Hubert Zhao, a Chinese-American student from Orlando, Florida, filed a complaint against Cornell and Columbia University following the rejection of his application.
This puts Zhao in the list of complainants who have filed complaints or lawsuits against Ivy League schools on the grounds of discrimination.
Zhao holds a 5.3 weighted GPA under his belt and is a National Merit Scholarship winner, according to AsAm News. In addition, he was the president and captain of his high school’s Science Olympiad, Debate and Science Bowl teams. His father, Yukong Zhao, is president of the Asian American Coalition for Education.
The organization sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Education, calling for an investigation:
“What happened to Hubert Zhao is another example of the widespread and systematic illegal discrimination against Asian American students by many colleges. The members of AACE are outraged by such blatant discrimination.”
“Tens of thousands of talented Asian American children are treated as second class citizens who are less ‘diverse’ solely because of their race,” the complaint went on.
In Zhao’s class of 700 students, only he and an Indian American student were named National Merit Scholarship semifinalists. Unfortunately, neither got into any top 20 schools, but those of other races were accepted.
Zhao’s story can be likened to that of Michael Wang, another Asian-American student who filed an earlier complaint after failing admission to any of the seven Ivy League schools he applied to.
Wang had a perfect ACT score, 4.67 GPA, 2230 SAT score and 13 AP courses under his belt.
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