<p>White student: valedictorian, 4.0, 2200 SAT, 35 ACT, ASB pres., other leadership ECs</p>
<p>URM student: 3.8, 1800 SAT, 28 ACT, fewer ECs and few leadership positions</p>
<p>Who do you think colleges would choose?</p>
<p>These are pointless threads. Obviously the white student.</p>
<p>Well, no, not obviously. I think you underestimate the power of affirmative action.</p>
<p>The white.
I think you overestimate the power of affirmative action. Affirmative action won't get underqualified candidates into top schools by itself.</p>
<p>That's a huge difference there, and it's not just numbers--you point out fewer EC and leadership positions.</p>
<p>All else aside, we need to know more.</p>
<p>I have read many pro-AA essays and the rationale behind it is that students who are "underprivileged" may APPEAR underqualified on paper, but if given a chance to succeed, and then given some extra attention, they will be able to succeed even at a very competetive college. So, no, I do not believe I am overestimating.</p>
<p>You are, but not as much as people think. Take away the white kid's Val status, and give the URM another 100 points and it's very competitive.</p>
<p>Well, essays aside, you're going to need to fill in your little straw people here with some more details for us to comment on them reasonably. We don't know much about imaginary white / URM kids A and B. "Underpriveleged" and URM aren't synonymous. Further, in those situations, there would be a backstory explaining why aforesaid student wasn't scoring as high as white-boy over there. Without that story in front of us, we have no choice but to assume the worst. Which is what colleges would do, too, without any more information.</p>
<p>Do these kids go to the same school? If so my GPA thinking differs. What are the quintiles for this imaginary school? Etc.</p>
<p>Here's your story.</p>
<p>White kid is a typical middle class kid with educated parents. However, he is dyslexic and has had to work very hard to overcome both his learning disability and teasing.</p>
<p>URM kid also comes from a middle class family with educated parents. His parents are from Liberia and he is a first-generation American.</p>
<p>AA works to push an equally qualified or slightly less qualified URM ahead of a white (or asian) student, not to push a completely unqualified student ahead of a much more qualified one.</p>
<p>If the two students had identical ECs and equal SATs/ACTs, with the white student having a 4.0 vs the URMs 3.8, I'd say the URM student would have a better shot. But the case you give is just silly.</p>
<p>Ridiculous wash. Flip a coin.
[in the silly scenario]</p>
<p>It's not silly, it's based on two kids who graduated from my school last year. They applied to a few of the same schools -- black kid was accepted everywhere he applied, including UCLA, Brown and Penn, and the white kid was rejected from both UCLA and Penn.</p>
<p>Right, and two clones of white kid were accepted at those places.</p>
<p>What's your point? The black kid was still chosen over the white kid... the colleges accepted/rejected them in the context of the same school... where they were each other's competition.</p>
<p>In the case you give, the URM student may have had less ECs and less leadership ECs, however the ECs that he did have could have been a lot more unique and showed more character. </p>
<p>The essay can make a huge differenc and he could have written a better essay. He could have had better recommendations. There are far too many variables to even say that the White kid was the better candidate, race aside.</p>