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<p>Really? Have AA and Hispanics performed worse academically since affirmative action was instituted?</p>
<p>What I love most is the constant complaint that it’s so awful that HYPSM/fill in your favorite elite school have dumbed down the pool so much with all those underperforming AA and Hispanics – coupled with the intense desire to join such a pool. “I don’t like how you select members for your country club – but I want to be in it!”</p>
<p>No one stops any smart kid from applying exclusively to schools that admit solely on hitting certain GPA/SAT numbers, as many state schools do. What’s that, you say? Those schools still aren’t as good as HYPSM? Guess HYPSM hasn’t dumbed the student body down as much as you think!</p>
<p>As a privileged white woman, I’m sick and tired of the whining from whites and Asians over this. I’d hardly trade all the advantages I have with a black person merely to get a boost in college admissions.</p>
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<p>Should white applicants receive affirmative action preferences over Asian applicants, which is widely believed to occur?</p>
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<p>In terms of college admissions, I believe so. To allow someone with lower credentials into a school solely because of their skin color, is allowing someone who “performed worse academically” in… </p>
<p>And Pizzagirl, I’m not sure what you being a “privaleged woman” has anything to do with AA. Are you trying to say that you have advantages over an African American because you’re white. If so, please explain.</p>
<p>Can we not at least agree that at some point it would nice to set aside race completely and live in a race-blind society, one in which courts are not dictating “racial balance”, and boxes are not put on applications to be checked or not checked, and where the concept of being discriminated for or against by virtue of race is just a preposterous notion? </p>
<p>If we can at least agree that this is our goal and not a world that continues to be engineered and litigated and regulated for “fairness” then I think it will be okay. What worries me is that well-meaning measures become codified fixtures in our society and they tend to morph into things that aren’t too positive over time.</p>
<p>We really are one race - the human race.</p>
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Sure, it would be nice, but I don’t think we’re anywhere near that point. I guess it’s progress, in a peculiar way, that some young people don’t seem to understand the necessity for affirmative action. Of course, they might just be self-centered.</p>
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I’d be all for that. Although I question whether, at least as far as college admissions, courts actually “dictate racial balance.” I believe they merely allow institutions to use that in their admissions decisions.</p>
<p>I fully understand why people feel racial preferences are unfair. What bothers me is the interminable whnining about it. I was just watching commencement speeches at a couple Ivy League schools on TV, and as they panned the crowd I didn’t notice a lack of white skin in the crowd. </p>
<p>For every URM admitted ahead of someone’s kid with what they consider inferior stats, I’m certain there are probably 7 or 8 ORM’s admittied with what the same person would consider inferior qualifications. </p>
<p>How many total kids in each Ivy admitted class? Maybe 15,000? Given the small percentage of URMs in those classes, my guess that it is an extremely small number of URMs admitted with qualifications obviously worse than every admitted white or Asian student. But the amount of online and print commentary on this issue is ridiculous.</p>
<p>You could get rid of all these racial prefernces, and I guarantee the obnoxious bellyaching would merely shift to other percieved injustices.</p>
<p>A fair approach to admissions considers characteristics my kids have, while an unfair one considers characteristics my kids don’t have.</p>
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<p>I didn’t apply to any of these “country clubs” as a high school senior, but I’m still opposed to racial preferences out of principle. What’s your straw man for me?</p>
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<p>And colleges would totally be “just one nationality, ethnicity, or race” in the absence of racial preferences!</p>
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<p>Seems weird, then, that more and more states are opting against racial preferences in the public sector. Your state did it in 1996, followed by Washington in 1998, Michigan in 2006, Nebraska in 2008, and Arizona in 2010.</p>
<p>Or is that because “kids don’t vote”?</p>
<p>While you may like to pretend that your side is winning, I’m pleased to say that it is not.</p>
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<p>Did that happen in California? Washington? Michigan? Bueller?</p>
<p>"While you may like to pretend that your side is winning, I’m pleased to say that it is not. "</p>
<p>Fab; I am SO happy for you! </p>
<p>Seriously! </p>
<p>You have been such a champion for the cause!</p>
<p>Wish me luck too! Went to our sorority baccalaureate today. Not as many graduates as in years past, but still rewarding. And not a “spot taker” among them! Almost all CCC’s and a few HBCUs! Not even one UC! One of the student speakers was the first black class president in his high school. An amazing speaker, and going to Morehouse! Truly Morehouse’s gain.</p>
<p>Yes, now the bellyaching is out of state students are taking our spot…lol…</p>
<p>^Yes, and the illegal immigrants.</p>
<p>*One wonders how many students DO check on ethnic boxes that they “don’t associate with,” just to have a shot in an über-competitive admissions process. *</p>
<p>I’m sure they do. </p>
<p>And, for that reason, the advantage should include an economic issue as well. Affluent URMs should not have any special advantages. That’s just ridiculous.</p>
<p>Caltech’s common data set states that there are 7 black undergraduates, in contrast with 360+Asian American students and another hundred or so international students, many of whom are Asian. They don’t practice AA.</p>
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<p>Imagine if the colleges replaced the current proctological financial aid analysis with a checklist like the ethnicity one: “With which of the following income brackets do you identify?” </p>
<p>Of course we would get honest results, just like the ones we must currently get with the ethnicity checklist.</p>
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<p>Thanks, but the real champion is Ward Connerly for getting civil rights initiatives passed in five out of six states.</p>
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<p>Are you saying that states that have not passed Connerly’s civil rights initiatives DO NOT “bellyache” over out-of-state stuents and illegal aliens?</p>
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<p>Oh I wholeheartedly agree, but unfortunately several of the “privileged white women” in this thread see it otherwise. To them, a “URM” is a “URM” regardless of his family’s financial status. It doesn’t matter if he’s affluent; he’s still a “URM,” and that’s all that matters. Never you mind that their families have access to private schools, test prep, and all the other canonical excuses for why the system is stacked against “minorities.”</p>
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<p>What does this have to do with anything? I asserted that people unhappy with the admissions process would continue to whine even if we did away with the racial preferences, and you asked for an example. Someone provided a couple examples, you don’t like it, so you bring up this irrelevant point. </p>
<p>Other examples are, of course, all the hooks which people routinely complain about already - legacy, developmental cases, athletes, school employees, sons and daughters of famous people.</p>