<p>Like someone who you think not as intelligent as you are, or even not intelligent at all
Or someone who has little EC, or is just a normal, average high school senior ends up getting in?</p>
<p>For my school, everyone who got in for the past 2 years totally deserved it. From experience, I know most of them are very intelligent and sociable people. However, for my grade, which will be graduating next year, there are several students who display tremendous academic dishonesty and don’t deserve to get in. The people I’m talking about have 4.0s, 2300+s, and decent ECs, yet they cheated their way through high school and would probably have much lower stats if they didn’t cheat. One of them even stole his AP Bio teacher’s tests and had all the answers to every test of the school year. </p>
<p>There’s this other guy I know who got into Columbia with a 2000, 3.5, and few ECs just because he was black.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is he intelligent?</p>
<p>How much I hate affirmative action. Can someone explain to me the point again? What I’ve gathered is that it’s a way for universities to pay back for the awful hate crimes against Latinos, blacks and native Americans. Even with that, I don’t understand why under-qualified applicants deserve the nod over a brilliant Asian. Sure they might’ve not been pushed much, but it’s not like Asians or whites or any ORM get where they are based on just parental encouragement. It comes from within too.</p>
<p>@afraidtoapply: I don’t know him personally, since he goes to another school. However, from what I’ve heard, he’s pretty intelligent. </p>
<p>@addymithas: Agree. IMO it just doesn’t make any sense how Asians were also heavily discriminated against in the past, yet their chances are still greatly diminished by AA.</p>
<p>addymithas: I’m just speaking to the wind here I’m sure but here goes:</p>
<p>The main constituency that top schools have to answer to is their alumni and current students. They need to fulfill their current mission: to give a great undergraduate experience to current collegians. These schools believe that by bringing together a diverse community of scholars, they can better achieve that than just taking the metrically top 10% of applicants. That means they can vary the decision criteria for their immense applicant pools. That means that the can and will allow a top athlete in over another athlete who has better grades but isn’t as superior in the sport. That means they can accept a concert level musician with SATs lower than another musician who happens not to be as adept. It means they can accept the Latino student body president who scores a 30ACT (while his school’s average is 15 and maybe 8% of kids go to 4 year colleges) over the ORM salutatorian of a suburban HS with a 35 ACT.</p>
<p>Let’s make it even more pointed. Let’s say this second kid is Asian. The fact is there will be thousands just like him who will apply. But the Latino kid is frankly, more unique. And don’t worry, the top scoring Asian applicants who get turned away: they tend to do fine wherever they attend. The aren’t entitled to a spot at an Ivy. No one is.</p>
<p>And if you think all college admissions decisions should only cite academic merit, then you should be happy as a jay bird. Since about 80% of US colleges explicitly admit solely based on academic metircs. These brilliant Asians? They would be auto-admitted at these 80% of colleges in this country.</p>
<p>But that’s the rub, isn’t it? Many of the so-called top colleges practice holistic admissions and don’t solely admit based on metrics. Isn’t this admissions policy one of the reasons why these schools maintain or achieve their elite status? Can’t have your cake and eat it too.</p>
<p>BTW: I’m Asian Ivy alum if that matters much.</p>
<p>Asian ivy alum? Dude, congratulations! I get what you’re saying and all, but consider this:</p>
<p>Indian boy= 2360 sat
800’s on physics, math II and literature
3.9 ish UW GPA
4.6 ish or higher W GPA </p>
<p>Siemens enviro challenge winner
iPhone app creator
Intel semifinalist
Worker at national recycling program and researcher there
IT club creator
AIME 2 years
Physics team (don’t know much about it, let’s say he doesn’t make nationals)
Multiple essay contest winner
Created own programming company</p>
<p>And stellar essays </p>
<p>Black boy= 2000 sat
Low 700’s on world history and biology, math II 800
3.6 GPA UW
4.3 ish GPA W </p>
<p>Half the same ec’s of indian. </p>
<p>How are these two remotely comparable? Indian or Asian or white boy is waaaaay more qualified and it’s not even close.</p>
<p>"Can someone explain to me the point again? "</p>
<p>Not right or wrong; just all possible pro and con explanations and permutations of… “the point”. Usually ends up there within the third page or so. I think folks should have to read at least two iterations before launching into yet another diatribe.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/927219-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-8-a.html?highlight=faq[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/927219-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-8-a.html?highlight=faq</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/858679-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-7-a.html?highlight=faq[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/858679-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-7-a.html?highlight=faq</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/809185-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-6-a.html?highlight=faq[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/809185-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-6-a.html?highlight=faq</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/772621-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-5-a.html?highlight=faq[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/772621-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-5-a.html?highlight=faq</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/742349-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-4-a.html?highlight=faq[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/742349-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-4-a.html?highlight=faq</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/651345-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-3-a.html?highlight=faq[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/651345-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-3-a.html?highlight=faq</a></p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/547967-race-college-applications-faq-discussion.html?highlight=faq[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/547967-race-college-applications-faq-discussion.html?highlight=faq</a></p>
<p>Couldn’t find #2. but pretty sure there is nothing unique there either.</p>
<p>^^thats like silver and gold, they are both rare, but one is rarer than the other (the latter kid) Thus if they can only pick one, they’d probably pick the second kid. Personally, i’d take both.</p>
<p>Wow this thread turned off topic rather quickly…
But anyway, I feel that people who already think they are “undeserved” will usually not have the confidence or the drive to stand out in the application process. Someone who gets accepted to one of the eight will already know that they, not necessarily “deserve,” a spot, but that they have the ability to do the work and a predisposition towards success.</p>
<p>About the race issue, something I posted in another thread…</p>
<p>AA is in place for a reason, because it’s fair. It doesn’t have to do with slavery or paying reparations or any of that bs. It’s because there are less African Americans who preform well academically in the country, and as a result, the ones who do will be rewarded for it. The point of affirmative action is to even out social races in terms of educational and economical opportunity. </p>
<p>If you keep denying a race admission to top colleges, based solely on academic accomplishments, that race will stay in the same position of society. The fact is, many minorities have not had as many privileges as others, and if their background is ignored, their race will be ignored, and they will never climb up the social ladder.</p>
<p>I hardly think race is a less fair thing to take into consideration than sex, academic interests, or ability to play the oboe. Holistic admissions are looking for diversity in all senses of the word.</p>
<p>When affirmative action was created by President Johnson, it’s main goal was to empower descendants of former slaves. Obviously, that assumption is out of sync with today’s realities. However, given what the most elite colleges and universities are marketing (an exciting, vibrant environment in which one gets an outstanding education), affirmative action continues to be necessary. What constitutes that environment? Without diverse perspectives, a classroom climate is less vibrant. Students learn less from a student body with a universally similar experience.</p>
<p>When proposition 209 was voted into law on CA in 1998, black enrollment at UCLA and UCB dropped from 211 to 96 and 258 to 140, respectively. If you look at SAT scores by ethnicity, Asian-Americans and Whites consistently trump Black and Mexican-American students. Eliminating affirmative action would most likely lead to a student body consisting almost wholly of whites and Asian Americans. College is supposed to be a “model commonwealth”–not consisting of homogeneity.</p>
<p>Just because I’m a white girl who was burned by her top choice LAC doesn’t mean I can’t recognize the necessity of affirmative action.</p>
<p>First, I didnt found this thread to discuss race. Im talking about those kids who you are familiar with, and generally you assume they wont make it into Ivies because theyre too mundane, or not as inteligent as Ivy calibers
Second, Im an Asian myself and I know life isnt fair. Please steer straight of the AA topic</p>
<p>ANyone undeserving of an ivy league school that gets accepted will very soon realize that he/she made the biggest mistake of her life by going to that ivy league. In the end, if the adcoms don’t filter out the “weak” or the “undeserving” applicants, the competition within the school will. Just remember that. It is a fact. </p>
<p>There i have put an end to your thread. You need not anymore stories because of its fatal destination.</p>
<p>kllllllllll</p>
<p>I would disagree. I want to you guys to be subjective. Just don’t go overboard, or steer of into racial matters</p>
<p>No offense, but this thread feels kind of petty - just like a way for students to complain about people with lower stats than them who got into Ivy League schools. How do you know a student’s full profile? Yes, I knew a few kids who got into Ivy schools who were double legacies, for example, and were not as academically inclined as their peers, but what is the point of this thread? To commiserate and feel superior to others?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Should highly selective universities practice affirmative action in favor of European American applicants over Asian American applicants, as they are widely assumed to be doing?</p>
<p>I think what the OP meant when he said that was because he wanted people to be truthful about what they think, and not to let subjectivity gets in their way. Perhaps he’s trying to see something out of that?</p>