Asian Advantage is an educational consulting practice dedicated to helping Asian-American students maximize their college admissions opportunities. We understand the unique challenges facing Asian students who seek admission to the nation's best colleges and universities.

SERVICE


Asian Advantage offers a variety of college consulting services for undergraduate and graduate school applicants. Our services offer a practical approach to navigating the college admissions process, with an emphasis on completing the college applications with hands-on guidance from our college advisors.

Our firm is based in the San Francisco Bay Area and services include extensive face-to-face meetings that can be adjusted to student and parent needs. For clients outside of this area, these services are offered through a combination of telephone and e-mail contacts.

Comprehensive Advisory Package

This package of services is designated to help students and their parents to plan and to navigate all aspects of the college admissions process.

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Graduate School Advisory Package

Students applying to business, engineering, and law school can receive assistance in preparing their graduate school applications...

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Pre-Senior Advisory Package

This package of services is recommended for students in their Freshman through Junior years who would like to polish their resumes and plan their school...

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Private High School Advisory Package

Our private high school application service is a cost-effective way for students and parents to have their questions answered and receive assistance for...

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ABOUT US

James Chen

College Advisor & Founder

James attended Columbia University as a freshman and is a graduate of Cornell University (BS) and the University of California at Berkeley (MS) with degrees in Operations Research & Industrial Engineering. After college, James worked as an Investment Banking Associate at Salomon Brothers, and as a Senior Manager at AT&T and Vice President at Wells Fargo Bank. He is a co-founder of the California Dragon Boat Association, and remains active in his community with youth, senior citizen and autism-related charities.

In 1990, he began working with students applying to undergraduate and graduate school, with a focus on applicants to Ivy League and Top Ten Business and Law Schools. His astounding acceptance record led to a word-of-mouth reputation that has drawn clients from as far away as Saudi Arabia, Korea, China and Hong Kong. With Asian Advantage, his goal is to even the odds for Asian students hoping to enroll in America's elite colleges and universities.

Ken Hong

College Advisor

Ken is a graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (BA). At Cal, he was a member of the Lightweight Crew team. With his degree in Molecular & Cell Biology, he worked as an immunologist, an Operations Manager for a successful biotech start-up and as manager of professional services for a biotech/pharmaceutical consulting firm. In his spare time, he remains an avid outdoor sportsman, competing in local dragon boating and outrigger canoeing events and organizing fly-fishing trips.

At Asian Advantage, Ken brings his firsthand perspective to students interested in biological science-related careers. As an experienced researcher, consultant and entrepreneur, he is available to our clients to provide guidance in student's college & major selection, extracurricular planning and career mentoring.




MISSION STATEMENT


The core mission of Asian Advantage College Consulting is to provide sound college guidance to students and their families, in a personalized, cost-effective and ethical manner. It is also the goal of our firm to promote a level playing field in the college applications process while increasing public awareness of the unique challenges faced by Asian-American applicants.



RESULTS

Undergraduate Acceptances

  • Brown
  • Columbia
  • Cornell
  • Dartmouth
  • Duke
  • Harvard
  • Michigan
  • MIT
  • Northwestern
  • Pennsylvania
  • Princeton
  • Stanford
  • UC Berkeley
  • UCLA
  • Yale
  • Amherst
  • Caltech
  • Carnegie Mellon
  • Harvey Mudd
  • USC
  • Williams

Graduate Acceptances

  • Columbia Business School
  • Columbia Law School
  • Cornell (Johnson)
  • Harvard Business School
  • Harvard Law School
  • MIT (Sloan)
  • Chicago Law
  • New York University (Stern)
  • Northwestern (Kellogg)
  • Pennsylvania (Wharton)
  • Stanford Business School
  • Stanford Law School
  • UC Berkeley (Haas)
  • UCLA (Anderson)
  • Yale Law School
  • Dartmouth (Tuck)
  • Duke (Fuqua)
  • Georgetown Law
  • Pennsylvania (Law)
  • UC Berkeley (Boalt Law)
  • UCLA Law

WHY YOU NEED ASIAN ADVANTAGE

  • 1. Personalized Service – We create a personalized college plan based on your individualized strengths and needs.
  • 2. Strategic Advice – We know how to present your “best” side to colleges for increasing your chances of success.
  • 3. Hands-on Approach – We work directly with each student, and edit the college admissions essays ourselves.
  • 4. Experienced – Over 20 years of college admissions and counseling experience with a focus on students from China and Hong Kong.
  • 5. Excellent Results – The highest acceptance rates

HOW ELITE COLLEGES VIEW ASIAN APPLICANTS

  • 1. Most Asian applicants “look the same” to college admissions officers
  • 2. College admissions officers complain about the “one-sided” academic nature of Asian applicants
  • 3. Asian students tend to cluster in academic ghettos (math, engineering and the sciences), limiting Asian educational choices and lowering overall student diversity
  • 4. Asian emphasis on music, academics and pre-professional programs (law, business, medicine) undermines their efforts for a diverse student body

HOW ASIAN ADVANTAGE IS DIFFERENT

  • 1. We are focused on assisting high-achieving Asian and Asian-American applicants with applying to top colleges and graduate schools, utilizing strategies specifically designed for Asian students.
  • 2. We work directly with the applicant to craft each college essay, spending as much time as needed to perfect it.
  • 3. We are not "former Ivy League admissions officers" and thus haven't participated in discriminatory practices against Asian-Americans.
  • 4. Prior to joining Asian Advantage, our college advisors have accumulated significant life and career experience in consulting, investment banking, scientific research, data science, athletic coaching, and engineering.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Q1. What sets Asian Advantage apart from other college consultants?

A1. Most college consultants have a cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach to college admissions for applicants regardless of their race. They either have very little knowledge about how biased the college admissions process is towards Asian-American applicants, or they are ex-college admissions officers with a vested interest in playing down the racial quotas that dominate the process. For the latter especially, these racial quotas enhance the admissions prospects of their mostly-white client base.
We are one of a handful of college consultants - and the only one in the Western US - whose focus is on assisting Asian-American students who are applying to the elite tier of colleges, and need an extra boost with their applications because of the schools’ discriminatory practices.

Q2. Why do elite colleges discriminate against Asian-American applicants?

A2. Since almost all College Admissions Directors are politically liberal, they have a desire for their student bodies to racially mirror the population as a whole. But the large number of qualified and outstanding Asian-American applicants to schools like Stanford, Harvard and Cal threaten to overwhelm their schools’ student demographics--to the point where the student bodies would no longer have a plurality of white students. That’s where they draw the line.

Q3. What does this discrimination mean for the highly-qualified Asian-American applicant?

A3. It means that your application will be subjected to a higher standard of admission. College admissions directors will say that in addition to academic criteria, their applicants will be evaluated through “holistic” methods. This is a code word for racial discrimination and an undocumented quota system. It’s no wonder that Asian applicants refer to their ethnicity as “the anti-hook”—meaning that it hurts their chances for admission.

Q4. How can my Asian-American child overcome these obstacles?

A4. By recognizing that anti-Asian bias exists, and then completing the college applications with an emphasis on countering this bias. Generally speaking, that means Asian students need to approach the admissions process in a completely different manner than the white or non-Asian applicant.
Asian Advantage has developed a unique 4-step approach to neutralizing anti-Asian bias in the college application process. Our methods may appear to be counter-intuitive at first, but make perfect sense when taking discrimination into account.

Q5. Why can’t I just “Be Myself” on my college applications?

A5. You can, but you’ll lower your chances of getting into college versus the general applicant pool. That’s because Asian-American applicants are usually better prepared for college than their non-Asian counterparts, and highlighting certain aspects of that preparation places him or her in danger of being labeled a “robot” by the admissions committee members. That’s a prelude to rejection.

Q6. What do you mean by “robot”?

A6. The typical profile of the Asian “robot” is the well-rounded student who excels in multiple areas. In academics, this usually includes science and math, and in extracurricular activities, music and volunteering. Thus, you’ll see many of these Asian-American applicants with high grades and SAT/ACT scores, along with a seemingly impressive list of awards and achievements in science fairs, musical competitions and school-based activities like debate and the robotics club.

Q7. Isn’t discrimination against the law?

A7. Yes. But today, colleges are careful not to leave a paper trail with explicit quota figures or notes on an application like “Mary is an Asian robot”. The Ivy League schools (most notably Harvard and Brown) actually did leave a paper trail back in the 1980s, with snide and racially-tinged comments about Asian applicants that they later rejected. But all the US Department of Justice did was to give them a slap on the wrist and say “Don’t do that again!”

Q8. Why focus on the elite colleges, such as Stanford, Harvard, MIT and Cal?

A8. We focus on the top tier because these are the colleges that practice the most social engineering through their racial quotas. They also happen to be the schools that the top Asian-American applicants are targeting. A large majority of these applicants fit the student profile of these elite schools, but are not treated equally by the college admissions process.

Q9. When should I begin the college planning process?

A9. Ideally, you should begin no later than the summer after the applicant’s junior year in high school. This gives the applicant and his or her family about 4 to 5 months to plan and execute a college admissions strategy with Asian Advantage.

Q10. Why should I use Asian Advantage?

A10. We have over 20 years of documented success in helping Asian applicants gain admission to the nation’s top colleges. While we cannot guarantee admission to any college, we can significantly increase a qualified student’s chances of getting into a top-tier college.




Contact us

Asian Advantage College Consulting, LLC

Alameda, CA 94501, US

415-608-2463

info@asianadvantage.net

www.asianadvantage.net

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