<p>To add to that post, I'd like to clarify my position. There are two kinds of affirmative action. The first is when a URM automatically gets a set number of points. This is illegal now, though I guess you can never be sure. I am against this kind of AA. The second kind, which I think is practiced at most competitive schools, looks at the applicant's credentials first (stats, essays, and recs), and then might give some extra consideration if the applicant is a URM. This absolutely does not mean that a URM who obviously can't do the work will be admitted over someone else who can. AA of this variety also doesn't mean that a URM who is merely decent will be accepted either. The URM must be strong in any event, but being a URM provides a tip-over that non-URMs do not receive. To me, that tip-over is no different than that of an athlete, a good number of whom are truly questionable acceptees, because athleticism is also an intrinsic part of a person's physical makeup. Athleticism has nothing to do with any intellectual capabilities, but everything to do with genetics. An person could run 15 miles a day, but if his body won't let him run faster than an 8-minute mile, he won't be recruited. Likewise, AA is also based on genes. You could argue that having good sports teams boosts school morale, but diversity also has its benefits. Can you say that one is more beneficial to society than the other? They both have justifiable ends, but debatable means. People just get edgier when it comes to race.
The reason why I find the first method of AA objectionable is that it doesn't take merit into consideration before awarding points. Most AA in use at competitive schools WILL take merit into consideration. Yes, URMs do get an advantage, and if you want absolute fairness, then it can never be acceptable. But if you do want absolute fairness, then why not debate legacies, recruited athletes, seriously rich people, presidents' children, etc. with as much fury as you do URMs?</p>
<p>i dont really have an opinion on affirmative action, but i just have to say that the athlete analogy is bs. it's offensive, as an athlete, that you believe we are just born with athleticism. I, myself, invest a significant amount of time, energy, and sweat every day to strive as a wrestler and baseball player. athleticism isn't something I was born with, i've spent countless days and hours working hard to achieve success. last time i checked, skin color wasn't something you had to work hard to achieve, but a physical appearance you were born with.</p>
<p>I didn't mean most athletes. I meant the ones who get really objectionable advantages that go far beyond AA. Many athletes work very hard to succeed, but only certain athletes get this kind of advantage, and they were probably born with a gift for sport or some physical attribute that a team wants. A hardworking, successful basketball player might never be recruited because he's 5 foot 6. In theory, if his stats are awesome, then he should be recruited. But chances are, he probably won't be recruited by top schools. He might even be passed over for less successful but taller players. There is definitely a physical element in athletic recruitment. Maybe it doesn't apply to most athletes, but it probably does apply to the ones who are especially pampered by schools.</p>
<p>example: A guy at my school has just been signed to one of the schools listed on the CC Top Universities page. Just to narrow down the list, it's not one of the UCs. He's never taken an honors or AP class in his life. I have serious doubts if he's ever even made honor roll once. He's not terribly good or strong (averages only a couple points per game), but he's like 6'10" so he's being recruited from a school that's pretty good in academics. These physical things that individuals have no control over really do matter in sports, though, of course, they are not the only things that matter.</p>
<p>And AceRockolla, I'm sorry, I really didn't mean to offend you or anyone else. Looking back on my post, I used some pretty harsh language to try to convey the far more nuanced point that natural talent and physical qualities cannot be achieved through hardwork.</p>
<p>no problem, veryhopeful, it's part my fault as i interpreted your point the wrong way. I totally agree with you in the few cases where an athlete's recruited based on physical stature, that it is no different than aa. In reality, though, those situations are few and far in between. Most cases, natural talent or not, athletes have to work their asses off to be recruited.</p>
<p>veryhopeful-</p>
<p>actually, as I've stated, I'm not completely against affirmative action. I do not support the ways they are being used, but they're aiming for a rather noble goal, but they may injure certain people in the process.</p>
<p>"But if you do want absolute fairness, then why not debate legacies, recruited athletes, seriously rich people, presidents' children, etc. with as much fury as you do URMs?"</p>
<p>In fact, everything you listed in that example are admissions policies that I am DEAD SET against, much more so than the issue of URMs, so my answer to your rhetorical question is, yes, I do, with much more "fury".</p>
<p>I think certain people (quynh2007 specifically) misinterpret my stance on the issue. There was no need to give a lecture about diversity and how great it is to have friends of a different race to an asian-american student going to a high school that is comprised of 50% white, 30% black, 15% hispanic, and 3% asian students. I've been going to this high school all four years, and I'm not in any SPECIAL IB program that separate out the overachievers. I've been attending the same classes, joining the same clubs, making the same friends, and many of them ARE of other races. In fact, I run a statewide conference CENTERED on the subject of reducing prejudice and embracing diversity. So, needless to say, I'm as much, if not more, of an advocate for diversity and minority achievement as you are.</p>
<p>With that said, there is definitely detrimental effects of affirmative action. These effects include 1) rivalry and animosity between the races (asians/whites being bitter about the advantages minorities have), 2) discrimination against those minority students who attend prestigious colleges, even when they have gotten in based on merit alone (people like to assume that AA is a lot more pervasive than it is) and 3) questionable admissions policies that continue to treat the races as separate and UNEQUAL entities and RE-segregate the various races - undoing many many years of hard work in this country for EQUAL minority treatment and a color-blind society.</p>
<p>Let's break down some of nedad's points:</p>
<p>"As for Sakky's point about middle or upper class blacks getting spots: You don't get it either. Corporations actually file briefs with the Supreme Court IN FAVOR OF diversity because of the international way that they do business. It has very little to do with money and a LOT to do with creating a racially diverse work force."</p>
<p>Oh really? The bulk of the evidence indicates that corporations filed those briefs in favor of diversity because they realize that the existing system of affirmative action shields them from liability. In other words, the guidelines of affirmative action, whether you think they are fair or not, are useful to corporations in that if you follow them, you are less likely to lose a future discrimination lawsuit in court. When somebody now sues a company for racial discrimination or reverse racial discrimination, the company can just point out that they are merely following the AA guidelines. Whereas if affirmative action guidelines were repealed, then corporations would be in eternal jeopardy of being sued for discrimination. The present state of affairs therefore basically acts as safe harbor against lawsuits. Note - that isn't to say that corporations that follow the guidelines don't get sued anyway. But it is at least a talking point in their favor while they're in the courtroom. </p>
<p>And besides, ask yourself, from an economic (vs. a social justice) standpoint, why exactly would corporations care about having a racially diverse workforce? Again, keep the social justice aspects out of the picture and let's just talk about pure profit motives. After all, the #1 job of any company is to make a profit. Does having a diverse workforce really increase your profits? Really? Tell that to all the highly successful corporations in Japan which draw upon arguably the most homogenous workforce in the world, and yet produce products that some of the most successful in the world. The fact that Japanese companies have very little diversity within their workforce certainly doesn't seem to have hurt them in their drive for profit. </p>
<p>"As for "social justice" --- one more time, as so many others on other threads have pointed out: elite colleges are private entities who can create their "community" (thanks Voronwe!) ANY WAY THEY WANT. They do NOT have to end up with an all-Asian or all-White class JUST BECAUSE you think that numbers (SATs etc) matter more than anything else."</p>
<p>Allright, so then to follow that logic, if you really believe that private universities are entitled to do whatever they want, then fair enough, let's see how consistent you are. Consider the history of higher education. Before the advent of affirmative action, universities, particularly the private ones, were some of the most racist and discriminatory institutions in the country - far far more racist than private industry was at the time. Universities used to institute a deliberate pattern of virulent racism particularly against blacks, but also against Hispanics, Asian-Americans, Irish, Jews, and basically anybody who wasn't Anglo-Saxon Protestant in both their admissions and in their hiring. The blatant anti-Semitism of the Ivy League up to the 1940's is well documented (Jewish quotas, blatant refusal to hire Jews as professors) , and many elite universities categorically refused to hire blacks for any faculty position and refused to admit blacks. It got to the point that many elite colleges policies of having applicants submit photographs to make sure that they didn't accidentally somebody who they thought was a strong candidate, only to find out that the candidate isn't white. Read some of the works of Thomas Sowell, who has done produced some of the most extensive research on the blatant anti-black, anti-Jew, anti-Catholic (especially anti-Irish), anti-Asian, anti-Hispanic, and anti-woman policies that elite universities used to use before the 1960's. </p>
<p>But, you said it yourself, these colleges are private institutions and are not only perfectly entitled to do all of those things, but you would actually stand up and vigorously defend their practices. So go ahead, nedad, say it loud and clear - you vigorously defend all of those indisputably racist policies that many elite colleges implemented before the advent of AA. Furthermore, if those elite colleges were to want to return to those kinds of policies in the future, you would vigorously defend their right to do that too, is that correct? So if Harvard tomorrow says, you know what, we just don't like blacks, so we're just not going to admit anymore of them ever again, you would vigorously defend their right to do that, correct? After all, since they're a private school, you would defend their right to do just that, right? </p>
<p>So come on nedad, when the top colleges were blatantly discriminating against black candidates in the first half of the 20th century, I want you to come right out and say that not only do you think that that's perfectly OK, but you would zealously defend their actions. In other words, you like it. Don't be shy. Come right out and say it.</p>
<p>"And colleges do reject students because they are asian that is the basis of AA"</p>
<p>VTboy, did you go to law school? i've never heard a better explanation of affirmative action.</p>
<p>"These schools that are advocating racial peference and discrimination during admissions are getting federal money. I am paying for them to discriminate and I shouldn't have to."</p>
<p>yeah, VTtaxpayingadult!</p>
<p>"I am not going to justify this highly racist and offensive post with a responce."</p>
<p>ceci n'est pas une reponse</p>
<p>what made you change your mind? and why was my post removed? why is it offensive to say that i consider more than half of the chinese students i've met boring grade-grubbers? i didn't make any race related general remarks, i only made a statement based on personal observation. btw. here's an example: <a href="http://www.julianhan.com%5B/url%5D">www.julianhan.com</a>. he's asian AND he got into harvard, how do you explain that?</p>
<p>mk422 said. </p>
<p>"what made you change your mind? and why was my post removed? why is it offensive to say that i consider more than half of the chinese students i've met boring grade-grubbers? i didn't make any race related general remarks, i only made a statement based on personal observation. btw. here's an example: <a href="http://www.julianhan.com%5B/url%5D">www.julianhan.com</a>. he's asian AND he got into harvard, how do you explain that?"</p>
<p>I find your statement offensive, based on your sterotypes and ignorance of Asian Americans. </p>
<p>BTW, the International Chinese student you referred to in his website for the basis of your remarks was not a Chinese American, but a foreign student who is BRILLIANT, another "Beautiful Mind" a la Prof. John Nash, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics and a math genuis, who revolutionized Economics. This Chinese foreign student, Julian Han, who Harvard admitted, is a genius and has the potential to win a Nobel Prize, and benefit Harvard, as well as all of mankind.</p>
<p>Mk422, if you put the shoe on the other foot, I think you'd understand why your post was deleted. For example, what if somebody were to say that more than half of the black people he's met are lazy and shiftless? Surely you must agree that that would cause a firestorm of controversy, even if he was also making a statement based on personal observation {note to moderators: I am not saying anything of the sort, nor do I believe anything of the sort, I am just using it as an example to prove a point}.</p>
<p>pepples--my comments were not directed at you, they were in response to vtboy, which annoyed me a hell lot because like i said -- i'm vietnamese and impoverish, and he is saying a lot of things that are not correct.</p>
<p>"Mk422, if you put the shoe on the other foot, I think you'd understand why your post was deleted. For example, what if somebody were to say that more than half of the black people he's met are lazy and shiftless? Surely you must agree that that would cause a firestorm of controversy, even if he was also making a statement based on personal observation"</p>
<p>dude, i'm not black. not even hispanic! but i AM lazy and shiftless, which why i bother posting on cc instead of doing problem sets...</p>
<p>Sakky,
Wow, what an articulate person whom I totally agree with! I was very impressed with your writing and was so happy to hear that you follow Thomas Sowell. For those that are interested, you can read his articles if you pull up the Drudge report. I have enjoyed several of Sowell's books. His editorials in our local newspaper often become our morning conversation. It is too bad more people are not aware of this incredibly intelligent man.
As for you, boy I sure hope you go into politics or law. As a parent of an incredibly bright kid, I love to see the interaction of our young students on this board. Keep up the thoughtful posts.</p>
<p>(When asked about why people don't also get upset at admissions giving a boost to athletes, legacies, and seriously rich people).
I think we have to remember that the colleges are also a business. Although, I admit I don't like it, as a business person, I understand it. And frankly, these admits can benefit others. Athletes can be a huge source of revenue for schools, and people that are "seriously rich", can pay full tuition. Now if you mean, the seriously rich that can donate a wing or a building, then I am all for that as it frees up monies to help out more students that would need the help.These types of admits are either part of bringing in revenue or using less of a limited pool of funds for admitting other students. I also don't have that stats, but I would venture to guess that these admits are a very small number of overall applicants.
Just a note, I also don't think you have to be "serious rich" to not qualify for any financial aid. But I don't think that is what was being referred to. I think they meant the type that gets in because of a huge endowment.</p>
<p>Ouch, Sakky! I thought Nedad might respond to you but he seems not to be monitoring thread this anymore, and while I am not defending him, I do want to point out some things:</p>
<p>My husband has been in the corporate world for 30 years, on a very, very high level. I believe you are mistaken about corporations' support for COLLEGE ADMISSIONS AA. What a COLLEGE does has no effect on lawsuits against corporations. The support for COLLEGE AA comes from an interest in a diverse workforce, and while of course you are partly right that the desire for a diverse workforce comes from a desire to avoid discrimination lawsuits, it is not the only reason; I have copies of dozens of corporations' internal memos on diversity and the many, MANY reasons it is helpful. in addition, even if AA iwere eliminated tomorrow, there could STILL be discrimination lawsuits. The two are not the same thing. AA is a policy (an ever-shifting one at that) while anti-discrimination laws are on the books. They are two different things.</p>
<p>This explains why your reductio ad absurdum argument regarding Harvard never accepting any blacks again is specious. Anti-discrimination laws would still be on the books. Harvard cannot categorically decide to break the law and make a blanket statement that no blacks will ever be accepted, any more than they could decide to (say) kill any freshman who failed a course!</p>
<p>More importantly, the Supreme Court has said race CAN be part of an overall picture when considering college admissions.</p>
<p>Whether we agree or not, Nedad is right: colleges build communities based on what they want in a particular year. This is within the context of the current view of community. To try to build a "straw man" from that argument and extrapolate it to mean that Nedad would agree to colleges breaking the law is wrong (sorry Nedad if you read this - I am just using you as an example). </p>
<p>I think the problem is that with so many thousands of high achieving students of all colors and races, no one will ever be happy. There are a limited number of spots, and if someone doesn't get one, they will argue that they should have and discrimination was the cause. But there is no REAL way of telling. </p>
<p>I would agree with you, however, if we discovered a school had a secret, actual QUOTA that said, "We will acccept exactly this number of Asian, or Jews, or Blacks" and no more. The law does not allow that, even for a private entity. The problem is, all the talk about de facto quotas soesn't help if the quota isn't de jure.</p>
<p>the net-net is this:</p>
<p>HYP are reaches for everyone no matter what your scores are, because there are just not enough seats. Take into consideration that last year 56,462 people applied to these 3 schools and only 5855 were admitted, for approximately 3500 acceptances, because they know that everyone who was admitted is not going to attend.</p>
<p>Look at Dartmouth, who enrolled a particularly large class this year in comparison to other years and are looking to change so that they don't enroll more than 1000 students per year.</p>
<p>Cornell had over 20,000 applications , admitted 6130 of which 3093 enrolled.</p>
<p>So every 1600 student is not going to be accepted.</p>
<p>Everyone is so quick to talk about AA in terms of blacks. However,
According to the 2003 Graduation rates for Div I schools @
<a href="http://www.ncaa.org/grad_rates/2003/d1/index.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.ncaa.org/grad_rates/2003/d1/index.html</a></p>
<p>School African American Students<br>
Harvard 138
Yale 90<br>
Princeton 81<br>
Columbia 101
Penn 114
Brown 97<br>
Dartmouth 56<br>
Cornell 100 </p>
<p>Total number of African American Freshmen in Ivy League schools in 2003is 765=
Howard University freshman enrollment of 855 African American students during that time period was more than the entire Ivy League combined.</p>
<p>Even if these 765 students in these 8 schools chose not to attend or were not admitted, it still does not guarantee that the seats would be taken by those with the highest scores, especially when every one of these schools is telling you that scores is not the number one factor in the admissions process. </p>
<p>Because many can be tutored, prepped and spend years at cram school in order to be high scoring. But I guess it is easier to beat up on a race instead of asking why are a large number of Asians only looking at a small pool of schools, knowing that there are not going to be enough spots to begin with instead of looking to expand their horizions.</p>
<p>Sybbie, I too think it is presumptuous for any specific group to claim those spots. As another poster said, those seats are not anyone's--they are the colleges to give as they see fit. However, Asians or any group are certainly welcome to apply to any colleges they want. The colleges under discussion are considered the most desirable in the country so there is no wonder that they are ones that highly qualified kids would want. And these are the colleges where the situation gets testy as every admit is given the shifty eye by those who did not get admitted. There is not this scrutiny about how the spots are given out in the colleges that are not as selective.</p>
<p>Aaaaaaand this is precisely why I'm not sharing my admit results with any of my friends... this whole situation has just blown the competition between races and friends way out of proportion.</p>
<p>But it's also unfair for you, sybbie, to assume asians are not looking to schools beyond the HYP circle. I personally, am only applying to one or two of the ivy league and equivalent, while the majority of my prospective schools are not so "popular". If anyone had the credentials to apply to these schools, they probably will, and there just happens to be many asians with such credentials. On top of that, it's also a little skewed to compare the number of black students at a HISTORICALLY black college with the numbers of black students at the top universities in the country. Yes, I understand your point, there aren't a LOT of black students... but if you pull up the statistics for asians, you probably won't find TOO much of a difference at most of those schools - excluding harvard probably.</p>
<p>Sybie said,</p>
<p>School African American Students
Harvard 138
Yale 90
Princeton 81
Columbia 101
Penn 114
Brown 97
Dartmouth 56
Cornell 100</p>
<p>"Total number of African American Freshmen in Ivy League schools in 2003is 765=
Howard University freshman enrollment of 855 African American students during that time period was more than the entire Ivy League combined.</p>
<p>Even if these 765 students in these 8 schools chose not to attend or were not admitted, it still does not guarantee that the seats would be taken by those with the highest scores, especially when every one of these schools is telling you that scores is not the number one factor in the admissions process."</p>
<hr>
<p>Sybie, </p>
<p>Again, these are only the spots in the Ivies, but you forgot to count the spots in the the other 150 colleges and universities that practice race-based AA by admitting blacks under lowered standards, not to mention the other URMs (latinos, etc..) . Just for a simple discusion, assume that there are only 100 blacks in each of the other 150 schools that practice race-based AA. </p>
<p>150 schools which practrice AA x 100 blacks admitted under AA/school = 15,000 blacks under AA under lowered standards. The usual goal/quota for diversity in each school is actually 6% to 8% of the each school. </p>
<p>That's 15,000 blacks alone admitted under race-based AA using racial preferences for admissions. You conveniently forgot all the other schools that practice AA. These other 15,000 blacks, admitted under lowered standards thru AA, have "displaced spots" from more academically stellar students relatively speaking , in the most competitive to just competitive schools in the country. That's 15,000 spots that are displaced in all these schools. It's all relative. What about the elite state universities which admit hundreds of blacks under lowered standards with race based AA? Race based AA is practiced in more than 150 schools, not just the 8 Ivies. What about schools like U.of Texas, U.of Florida, U.of Georgia, U.of Washington, U.of Michigan, U.of Oregon, Northwestern, U.of Chicago, MIT, Duke, Stanford, Rice, Wellesley, Barnard, Bryn Mar, Williams, Amherst, Carlton, and so on??? It was estimated by the Journal of Blacks in Higher Eduaction, that if raced based AA was not practiced in all the competitive schools with blacks admitted with lowered standards, these 150 schools would only have less than 2% blacks instead of the 6 to 8%. Race based AA placed these 15,000 bkcks into these spots, displacing more academically stellar students..</p>
<p>There are only 70 blacks who scored 1500+ and 190 blacks who scored who scored 1450 on the SAT I in 2003. There aren't enough high scoring blacks in country to meet the SAT I average of Harvard and Yale, which admit over 400 blacks to meet their SAT I average of 1500, and certainly not for all the 8 Ivies. There aren't enough blacks to fill the other schools and meet the SAT I average of 1450, 1400, 1350, 1300, 1250, 1200,........etc..</p>
<p>After Harvard Ivies take up the majority of the high scoring bkacks, there are not enough to meet the the standards of the other competitive schools. Harvard still has a Black-White (Asian) Test Score as much as one standard deviation with blacks scoring as much as from 200 to 300 below Harvard' average. In large schools such as UC Berkeley, the Black-White (Asian) Test Score Gap was as high as 500 points or 2 1/2 standard deviations from the mean SAT I score of the rest of the Berkeley class. That's an INCREDIBLE gap to overcome for these underprepared and underacheiving blacks who were admitted with race as a factor, even if you discredit the SAT I. Even if you use the SAT II, a measure of achievement, if you had a score of 2 1/2 standard deviations from the mean score of the rest of the class, you would have extreme difficulty keeping up with the rest of the class. Consequently, less than 40% of these blacks graduated from Berkeley, or if they graduated, they graduated from the bottom of the class taking the least demanding course of study. This was the case before race-based AA was abolished at UC Berkeley, the premier public university in America.</p>
<p>Correction of above;</p>
<p>There are only 70 blacks who scored 1500+ and 190 blacks who scored who scored 1450+ and above on the SAT I in 2003. There aren't enough high scoring blacks in country to meet the SAT I average of Harvard or Yale at 1500, which admitted over 400 blacks, and certainly not enough blacks for all the 8 Ivies. There aren't enough blacks to fill the other schools and meet the SAT I average of 1450, 1400, 1350, 1300, 1250, 1200,........etc..</p>
<p>After Harvard and the Ivies take up the majority of the miniscule number of the high scoring blacks, there are not enough blacks in the country of over 100,000 black SAT I test takers in 2003, to meet the the standards of the other competitive schools. Harvard still has a Black-White (Asian) Test Score Gap as much as one standard deviation, with blacks scoring as much as from 200 to 300 points below Harvard's SAT I average of 1500. </p>
<p>=================================================</p>
<p>So how does one solve this prolem of underrpreparedness for admitted blacks under race based AA in the most competitive 150 schools? </p>
<p>There are about 4000 institutions of higher learning in this country, and these institutions represent the best higher educational system in the world. These schools include the other less competitive state and private institutions with admit rates of over 50% to 90% and it does not practice race based AA and still acheive one of the MOST DIVERSE student population in the country, with proportional respresention of the population. These schools provide 98% of the college degrees to the American population. These schools include the community and city colleges such as CCNY, Bronx Community College, etc.. </p>
<p>There is ample opportunity for any one of any race or ethnicity to attend an institution of higher learning in America. The less prepared students, regardless of race can go to the remaining schools, less the 150 schools which practice race based AA. There is nothing wrong with doing this, because 98% of Americans received their degrees from thes OTHER schools. If one is not academically PREPARED, one should not attend an "elite" 150 school, but they should be enrolled in the rest of the 4000 schools.</p>