[quote author="acpme" date=1252045260][quote author="bkshopr" date=1252043463]If Harvard is facing a decision between a 4.0 GPA black student from Compton High raised by a single mom and a white kid with a 3.6 GPA from UNI High living in Shady Canyon with attorney parents then we pretty know what the outcome would be.</blockquote>
it's rare that harvard would take more than a few students from the same school in any given yr no matter how many worthy applicants there were from that school. it's a simple matter of diversity.
i remember an admissions officer once telling me that elite schools are more interested in a well-rounded <em>student body</em>. many parents, especially the robot-raising irvine kind, and students mistakenly interpret that as schools looking for well-rounded students. 4.0 gpa students asian americans from upper middle class neighborhood are a dime a dozen in the pool of college applicants. asian parents, not exactly the most creative bunch, would say, piano lessons! tennis lessons! oh yeah, because 4.0 gpa piano-playing, tennis-lesson asian americans from upper middle class neighborhoods is much more rare. :-/
schools know that the value of their education comes from the entire collegiate experience; that means where, what, and with whom will the students be interacting with for the next four yrs - not just what textbooks they will be reading and what grades they will get. exceptions are schools like a prep academies but that often has to do with the legacy applicants.
seriously if you want your kid to go to harvard, instead of paying a million bucks to live in turtle rock, you could just glue a paper mache horn on your child's head. instead of going to Uni, go UNICORN. i guarantee there are no unicorn boys in their student body.</blockquote>
Interesting you mention piano and TENNIS. Why tennis? Tennis players are ridiculously underrated by the general population.
Also, when I think of upper class Asians, I think of golf, not tennis.