<p>I am not sure how Massey et al. [url=<a href=“U-M Web Hosting”>U-M Web Hosting]defined[/url</a>] first- and second-generation. I know from experience that not everyone defines them the way Chinese and Japanese do. For us, first-generation refers to the parents who immigrated from East Asia to the United States, and second-generation refers to the native-born children of these parents. For some other people, however, first-generation refers to the first generation to be born in the United States. Thus, to these people, I am first-generation. (I always ask, what about my parents? Are they the “zero-th” generation? Never gotten a good answer to date.)</p>
<p>Regarding the net worth statistic, remember that Sowell is talking about “minority beneficiaries of government contracts set aside by the Small Business Administration.” No doubt that some (many?) doctors are entrepreneurs who own and operate their own clinics, but I am not sure if these people are the ones who mainly benefit from the aforementioned government contracts.</p>
<p>As for your kids, again, I do not know how Massey et al. would define them. If you’re asking how I personally would classify them, it would be either second- or third-generation.</p>
<p>Okay, thanks. Do you have any sense of what the “n” is here? As in</p>
<p>“when it comes to black students in the Ivy Leagues, 40.6% are first- or second-generation.”. I’m guessing about 400 students. </p>
<p>And what percentage 400 is “Of all blacks aged 18 or 19 in the U.S.,.”?</p>
<p>I’m guessing .1 percent, or less. I know it seems like a lot, when there are two or three, or 100 in your class, but otherwise, it is SO depressing.</p>
<p>Re post #19: But the majority of Asians are also first/second generation immigrants but do not benefit from the affirmative action policy. Perhaps for African American/ Hispanic groups what you said is perfectly true, but for other ethnicities and for the American population in general, it is not.</p>
<p>Also, the data you have provided only further illustrate the current ineffectiveness of affirmative actions— it is aiding recent immigrants who have not suffered from historical discriminations while at the same time furthering the perceived notion of a sense of academic inferiority of under-represented minority groups that ironically may be in part what affirmative action is trying to overcome. (As seen in post #14, for instance: “Yes there are dumb whites in the projects and there are black prodigies living in a penthouse in Manhattan. But this is not the typical.”)</p>
<p>I am absolutely against racial preferences. None of the popular justifications has ever convinced me that the policy is “right”, “just”, or worth pursuing. I am for race-blind admissions and would be for it even if it resulted in fewer Asians being admitted.</p>
If this is your argument, apparently you either missed or ignored the part where I said that this can be solved by pure individual evaluation. Pure individual evaluation brings justice to those have experienced hardships, including racial disadvantages that might have occurred in one’s life, while simultaneously avoiding the collectivist implications of affirmative action. The “average” means absolutely nothing and making decisions (or considerations) on the “average” will only cause injustice to those who do not conform to racially stereotypical (me, for example!). Therefore, in this case, affirmative action is self-defeating: it tries to fight unfairness by producing more unfairness.
I will not even respond to this because the ignorance of this statement implies that whatever I say will be of no use.
I am not exactly sure what you just said but it sounds pretty irrelevant to the issue at hand. And no, you thought experiment, whatever that is, did not provide fairness. In the end, affirmative action will always be unfair to some individuals and give unnecessary advantage to other individuals.
Wow, you actually agreed with me! Just for the record, a half-Hispanic person can report that’s he/she is Hispanic without indicating that he/she is also half White/Asian, at least on the common app. That’s just another hole, thank goodness, in affirmative action.
You sure clarified it, but hardly justified it.</p>
<p>Fab, if you were to spend a fraction of the energy you wasted on actually understanding what people write in the correct context, all of us would be better off. </p>
<p>As far as I know, discussions of AA on College Confidential are related to admissions and college life. What is the purpose of bringing up SBA set asides or the Fanjul family business in a discussion about styled “Being Asian: Bad for College Admission?” Are you about to bring up how women have found AA policies beneficial? </p>
<p>Read my post again! There is always a chance you’ll understand it this time.</p>
<p>I’m Chinese. I attended a public high school where Asians dominated the top part of my class. I will be atteding an Ivy school in a few weeks. Like many of you, I was worried that being an ORM would hurt my college app process, but I can tell you from personal experience that it doesn’t. The trick is applying to at least 12 good schools. </p>
<p>I had great ECs, recs, and was in the top 1% of my class, and my SAT was just under 2300. In other words, I was just the average high-achieving Asian. I was accepted by the vast majority of the schools I applied to, all of which were in the top 20 of the latest USN&WR poll. Stanford rejected me, but they rejected every Asian from my high school class. The other high-achieving Asans in my class had similar success. In fact, there isn’t a single Asian from the top 10% of my class who isn’t going to a top school. </p>
<p>So even though studies show that high-achieving Asians may have a more difficult time getting in some schools (thank you, Stanford), the truth is that as long as your heart isn’t set on any one school, and as long as you apply to at least 12 good schools, the fact that you’re Asian won’t hurt you at all. You will get into several great schools. Just forget the nonsense you see on this board. It’s all technical gibberish that serves only to frighten people (people like me when I was applying last year). </p>
<p>Just make sure your applications are done well, especially your essays. </p>
<p>I would only “actually understand” what your side writes if I agreed with racial preferences, which I do not.</p>
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<p>I’m sure the lucky Jewish students who beat the quota at Harvard in the 1920s would’ve likewise said that “being…Jewish…[didn’t hurt my college app process].”</p>
<p>Senior0991: That is the most racist post I have ever read on CC! “You are lucky you turned out Asian.” The clear implication is that you pity anyone born black or Hispanic. Were you dropped as a child?</p>
<p>Did you see any sign of a rallying banner for “my side” in the few words I wrote? Are you really so determined to present you and what I assume should be your side as martyrs? </p>
<p>As far as understanding, feel free to play games of semantics, but rest assured you are not fooling anyone, and never did since the days you started rehashing the same hackneyed litanies. </p>
<p>Affirmative Action does indeed exist in the United States. The same AA with policies that did indeed help Asians when it represented an underrepresented minority.</p>
<p>The only problem of AA in the context of college admissions is that it is still needed in 2010. Something that people who are determine to remove the ladder that helped them so well will never understand.</p>
<p>And, yes that there is that word understand again!</p>
<p>Fab, be honest: Do you personally know any Asian student with top credentials who wasn’t accepted to a great school? I don’t. </p>
<p>I believe you are doing a disservice to Asian high school seniors by instilling them with fear that is unjustified. Like I said earlier, I attended a large public high school. I am also an national leader in an organization made up of many Asians. In this role, I have met and befriended literally hundreds of high-achieving Asian students. As college acceptances came in last April, my fears vanished when I saw that all of my friends were being accepted by great schools. Some were disappointed when one or two schools to which they were qualifiied didn’t accept them, and some remain bitter that these same schools accepted African American and Hispanic students from their schools with much lower credentials, but in the end everyone ended up being accepted by several great schools. </p>
<p>As long as high-achieving Asian students do a great job on their applications, they will be admitted to many great schools. Most importantly, they have nothing to fear. They shouldn’t hide their ethnicity or do anything else to appear as something other than who they are. I believe the fear you’re instilling in these high-achieving Asians is false and unnecessary.</p>
<p>“Senior0991: That is the most racist post I have ever read on CC! “You are lucky you turned out Asian.””</p>
<p>Stick around. you aint seen nuthin’, yet!</p>
<p>BTW, I don’t think it’s fair, quoting out of context. The GENERAL question</p>
<p>“If you were an unborn kid (not knowing who your parents would be, what race you would be, how wealthy your family would be, what kind of location you’d grow up in) and were asked to pick out your race, which would you choose?”</p>
<p>…is a legitimate one. Perhaps not justification to the opponents of “affirmative action”, and NOT in the context of a snapshot of junior year in the life of 35 kids in an AP class, but I think of it often when someone on college confidential says they “wish they were born black”, or “hit the genetic lottery” no less. </p>
<p>Granted, I am an adult, and in a field of work that reminds me everyday, but it is not pity; it is more like fear.</p>
<p>Did you see the word ‘martyr’ in any of my posts? I don’t pretend to be on the fence with respect to racial preferences, and I expect you to extend the same courtesy.</p>
<p>As far as “fooling anyone” goes, racial preferences is one of those issues where well-reasoned arguments convince only those who were already convinced. I doubt I can “fool” people who have long since rationalized the mental contortion that is reconciling support for positive discrimination and opposition to negative discrimination.</p>
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<p>Of course I will never “understand” that because unlike you, I do not believe that racial preferences are “still needed in 2010.” As for Asians’ previously benefiting from racial preferences, ever wondered why they’re the only racial classification who are no longer “underrepresented,” whatever that word means? Hint: it’s probably the same reason why first- and second-generation blacks are “overrepresented” by 300% at Ivy Leagues.</p>
<p>I went to a high school that was 50% black, 45% white, and 5% “other” my senior year. Among that 5% “other” group, 2% were Latino, 2% were multiracial, and 1% was Asian. In my classes, I was one of two Asians, and neither of us applied to any elite universities as high school seniors. So, no, given my high school background, I do not “personally know any Asian student with top credentials who wasn’t accepted to a great school” because I only knew one other Asian in high school.</p>
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<p>I repeat what I wrote earlier: I’m sure the lucky Jewish students who beat the quota at Harvard in the 1920s would’ve likewise said that “being…Jewish…[didn’t hurt my college app process].”</p>
<p>…Somehow I think this is stating the obvious, but I didn’t read through the entire thread, just a couple of posts.</p>
<p>I think you should not stress about being asian. There are brilliant and idiotic people of every race at every college, who were all accepted under different circumstances. At the end of the day, you can’t change it or AA so it’s not an issue worth expending your time and energy on. You’d be much better off focusing on things you can change to improve your chances of getting into a good college.</p>
Sure, affirmative action definitely helped me get up the ladder!</p>
<p>Seriously, I couldn’t care less how much AA helped Asians half a century ago. I’m not them, and I shouldn’t be at a disadvantage because AA helped them. It’s really sad that people prejudge an individual because of their collectivist views.
Of course, anyone with top credential can get into top colleges. But there are indeed very few people with top credentials, and the remaining spots are given to people who are not at the top, but very close, and there is where the problem lies. Asians and Whites with top credentials get into elite colleges does not justify the fact that out of all the applicants that are “close to the top,” blacks and Hispanics have a higher chance of gaining admissions. </p>
<p>The American obsession with race and superficial equality (and thus the disregard for individual rights in favor for collectivist ideals) is probably one of the most irritating problems in the country today. Thank goodness there’s a growing trend of referendums banning AA in education and employment. People need to get over this racial obsession and look at people from purely an individualistic perspective.</p>