<p>Is being european caucasian an advantage for entering in cornell? I've heard about a guy whos scores werent that great but he got in just because there are not many caucasians....</p>
<p>ummm ... no.</p>
<p>haha, yeah right. being white never helps.</p>
<p>neither does being asian lol</p>
<p>very, very true.</p>
<p>Yeah in college admission being white is the only time it will not help you, however it will not hurt you.</p>
<p>BS, grad school admissions, job interviews all favor minorities. Being white does "hurt" your chances, at least relative to an URM with all other things equal.</p>
<p>very very true... mostly for asians. white people have legacies (hmmm Grandfather Clause-esque much?) but asians have nothing in their favor when it comes to college admissions.</p>
<p>Grad School admission would count as college admissions. I'm not sure about job interviews, but URM have to land the job interview first. Which according to this <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/29/national/main575685.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/29/national/main575685.shtml</a> and numerous other studies. Will be harder to do. </p>
<p>Yeah and asians really do have nothing in their favor.</p>
<p>the whole affirmative action thing - which i just call reverse racism - is messed up. its designed to provide advantages for minorities- but ends up hurting some minorities even more than caucasians. east asians and south asians are known to have strong credentials, but the quota system allows for only x% of the student body to be of those backgrounds. tons of over-qualified students from these ethnic groups get rejected because of this</p>
<p>so isn't the system going exactly opposite of what they were trying to do- that is, provide some benefits to minority races? yes, unfortunately, this is true. </p>
<p>my advice would be to try to find some native american heritage in your history, ha.</p>
<p>I agree. Many proponents of affirmative-action point to the fact that this world is not racism-free and we live in a sad, sad, world (usually with a condescending tone meant to make you feel naive). However, using this excuse as the reason to continue using the policy in face of evidence that it HURTS rather than HELPS certain minority groups is simply unacceptable. Analogous to this type of faulty logic would be like a king observing all of the corruptions and holes in a lawless land and then simply discounting these problems by stating the inherent imperfections in the world the tough luck logic.</p>
<p>Here are a couple definitions of racism.
1 : a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race
2 : racial prejudice or discrimination</p>
<p>In order to treat one race differently from the other, one must first find differences - discriminate - based on the color of their skin, which is a BIOLOGICAL trait completely independent of intelligence. If you want to argue that skin color has anything to do with intelligence then that implies that you believe one race is more intelligent than the other. That would be racism. Although it may appear one group of minorities are gaining an advantage from affirmative action, there is also a huge disadvantage to this policy: the well-qualified people in certain minority groups are seen as less-qualified relative to the caucasians even though this may be completely false. Furthermore, you can not eliminate racism based on legislative acts or controlling quota mechanisms. Racism is something that is much deeper that roots from within the racist. Treating people as equals means they are treated the same as everyone else in society - no more, no less.</p>
<p>You are not racist just because you acknowledge that there are differences between races. Because we know (or presume) that differences in college attendance, grades, and test scores between races are not due to biological differences, we assume that they are rooted in other causes (perhaps cultural or socioeconomic). This is the issue that affirmative action is attempting to address. </p>
<p>The goal of affirmative action in college admissions isn't to be "fair." It is increase the proportion of underrepresented minorities in higher education. To increase the proportion of blacks, hispanics, and native americans, we will have to lower the proportion of asians and whites. That's just simple math. </p>
<p>The number of URM's at top colleges is so low that the "a minority stole my spot" argument never holds any weight. I am anti-affirmative action not because I think minorities are stealing spots from more qualified applicants but because I don't think it does enough to lower the proportion of asian and whites in top colleges/grad schools and increase the proportion of URM's.</p>
<p>Who would get accepted to Cornell if the admissions dept didnt have ANY information on your background? What would the student body look like?</p>
<p>Why don't they just have affirmative action that is not based on race but rather on these "other" factors like socioeconomics then? Don't you think this does a huge disservice to many asian-american families who are in low socioeconomic conditions? I still think affirmative-action requires you to label a race and distinguish between one person and another based solely on their skin color. Maybe this is not racism, but it is discrimination.</p>
<p>Also, what is the underlying motivation behind wanting diversity? Diversity in itself or is it to decrease racism? If it is to decrease racism, then do you see it working on campus where people gather in groups of their own race anyway? And how can you measure objectively if racism is decreasing? What are you trying to accomplish with it? Do you have something against whites and asians attending school?</p>
<p>I personally disagree with you and feel that the "minority stole my spot" argument holds strong. One example is the UC systen in which almost 50% of every UC school is composed of asians. Are not that many asians applying to Harvard or other top schools? If we both agree that URMs are less-qualified relative to whites and asians, then would it be safe to say that another person with higher stats would get accepted, all else equal?</p>
<p>I'm asking these out of pure curiosity. I respect your comments norcalguy and I don't want to get on your bad side. =)</p>
<p>In an ideal world world AA would be downright objectionable. However, we don't. Stereotypes and racism are widespread and prevalent thoughout everyday life. Minorities receive subprime rates on mortgages, which in turn they cannot move into school districts with better schools which are never located in minority neighborhoods. Even if minorities are able to move into predominantly white neighborhoods, the property and house resale value decrease and people start to move out and then there goes the education quality of the school. A never ending cycle. This cycle repeats over and over. Another barrier for social mobility for those who desire it. The American Dream. The American Dream is only available to select few people. </p>
<p>No one ever says, lets improve inner city or schools with a high minority populations so that when they do apply to college there will be an equal playing field. No it's always just get rid of AA. Thus creating even another barrier for social mobility. No one wants to address their own advantage. You received a better education in primary education. And ifit's "what you make of the school" then why are you applying to a Ivy League or Stan/MIT. It's because they are superior schools, thus you receiving a superior education. Which would make you more desirable by Graduate Schools of the same nature.</p>
<p>AA is not a way to "correct" a problem, but a way to level theplaying field. AA should not be based entirely on race. Poor majority students with equivalent scores to an high income minority student should always be accepted. Everyone should be pushing for an improvement on the current AA system and not a complete termination of it. It is necessary because the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer only results in violence and uproar. </p>
<p>AA should be on how well you utilized your resources. And if you are going to rally against canceling AA, don't be negligent of your own advantages, which are numerous and plentiful.</p>
<p>I've always been told if you truly want to solve a problem. Go to the root of the problem. You don't kill a weed be clipping what's above the surface but by destroying the root. With that in mind, how can we all create no need for AA? That is the answer and should be what everyone should be fighting for.</p>
<p>i've heard like 16 different reasons for why AA exists. seems like no one has a clear cut definition for it. </p>
<p>Theres a difference with the drawbacks for whites and for asians. Caucasians are at a disadvantage because this is the significant majority race in the nation. The percentage of caucasians in schooling is lowered because to account for other races, the percentage of whites in a school must be far lower than what it is in the general population.</p>
<p>Drawbacks for Asians is exactly the opposite. The percentage of Asian students in higher education is much higher than the percentage of Asians in the USA. So from what I am hearing, AA is saying "this is wrong. representation is too high for asians based on their population." you are essentially discriminating against a race for being too smart.</p>
<p>in the end, AA makes it harder for asians and whites (the majority of the population) to get into college...AA barely worth it</p>
<p>"you are essentially discriminating against a race for being too smart."</p>
<p>You really believe that? Asians are more intelligent than other races? Asians do better than other minorities on standardized tests because from the time they learn to talk, their parents are always stressing the importance of education. This comes at a price, however, since some Asian parents push and push and push their kids which is how you end up with the numbers-crunching robots that Asians are stereotyped as. </p>
<p>On the other end of the spectrum, you have Blacks, Hhispanics, and Native Americans. Due to past and present circumstances, these races have no concept of the value of education. Consequently, the rate of college attendance is lower. Crime rates are higher. And you have the negative stereotypes that are associated with African Americans and Hispanics.</p>
<p>The best situation is somewhere in between: for Asians to be more well-rounded and for URMs to be more educated. That's what AA is trying to do. By putting more URM's in top colleges, AA generates more educated minority role models to instill the value of education in their communities. This is all done without hurting Asians or Whites as AA affects relatively few minorities.</p>
<p>So how does AA provide a big benefit to minority communities without hurting ORMs? Let's do some math:</p>
<p>Let's assume that at an Ivy League college, without AA, you'd have the following breakdown:</p>
<p>60 white
30 asian
10 urm</p>
<p>With AA:</p>
<p>55 white
25 asian
20 urm</p>
<p>Asians and Whites are already present in such high numbers that taking away a handful of spots does little to change their proportions. However, because of AA, the number of URMs at top colleges has doubled.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is: how much representation is enough and who determines this? If you were to limit admissions based on exact representation of the population percentage, then you would have only about 5% of asians in school and .000001% (I don't know the exact number, but something really small) of Native-Americans. Or, maybe you want to say we want equal numbers of races split into equal percentages. Then we would probably only have 1% whites, 1% puerto-rican, 1% hispanics, 1% albanian, 1% iranian, 1% swiss, etc. etc. Or, take for example a chinese boy who grew up in Mexico who is a Mexican-American. What now? What about the person who is 1/64th Native-American but who comes from one of the most wealthiest white American families? Where do you draw the line and who gets to decide when that application is on the table? For me, this is much too subjective to be acceptabe in higher education and appears to be discrimination in a very subtle way.</p>
<p>Some people point out that asians are over-represented in colleges. I do not deny this. But why is this bad? It is no secret that success comes with hard work and discipline no matter what race you are. Should they be punished for working extra hard?</p>
<p>And I agree BlueDevilBBall, I rarely find a good justification for using race as the determining factor for affirmative action. This separation based on race separates people into groups even when they identify themselves as just American. Some minorities do not even know what their races are because they may not be fully one race.</p>
<p>About the math: there are no statistics about the number of asians that would get into (for example) Harvard if there were no affirmative action. Only recently have asians been gaining more ground in economic stability and social consciousness. By using estimates based off of the asian representation a decade ago would be misleading. My guess would be that the initial set of numbers for asians would be much higher than presented. In fact, I think that asians would be the majority over whites.</p>
<p>Here is another point to consider. Let's say you're an admissions officer and you have Applicant A and Applicant B in front of you. A is a URM and B is Asian-American. A has average grades, great extracurriculars, and an SAT slightly above the school's average. Then you have B: straight As, great extracurriculars, and almost a perfect score on the SAT. Both students went to the same high-school in the ghetto part of town in which their parents had to work double shifts. However, you want to make your school appear more "diverse" and admit student A. Is there something wrong with this picture? I think so.</p>