Least Selective Ultra Elite?

I really only see 1 reason Indians appear to score higher GMAT scores. (or rather the IT Indian pool scores higher GMAT scores.)

Most of the Indian professionals are in IT. You don't really see many I banking, consulting, hedge fund Indian professionals coming out of India. So if you take a whole group and put them in the same applicant demographic (in terms of job experience) you get a super applicant pool that each single person has to compete against.

Imagine if every American came from general management. You would see crazy high scores.

My other take is that Indians and Asians have a brain that's better designed to handle or process school material. You could say they're smarter in terms of learning something and then taking a test.

I've heard that CBS ED may be tricky, if you have a good GMAT and you would be competitive to other ultra-elite schools, they would play the game of giving you a spot as they would improve their statistics, otherwise the best you can get is a WL. Let's say that one applicant has 740GMat, execelente resumé, impressive w-ex and GPA, CBS would offer a spot because this applicant will be competitive to other ultra-elites and would decline a CBS offer later. But a candidate with GMAT 680, would at best receive only a WL. I do not know if this is true or not, just something I've heard from a friend of mine who attend CBS 3 years ago...

I would say it is more a cultural thing than intelligence or ability to learn. Growing up my friends whose parents or grandparents came over from Asia had a lot of pressure to do well and go to a top brand name school. It was insane compared to what the rest of us dealt with, from the time we were little on they were told they would be going to Harvard. One of my friends parents were upset that she didn’t get into Harvard but ended up going to Chicago. They actually accused her of not trying hard enough on her application for Harvard and made her feel like a failure. Compare that to my non-asian friends who were higher ranked, did better on the SATs, and were just as involved did not have that pressure to be a doctor, lawyer, or CEO from their parents, some ended up going to the local state colleges cause thats what their parents wanted them to do. Even my friend was Asian but adopted by two white doctors had a tiny fraction of the pressure those kids felt placed on him and his parents were excited when he went to U Conn.

It’s good that Asians and Indians hold education in such high regard. American schools would be a lot better if all the people over here felt the same way about education. But it all seems to boil down to a people's value system. America we don't hold education as in high regard as we should, where as Indians and Asians hold it in extremely high regard.

Everything needs to be balanced. What I have witnessed with my Asian friends strikes me as unhealthy (I could give you countless examples). People shouldn't have to feel shame for going to college at Penn, Cornell, or whatever school not named H/Y/P/S. Perhaps this is un-PC but it boggles my mind that people who value education so highly can also be so unenlightened and backwards at the same time. If everyone had this mindset suicide rates would be through the roof. I recently read where suicide was the number one or number two cause of death for Asian women within our age group. It was largely attributed to the pressure placed on them to achieve.

Good point, I live in NH and there was a story on the news about the pressures of college applications this past winter. They were interviewing an Asian kid whose parents actually kicked him out of the house because he didn't get into Harvard or Princeton but got accepted to Brown and a couple other top schools. He said from elementary school on his parents had focused on getting him in there, he played sports, instruments, all the extra curriculars he could do, had to get straight As, aced the SATs. They interviewed another Asian kid who was at Dartmouth that his parents are very disappointed he goes there and don't like to tell people that’s where he goes because they are ashamed.

I'd say that it's probably largely cultural as well. Let's leave it at that.

Regarding why we see so many high score reports from Indians (specifically those in IT) and relatively few from Chinese - I think it's self selection. We generally see very very few Chinese nationals post on these boards at all. On the other hand, the sheer volume of Indians posting is mind boggling. Just off hand, I'd say that there are as many Indian's posting as Americans - even though the ratio of GMAT takers and applicants is perhaps 1:10 Indians to Americans.

I think it's simple self selection; that people working in the IT industry naturally turn to the Internet for something like this. From a cultural perspective, I think it's uncharacteristic for Chinese to post personal information (like GMAT scores, work experience, etc.) on a public forum. It's also a rarity for Chinese to brag publicly, especially about educational issues. So, I think the reason why we see so many more Indian IT applicants with high scores is simply because they choose to disclose their data. The numbers definitely don't support the notion that they achieve high scores at a higher rate than applicants from China, UK or Singapore - or even Canada and Korea.

Out of every 100 applicants the ratio of American to Indian to Chinese test-takers should be about 80:11:9 (that's a very rough estimate). Based simply on feel, I'd say that the ratio of people that report their scores here and at BW is more like 49:49:2. In fact, oftentimes it feels as though there are more Indian posters than American; and posters from China are a rarity. You see more high scores for Indian test-takers because they frequent these boards at an astounding rate. The opposite is true for Chinese test-takers. Based on the 30 point gap between the two groups, Chinese test-takers achieve 750+ scores at a much higher rate than Indian test-takers; it's just rare for them to report such results on a public forum.

This reminds me of that Asian kid who burned down his house because he got a "C" or something in some class and he didnt want his parents to get the mail and find out. If memory serves me right, his sister died in the fire.

Wow, this thread is all over the place. But this is already on page 3 so it's okay.

What would you guys say about black people and athletics?

Are they genetically more developed to be good in sports. (as in taller, stronger, faster, etc.)

Or is it a cultural thing?

Uh, guys, do we REALLY want to go there? On an online discussion board?

Yeah, I can't speak for others but I'm gonna not comment on that topic.

Hope this isn't a India vs China match going on here
I'm Indian but the best philosophy I've read is Confucius. You should read it too and you will realise how pointless this thread has become to your application even if you are Chinese or Indian

some trivia that I hope will have you thinking...
Confucius was appointed as a judge of some place (I can lookup the name for you if you want cos I proudly own the book The Wisdom of Confucius by the celebrated scholar Lin Yutang:-D ). Anyways, during the time he was judge of that place the crime rate dropped to an absolute zero!!

Can ya 750+ Indians and Chinese drop the Indian vs Chinese posts to a zero here, huh??

and dont take this too seriously, I'm just having some friday fun sitting here in the office

You're right. Let's get back on track.

Regarding Columbia's ED.... is there some stat that shows they accept a higher percentage of applications than other top schools?

On another note... just observation, but why does it appears that Indian applicants score really high compared to Chinese applicants?


Don't both groups do well academically?

i dont remember the last time a chinese (not chinese-america) person posted his or her score

As Pelihu pointed out, these forums are flooded by Indian bloggers so you see their self-reported scores. I don't see many Chinese nationals participate in these forums; doesn't mean they are not scoring high because you will see their presence on ultra elite/elite campuses in big numbers.

I remember Hong who scored 780.

Pelihu is right, Asians consider humbleness as a great virtue to seek..
I am not saying that posting scores on this board is the opposite of humbleness.

And I bet you that there are plenty of Chinese forums that many "internet generation" chinese participate and post high scores (maybe in Chinese).

Numbers don't lie.

Anyways, back to the ED topic, I think Kwam's comment makes a sense.

My 1st and only post on this topic.

I think the Indian GMAT perception is there, also because even admission consultants, including those with significant admissions committee experience say that the Indian IT pool is among the toughest, seemingly providing credibility to the perception.

Montauk even says in his excellent book on MBA admissions that a school with an average of 700 will have an average Indian GMAT score of 740.

Granted, none of these compare the Indian demographic specifically against the chinese demographic, but there sure is a lot more noise about Indian GMAT scores, not just in this board, but in the B school admissions scene in general. I dont see such widespread debates about GMAT scores from other countries higher than India on Pelihu's list.

I personally dont see any value in this demographic comparison.