<p>
</p>
<p>By “wealth” do you mean like “money in the bank, assets, etc.”? I didn’t read the sources in detail.</p>
<p>EDIT: A very good thread made by fabrizio:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/270120-factor-no-one-can-control-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/270120-factor-no-one-can-control-2.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Wealth refers to net worth, or assets minus liabilities.</p>
<p>Dad<em>of</em>3 brings up a good point. If “diversity” (i.e. being able to stage photo ops for brochures to accompany statements like “X% of our student body is of color”) is all that matters, then no, Conley’s proposal is unlikely to ever be implemented by any elite university for the reasons Dad<em>of</em>3 articulated.</p>
<p>But if that’s the case, then I ask that we stop lying to ourselves that affirmative action actually helps poor “underrepresented” minorities.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is probably because the people who feel most victimized by AA are the high-achieving Asian and Caucasian students who, for whatever reason, aim mostly at top-tier universities and feel “their spot” at such a school was stolen from them by a less qualified minority. </p>
<p>Like I mentioned in the other thread, I attended a Latino student recruiting function at Duke this weekend where I spent three days with about 60 other admitted Hispanic students, as well as other non-minority admits at times. To be honest, I couldn’t really tell much of a difference between the two groups. All of the Hispanic students were incredibly bright and promising (I met five Gates Millenium Scholars), and seemed genuinely eager to use their educations to improve the quality of life for other Hispanics. These people are going to do great things, and their qualifications shouldn’t be judged on something as trivial as a marginally lower SAT score (many of the students were actually above average in this regard, but no one I talked to really cared about SAT scores).</p>
<p>Think of it this way: would you rather have the Costa Rican engineer with a 2000 SAT who wants to supply water to remote Central American villages, or the Chinese-American with a 2340 who wants to be a surgeon? </p>
<p>AA isn’t fair for everybody, we all know that. But don’t dismiss it as something utterly evil: it really does provide opportunities for people to do amazing things who otherwise may not be able to.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How many of them were poor? How many of them looked like [Pedro</a> Pablo Kuczynski](<a href=“http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4159242.stm]Pedro”>BBC NEWS | Americas | New premier for crisis-hit Peru) as compared to [Jessica</a> Colotl](<a href=“http://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/26846183/detail.html]Jessica”>http://www.cbsatlanta.com/news/26846183/detail.html)? How many of them came from parts of the U.S. where Hispanics aren’t the majority (i.e. NOT Miami)?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>To put it simply, how true is this for the Hispanics you met? If not for racial preferences, would they really be unable “to do amazing things”? Are they really gems in the rough? Or do they actually come from advantaged socioeconomic classes?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Taking race out of this for the moment, if Kid A was really passionate about supplying water to remote Central American villages, he would have studied enough to have a decent mastery of math, enough to get above 650 on the SAT (2000/3)–or at a high level of whatever academic index you want to look that. Otherwise, that pipeline to the remote Central American village will burst due to an inability to do basic trig, and that sappy college essay on how you want to change the world will mean nothing. </p>
<p>Seriously, this is a pet peeve of mine. If something is life or death as in medicine or in the case of inventing/designing things as an engineer to save people’s lives, then maybe you should actually be more than “qualified”–you should do it right or step out of the way. </p>
<p>If I was to bet on who actually would benefit the world through medicine, engineering, or even through solving a social problem and I could only look at high school record of 18-year-old students, I would pick the ones that were conscientous, brilliant, and creative students every time. Solving big problems require creative minds. Not beauty pageant clones who spout vapid sentiments about saving the world.</p>
<p>“Would you rather have the Costa Rican engineer with a 2000 SAT who wants to supply water to remote Central American villages, or the Chinese-American with a 2340 who wants to be a surgeon?”</p>
<p>None of my URM friends (most of them are rich) do not have those big plans such as supplying water to remote Central America. They want to be bankers or doctors like their parents. </p>
<p>In facts, some URM parents don’t even want their children to hang around with other URMs.</p>
<p>^Sort of the opposite in my case. Most of the URMs I know are well off and have parents who believe, “We got the fat part of the chicken. It’s our duty to help others in our race, no matter how poor or dangerous, to get to our level.”</p>
<p>I don’t tilt at windmills anymore, but believe that no matter how well off I get, my perspective is influenced by " where I come from." (which, by the way, included Howard University. I could not have named an “try” before I come to CC.)</p>
<p>And I scored a 570 on the math SAT in 1976*, but have be told I am considered “the one you want your kid to see”, in my professional career. And these are not the kids of URM’s.</p>
<ul>
<li>Aviva Gerowitz said " that’s …good for you…"…Aviva??? Are you out there???</li>
</ul>
<p>This is such bull ******* crap, & I am a “URM”</p>
<p>■■■■■ saying that is just pretty funny.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well ok then, let me flip it around this way: would you rather have the Chinese-American engineer with a 2000 SAT who wants to supply water to remote Chinese villages, or the Costa Rican with a 2340 who wants to be a surgeon?</p>
<p>See, I just don’t see how race matters in the this case.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not saying it’s evil, and it’s certainly not the student’s faults, but I just feel like students who don’t quite make the cut to get into Harvard for example will still go on to do great things at a place like Carnegie Mellon or some place like that.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The SAT was used by another poster as an example of academic excellence, so I used it as well and also qualifed it to signify any index of academic excellence. But, in general, I’d bet on the person who was a better student. If their SAT is artificially pushed down by their background, at the very least they should look like a man among boys in their classroom, if you pardon the sexist expression.</p>
<p>“This is such bull ******* crap, & I am a “URM””</p>
<p>Then your opinion is worth an extra 50 points!!!</p>
<p>See how that works???</p>
<p>PS …("I could not have named an “try” before I come to CC.)= (I could not have named an “ivy” before I came to CC.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Precisely, and this statement can easily apply to people on either end of affirmative action.</p>
<p>Part of the problem I see with the AA vitriol (not AA itself) is that URM students are inadvertently marginalized. A URM admit to a prestigious university should never have to feel like he was only admitted for racial preference over more “qualified” (a term that, though thrown around a lot in these debates, is entirely subjective and not capable of being evaluated on any existing metric) ORM applicants, nor should the converse ever be the case. There are opportunities for success everywhere, and there are schools that would love to have these Asian and Caucasian students who were “wronged” by AA that provide similarly excellent educations and opportunities.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, hard work, the backbone of Asian-American culture, alone isn’t enough to get into a good college anymore. In the new era of holistic admissions, uniqueness is the key to success. Unfortunately, with so many Asian Americans vying for the few spots available at top universities, it becomes very hard for these students to distinguish themselves from one another.</p>
<p>From my school, only 4 non hooked asians got into Ivies and MIT, Stanford, and Duke. Its a class of 590</p>
<p>asians whine too too much</p>
<p>^About the fact that they work harder than everyone else?
Work AA, where whites are picked over Asians solely due to race, is a gigantic, underreported problem. This is actually where the whites aren’t qualified for the job, and the Asians are. In many cases, there is no gray area.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In addition to the questions I brought up in #124, didn’t you yourself say that you “couldn’t really tell much of a difference between the [Hispanics and non-minority admits]”?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I meant there was no evident intellectual distinction between the Hispanic and non-minority students: essentially, that the Hispanic students were no less qualified than the ORM students. Obviously they had to have distinguished themselves from the other hopefuls throughout the application process. That’s how admissions work these days: you have to sell yourself as a person, and it’s hard to compensate for a lackluster and non-compelling personality with sheer hard work and good numbers.</p>
<p>With regards to your questions about their socioeconomic situations, I cannot say. It wasn’t a topic I ever discussed, or frankly, even cared about. I’m sure we had plenty of socioeconomic diversity within our group of 60.</p>
<p>Proposed solutions:
<p>BTW, I am Asian.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Then there’s no need for racial preferences. If they’re “no less qualified” and are able to “distinguish themselves from the other hopefuls,” why continue the policy? Seems to me that without it, they’d still shine in the process.</p>
<p>Remember that you wrote, “But don’t dismiss it as something utterly evil: it really does provide opportunities for people to do amazing things who otherwise may not be able to.” It doesn’t seem like the people you met would be unable to do amazing things without racial preferences.</p>
<p>As for socioeconomic status, fine–I accept your response. How about my question as to whether most look more like PPK or Colotl? One commonly used (but un-Constitutional) reason for supporting racial preferences for Hispanics is that they are “victims of discrimination.” Hispanics who look like Colotl, maybe. Hispanics who look like PPK? Yeah, right.</p>