<p>Red_dragone [sic], I think that you're missing the point. Most elite schools feel as if they have enough asians as is (at least in the opinions of the powers-that-be) so adding more asians would be undesirable, except where it increased meaningless statistics like mean SAT score, class rank, etc.</p>
<p>I support AA on principle (as a white/asian male, that's not necessarily easy) but I don't know how effective it is in its current incarnation. Certainly there is a vast oversimplification involved in the implicit assumption that AA admits only wealthy blacks while poor whites are rejected, but it's more complex than that. But I do think that race is given precedence over economics in the calculus of AA, and I don't think that this is just. The reality is that there are (anecdotally at least) hundreds of asians in low income homes who achieve high SAT scores and whatnot. There is undoubtledly a cultural imperative toward such achievements, but that doesn't detract from them.</p>
<p>Regardless, your comment about asians needing to fight for AA is absurd. Asians don't need AA to be competitive applicants (as a complete segment of the population) in the applicant pools of elite universities, whereas blacks, hispanics, and native americans, to lesser or greater degrees, do. That is why AA will never aid asians. But at the same time, don't trivialize what Asians have done as a culture, because they have been able to erase the effects of oppression almost completely through hard work.</p>
<p>And in a sense, it is unfortunate, because the ultimate result of AA is that it creates a system in which the achievements of underrepresented minority groups are marginalized. I think it is a great step for a URM to not check the minority box, but this only makes a difference to admissions officers. They cannot erase the imputed stigma of minority underachieving (again, I speak only in the shallow statistical sense) and are forced to deal with it (whatever degree it may be in) at the university they attend.</p>
<p>In any event, I don't have a conclusion of any real significance. But still I would rather take the chance that AA allows some people with real potential to achieve great things in society and then bring about social change than ignore it altogether and have elite universities admit those who excel the most academically (which inevitably will lead to a class of almost exclusively whites, asians, and indians)</p>
<p>And since my comments will inevitably be judged in the context of what I have achieved and what life experiences I am speaking from, I can say that I was accepted to Princeton last year as a Canadian applicant.</p>