“I also think there’s a weird type of envy when certain people go out of their way to diminish the accomplishments of others and try to rationalize them by attributing their accomplishments to factors outside of their control.”
@TheAtlantic – you can call it envy - or you can call it by what it is: bigotry. White people (and I’m one of them) generally have no clue what it means to be black in America. That to succeed, you have to be twice as good, and twice as lucky as the average white dude, given how unequal this society is and the odds of meeting a premature end if you’re black, male and in the wrong place at the wrong time. (Trayvon Martin, anyone?)
And the sad reality is your academic success is not the first nor the last time your competence and hard work will be questioned. Your intelligent post above shows more grace than those “certain people” deserve. Good luck to you. Go get 'em. Change the world; it needs it.
@katiamom, I believe the real divide in America is not race but class. I think low-income white people can relate to what low-income black people are going through than the Obama girls for example. While proportionally there are fewer upper-class and middle-class minorities than white folks, there are still quite a few of the former, and I believe they afford their children the same privileges as white parents in the same income bracket. So no, I don’t believe all the URM’s have to work twice as hard and be twice as good to succeed. But those who don’t have parents paying for tutors or private lessons in music/sport, who don’t have parents encouraging them to study and aim for the stars - regardless of skin color, these kids truly go an extra mile to attain their achievements, I take off my hat for these kids and believe they deserve all the breaks they are given by top universities, both admission wise and finances-wise.
I think that one problem is that people think there can only be one divide: race or class. When it comes to opportunity, treatment, and expectations for youth it is undeniable that both come into play. College admissions doesn’t have to pick between addressing one or the other, so they address both. Obviously not every URM is low income (I’m not low income), but even middle class and upper class URMs face challenges. There are implicit biases in how children of different races are treated from the start. Stanford studies found that teachers prefer harsher discipline for minority children, studies on racial empathy gaps find that people of all races find that they believe blacks people experience pain to lesser degrees, and high school teachers across the board were found to set lower expectations for their black students. Imagine how those implicit biases carry over into grading and overall treatment. This doesn’t even address non-academic racism.
This also ignores the issue of racial segregation in school districting that impacts the quality of education even within a county (I attend a school whose hs redistricting was racially motivated. It has bred two high ranking majority white high schools, and two black high schools with below average test scores and some below average teachers. A 5th high school was also built primarily to appease local white residents)
I live in a county that was sued by the NAACP and lost. I’ve seen school board meetings where parents literally said that their students are the “geese that law the golden eggs” and they their students shouldn’t have to intermingle with kids like me. Schools are so divided here, elementary school teachers will turn up their noses and say “I’m so sorry” when they learn what school your feeder is.
I don’t think race, gender, income, etc. are the end all be all. But I also don’t think we need to agree on which issue divides us “most” or which issue is “most harmful” or deserves the most remedy. Colleges seem to have a system in place for dealing with that.
Also sorry for all these long posts. But as my college journey ends I think that we need to reevaluate how we look at the college process. I just think there’s so much negativity that doesn’t actually have to exist. The college search is an individual journey, and it’s about figuring out where your next four years will be as you plan your future. I don’t think it’s a “big” deal in the grand scheme. I think it’s a “big” step in our lives though. And as we progress, we need to evaluate how we look at kids that get into 8 ivies or get shut out or whatever. (My attempt at keeping this on topic lol)
"Tippy top seniors seem to differentiate themselves; they’re outgoing, savvy about their brand, and practice subtle self-promo from 9th to 12th. "
I think savvy about their brand followed by self-promo puts an unsavory taint on the students who simply walk into class being who they are: bright, engaged, curious, able to push the conversation to the next level, witty, unselfconscous and without guile or intent to manipulate attention their way.
There really are students for whom the sheer act of learning and engaging in intelligent discourse is the stuff of life.
If you read our local newspapers you’d think that only URMs get into Harvard et al. After my kids were actually in high school I realized that they are in the paper because it’s rare not common.
Years ago, when my son was still in high school, I did a long post comparing him with one of his close friends, a URM. They had lots in common, including adjacent (high) class ranks, almost identical schedules, and a girlfriend (not at the same time). But if you looked around the area, it would have been easy to find 50-60 kids who were essentially identical to my son in terms of demographics, grades, test scores, and personality. All of them were impressive students and great kids. But all of them were essentially following a path clearly marked out for them at birth and supported by their families and communities every step of the way, with lots of models for what choices you could make and how to handle setbacks. They were essentially meeting a set of clear expectations, that’s it. (Which is not to say many of them weren’t capable of more, just that they hadn’t shown that yet.)
The friend was almost certainly the single top student that year in his ethnic group in the region, probably by a wide margin. No one in his family had graduated from high school, much less gone to a selective university. From middle school on, when he got interested in science, everything he had done had been forging his own path with no models in his community (actually, quite a bit of hostility and resentment), and plenty of love but no practical guidance from his family. Everything he accomplished was a testament to his absolutely extraordinary strength of character.
There was no question in my mind – in anybody’s mind, including my son’s – that the friend was and deserved to be a much better candidate for admission to ultra-selective colleges. (He was waitlisted by Harvard, though, which took an ORM two slots down in class rank whom everyone considered the smartest kid in the class.)
@JHS, In this case, he is clearly worthy of a slot at any school. But for a URM from a upper middle class, the case is not so clear cut, although the reality is that such a person will enjoy as much an advantage as your son’s friend.
To further reinforce @hzhao2004 's point, there are many non-URM students with a similar background of poverty throughout the country, and they do not receive the same bump. That is why I believe that a bump should only be given based upon class, not race.
So I’m from a fairly middle class background. When I moved to my school district at 6 every high school was majority white and high performing. After a neighboring county (majority black, very poor schooling background, high crime) lost accreditation, many flocked into our county. Schools were built and redistricted on blatantly racist lines (my other post has more detail) and the school I ended up attending saw a massive dip in quality. This occurred during the housing crash and there was no way my parents were able to change my school. In your mind I wouldn’t receive a bump because money is the only determinant, not race. The median salary for black families is actually higher than for white families in my county, but the power structure is overwhelmingly white and they made the choice on how to organize the schools after “undesirables” moved in.
I think some institutions are more explicitly and implicitly discriminatory than we would like to admit. There’s a reason why race is a factor in admissions at Ivy institutions and the like. Your race does impact how people treat you in many aspects.
The idea that high-income URMs are the primary beneficiary of this process is untrue in my experience, but mainly because the majority of URMs don’t fit into the mold of “that one decently achieving, high income minority at a high ranking white hs”. They’re just extrapolations made in an attempt to reject the entirety of affirmative action. Because people that don’t often interact with black people, or that don’t live in/near typical black communities, often don’t see the full picture.
First off, you are wrong that excellent students from low-income backgrounds don’t receive a significant bump at ultraselective colleges. They do. It may not be the same as the equivalent URM, but no one has a precise points system to measure these things, anyway. A great student from a tough background is a hot property.
You are also wrong that well-to-do URMs enjoy an equal advantage to poor URMs. They don’t. The fact of the matter, though, is that it’s very hard to get critical mass for a group of minority students based solely on poor students, and the chances for success of poor minority students go way down if there isn’t a critical mass of students from the same group. And it’s important to show people – majority and minority alike – that minorities can succeed and thrive the way majority people do. So there’s value in having affluent minorities around.
I agree that there are important differences between the lives of poor URMs and rich URMs, but there are also a lot of really important similarities that majority people have trouble appreciating. I have a good friend who is a successful African-American lawyer. He and his wife, also African-American, have four Harvard degrees (and one Stanford degree) between them. Sure, their kids – all of whom were recruited athletes – spent more time worrying about which college to pick than about which college would pick them. But I guarantee they brought experiences and perspectives to the table that were significantly different than those of their white classmates.
I don’t support the beliefs of the girl in that video. And I’m not necessarily I’m sure what you’re getting at in the post. Yes, all groups can face challenges and discrimination. I think it’s extremely shortsighted to ignore the fact that it’s a totally different set of issues that arise when you are a minority though. Income is an important factor in your life and how you are treated, but it isn’t the only one.
Admissions is multi-faceted, and I think for good reason.
Someday, TheAtlantic, I’d like to know who you are, follow you over the next decades.
Here’s my problem with anything that touches race or SES on a forum where people contribute with some anonymity:
Many really can’t fathom that poor kids or URMs can best the competition. First there is so little understanding of what the top colleges are truly looking for, what constitutes worthiness and excellence, the maturity and drive to go far, make a difference. Second, people are stereotyping. That shows every time they try to explain or constrain, every time they are Oh So Amazed that Black or Hispanic kid knocked socks off. (Wow, a great Black kid!) They lean toward excuses and false comparisons. They accept simplistic info that lower performing schools undeniably yield lower quality educations, lower teacher quality and standards, lower personal drive and vision…and by gummy, what a miracle when a top kid comes from that. And even when it does, it must have been URM that tipped him/her in.
Sad. We should each examine our own preconceptions.
Of course URM’s and poor URM’s can best the competition. However, if it’s so common or easily envisioned as to not be newsworthy (and these stories do tend to make the news) or noteworthy (unlike the brainy Asian STEM kid), then on that day affirmative action and diversity policies will be unnecessary. Until then you can’t have it both ways. It can’t be “No one understands what URM’s go through and how tough life is for them” AND “Why are you all surprised the URM made it big?”
I appreciate the many, many contributions you make to CC, but I think you are generalizing here when you say:
Sure there are many prejudiced people out there (look at the support for a certain Presidential candidate). But to assume that anyone who doesn’t blindly support race-based affirmative action is prejudiced, is itself prejudiced.
When I say that I am for class-based affirmative action, I say so knowing very well that my children will receive no such bump from it, and that many URMs will benefit from it. And I think that I am hardly alone–most people will cheer the hardworking student who overcomes odds, without race being a factor.
“can’t be “No one understands what URM’s go through and how tough life is for them” AND “Why are you all surprised the URM made it big?””
Sure it can. A particular URM could be both well accomplished via the usual metrics (SAT, GPA, ECs, etc) AND no one can understand what they go through. I, White Girl, don’t get followed with suspicion through department stores. I don’t get stopped by the police because they suspect I “don’t belong” in an affluent neighborhood. I don’t see why those 2 things couldn’t coexist.