<p>The word ‘diversity’ is thrown around too much in this context.</p>
<p>Seriously…when people are looking for diversity, they are often looking for their ethnic/religious group. This comes up all the time on CC. An Asian student/parent may ask for schools where there are a good number of Asians, a Jewish student/parent may ask for schools where there are a good number of Jewish kids, a African American student/parents may ask for schools where there are a good number of AA students. Etc, etc, etc. </p>
<p>That doesn’t mean that they are racists…they just feel that they (their kids) will fit in better in a school where their ethnic/religious group has a decent representation.</p>
<p>Sometimes, we see the opposite – Asian students looking for schools with the smallest number of Asian students, to avoid the perceived or real disadvantage that being Asian has on one’s chances of being admitted to a school with large numbers of Asian students.</p>
<p>“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” 1963 . . . and still counting.</p>
<p>When I look for diversity in colleges I am looking for fewer people like ourselves. (White upper middle class.) I don’t see much of it. The tech schools and the California schools have lots of Asians (I can tell they are from different places, but nevertheless they are gravitating to certain schools.) I haven’t seen any universities that my kids were considering that had significant numbers of Hispanics or African Americans. It’s not that I want to judge people by the color of their skins, it’s just that I think we are better off if we get to know people who aren’t like ourselves. College is a good time to do this - especially for students who didn’t go to a high school like ours. (40% white, 40% African American, 15% Hispanic (and growing), 5% or so Asian, 10% or so foreign not Hispanic. Economically kids with parents on welfare to kids living in mansions.)</p>
<p>There is no need for question, it is known fact. In particular, URMs know that they can get into Med. Schools with much lower stats., so they do not need to try as hard. It is very known and openly stated fact that nobody even feel bad about any more. Nobody is even ashamed anyhow to mention it, everybody on both sides just need to keep it mind.</p>
<p>It might be interesting to note that over the years, the goal of affirmative action seems to have shifted as its proponents try to stay one step ahead of the people who don’t like it. First it was to rectify the effects of past wrongs (especially slavery…though even if you just arrived you got it too), then it was on to things like counterbalancing pervasive racism (among admissions people?), making up for inequality in high school preparation (so in order to make ourselves feel good, let’s push students into academic situations they aren’t prepared for). And so on. These days, its proponents often pretend to be most concerned with the quality of education that rich white kids get at the top schools…they are so concerned that Chauncy III will take over the family business empire without having actually met an ethnic minority. They are so kind to worry about rich white folks like that!</p>
<p>The question Why is pretty much irrelevant. Just keep in mind that it is there and proceed with what you need to do to get to your goal. I talked about it to my D., she said, she knows. Her goal was to have an A in every single class, so she is 3rd in line, first - connected, 2nd - URM, 3rd - the top ones, then the rest. Just do what is needed, changing it is a waste of your time and other resources.</p>
<p>Don’t the African Americans have a separate prospective student program offered to them? It’s part of a recent effort to boost their numbers. </p>
<p>My son is white and he has made good friends with people from all over the world. Indonesia, Bolivia, Phillippines, as well as Burbank, Anaheim, Pasadena, San Francisco, Texas and Ohio. Funny thing is, once you make friends with people, you tend not to notice their skin color. And that’s a good thing.</p>
<p>“Just do what is needed, changing it is a waste of your time and other resources.” </p>
<p>Great attitude. Such moral fortitude. Just think how great this world would be if Washington, Lincoln, Churchill, and M.L. King had only been wise enough to think like that.</p>
<p>One variable is that highly selective colleges that don’t use race as an admission attribute and therefore don’t base the academic threshold of admission offers based on the race (i.e. perhaps lower level for some races) and don’t provide special scholarships based on race, for example a number of the UCs, will have trouble competing with privates that are specifically after this target demographic and can offer free rides, etc. That no doubt has an impact on the numbers of AfAms who choose to attend some of these colleges. If the decision comes down to full/most pay at the UC vs. a free ride at a top private, which one would most people pick?</p>
<p>The UCs and highly selective CSUs like Cal Poly SLO essentially have their hinds tied by proposition 209 when it comes to the use of preferences to recruit more African American students. It is hard to compete with private colleges and universities that do not have any restrictions on them as to what they can offer URMs. The UCs are trying to use a “holistic” approach to admissions to take some of the weight away from GPAs and SAT scores but there is a limit to what can be accomplished by “holistic” admissions practices. UC Berkeley has probably been the most aggressive UC campus at using this approach but they do not seem to be getting the outcome they seek, fewer Asian, more African American admits. Cal Poly SLO probably has the lowest African American representation of any public university in California since since the CSUs do not use a “holistic” approach and admission decisions are made by computers which use algorithms that only consider GPA and CR+M SAT scores.</p>
<p>Cal Poly SLO undergraduates are 0.7% African American (non-Latino), 12.2% Latino, 10.4% Asian (non-Latino), from its Common Data Set. Yes, only 10.4% Asian, surprising for an engineering-heavy school.</p>
<p>^^^
Calif state schools have to downplay test scores and give more influence to GPA otherwise the schools would shut out even more students from less-than-great-high-schools. If test scores were strongly considered, the diversity numbers would be even worse.</p>
<p>It’s odd how people think of Jews as the overrepresented minority of the past.</p>
<p>They haven’t disappeared, you know. They are still greatly overrepresented (in comparison to their proportion of the overall population) at many of the top colleges, including all of the Ivy League schools except possibly Dartmouth, and at a variety of other schools that have strong Jewish communities. (A classic example is the University of Maryland at College Park, which has a much higher proportion of Jews than the state it serves.) </p>
<p>Of course, nobody notices Jewish students any more. They have become mainstream. In a few decades, nobody will notice Asian students, either, for the same reason. But the transition period can be difficult.</p>
<p>I see nothing wrong with the UCs being mostly Asian. If there is discrimination against Asians at other schools of comparable excellence (which is a subject of much debate), the UCs provide a good alternative.</p>
<p>To mathmom: My daughter also went to a very diverse high school (40% white, 20% African American, 20% Asian, 20% Hispanic, and substantial numbers of students born in foreign countries in all of these groups). To kids like yours and mine, every college in the country looks “too white,” except perhaps the UCs or historically black colleges.</p>
I think this is true, but it may be that Asians today are experiencing a similar effect for a different reason. On other threads about this, I’ve stated that I consider it plausible that selective schools have some general idea that some not-too-clearly defined percentage of Asians would be “too many.” Not because they don’t like Asians, but because they have some sense that ethnic groups should be, to some extent, balanced. As Marian notes, that doesn’t seem to be the case with religion today–I don’t think I’ve read anything for years about “too many Jews” except for people who wanted to know about being a non-Jew at Brandeis.</p>
<p>I agree with the statement somebody else made that a school with 5, 6, or 7 percent Asians is most likely not limiting the number of Asians to avoid having “too many.” I think a lot of those schools with smaller percentages of Asians are just not that popular among Asians. How many Asian applicants does Furman get?</p>
<p>I’ve also noted before, as somebody did above, that there may be other factors that limit the number of Asians admitted to top schools, such as geographic concentration and concentration in a limited number of extracurricular activities, sports, and prospective majors. (I would posit, for example, that the last of these is part of the explanation of why the representation of Asians at LACs is so much smaller–people who are interested in STEM majors are less likely to want to go to those schools.)</p>
<p>If we take as a given that the US population is about 5% Asian, here’s the list from above (which again, I’ll just assume is correct), edited to include only those schools that have 5% or less Asians:</p>
<p>Wake Forest 4%
Lehigh 5%
Penn State 4%
Yeshiva ~0%
Middlebury 5%
Washington and Lee 2%
US Naval Academy 4%
Bates 4%
Colgate 3%
Oberlin 4%
Colorado C 3%
Macalester 5%
Bucknell 3%
C of Holy Cross 4%
Kenyon 5%
Sewanee 2%
Richmond 4%
Bard 2%
Lafayette 3%
Connecticut C 3%
Franklin & Marshall 4%
Furman 2%
Skidmore 5%
Union 5%
Centre 3%
Dickinson 3%
Gettysburg 2%
Rhodes 4%</p>
<p>My best guess would be that these schools aren’t discriminating against Asians to keep their numbers down, but I suppose it’s possible.</p>
<p>They have also found that standardized tests are not very good predictors of UC GPA, and do not add much when used in addition to HS GPA, according to the report.</p>
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<p>Many CSUs (not Cal Poly SLO, though), UTEP, and Hawaii would be other schools that are unlikely to look “too white”.</p>
i thought this only happens with undergrad… couldnt this be potentially dangerous? :/</p>