Being An Asian Student Essay

Asian students also represent another minority group with educational problems, although different from what the other minority groups face. Asian Americans represent around 4% of the U.S. population, and make up 20% of the students at U.S. Ivy League schools (Kornblum & Julian, 2012). Asian students tend to acquire higher levels of achievement and educational attainment. As a result, they can be treated and seen as a ‘model minority’ where they face higher expectations for such academic endeavors (Hsin & Xie, 2014). With these extremely high expectations, many Asian students find it difficult to meet it, which can lead to higher levels of stress, depression, and low self-esteem. For example, Asian students at Cornell University perform exceptionally well in science and engineering programs. Asian students only make up 14% of the Cornell student body population, yet 13 out of the 21 (61%) Cornell students who have committed suicide since 1996, have been Asian. As a result, Cornell and many other universities have established counseling programs and resources to …show more content…
For instance, a study was conducted by Slavin (1997) that looked into the effects that households had on the academic performance of 4th graders. Slavin indicated that 70% of students whose parents graduated from college were reading at or above the recommended level. For children with parents who were high school graduates, the percentage dropped to 54%. Even further, students with parents who were high school dropouts, had a percentage of 32%. In addition, the presence or absence of books and other reading materials within their homes, showed statistical significance. For instance, in a house that had books, newspapers, and magazines, around 70% of the children scored at or above the basic level. With a house lacking these reading materials, around half of the children scored at or above the general level (Slavin,