<p>pokm12 hit the nail on the head. IMO it’s insulting to minority students to imply that Harvard couldn’t manage to get, say, 170 extremely qualified black students without AA. I’ll add that socioeconomic background is far more important. Admissions officers will view your accomplishments in context and pay careful attention to what you were afforded. So yes, this often means that a low-income/disadvantaged Asian applicant has a better chance of admission than an upper-income/privileged black applicant (yup, that goes against conventional CC wisdom, but that’s the reality of the shifting landscape in elite higher education, and has been increasingly the case for a few years now; you can see this happening in the ‘results’ threads as well). </p>
<p>Race is used more to make sure that there isn’t a severe imbalance, but obviously no quotas exist; at worst, only loose targets exist, which is why minority enrollment fluctuates from year to year, depending on Harvard’s recruitment efforts, etc.</p>
<p>@bioguy: "Transcripts are unequivocally the most important aspect of your application.
-Dean of Admissions at Stanford "</p>
<p>granted. But once a threshold of academic ability is reached, why can’t Stanford look at its aggregate pool of those who have met this standard critically? What if, after the first cut of those below the threshold is done, they see that 30% of the remaining pool wants to major in music or theater? Do they just line up everyone on a numerical graph of high to low scores/GPA and take the top 3500 students without regard to what resources they have to meet music or theater students? </p>
<p>I think you know the dictionary def’n of “diversity” but I think you’re not aware of how diversity – whether ethnic, intenational/domestic, gender, potential area of study, athletic, legacy, super-talent, etc. means to any institution.</p>
<p>If you propose admissions solely based on merit alone, you (and your friend who was already accepted) luckily have thousands of options. But why are you considering Harvard with what you’d consider an “unfair” or imperfect admissions philosophy?</p>
<p>They (and peer schools) haven’t changed their philosophy in quite a while. They’ve eagerly engineered their classes with soft quotas for a generation – much to your chagrin. But let’s step back and look at the results.</p>
<p>You and tens of thousands of others are in a lather trying to get yourselves or your kids into these schools. Why? Because they AREN’T 80% Indian/Chinese or solely filled with top “merit” applicants.</p>
<p>They have found a formula that they are entitled to practice. How has society rewarded/penalized them? If society found this to be so noisome, why all the bother? Beyond Caltech and somewhat, UCB, most of the so-called “top 25” colleges practice some sort of holistic evaluation and emphasis on diversity. Where are all your “purer” colleges that practice merit only or lack of diversity recruitment policies?</p>
<p>*All colleges really want to see is that you took advantage of every opportunity that was given to you. They want a go-getter, not a sit-on-the-porch-and-complain-about-everything-er. *
Just one add: the more selective the college, the more important it is that you go beyond what was handed to you. Beyond a few predictable hs activities, the same old 3pm things. That you climb out of that comfort zone, both in terms of your own interests/directions and the needs around you.</p>
<p>Bioguy, it’s important to be able to view this in the whole context. Quotes out of context are for marketeers. </p>
<p>Stanford also writes:
Students often focus on getting in rather than representing themselves authentically…In the strongest applications we read, a student’s genuine voice stands out.</p>
<p>In response to a Princeton admit who’s black and was feeling down on herself because her peers, their parents, and even her own teachers were looking down on her for getting in, thebioguy said to her: “It’s because you’re black and you’re 3.7 g.p.a/ 31 ACT meant affirmative action played a big role in it … Most likely, your peer worked just as hard as you but didn’t get in because they weren’t a minority and this adds to their anger.”</p>
<p>It’s best not to pay much attention to someone so entrenched in his (uninformed) beliefs.</p>
<p>They don’t release statistics for this sort of thing, so all people can use are anecdotes.</p>
<p>Regardless, I don’t think it makes any sense to suggest that people who don’t like a policy for being, in their eyes, discriminatory, should boycott the university. The whole point is they don’t want to be discriminated against in their pursuit of opportunities afforded to them at a college like Harvard. </p>
<p>It also doesn’t make sense to say that affirmative action is actually based all on socioeconomic factors rather than race. If this was true, then colleges would not consider race in the application, and it would be called socioeconomic affirmative action, not racial affirmative action.</p>
<p>Really only until one becomes a college admissions officer can one truly say what helps or not. I really like what phantasmagoric said, schools like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton do not have to lower their academic standards for any race that applies. Implying that an AA or Hispanic individual was accepted into those Universities simply because of their race is extremely hurtful to those individuals, most of whom worked just as hard as their counterparts who got in.</p>
<p>I think the overall problem with people who like to rant against Affirmative Action is that they believe the only indicator of success at a university is academics. They also tend to feel the same sense of entitlement they are supposedly fighting against, except this time one based on what they believe to be their superior academic abilities. </p>
<p>No, I understand that perfectly fine. I would like someone to persuade me if they can that I’m wrong, because I would rather be wrong, but I don’t think I am.</p>
<p>Harvard: Practices affirmative action</p>
<p>African American 12%
Asian American 18%
Hispanic or Latino 12%
Native American or Pacific Islander 2%</p>
<p>Berkeley: Illegal to practice affirmative action</p>
<p>Let me be clear in my argument, I’m saying that URM’s receive a significant advantage in the admissions process and this shouldn’t be.
It’s unconstitutional, and promotes the idea that because Blacks and Hispanics inherently have less opportunities should be given benefits. I find this offensive to minorities, and anyone who is promoting affirmative action is in fact ignorant.</p>
<p>And obviously, there is a subjection part of admissions, no doubt about it, but that should be reserved for EC’s, Rec’s, Essays, and not the color of your skin. Why does diversity have to be racial?</p>
<p>“Universities simply because of their race is extremely hurtful to those individuals, most of whom worked just as hard as their counterparts who got in”</p>
<p>I’m sick of this argument because you guys also use this argument in response to when a white/asian applicant gets rejected with stellar stats. You guys tell him, it dosen’t matter how hard you worked, you are foolish to believe you deserve a spot, because admissions is not based on hard work.</p>
<p>And no, the URM’s who have gotten into ivies, most of the time, have not worked nearly as hard as them.</p>
<p>Agreed. There are black and hispanic 2400/4.0s out there too. I am personally insulted by the insinuation that most ivy league minorities are not as deserving as others. Maybe the minority that beat you out of your spot at Harvard was just a better candidate.</p>
<p>The weirdest argument for affirmative action is that it doesn’t really exist–that is, affirmative action does not give a boost to minorities because: </p>
<p>a) affirmative action is really all socioeconomic (if it was, then race would not be considered in admission)
b) admission is holistic, so lower statistics don’t imply that race was used as a factor.
This may be true in individual cases. If stats between races are equal, then affirmative action would only be necessary if the level of achievement in ECs are different. That could be true, but it doesn’t address the heart of the issue of whether AA is fair.
If the stats and ECs are at the same level, then again, affirmative action doesn’t do anything at all and might as well not exist.<br>
c) race doesn’t “get you in” because everything is considered. This is true, but there is always some threshold of achievement, however subjectively determined, that one needs to clear to be admitted. Basically, an admission policy makes no difference if it doesn’t change one “deny” to an “admit.”
d) race in and or itself is a form of merit because you are bringing something unique to the campus. This seems like a weird argument to me…
e) there are very qualified minorities out there (2400/4.0). This is true, but how is this relevant to an affirmative action argument? These people would probably not need this policy to get in, so there existence doesn’t support the continuation of affirmative action.</p>
<p>Ok, then, this has happened several times at my school, this is 1st hand experience. I will be as specific as possible.</p>
<p>A rank 20-30 Hispanic applicant, with a 1950 SAT superscore was acceptance into Harvard. She joined a few clubs and became VP of NHS because she said that’s what colleges love. She wasn’t really popular with any of the teachers, I would say they even disliked her.</p>
<p>A rank 1 Asian applicant, with a 2320 SAT, rejected from all ivies and is going to Berkeley. All the teacher loved him, he was funny, outgoing, always polite and so on. He loved robotics, engineering and spent most of his time doing that. He was captain of a world winning robotics team. </p>
<p>You can’t possible tell me that if their races were switched, that the results would not same.</p>
<p>And why do you guy’s think Adcoms always throw around the word “holistic” in almost every dam interview. Simple, they want to get more students to apply. Do you really thing universities don’t have an agenda? I’m not saying that the process isn’t holistic in a sense but they emphasize all the non academic portions of admissions so much. This is because most students don’t get 2200+ SAT’s. Thus, in order to get their acceptance rates lower, they want the unqualified applicants to apply. Of course I can be wrong, but its healthy to be skeptical. I’m not cynical, just skeptical and it would do you guys good to be skeptical.</p>
<p>A very small amount of black and Hispanic 2400/4.0s? And how do you know this? Where are your stats? Without stats you could just be pulling opinions out of your butt! Opinions without facts mean very little. </p>
<p>Again with your little anecdotes all you are focusing on is the numbers. Did you read their essays, did you read the letter of Rec’s the teacher’s wrote for her and him? Colleges won’t see the direct person, they will only see representations of the person through their writing…analyze their essays then maybe you can make a comparison.</p>
<p>You know next year when that girl goes to Harvard she will do just fine academically even with her 1950 SAT going in. Ivy league Colleges don’t accept kids that can’t do the work. Besides if you like anecdotes how do you explain the African American with a 2400 SAT score and 800 Subject test score that got rejected from all the Ivys as pokm12 pointed out? Since he is African American shouldn’t he have gotten in automatically according to your model?</p>
<p>Also maybe they say holistic…because it is holistic!?! Skepticism can be useful as long as it is reasonable and supported with evidence. It loses all appeal once you delve into the world of hypothetical.</p>
<p>Of course there are exceptions…lots of exceptions. That is the exact reason why your model cannot work at all! You are making hasty generalizations about things you do not know and cannot possibly understand. Fallacies? Really, like what? In that last paragraph I made no claims that could be considered fallacious in anyway. Maybe the anecdote could be skewed as such, but I was using that to show the weakness not only in your model but in the overall use of anecdotes. I took TOK, I am very familiar with fallacies in reasoning thank you very much!</p>
<p>Essays and letters of Rec don’t constitute all of the weight, but they DO make up a large part of the decision if you go by what the Dean of Harvard Admissions said in that video. Also, again, you are making claims without any evidence. You aren’t even a senior yet, so you can’t possible have any experience with college applications other than what you learn from admission officers and even them you believe to have some secret agenda judging from your views in post #37.</p>