<p>“In the end like MuPiLady I support AA, however, we should realize the reasons why blacks do not succeed are cultural and economic, not race based.”</p>
<p>I applaud your post, but believe it might be all three and more. I support affirmative action, but think we better hurry up and figure at what the SAT scores, controlled for income, mean in terms of our ability to “succeed”</p>
<p>when i get to the college that i want to go to i will not care about how people think about how i got in as soon as i get in. If i happen to get to a college just because i am black, so be it. again i got in that is all that matters. i will advise y’all to just let them talk until they get tired of talking.</p>
<p>^^^ Thank you. Because I could easily snap back and say, “Yall got in because you have connections and money.” To be real, it’s hardly what you know, it’s who you know. So if people wanna play the “you got in b/c you’re black” card, then I’m gonna play the “your daddy’s rich” card. Just saying. If you don’t wanna get my feedback, don’t step into my kitchen, my domain because you will get burnt. 
and merry Christmas</p>
<p>stop stop caring about other people, because first of all as black people we are expected to either go in jail or to be on welfare ( their is nothing bad about welfare), so if we get into a college and they pull out the race card then let all of them hatters talk because they have time on their hand.</p>
<p>merry Christmas to you too BeautifulNerd219</p>
<p>^Thanks. I agree. It’s sad when people get so jealous they start pondering like that. Some people don’t list their ethnicity.</p>
<p>Interesting thread. All I have to say is that I support affirmative action because it gives underrepresented minorities a chance to get into the nations finest colleges. I don’t agree with it entirely because it isn’t fair to poor Asians and Whites. </p>
<p>Some people support affirmative action to increase diversity on student campuses, however diversity is a load of crap that colleges sell to attract students from different populations. When you actually get to college, you will see that for the most part people of a particular color associate with people of their own color.</p>
<p>Without affirmative action URM enrollment will decrease until it is almost non-existent. I also believe that many black students deserve to get into the nations best colleges. It isn’t always about skin color. It is about merit. The hard work that these young African American put into school should be recognized. They shouldn’t just be seen as products of affirmative action.</p>
<p>So true @Entertainer. Not to mention, without AA, it’s kind of unfair b/c there are many minority students that I know that have much more trouble as far as family circumstances which can impact their school life. It’s just not fair to compare a student who can afford private tutors and get mediocre-stellar SAT scores to a student who can barely get a night’s worth of sleep. I’m just saying, look at the picture holistically. I’ve had several debates on this, and all of the students agreed that as long as the AA doesn’t favor race just to favor it but actually looks at merit along with circumstances, then it’s a o k with me. I’m not saying that non-minority students don’t have strife, but I’m generally speaking for the AA side of all of this.</p>
<p>Black (or URM) does not mean underprivileged. Most people who argue in favor of AA push for it because they believe underprivileged students, those who are poor, children of single mothers, etc. w/ conditions seen as not desirable, should receive or do deserve extra consideration. I don’t really have a problem with that. I do, however, have a problem with casting all blacks, all Hispanics, and all Native Americans under that label as deserving of extra consideration.
I’m black. I’ve had no circumstances. My mother is Ivy League educated, and her parents both had Master’s degrees. My father has a Bachelor’s from a top HBCU and worked at the world’s largest consumer products company until his early and retirement. I know a lot of people like me. Why in the world would we ever deserve extra consideration?
It may sound like I’m in favor of purely socio-economic AA, but as a lot of you (and people on the Race thread in main college admissions subforum) have mentioned, the educational issues in URM communities are not only a pecuniary issue, they’re cultural as well. So, I favor holistic, subjective AA. I think that’d be our best chance at true diversity and not just a varicolored campus.</p>
<p>^^^ I think most of us can agree to that. But people automatically assume AA means race. There are so many other factors to it. I was just saying how minorities who DO have circumstances should not be treated like students who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. I never said all minorities had circumstances b/c that’s far from true.</p>
<p>Hey guys =) I just wanted to show you all this post that I put on the questbridge forum awhile ago, when the subject of AA came up yet again. People were discussing why we couldn’t just use grade cutoffs for college acceptance, so I responded with this:</p>
<p>Wow guys. Come on, this Affirmative Action topic is lame and played out. What college do you know of that uses raw, hard, academic stats solely as their determining factor for admitting students? (None. Which isn’t even practical.If Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Duke, Brown, Upenn, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, Caltech, and Uchicago all decided they wanted 4.0 2400/36 students, and are all taking more or less 1000 for each class, do you really think there will be 13,000 students in the country with that? And if even if they had lower cutoffs (say 3.75 gpa 2100/30 students, they will still have way more applicants than spots and will have to use other criteria).</p>
<p>1). If they all decided they were going to just admit people based on grades and test scores, and the highest of those. Well, statistically speaking, Hispanics and African Americans are scoring lower (average SAT score for an African American in this country is about a 1200 with all three sections, and the ACT equivalent according to the New York Times, and not much higher for Hispanic people). So in most cases, the top schools would become almost all White and Asian. While many of you probably don’t see a problem with that (after all, it’s not technically discriminating), if the top schools in the country are mostly White and Asian, then they are going to have some serious problems with A). The law, you can imagine what kind of lawsuits they’ll have against them, all the time, which will cost the school money and its image, ultimately affecting all of students that go there ; and B). The American public and the media. We live in a day and age where that simply isn’t acceptable anymore, and honestly, I don’t think most of you want to go to homogenous schools. That’s part of the importance of the college experience that many people don’t get in high school. </p>
<p>2). GPA and standardized test scores as criteria are flawed majorly anyways. Look at the following case scenarios:</p>
<p>What about AP classes? Is a kid with a 4.0 that took all comprehensive classes and maybe a couple of honors classes going to get priority over a kid with a 3.67 that took 10 AP classes? I mean, I guess you could decide using weighted gpas, but that’s a problem too, because an AP arms race is an awful idea educationally, when kids start focusing on GPAs moer than actually learning. Some schools don’t even offer APs, or one or two so I guess those kids are out of luck. Some schools offer many APs. Some schools don’t let you take APs till junior or senior year. My high school lets you start as a Freshman. Some schools use a standard 1 point weighting scale, some (like mine) use a sliding scale, where an A= 5.0, B=3.75, C= 2.5, D=1.25, and some don’t weight for APs at all. Plus education standards are not standardized in this country. Some AP classes are easier in other schools, others aren’t. I have a friend in another state in AP chem who gets homework, classwork, labs, and tests counted for a grade. At my school, in AP chem: 80% tests/quizzes, 20% labs. But what if my friend got an A and I got a B? How would colleges know the difference! Gosh, what a mess!</p>
<p>What about the kid with a 3.95 that spent most of their time just doing homework and socializing during high school, but the 3.58 kid that spent 4 years researching properties of Vascular Endothelial Growth Factors in Breast Cancer at a Hospital and won national acclaim? Does the kid with the higher GPA still get priority? Or how about something that definitely hits close to home with us: The kid with a 4.0 GPA that has two parents, one is a lawyer, the other one engineer, is an only child, can afford any tutoring or outside assistant, can pay thousands of dollars for SAT prep classes and books, who has minimal if any home responsibility and has endless hours to study.What about the other kid with a 3.5 who’s been working 25 hours a week, caring for three siblings with one parent making $30,000 a year and cannot afford such outside help? Do we still admit the student with higher test scores, who has never stood on his own feet and is not prepared for the adversity he will surely encounter later? According to “cutoffs,” technically we can’t. Can you see where this can get messy?</p>
<p>Colleges realize this, which is why such cutoffs do not exist. Besides, if you want to be angry with the student who was accepted to whatever school instead of you even though you had better grades and test scores, be mad at all students who are, not just the ones that do because they are minorities. What about Athletes, who from what I can see get a leg up WAY more than minorities? What about the white person who got in instead of you because her father went to Brown and her Mother went to Brown and her grandmother and grandfather etc. etc.? Or the person that got in because she lives in Wyoming? The girl that got in because she plays the basoon? The boy that was accepted because is a triplet? None of these factors have anything whatsoever to do with raw academics. But these case scenarios are just as common as the minority situation. Perhaps even moreso. </p>
<p>In fact, all of us are getting a leg up through Questbridge. TECHNICALLY, our economic situation is not related to our academic performance and grades, but here we are, because people know that economic situations really are related. (I suppose the difference is that economic disadvantage is probably more justified than the state you live in, but it’s still an advantage.) And believe it or not, Race in America is too correlated with academic performance because of the way our system has fixed itself. Most black people in America grow up in environments that aren’t conducive to education, which is a problem that goes well beyond this discussion and that Affirmative Action will never fix. If you are born black in this country right now, there is a 70% chance you live with one or no parents, and you probably live in a poor neighborhood and are lucky if some of your peers even finished high school let alone went to college. When you start learning language, you are probably learning broken english (there went the SAT). And if that is your start in life, you are already quite a few steps behind your peers born into families where they have both parents, one probably at home. Compared to your White and Asian counterparts at your school, how many African Americans do you know of that can’t even form a sentence structured properly? That is learned at a very early age, and the public school system can’t fix that. I went to my uncle’s recently and he was watching one of his niece’s from his wife’s side. She is 8 years old and her speaking habits are horrid and ridden with ebonics already, even though she isn’t super ghetto or anything like that. It’s no wonder so many of us are doing poorly on tests like the SAT.</p>
<p>I’m not saying no one is wrong to be frustrated, but unless we standardize the education system in America and give everyone an equal footing economically and base everything on grades (like socialism in France. Everyone takes the same tests, no one does anything but study at school. If you make certain grades,you go to college. If you don’t, oh well.), things probably are going to stay this way.</p>
<p>By the way, I was reading yesterday about Duke admissions. Apparently Duke received 1800 applicants from African American students in 2005. It’s probably higher now. Given that Duke usually accepts about 20% of around 20,000 applicants, or 4,000 and Duke only has around 12% Black, I think a lot of of them are probably getting rejected.</p>
<p>usagi, you’re argument makes sense, but I think the main reason for economic AA is because many who are poor are also minority. So if you help the poor, you also help a significant amount of minorities. I think this is preferable, because it gives an advantage to the disadvantaged, instead of giving an advantage to those who may already be advantaged (wealthy minorities). I think that this comes closer to the ideal of AA, and also makes the entire process less controversial, as people can’t say “oh you got in because you’re so in so.” I doubt they would spite you for having an advantage because you were poor though. This would remove my advantage as well, because I am a middle minority. If anyone disagrees with me, please be nice. Thank you.</p>
<p>I don’t know. The reason I disagree with hahalolk is this:
Long before, I didn’t really believe in AA. After all, my parents, while not rich, are certainly middle class. Why do I need programs like National Achievement? or Affirmative Action?</p>
<p>Then, I examined my fellow Caucasian students (I go to a 96% white school) and realized something.
White people get the equivalent of AA all the time.
Every day, when Caucasians apply for a job,or watch television,go to the supermarket or buy cars they recieve unconscious benefits that are based on their race.
After all, most models seen on advertisements are white,tbh. When I was younger, my dislike of my skin color was largely influenced because most of the television shows and movies portray white characters as the sterotypical beauty. Twilight, anyone? Or for black guys, “Word Girl” , the new PBS show created to correct faulty vocabulary portrays a stupid,strong AA boy as an unwitting villian–playing on those stereotypes. My siblings aren’t allowed to watch that show anymore. On the bus, in 8th grade, I had a bunch of white 6th graders made racially and sexually charged comments about me.
Therefore, as a black girl, I am penalized for being black. I don’t see any white women clamoring about this…</p>
<p>My mother once went to a garage sale, she asked the woman about the price of a china set. The woman replied, “Oh, yeah, you can’t afford it.” She didn’t know that my mother had an M.D. She saw my mom’s race and immediately made assumptions.</p>
<p>According to CC’s show Black in AMerica, as a black man applying for a job- your chances are equal to that of a white man with a felony record.</p>
<p>When you grow up, become a professional, and buy a car; think about this. According to Malcolm Gladwell’s “blink” you will have to pay an average of 1,000 dollars more than your white counterparts.</p>
<p>I don’t see anyone complaining about this. Even as you took the PSATs, you were influenced by your race. Don’t believe me? Because you checked that box saying that you were black- you probably scored worse. Why? Well, the test reminded you of AA sterotypes. You can’t tell me that when you checked that box you didn’t for a moment think about all the other AA’s who fail the PSATS and feel like you had to prove yourself,right? Another study shows that when African Americans are reminded of their race before a test, they do worse on the test.
Chew on that.</p>
<p>Also, AA is needed because it supplants the negative image of an African American when applying for a job. People think black men are lazy/dangerous and bacl women are ugly/stupid. However, if you have a degree from Yale/Harvard?columbia- they are forced to reconsider their opinion. After all, you may have benefited from AA, but you had to be sort of smart to get into an ivy? right?
African Americans also benefit from AA becuase they learn how to function and understand the currency of white culture. Like for me, when I came to my school, I had to stop cursing so much and learn how to keep my feelings hidden more. I still didn’t know what Rocky was. Watching Rocky teaches me about white culture.</p>
<p>I argue that white people recieve benefits like AA, even stronger,in fact. So why shouldn’t we take this oppurtunity. After all, if more black go to ivies and the African American race lifts itself out of poverty -racism will end and AA will be useless.</p>
<p>^^^ Agreed. Smh the best part about being black is when I DO prove people wrong. You can be educated and black; it is not an oxymoron. People just don’t wanna accept that black people are far more than just entertainers. A lot of inventions that we still use every single day came from black people but got stamped with a white name.</p>
<p>Nil desperandum, that’s a very well thought out opinion, and it’s probably the most well thought out argument for race based affirmative action I have seen in a long time. Thank your for your perspective, as it has made me question mine as well.</p>
<p>I have posted my opinion before on one of these AA threads, and my opinion hasn’t changed. By the way, I am African American.</p>
<p>I agree with AA.</p>
<p>First off, AA is designed not soley for African Americans, and Latinos, but other groups such as women (especially applying as math/science/engineer majors), and individuals who are handicapped.</p>
<p>Referring to African Americans: </p>
<p>Secondly, AA helps African Americans as a whole. While there may be some affluent or well-off African Americans in this country, many are not.</p>
<p>Thirdly, African Americans score lower on the SAT than people of other ethnic backgrounds. Why? I don’t know. However, I know that SAT scores aren’t the greatest indicator of how people will perform in college. Colleges evaluate applicants based on a combination of GPA, ECs, essays, and test scores for this exact reason.</p>
<p>Fourthly, African Americans who are taking advantage of AA are obviously the ones who are on the road toward success. Do you really think a random black boy on the streets (who attends HS) is thinking about applying to schools such as Duke or Harvard or UVA? Also, these same African Americans most likely have pretty decent stats, and they use AA to give them that little push into the college of their choice.</p>
<p>Lastly, can you imagine how homogeneous college campuses would be if college admittance was based soley on the highest GPA and SAT? Again, this is why colleges view applicants holistically.</p>
<p>By the way, I lived in the projects of Brooklyn, NY and moved to VA in the 7th grade. I know how rough life can be, and fortunately, I was able to get away from such a bad environment.</p>
<p>And remember, all college committees have some way of selecting which students should attend their school. AA is just one of the many ways.</p>
<p>Bigwill, I would agree with you if you simply switched “african american” with poor. The goal of Affirmative Action is to eliminate the achievement gap of certain minorities versus whites, if I recall correctly. A large reason for this gap is because that many minorities are poor (as compared to white), and so that by giving them a slight boost in college admissions, the poor can earn a degree and join the middle class. I prefer this method because it helps all who are disadvantage because of income, rather than inadvertently helping well to do minorities (which does happen).</p>