<p>Let's be honest. If you're an Asian living in California, this conversation probably has come up once or twice in your high school career.</p>
<p>How do you think being Asian will affect your chances now that Berkeley has reinstated the affirmative action policy?</p>
<p>Sorry if I made this thread sound so Asian focused. All ethnicities PLEASE feel free to post your opinions! If you guys have any facts or articles on this issue, that would be nice to post as well.</p>
<p>“now that Berkeley has reinstated the affirmative action policy”
it hasn’t passed yet has it?</p>
<p>And yes it’s going to hurt Asians. It probably won’t affect white kids’ chances in any way, but will try to replace Asians with minorities.</p>
<p>Rainbows are awesome…</p>
<p>But on a more serious note, it seems that the current UC system which is pretty much a meritocracy has lead to a racially homogenized college demographic, at least relative to the system before Prop 209. This isn’t surprising since certain races are higher up on the socioeconomic ladder than others due to a vast variety of reasons which I won’t spend time going into, and thus a pure meritocracy gives those on the higher end of the socioeconomic ladder (Generally whites and Asians [btw Asians means all nationalities of the Asian continent]) a stronger chance of getting in since many have educated parents who will thus have high social and cultural views on education, which will then cause those kids to consequentially do well. So perhaps some form of diversity may be required to help equalize things, and yes equalize and “fairness” translate to less white and Asian kids being admitted but sadly we have a law of conservation, when one gains, another loses, so tough cookies and honestly if you don’t get into a top tier university because of ‘diversity’, well go to another college with a good scholarship get a kick butt GPA and go to grad school at the top school. It’s your final degree that matters most anyway. </p>
<p>I hope I don’t offend anyone by saying these things.</p>
<p>PS: My parents are from Malaysia so that makes me Asian. And one is an engineer and the other a doctor, and I honestly believe that if they weren’t college educated that there is a chance that my academic skills wouldn’t be at the level they are today, so being on the high end of the socioeconomic ladder does make a difference in my honest opinion. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t impossible to excel academically if you’re poor however. Some Kids in India and China manage to excel despite horrid living conditions.</p>
<p>Diivio</p>
<p>I must disagree with your argument, especially the “tough cookies” portion. Firstly, I come from a blue collar white family with absolutely no history of higher education. Through my own determination and hard work I managed to gain admission to the best public university in the world. Now how is that fair that I should get denied due to affirmative action? I realize that there are disparities in the socio-economic racial spheres, but it would be just as big a mistake to take the opportunity from one person to give it to another based on the issue of race. Does not favoring admissions in terms of race legitimize racism? I agree that there are monumental problems in terms of diversity on many college campuses, but denying slots for the most qualified students in order to make room for those who are merely of a different race is not only unjust, but it would create a less intellectually merited campus. I don’t have the answer to solve the diversity problem, but I do know that all affirmative action will do is create white and asian resentment towards the incoming minority students who in some cases would be less qualified than people being denied because of race.</p>
<p>I don’t really feel like participating in this particularly controversial discussion, but Berkeley is no where near the best public university in the world lol . . . . unless Cambridge and Oxford were suddenly erased off of the face of the Earth.</p>
<p>…and the bill has been vetoed! </p>
<p>:)</p>
<p>@Brian Super Tramp:</p>
<p>You are absolutely right but when I think of affirmative action I think it should be based on socioeconomic status as opposed to race. I don’t favor affirmative action based solely on race, since an URM who parents are neurosurgeons obviously shouldn’t be given preference to you Brian Super Tramp (lol nice name btw).</p>
<p>And yes personally I’d like no affirmative action as well but as we can see, that doesn’t help URMs and I don’t know I’m not trying to sound like a liberal (b/c I’m not), but it just doesn’t feel right in my heart saying we have a pure meritocracy even though we know some groups have a disproportionately harder time going into a certain field or area that others. I mean look at the ratio of men to women in engineering, why is it that the number of women becoming doctors is increasing at an insanely high rate but the number of women becoming scientists (non biology-related) and engineers aren’t nearly as high? Should we as a society care about these inequalities or just ignore them? I guess I don’t really know anymore…</p>
<p>But I guess as a future engineer I should I should ignore my feelings and based all my decisions on science/math and blind myself to these socioeconomic issues and say everything should be based on a meritocracy, despite one’s background. I guess you’re right then Brian.</p>
<p>@caics</p>
<p>Well its in the top 50 and its at least the top public in the USA. Really inconsequential in the big picture</p>
<p>Brown was articulate, as always, with the reasons he vetoed SB185, although he agreed with the basis and rationale for the bill. Nice for the first time in a LONG time, we have a governor who actually reads these bills, asks questions, considers them, and most importantly, understands them. Then IMO, does what he believes is the right thing, whether or not it wins him votes.</p>
<p>I’m white, and come from a fairly middle class family, and I’m pro affirmative action in a purely economic sense, I think if you grow up with parents speaking in Ebonics you probably won’t score an 800 verbal, also, Cambridge and oxford are public universities? I thought they were private</p>
<p>The vast majority of the top universities in Europe and Asia are public. </p>
<p>Many of them have far far stronger student bodies than Berkeley in terms of academic ability and some of them rival Berkeley’s research capabilities.</p>
<p>^Berkeley’s undergraduate engineering programs are ranked as one of the best not only in the nation but in the world by both US and non US ranking systems, and if you remove the private schools from the list, then it’s at the top or in the top 3 usually. And I’m sure our chemistry program fares better or equal to that.</p>
<p>You are right about the vast majority of the top universities in Europe and Asia being public though. But how do you quantify “academic ability”? By grades? By creativity? By access to resources? The last two are hard to measure and unless there are universal exams for every college major given to every student of every university in the world, the grades part is also hard to judge.</p>
<p>Terms like “stronger student bodies” and “academic ability” in my opinion are somewhat subjective.</p>
<p>Heck some companies are founded by dropouts, so do we measure one’s intelligence by their ability to monopolize on an idea, or their ability to think critically and accurately to produce correct answers on a piece of paper in a limited amount of time? But what if some countries don’t provide the same entrepreneurial access as other countries?</p>
<p>So many inequalities exist that any form of ranking and judging in my opinion is somewhat full of BS (no pun intended) that group-based comparisons as opposed to focusing on individuals always make me skeptical.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In higher education, it is widely believed that affirmative action in admissions favors white over Asian applicants; if this is true, someone like you would likely benefit from it.</p>
<p>@ ucbalumnus</p>
<p>Its not a question of whether it would help me, even it if would, I got in through my own hard work. It is a question of fairness and I would still oppose it. If someone was more qualified than me, than I should find another university to attend.</p>
<p>^Another sad thing about AA is that for those people whom society perceives benefits from AA are then sometimes looked down upon with the thought “Oh they got in partially because of AA” and similar thoughts like that.</p>
<p>By eliminating AA, anyone who gets into what society calls a “prestigious university” will get in without resentment by others regardless or their race or socioeconomic status.</p>
<p>Sigh. Rankings, prestige, fame, recognition…Ugh these words make me sick to my stomach sometimes. I was valedictorian on my HS class but when does such a title need to exist. I should be satisfied with my achievement and it is really not society’s business how I fared against others, it’s freaking learning, not competing in a market.</p>
<p>Does anyone know is Pacific Islander is classified along with Asian? Thanks.</p>
<p>^I’m half Pacific Islander and no I’m pretty sure it’s not considered Asian, but it depends on the form, some forms say Asian/Pacific Islander, and other forms separate them. So the answer is it depends, but on the Cal Application I think it’s separate.</p>