New UC Admission Policy Change May Be Good for Asian America
By wchung | 23 Feb, 2025

A new focus on non-academic pursuits may be just what we need to rise to the next level.

It’s understandable that some Asian Americans are a little paranoid about the UC’s admission policy change. Past changes, notably in the early 80s, were outright roadblocks to the onslaught of Asian American students.

But this time the change may be a valid effort at ensuring the UC’s fiscal health and vitality as a world-leading educational system.

Starting with the class entering in 2012 UC wants to do away with the requirement that allows only the academic top 12.5% of California high school grads to apply. It also will eliminate the requirement of 2 Achievement tests. Presumably, these changes would open up the admission process to students whose emphasis has been less on getting top grades in honors courses and more on other areas like sports, music, the arts, community service and activism and quirky independent activities that don’t fit well into the pursuit of AP credits.

Is this a bad thing for Asian Americans? Does it necessarily disadvantage Asian Americans as a whole?

Obviously, the unspoken assumption all around seems to be that Asian Americans will excel at anything involving academics but not at the other areas. There is also the ancillary assumption that whites are somehow better placed to excel in all those non-academic pursuits that make for a more “well-rounded” application.

Another way of framing these assumptions is to say that Asian Americans have innate advantages in academics but are innately inferior in other pursuits.

Let’s start by admitting that there has been no large-scale test of these assumptions. While we know that past generations of Asian Americans have been able to find the motivation to sacrifice other talents, interests and pursuits to eke out high grades and achievement test scores, we don’t really know whether that will continue to be the case as Asian Americans parents evolve, over time, from mostly first-generation immigrants who have had to focus on economics out of sheer necessity to second and third-generation parents who have acquired above-average educations and have seen the limitations of single-mindedly pursuing the straight and narrow path toward conventional professional occupations.

My own experiences tell me that Asian Americans aren’t immune to the desire, as their means allow, to enjoy a broader array of pusruits and interests. As a population segment we have now become far better established in American society, overrepresented in medicine, business, engineering, IT, law, finance, architecture, etc. In fact, there are getting to be so many of us in these fields that often our primary competition isn’t Whites but other Asians, especially in California.

That means that our vaunted drive and ambition have largely shied away from many other pursuits that offer opportunities to the best and most talented: media, sales, entertainment, politics, sports, the arts, music. How can we know that our well-documented competitive instincts won’t also give us ample opportunities to excel in those fields, especially as they become bigger and bigger parts of the global economy as more basic needs are met with less human effort?

We know, by way of examples, that we Asians aren’t physically precluded from excelling in football (Dat Nguyen), tennis (Michael Chang), golf (Anthony Kim), martial arts (Cung Le), basketball (Yao Ming), baseball (Ichiro), or a host of other sports. We have shown some potential on and off the big and small screens through the successes of Ang Lee, Bruce Lee, James Shigeta. I don’t need to list all the successful Asian American musicians or architects or chefs or interior decorators. They’re out there.

Our biggest problem may be that not enough of us are out there in the wider world outside the narrow confines of conventional academic/professional success. We have become closed-minded about the potential for our drive and talent to shake things up in the fields where independence and belief count for more than a cast-iron butt and a willingness to put on blinders to all of life’s possibilities.

This new UC policy may turn out to be a huge impetus to help us begin the transition from being excellent followers to becoming excellent leaders, innovators, trendsetters and, yes, even big-time idols and superstars.

Imagine what will happen once hundreds of thousands of Asian Californian parents learn that their kids are going to have to rely more on their unique talents and less on their ability to memorize chemical formulas and math equations in order to get that UC acceptance letter! “Get your butt over to those football tryouts, goddamit!” “What the hell do you mean you don’t want to try cheerleading?”

Equally important will be the encouragement this new policy will give to those Asian American kids who are good but not great scholars but are excellent athletes, musicians, actors, artists, leaders, etc. They will now have a shot at those coveted UC slots too.

I suspect that in a few years everyone — including UC admissions officials as well as Asian Americans — will be surprised to find that the new policy hasn’t cut down the share of Asian Americans getting into UCs, only shifted their composition toward kids who have passions as well as intellects and have been encouraged to pursue them.