<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, so we need racial preferences to enforce equality of outcomes. That is, the "URM"s are as qualified, but if we didn’t have the preferences, we’re not guaranteed to end up with a racial breakdown that we “like.”</p>
<p>How is this not a quota?</p>
<p>xrCalico, did you even read what I said? It is not that kids don’t want to participate in EC’s, but if they don’t have the means to…ie transportation after the bus, or maybe they have to have a job…duh. The kids aren’t lazy, far from it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I did and fully appreciate the fact that circumstances are less than optimal for low-income kids, but I don’t see how this pertains to the discussion on race in college admissions.</p>
<p>^ Exactly. Need-Aware = Good
Race-Aware = Bad</p>
<p>^totally agree.</p>
<p>Well, changing to “need aware” would be a step backwards. “Need aware” is a term used to describe admissions that factors your ability to pay into the admissions rubric. The colleges under discussion are “need blind” which means your inability to pay will not make it harder to be accepted. They are also “meets full need” which means that if you are found to need aid, they will provide it.</p>
<p>Now, I have seen discussions concerning how can they truly be “need blind” if year after year roughly half the class is full pay. However that is not the topic of this thread.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I find it so offensive that you continue to throw out unsupported opinion which is the opposite of what happens in college admission. On the above issue you are 100% wrong. Even a cursory look at the various histories on this very discussion forum would have sufficiently informed you of the facts about elite college admissions. Let alone would it actually have helped to have spoken directly to any college representatives of these various colleges, who would have informed you of the following facts:</p>
<p>Here is what is considered in elite college admissions in the United States of America:</p>
<p>~cumulative academic achievement of the student, measured not only by scores, but by a variety of academic elements: difficulty of course work, level of course work, grades earned in difficult courses, number of courses completed during the high school years (wherever completed), consistently high achievement both in the humanities and in the sciences, academic awards earned (greatest importance placed on international levels, then national, then regional, local, and school campus), test scores – and not only SAT/ACT, but any SAT Subject Tests, and optional academic tests; academic programs pursued outside of one’s high school; any independent achievements, such as work in creative writing, publishing, film; extracurriculars, especially length of achievement in those activities, and with an emphasis on activities off of the high school campus, such as activities requiring an investment of time & personal involvement; excellence in the performing arts over a sustained period of time, especially on a high level and/or with special invitations to perform, awards, etc; sports, both club sports off campus and varsity sports on campus; volunteer work, especially toward indiividuals or groups even less privileged than oneself; an application to that school that reflects an appreciation of what the student intends to gain and contribute there that is more convincingly stated than competitors’ applications; an essay that truly shows the student’s insight into himself and does not sound as if it was written by an adult or a hired consultant.</p>
<p>If those ^ elements are there, and the student comes from an impoverished background, that excellent candidate will be more advantaged in admissions than a student who achieved exactly or virtually the same, but is a child of relative privilege (upper middle class or better). Whether both students have green skin, three eyes, and 12 toes. The poor one, of whatever ethnicity, is getting in. Impoverished southeast Asians often have an edge in admissions, assuming they have performed well (and only assuming that). Ditto for those from mainland China if they come from similar circumstances.</p>
<p>But there are so many factors to consider that in those generally single-digit admissions statistics, a lot can go wrong, regardless of one’s background and regardless of one’s achievement. Because maybe this year there are far more great applicants that have applied from the Southwest region of the country, and very few from the mountain States. Or, maybe there are far more likely (anthropology, math, french, etc) majors this year, who will have a difficult time competing with each other for recognition by the committee, while a candidate with a test score of 50 points less or a gpa of .1 less than they have, has an academic interest that is filling a gap this year in one of the departments on campus, and maybe that student also plans on continuing a particular extracurricular on campus (dance, journalism, etc.) that “needs” more participants at present. Even better for that candidate, if perhaps he or she has shown leadership promise in the past, and is interested in an activity that coincides with an initiative or project that is of primary importance to the college at the moment, or to their mission statement; such a candidate might be a likely leader in that initiative or project.</p>
<p>Colleges in the U.S. are much, much more than academies, and much, much more than guaranteed “rewards” for a test score. </p>
<p>Aside from the above intense competition, are there special categories that get recognition? Of course there are: those include big past donors to the school, athletes who are recruited to play on the college’s teams, under-represented minority students, and the occasional celebrity or two (concert performers, actors, Olympic champs, etc.). However, it is only slightly easier for them to get admitted. For the most part, they have performed extremely well in high school, in academics. Sarah and Emily Hughes (the skaters) were quite academically accomplsihed. And has been discussed, athletes, URMs, and children of donors are not going to be admitted if the college is not sufficiently certain that they will do well there. Otherwise, it is rarely worth the price of admitting them.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I have tried very hard to allow my children to choose and follow their own paths. But I know that other parents do not do this. Just yesterday, a mother told me that she told her son, “Yes, you can try out for the play, but you may not also play football if you do this.” </p>
<p>tigerdad argued that we should not consider race (and legacy) because those things are born into and cannot be changed. I do not think that is a logical argument to use against racial AA. If you (and he) think children do, in fact, have total control over where they live and go to high school and all of the ECs they participate in, then you are shifting even more advantage to the rich applicants, by presuming their wonderful circumstances are a result of their amazing powers of persuasion.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Again, this begs the question: WHY have racial preferences if this is the case? At least Hunt’s posts are consistent. He’s saying that we have to have them or else the percentage of "URM"s at elite colleges will dwindle to almost nothing because there are not enough "URM"s who do well enough on the X categories to be admitted without them.</p>
<p>You’re saying that no, they’re just as good as whites and Asians. If that’s so, then it’s utterly pointless to have racial preferences.</p>
<p>This subject is old. We aren’t even arguing about the original topic anymore.</p>
<p>LOL need aware…the myth of discrimination in admissions for the Asian student will continue, since it is based on that the highest test score is the best student for the University and should be selected over lower score students. The mission of the University is not Relevant.<br>
The myth is now needed to save face when your not selected for your top choice school. This is understandable with such low acceptance rates at top school but it is not noble.</p>
<p>Yep Need-Aware, I want more poor kids at top schools not more Black/Hispanic/Native American kids</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Call me cynical, but while we digest that other poster’s offensive, unsupported opinion, could you provide me with some form of evidence that an Asian student possessing all the elements you described “will be more advantaged in admissions than a student who achieved exactly or virtually the same, but is a child of relative privilege” and can also claim to be an underrepresented minority?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It would be absurd for anyone to claim that children have “total control” over where they live and go to school and all of the ECs they participate in, but if we were to accept that the lack of optimal resources and family circumstances is a valid excuse for not striving for your personal best, then where should we draw the line? </p>
<p>Lots of Asian immigrant families I know cannot stand their kids spending too much time on extracurriculars. Practicing for sports or doing community service for too long while there is school work to done is unacceptable, regardless of what colleges care about. Following your line of logic, shouldn’t college admissions excuse that student for not pursuing a full range of extracurriculars because of his family’s cultural values?</p>
<p>twomules—</p>
<p>You’re certainly right, which, I think, is why many colleges phrase “need blind” as financial need is not an impediment to college admission, not that your family’s socioeconomic background isn’t considered in the holistic process.</p>
<p>Need based preferences have been considered and rejected by the college and universities because it soon became apparent that Asians with family incomes of less than $10,000 a year and are the poorest of the poor substantially outperform African Americans from families with incomes of over $100,000 per year in both high school GPA and standardized tests such as the SAT. If the goal is to admit more URMs and fewer Asians to elite colleges and universities, preferences based on family income will not accomplish this.</p>
<p>^ That’s why the goal shouldn’t be to admit more URMs</p>
<p>Regarding the point that Asian students are Americans too–well, no, not all of them. Some are international students, some were born abroad but came to the US with their parents who emigrated to the US for employment or educational reasons and are not naturalized citizens, and some may be American by legal definition but not in culture.</p>
<p>In contrast to American blacks, many Asians now applying to college are first or second generation immigrants. As such, there may be much about their culture, behavior, and minset that is foreign from the point of view of the average American (I know, I know, what’s an American? Well, me for example.) There are people with straight black hair, slanted eyes, and the last name Lee who are imperceptibly different from their Smith counterparts to any degree beyond normal individual variation. I am not certain many white Americans would care all that much if there were a high percentage of those Lee’s attending their school. However, a high percentage of first generation Lees could make the environment feel a bit foreign and uncomfortable for everyone else who isn’t Asian. </p>
<p>The Asian population in my town keeps growing. While I honestly do not believe I am prejudiced against Asian Indians, I will admit that I have felt uncomfortable at my D’s elementary school functions. Why? Well, nearly everyone around me was speaking a language other than English. About a third of them were wearing foreign clothing, including head gear. The air was filled with the aroma of cooking spices unlike those I use at home. Now I love to travel, I majored in anthropology, and I married someone from another country, but I still felt alienated at those functions. This is what colleges want to avoid. No doubt it’s not PC to say it, and would imply discrimination based on degree of assimilation which sounds just as bad as racial or ethnic preference, yet it gets at the heart of what would make a school “too Asian.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I never said, nor would I ever allege, the phrase you wrote (not I) and which I italicized. As to the undeniable reality that two people with similar accomplishments applying to the same Elite institution, one of whom is seriously economically disadvantaged (whatever his or her race), will have different likelihoods of admission, that reality has been published for years by the top colleges and universities in this country. It is also a published aspect of even the University of California’s adimssions policies. Reading about this stuff will do you wonders. I’ve also been privy to many, many conversations with admissions officers, admissions reps, in person – publicly accessible, such as at college information meetings; they answer questions from everybody, hardly just from me, and often this information is available on the web as well.</p>
<p>The GFG,
Very often, though, the concern of students is merely going beyond the experience of life in their state. If they attend their state school it is usually unlikely that as an undergraduate they will encounter a wider population than is represented in their region, whether that region be small or big. Depending on the composition of their State, and the likely student body at their state school, college may not be that much of a culturally broadening experience for them. OTOH, a private school is not limited geographically, which is one of their significant appeals. For me, and for my children, diversity is not just about underrepresented minorities; it is also that, but it is more. It is about the widest possible exposure within an undergraduate setting.</p>