<p>^Grutter vs. Bollinger is the case. And Mr. Bollinger is now the president of Columbia University.</p>
<p>my personal opinion: i have no problem with people who are of a lower socioeconomic level where they can’t get sat classes (which i did myself to get a 2260 and admission to cornell) etc etc getting an edge. i know that if i were poorer and in their shoes i’d feel this way.
however, i do not like blanket affirmative action, where just because you’re black you get this huge boost in your credentials. i think that the common app should make you state your parents’ income, and that is how AA is used. not by race. race should not be part on the equation in my opinion. </p>
<p>this way, asians won’t be disadvantaged. at least, they won’t be disadvantaged for being asian. if they’re disadvantaged, it’ll be for having rich parents who can give them advantages like sat classes. </p>
<p>if there are still less blacks after accounting for socioeconomic level, i still do not think that they should get a boost just to improve the diversity of a school. i just don’t think that’s fair. like i said, this is just my opinion.</p>
<p>Being an asian, I understand the perspectives from both ends. Just wish to make two comments:
- Columbia is, at the end of the day, a business. In order to be a long-term viable business, it has to do what is the best for Columbia.
- History always repeat itself. I recommend a very good article written by Malcolm Gladwell published in 2005 on exactly this topic. Please follow this link for the paper.</p>
<p>[Getting</a> In : The New Yorker](<a href=“http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/10/10/051010crat_atlarge]Getting”>Getting In | The New Yorker)</p>
<p>Please notice how the Jewish applicants were treated in the days of Lawrence Lowell. The time certain have changed. The problem is not with Jews. It is with Asians for today. The solution? I am sure you have the answer…</p>
<p>pbr, HOLY … ARE YOU FREAKIN SERIOUS???</p>
<p>dang thats awesome/cool/weird lol!</p>
<p>Google it. You’ll see.</p>
<p>Wuchu, yeah I’m sure alot of people feel that way, and it does sound more logical. But realistically, that won’t at all serve the best interest of the ivy leagues -to promote diversity. So like I still think it should be used, or else there will be a severe under-representation of minorities, and campus will be alot more homogeneous (which is kind of boring)</p>
<p>and pbr - yeah I believe you (and i just did google it haha). that’s so cool and weird though…</p>
<p>and such freaking coincidence. I just listed a random court case I learned in class out and it turned out with this huge relevance</p>
<p>They both applied for different obscure history majors - I didn’t want to include too much to protect my own identity :)</p>
<p>adiboo, your first post about how the outspoken one was rejected…</p>
<p>the thing with ivies is…you NEVER know if your gonna get in.</p>
<p>but I would definitely identify myself with that outspoken one. From what you described, lol, I’m like all that, except I didn’t get 2300 + SAT lol. But I do voice my opinion in class whenever I feel reasonably confident with something, and everything I had (activities + essay) showed my passion for history.</p>
<p>collegeftw - i am an admissionsgeek! a former student helper / alum interviewer / enthusiast who has learned as much as he can about the process as a result, it is more intuitive than most think.</p>
<p>Musical - the thing is! </p>
<p>asians are compared to asians and blacks, and whites, and based on what they apply with interest in X, Y, Z. so constructing narrow understandings of what things are compared to is rather limited. just as a single applicant A is impossible to narrow down without seeing the complexities of what the individual represents</p>
<p>the fact is we want to know about how things are directly compared to, as it allows us to put us into some kind of ‘objective’ status. but life doesn’t look like that.</p>
<p>comparisons are direct. indirect, strong and weak, and yet all at the same time. the response by the individual has short and long term consequences simultaneously.</p>
<p>eventually it is important to understand that each student is admitted for different reasons, with different impetuses, and ultimately with different purposes. reducing this idea is the fault of what is going on. because admissions is complex.</p>
<p>so merely stating obscurity doesn’t really explain the precise condition of obscurity.</p>
<p>^Hi admissionsgeek,
From your experience,do you see that the choice of a popular major in the application go against us?Is it wiser(and smarter) to say ‘undecided’ instead?I guess what I’m asking is,is it better NOT to choose a popular major when applying?
Thanks for all your insights.</p>
<p>i’d say it is worse to be undecided, it is best to at the age of 12 have the foresight and inculcate your life studying something that is underrepresented, but few students do that. being undecided makes you seem like a valley girl; being unprepared or particularly uninspiring re: a major makes you seem like a fraud. </p>
<p>but that is just for top tier schools, i think folks forget that you don’t have to go to columbia or the like to eventually go to medical school.</p>
<p>I’m an African American junior aspring to go to apply columbia SEAS next year. I am also slightly OCD so I took all the objective stats and from the result stats thread and made a spreadsheet out of it. It turns out that Asian students require the highest SAT scores, around 2200(based on the stats posted here) to be accepted but white students need the highest GPA’s which has to be around 3.9. URM’s however can get away with scores under 2000 and GPA’s around 3.6. I can understand how this can make some people upset about affirmative action. I feel conflicted because I know it isn’t the greatest system but it will also benifit me. I have outstanding EC’s and my objective scores are closer to that of an Asian applicant. So my chances greatly improve with the current system. However i still feel guilty about it…</p>
<p>nlittle - the moment you stop feeling guilty is when you meet some of those kids with 2400 scores and they have trouble tying their shoes (read: socially awkward), or are arrogant pricks or more likely the moment you see how lazy they can be. you will stop elevating gpa/sat scores as perfect measurements of ability because they are not. </p>
<p>just be as great as you can. and to be fair, all students that get rejected from columbia i don’t worry too much about, if they applied to columbia it probably means they applied somewhere else - those students will go to college, which already puts them in a select group in this world and nation.</p>
<p>^lol I actually enjoyed reading that</p>
<p>nilittlepoole, please don’t feel bad!!! lol. really. i really like how you acknowledge the slight discrepancy in scores, but there’s no need to feel guilty. and good job with your scores! i hope you get into columbia, you sound really intelligent</p>
<p>and collegeftw, i understand where you’re coming from.</p>
<p>I am an asian and I’m applying to Columbia, MIT, Stanford, U Penn, and UC Berkeley. I don’t have stellar SAT scores like many of the asian applicants, but I really pour my heart and soul out into my essays. I also started my own organization to help patients in the hospital. So in a way, I’m different from the typical 2400SATs and perfect gpa asian who typically plays a musical instrument.
Am I at a disadvantage when I am competing with all the other 2400 SATs and 4.0uw gpa asian applicants? Do I stand out in a bad way with my average SAT scores?</p>
<p>^ I woudn’t say low GPA’s and lower SAT’s don’t go against you, but I am also Asian, and definitely did not have SAT scores as stellar as many of my peers. Personally, I think recommendations and essays are more important than SAT’s (once you reach a certain level on the SAT), and if you write a stellar essay with supportive recs, you definitely have a shot at some of those schools</p>
<p>Admissionsgeek, in your comparison of overrepresented majors and overrepresented races, there is one one major difference between someone who’s an econ/premed major vs someone who is asian - the econ major can decide to major in something else. You can’t exactly change your race, and unchecking the race box on applications doesn’t make much of a difference for someone with a last name that is obviously asian (lu, xu, zhang, chen, yang, etc)</p>
<p>comparisons are necessarily imperfect. </p>
<p>but in the example where a student’s race is not checked and even if their last name is lee, do you think the admissions officer is saying this student should be denied because he/she is asian? that is to say - if even asianness is contextual, it could rarely and only in the most cynical of readings be considered prime for someone to be denied. in fact there are so many other contextual factors that could be used to analyze a candidate that it renders the belief that ethnicity is prime almost laughable. for the most part students tend to be unimpressive for being middle class kids with quite solid resources - but we don’t hear a cry out about classism.</p>
<p>thus there is a difference between:
a) he is unimpressive for an asian.
b) he is asian so i am unimpressed.</p>
<p>statement (a) could fit a whole lot of other contextual indicators, he is unimpressive for a new yorker, he is unimpressive for an econ interested student, etc… in fact it is the composite of thoughts about how a student is unimpressive for their various contextual indicators that would lead to a rejection, and not one alone. you could be unimpressive for an asian, and yet very impressive for a south dakotan, and thus admitted. whereas statement (b) is what i gather most people presume happens, but that is so absurd it isn’t even worth its own consideration.</p>