<p>atiscorp, read "black rednecks, jews, and white liberals" by Thomas Sowell.</p>
<p>Outlines anti-educational behavior in black culture in one of his essays. Of course, Sowell's against affirmative action.</p>
<p>Wow, I went through my first 17.5 years thinking that AA was beneficial to Asian applicants 'cause they’re minorities…although I guess not in colleges/universities. Hmmph. If I get rejection letters in the coming weeks, I know what to tell my parents is to blame…
So, just wondering… is the whole point of affirmitive action that an Asian and a URM - say, for the sake of argument, a Native American - were they to be exactly the same, in scores/percentile in HS/essay quality and depth of response/interview etc (so controlling for all factors)…that the Asian would lose out?
And if so, would it not be worse for a white caucasian?</p>
<p>Ummm, I’m Asian, but I don’t really consider myself Asian since I don’t live in Asia, can’t speak Asian, and never will do either of those in my life.</p>
<p>Can I just say that I’m white?</p>
<p>@Saugus
Race is not a choice. That is the point of affirmative action >.></p>
<p>I though, believe AA is wrong. In almost every way. And, I believe that doing an AA type thing with socioeconomic status isn’t that great of a way either. I mean, honestly, the first 14 years of my life, I lived in a south side ghetto as my immigrant parents got an education and work. Then, my mother finally got her medical degree and now I live in an affluent society. So, now when I apply to college, even though I had to endure what most AA black people don’t, my tax returns and race don’t support it at all.</p>
<p>I believe all colleges should be the same and open to everyone for free.</p>
<p>But, that’s probably because my parents are immigrants from the USSR, aha.</p>
<p>^
So, how would they find out if I said I was white and it turned out I lied? Or what if I said I was Native American? Do they do background checks or something?</p>
<p>And in the event that they found out, couldn’t I just contest it? “HOW DARE YOU SIR, DO YOU CLAIM TO KNOW MY OWN HERITAGE BETTER THAN I?”</p>
<p>Not that I would do that. Just hypothetically.</p>
<p>Its up to them. I wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds. You sign the application saying that everything is to the best of you knowledge. If your asian and to the best of your knowledge you believe you are native american, I think that they can revoke your admission for you being uneducated and oblivious. Man up and face off with your fellow asians.</p>
<p>But then again, take whatever risk you want and do what you want. I’m not your mommy.</p>
<p>I agree with the assertion that AA makes an unfounded connection between ethnic group and obstacles faced in the academic process. Preferential treatment (if it is going to be given at all) should be given with a socioeconomic justification. The notion that all people of a given race are born into penury and violence is ridiculous.</p>
<pre><code>Correlation doesn’t imply causation; just because there are lots of [ethnic group here] people below the poverty line doesn’t mean that those who happen to be of said ethnicity should be given a bargaining chip that might place them above a better student in consideration.
</code></pre>
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<p>I wrote a long post to respond to this, but I’m going to keep it short and respond to the most stupid point. If you don’t care about school and that’s why you don’t have high scores and a high GPA, then you don’t belong at a place like Harvard. To say that we should spot you a hundred SAT points because your parents don’t care about school is even more stupid. I don’t say I deserve to go to the olympics as much as anyone else just because I and more parents don’t care about sports. And by the way, since it’s all about context, does that mean anyone who majors in science at Harvard but does not win the Nobel Prize must be stupid? If you get in, will you find it easy to become the next Einstein or Hemingway? </p>
<p>And by the way, I’ve read “heartwarming” stories about kids who got into HYPMS with 1800-1900 or less (one with a 530 math score?!). Many, many competitive applicants have gotten such scores in junior high or even earlier. I took it to get into CTY when I was in 6th grade, without the benefit of pre-algebra and without any formal instruction in mathematics ever (yeah, you read that right), and still managed to outscore some of these disadvantaged admits to top 5 schools in the math section. I figured out the problems from scratch as best as I could without knowing algebra or geometry, so I fail to see how someone could not solve the problems after having taken algebra and geometry, regardless of how bad their teacher was. So don’t give me this “your parents did it all for you” garbage.</p>
<p>I’m not in the practice of saying people with low scores and GPA don’t deserve admission to good schools. However, if you think you are better than people who totally outperformed you and who actually <em>gasp</em> care about school, then you don’t deserve admission to Harvard or a place like Harvard. Wow, I guess my post got long again.</p>
<p>^
Let me add something to that.</p>
<p>Just because our parents pushed us doesn’t take anything away from how hard we had to work. And at this level, shouldn’t everyone be working hard regardless of whether their parents force them to?</p>
<p>^The harder you work, the less ability indicated by any given level of achievement. To the extent that a selection process tries to gauge “underlying latent ability” from indicators of both achievement and effort, it is rational to infer lower ability from greater effort (all else being equal). Which is not to say that a candidate suffers from working hard; achievement and ability to work may also be selection factors. The only thing that suffers, and rightly so, is the impression of a candidate’s ability (from any given level of measured achievement) the more evidence of hard work is present.</p>
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<p>I don’t see how that improves the “unfounded connection”. It is a completely false presumption – one that may be wrong at least as often as comparable group-based inferences – that a high scoring poor applicant is always academically disadvantaged by the economics and thus more impressive than a middle or upper-class applicant with similar or slightly higher scores. The resources needed to score high are quite cheap, after all. Books, dictionaries, public libraries, paper, pencil, etc. This isn’t specific to socioeconomics versus race; profiling by type of high school attended, ZIP code, parents’ employment or education, are also prone to error in individual cases. Profiles are “statistical predictor variables”, nothing more.</p>
<p>“3. Your SAT prep courses/books”
I love how this is often brought up. While I know there is a strong correlation between income and SAT scores, how many 2350+ scorers do you know who took classes?</p>
<p>If people marginalize test scores as simply the result of taking SAT classes, let’s see them score a 35+ ACT or 2350+ SAT. For that matter, even a 34+ ACT and 2300+ SAT. </p>
<p>How would you feel if all your accomplishments were relegated to the fact that you had parents who pushed you to work hard? That your intelligence was simply the product of a culture that values education and apparently SAT classes? URMs may complain that they are stereotyped as simply getting accepted because of race. But this is not that different from the accomplishments of Asians being marginalized from “caring about school.”</p>
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<p>That’s the wrong question. The very high scorers get plenty of prior signals that they can do well without special instruction. Grades, comparison to students who took the tests earlier, PSATs, compulsory state exams, academic competition results, “giftedness” testing, and other indicators starting years before the SAT itself. The people with 2300+ have been on an academic track for most of their life.</p>
<p>The income advantage is not in raising the SAT an extra 50 points with a few weeks or months of paid coaching, but in the 200-300 points from attending top schools for years before taking the exams. Such attendance doesn’t by itself create the very high scores but it does eliminate the low scores and raise performance in the middle to good range. There are suburban (non-selective, but in wealthy towns) public schools with average SATs per section exceeding the national average by 150-200 points and the regional average by 50-100 points. At such places the entire curriculum is effectively an SAT class conducted over 4 to 12 years and the higher average scores are something deliberately purchased by the residents.</p>
<p>Test prep itself is a minor issue. The main determinant of taking SAT classes is not income or race, but having low scores. Test prep is not prohibitively expensive, and even relatively poor families can muster a thousand dollars here or there for SAT (or LSAT, GMAT, GRE) prep courses if they believe that large economic benefits can result. What is prohibitive for those who aren’t wealthy, is living in high-rent towns with top public schools, or paying tuition at the better private schools.</p>
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<p>First of all the interview might be a bit of a clue. :)</p>
<p>Second, when you submit your application you swear to it’s veracity.</p>
<p>Third, when and if the acceptance arrives, it states the reasons for which the acceptance can be revoked. One of these reasons is for lying on the application. This revocation can be done even after you are actively attending Harvard. Why be stupid? </p>
<p>Ultimately, do what you wish and see what happens. You can give us a full report in the spring.</p>
<p>^
Asians look similar to Native Americans. Or if I wanted to look white, I could dye my hair blonde.</p>
<p>Are they honestly going to take the time to look at one applicant’s profile out of 20,000+ and be like: “Hrmm, this kid doesn’t seem like a Native American to me!”</p>
<p>That would suck to get rescinded while attending Harvard, although I doubt that they would check. Still, I wouldn’t want that cloud hanging over me. I’m an honest person.</p>
<p>But hypothetically, it could be done.</p>
<p>I know a lot of people support AA if it was based on socio- economics instead of race; but the fact is that people will always complain if someone else has an advantage. Although I think socio -economics based AA is better than race driven AA, it still has its flaws. I know someone who goes to a prep school with a whooping 24, 000 dollar tuition every year where she gets a lot of college counseling, help from teachers etc…but is considered low -income because her parents make nothing but her grandparents pay for her education and other luxuries. This girl also applied for a questbridge scholarship since her parents make almost nothing. I have to say this isn’t fair either since colleges only look at the parents income, they don’t know that she has so much of an advantage compared to all those who have to go to public schools where teachers don’t care about the students at all! Sorry for the rant, I know a ton of people will probably disagree with me, but there are cases like this</p>