Checked Off

When Veronica S. Jung '97, a Korean-American, wanted to apply for a Mellon minority fellowship, she was surprised to see she didn't qualify.

"I had just taken for granted that the Mellon Program would consider Asian-Americans a minority, and I was schocked to learn that we weren't included," she says.

The idea that Asian-Americans are not a minority didn't jibe with her. "Any group that doesn't yet receive full benefits from society, that faces an ongoing history of being excluded from equal social and political membership, is a minority," she says. "It's a complex issue for Asian-Americans themselves."

When applying to scholarship programs, graduate schools or jobs, Asian-American students face a variety of interpretations of their minority status.

While some organizations actively recruit Asian-Americans, others--even ones that recruit other minorities--do not. Even within the University, different schools have different policies about Asian-American representation.

At Harvard College, admissions officers recruit Asian-American students like other minorities.

"Asian-Americans are a minority. That has been our policy," says Roger Banks, senior admissions officer and director of the Undergraduate Minority Recruiting Program. For example, Banks says, Asian-American students are included in Admissions Office minority outreach and hosting programs.

While Asian-Americans make up close to 19 percent of Harvard's undergraduate body-compared to 3.7 percent of the U.S. Banks stresses that Asian-Americans are not "overrepresented."

"We prefer diversity, but not for it's own sake," he says, "No particular group has a corner on the class.... We go where the talent goes," he says.

Wilson L. Hunt Jr. '65, assistant director of the Office of Career Services, says finding scholarships can be harder for Asian-Americans than for other minorities.

"It might be more difficult for disadvantaged Asians to find aid than for disadvantaged Latinos," he says.

Harvard University, like most institutions, recognizes Asian-Americans as a minority. But within the University, different schools follow slightly different standards.

Medicine

For example, Harvard Medical School (HMS) follows guidelines set by the American Association of Medical Colleges (AAMC).

These guidelines identify Black Americans, Native Americans, Mexican-Americans, Chicanos and Puerto Ricans as "underrepresented minorities" because they are historically underrepresented in the field of medicine.

Other applicants--including Asian-Americans--can qualify for minority status if they can demonstrate financial disadvantage.

Lee Ann Michelson, health career advisor at the Office of Career Services, says medical schools look at the demand for certain types of doctors.

"Traditionally, underrepresented minority doctors go back to serve communities of their own minority," she says. "This is important because their is a need for doctors in inner city and rural locations."

In 1996, Asian-Americans made up 24.8 percent of Harvard Medical School's student body.

Nationwide, Asians, Asian-Americans and Pacific Islanders make up 17.6 percent of medical school enrollment.

Rosa J. Soler, associate director for recruitment and multicultural affairs at HMS, says the school acknowledges that there are underrepresented groups not recognized in the AAMC guidelines, especially under the umbrella term "Asian."

Soler says many of the AAMC's broad minority labels are incomplete. "I think that in the future their definition will be revisited as a national standard," she says. "It is an issue that definitely needs to be explored."

Business

Harvard Business School also follows federal guidelines which classify Asian-Americans as a minority. But the school does not consider Asian-American students "underrepresented" like Mexican-or African-Americans, says Business School Admissions Officer Mara H. Yoo '94.

However, officials say the school does not keep track of the number of Asian-American students enrolled.

Even though the Business School, like many of its peer institutions, doesn't consider Asian-Americans underrepresented, several business recruiting programs actively recruit Asian-Americans.

The Sponsors for Educational Opportunity Wall Street Recruiting program for undergraduates has recruited minority students for the past 15 years.

For the first five years the program did not include Asian-Americans in its target group. But in 1987, the program changed its guidelines and allowed Asian-Americans to apply because they were underrepresented in the financial world, Hunt says.

Crimson and Brown Associates runs another national minority recruiting program. They encourage all future professionals who define themselves as minorities to participate.

Crimson and Brown President Jessie T. Woolley says companies have become increasingly aware of the diversity of their consumer bases. And she says that although Asian-Americans are not underrepresented in the industrial sector overall, they are in certain geographic regions.

"In some geographic areas like Califorma, it is hard for Asians to be included as a minority because underrepresentation is, many times, a definition," Woolley says. But where Asian-Americans are underrepresented, in places like the South, Mid-Atlantic and Mid-West, it is easier to count them as a minority.

Woolley says Asian-American professionals are well-represented in the medical and business fields, and agreed that the medical community struggles to find doctors to serve inner-city and rural communities.

But, she says, "There needs to be encouragement of all minority groups, no matter the definition, so that these niches can be filled more easily by any race," she says.

Wooley says that if Asian-Americans are underrepresented in any professional field, it is law.

"For some law firms, it is just as difficult to recruit Asian-Americans as it is to recruit African-Americans," Woolley says. "The legal field has not had as much success with diversifying as other professions."

At Harvard Law School 11 percent of students are Asian-American, the same proportion as African American students.

At the college, Asian-American students have varying views about how they should be included under the minority label.

Laura S. Kang '99 says she sees nothing wrong with the AAMC's definition of minority. "If a minority is well-represented in a particular field, spending time and energy to recruit this minority...is a twisted manipulation of the term," she says.

"If Asian-Americans are not having trouble finding their way to the medical school application process, why try to recruit them?" Kang says. "[The time] could be spent serving other underrepresented minorities."

Some students find the umbrella term of "Asian-American" problematic itself. Grace C. Liu '00 says there is a misconception that Asian-American students are only Chinese, Japanese or Korean.

"Within the term 'Asian-American' there are many nationalities. There are very underrepresented groups like Vietnamese and Cambodian that get lost in the shuffle when people say that Asians aren't a minority," she says.

Liu says she believes that if any group is underrepresented in a field they should be considered a minority, but says that she recognizes that in certain fields this can be difficult.

Wendy M. Lu '00 is bothered by the inconsistent definition of Asian-American and minority. "I don't think definitions of minority should change based upon the institution. Asian-Americans should always be considered a minority," she says.

Asian-Americans at Harvard

Asian-Americans comprise 3.7% of the U.S. population and 14 percent of the University student body.

1995 Data. Source: Harvard Facts and Figures '95

1997 Data. Source: Harvard Medical School

Amelia E. Morrow