Why Is This?

...One is California's demographics: It is 11 percent Asian compared to 4 percent for the nation as a whole. Two is academic prestige: As the oldest and most selective campus of the University of California, Berkeley has an undergraduate population that is 42 percent Asian. (As a general rule, the more selective the school, the higher the percentage of Asian students.)

...Harvard is 17 percent Asian American; MIT, 28 percent; Stanford, 24 percent; Princeton and Yale, 13 percent.

Race? Culture? Both?