My daughter is just finishing up second grade. But that doesn't mean it's too early to start thinking about which private university she should go to after high school graduation. My wife is all too aware of how difficult it can be for Asian Americans to get into the elite colleges. We've all read the horror stories of Asian kids with nearly perfect SAT scores, high school GPA of 5.0, and president of their chess club and are still denied admission to Harvard or Stanford. Therefore now is the perfect time to start preparing our child to get into college.
The success of Jeremy Lin has changed my wife's thinking about the potential of athletics in advancing our child's academic career. Before Linsanity, sports was considered a black or white man's game, a back door way for somebody to get into an Ivy League without having to put of Ivy League academic numbers. Now she sees that sports can be a differential. My daughter can stand out from all the other Asian nerds trying to get into the same schools by excelling at a sport.
She considered many sports possibilities. Baseball? Too boring. Basketball? Too short. Soccer? Too slow. Then she settled on her personal love--table tennis. My daughter will excel at ping pong, making her stand out from all the other boring Asian geeks. When she presented her idea to me, I was skeptical. "Uh, I don't think the NCAA even recognizes ping pong as an official collegiate sport. I think you have to choose a sport that colleges care enough about to compete with other colleges and provide national exposure for their campus."
Pish posh, was my wife's reply, or something like that but in Chinese. To prove her point, she drove us to a table tennis academy in the San Gabriel Valley that specializes in training youth ping pong. She started talking to some of the parents there. My wife is not into subtlety. She pointedly asked another parent if they think their child's incredible table tennis skills will get him into a good college. Of course, was the reply. Who wouldn't want to recruit my child when he starts competing for the national team to represent America in the Olympics in 2020? After all, table tennis is an official Olympic event.
My wife looked at me with a wide grin. That settled it. Our seven year old daughter will start rigorous ping pong training to get her ready for admission into Stanford. In a few years, when she is ready for the national trials for female table tennis players, she will be ranked number one and Stanford can't possibly refuse her. This is a foolproof plan. Once she's in then she can drop all ideations about having a sports career and start concentrating on getting into medical school.
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