We at Ivy Coach have long argued on the pages of our college admissions blog and in the press that Asian Americans face unjust discrimination in the elite college admissions process. Indeed, from atop our soapbox in elite college admissions, we have long been issuing a clarion call for an end to Asian American discrimination in admissions.

Yet we never once supported the Students for Fair Admissions group’s decision to file litigation against Harvard University for allegedly discriminating against Asian American applicants. And why? For starters, we don’t believe that real change, enduring change, begins in America’s courts. Instead, we believe real change begins with the populace.

In fact, the 2023-2024 admissions cycle, which followed on the heels of the United States Supreme Court’s June 2023 decision in favor of SFFA over Harvard, in which Affirmative Action was outlawed in college admissions decision-making, proves our point. After all, just about every highly selective university — seeking to take advantage of Chief Justice John Roberts’ loophole (“Nothing in this opinion should be construed as prohibiting universities from considering an applicant’s discussion of how race affected his or her life, be it through discrimination, inspiration, or otherwise.” — created essay prompts for applicants to write about their race if they so wished. Through this approach, these schools could still allow race to be a determining factor in their admissions process.

Racial Discrimination in College Admissions

Our Nation’s Elite Colleges Don’t Discriminate Solely Based on Race

But while we have long criticized Harvard and every other elite university for discriminating against Asian American applicants based on profiles associated with their race, in the wake of the outlawing of Affirmative Action, we wish to make doubly clear that these schools never did discriminate based on race alone. 

After all, if these schools did discriminate against Asian American applicants based solely on their race, then our students at Ivy Coach, a sizable percentage of which are historically Asian American, wouldn’t so often earn admission to their dream schools. So how can we explain that our Asian American applicants so frequently earn admission to their dream schools while so many Asian American applicants do not?

Our Nation’s Elite Colleges Discriminate Based on Racial Profiles

That’s easy. It’s because the Asian American students who Ivy Coach’s Asian American students compete against face discrimination when they present the same or similar profiles as so many other Asian American applicants. Our applicants are, simply put, more interesting.

Yes, the first-chair violin-playing Chinese-American mathematician is a stereotype for a reason. So, too, is the Indian American applicant who plays tennis and competes in debate (and if they’re female, they do classical Indian dance, too!). Yes, Indian Americans face discrimination as well — not solely based on their race but, of course, when they present the same or similar profiles as so many other Indian American applicants.

Our Students at Ivy Coach Have Long Avoided Discrimination

Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. We may not like them. But it doesn’t mean they aren’t true. As Malcolm Gladwell taught the world in his seminal book Blink and as he further expands on in his more recent salvo, Talking to Strangers, we have to make rapid-fire daily decisions to make sense of the world and function.

We all stereotype people. Even admissions officers at our nation’s most elite universities in 2024 are guilty. We are all a little bit racist, as the cast in Avenue Q sang it so beautifully. So, our students at Ivy Coach refrain from presenting such stereotypical profiles when they apply to our nation’s elite colleges, including Harvard. They instead present wonderfully weird, unique profiles, profiles that don’t play into stereotypes. And it’s a strategy that works not only for our Asian American students. It’s a strategy that works for all of our students. Yes, all of Ivy Coach’s students present as wonderfully weird. It’s a big part of what we do!