleges would be ~55% Asian and 40% white.

Personally, I don't think legacy should be banned since it's not racist: anybody can be legacy, but not everyone can fulfill quotas. Legacies also tend to be more qualified

the ACT is a joke. I got a 36 without studying but couldn't get higher than 1570 with a lot of studying after 3 tries (admittedly, 1590 superscored).

He didn’t get snubbed due to his race. People of certain races are lifted above their stats. There’s a huge difference between these two things.

If they got “snubbed because of their race”, how would you explain the several thousand Asian kids that go to the schools they listed? Why weren’t they snubbed?

Even with a 36 ACT and a 2000 IQ or whatever he has, he fails to understand that even if affirmative action were banned, he still probably wouldn’t get into a top school. There’s only a few hundred black students per class at Stanford and MIT and several thousand Asians who are more compelling candidates than OP. He’d likely just get beat by other Asians just like he already has. Recognizing this fact works against his identity as the smartest person ever and so his brain rejects it and he blames the black kids.

OP -- what if I told you that a whole bunch of white legacy kids got into these schools with worse stats than you? You want to blame race when you're biracial? Blame systems that prevent even more non-white students from attending elite institutions.

Wow yea screw this biracial kid for benefiting from slavery!!!!

The majority of the third world has it worse than African Americans right now. Why do they complain about racism? If they aren’t in a civil war or starving they should shut up!

Moran boomer go back to the casino.

Because that's not what happened.

I'm 100% white and had very similar rejections to him last year with a very similar profile. Our SATs were 20 points apart but that's a small difference. I had to settle for a low T20 instead.

Since 2020, it's far more difficult for non-quota fillers to be accepted.

Why even go to an Ivey? Liberal s*it-holes.

SAT II ended in June 2021, I believe.

That's a shame (for the dwindling number who consider standardized tests a potentially useful -- if limited -- component of evaluation). I say that as someone who had SAT scores sufficient for getting in basically anywhere but probably Caltech (and "sufficient" = knowing the crapshoot that top Ivies are/were, even in my day, even with early decision) but whose SAT II indicated the deficiencies in both my school's curriculum and my study habits.

I didn't go to an Ivey, but I did go to a top-30 ranked college.

My best friend at the time took a different path, he felt that these elite schools and college in general, was a total waste and an individual could learn everything they needed to know on their own and without throwing away the money, as he put it. He was really belligerent and hurtful about this and that was the last time I ever interacted with him.

Now, some 45 years later, we grew apart, but I understand that he stuck to his guns, worked part of his life as a land surveyor, but by all appearances, cultivated a persistent drinking problem and had a bitter view of society. I found out recently that he died in his sleep at the early age of his early 60s, and I can only guess that it had to do with substance abuse/drinking.

Which is just my way of saying that I don't think your attitude is that of a well-adapted individual.

For the majority of students, this trend is not actionable. For most colleges, the difference between a 35 and a 36 on the ACT is minimal: both are a solid data point on the application. On the other hand, for high-scoring students (with a composite of, say, 33 or higher) or for students applying to extremely selective schools, it is important to know this increasing trend for several reasons.
First, it does appear that there is more room at the top of the hill. While the number is still quite small – 2,760 students in 2017, to be exact – high-performers have a much better chance now than two decades ago to earn that 36.

applerouth.com

A Concerning Trend Continues: More Students Getting Perfect 36s on ACT

Marshall Findlay

In 2013, I wrote an article on an increasing trend in students achieving perfect scores on the ACT. Continue reading…

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