<p>re: Posters dumping on the Plaintiff</p>
<p>“Based on the plaintiffs two part score of 1180, it would seem at least 1/3, or likely more of the African American students accepted had scores below the plaintiff.”</p>
<p>That means that 2/3 had higher scores … in other words, the Plaintiff’s scores were below average for the population she’s complaining about. As several posters have noted, one of the remarkable aspects of this case is how weak the Plaintiff’s academic credentials are.</p>
<p>I wonder how much this perceived lack of leadership of asians is discrimination against them. Its hard to discriminate against someone on objective factors. Its easy for peers and even teacher to overlook the contributions of asians, if they arent socialized to toot their own horn.</p>
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<p>That, and the fact that, loosely defined, “leadership” at many (if not most) elite colleges includes participation on team sports, some of which (like, field hockey, lacross, swimming, golf, cross-country, and football) aren’t even available at most big-city public schools.</p>
<p>New hope- but still the plaintiff is well within the range of accepted AAs.</p>
<p>JW, I agree. But even for jobs like editor of school paper etc. – how many times does teacher advisor look around the room and asks who wants to do this, or that, and get volunteers based on who makes eye contact? I wonder how many times “leadership” is a thinly veiled euphamism for “conforms to white american standards”?</p>
<p>I realize that this thread is really going off on a tangent, but just want to add two things.</p>
<p>One, I do believe that it is inappropriate to label an entire population (i.e., Asians) as lacking leadership ability. Nuf said.</p>
<p>Secondly, I have to say that I think leadership is overrated when it comes to high school kids. Yes, some kids show leadership skills. But this takes a certain level of self-confidence and maturity that some kids have not yet developed by age 16 or so. Some develop it later in college but so not have it in high school. Some kids have tremendous academic/creative/athletic/artistic/etc. gifts and passions but do not have the assertive skills to demonstrate leadership potential at that point. Some are too tied to peer group norms and are just trying to get through high school. While any adcom may appreciate leadership skills in a potential admit, hopefully the more shy, unassertive kids with tremendous potential will not be overlooked.</p>
<p>“New hope- but still the plaintiff is well within the range of accepted AAs.”</p>
<p>I’m missing your point. Is it that white females should be admitted even if their scores are below average (but within range) for admitted blacks?</p>
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<p>Agree strongly with the above…especially considering what I’ve observed often passes for “leadership” at that stage of a student’s life. Those who continued to hold to that definition are some of the worst leaders/supervisors I’ve ever observed in the news or in life from high school to the working world. </p>
<p>On the other hand, some of the best leaders/supervisors I’ve known in my professional life admitted they wouldn’t have been considered leadership material during middle/high school or even early college age because they were naturally introverted, shouted down by more boisterous/egotistical classmates, or they had other priorities…like pulling a double major in partying/beer or working hard at a part/practically full-time job to make ends meet. </p>
<p>Some from the latter group gained valuable leadership experience later on in college, military/full-time altruistic public service*, and/or in the workplace.</p>
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<li>I.e. Peace Corps, City Year, TFA, etc.</li>
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<p>The ironic thing is that if the plaintiff wins, the legislation which limited automatic acceptance at UT to 75% will probably be repealed. That means that someone like the plaintiff would be even less likely to get in. Before the legislation, UT was getting overwhelmed with the number of automatic admits. But maybe there will be a few non-top 10% slots for the football team.</p>
<p>Newhope – I think the ranges for the non-automatic admit should be the same for all. The auto admit does result in diversity.</p>
<p>^ HouTxmom - Yes, exactly. The problem with “merit-based” systems is that merit is extremely difficult to measure objectively. (Merit-based) private universities end up with admission processes so unfathomable that students cannot predict outcomes … a victim of Tuft’s Syndrome here, a victim of demographics there, a victim of financial need someplace else.</p>
<p>So the danger IMHO, is the Court ruling “any system that results in admission policies that give the same result as a system based on AA is hereby declared Unconstitutional. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.”</p>
<p>Replacing the Ten Percent System (or 75% System, if you prefer) with something SAT-based won’t help Miss Texas SAT 1160 … she’ll end up where all those Miss California SAT 1160 students end up, someplace other than the state flagship university.</p>
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<p>I guess that is the extent of her case- out of thousands of kids accepted, two dozen URMs and a dozen whites got into UT who had lower SAT scores than her.</p>
<p>It does not seem to me like we are talking about national merit scholar type of white students being passed over to allow thousands of blacks with SAT scores in the 1500 range. We are basically talking about kids who were all below the first standard deviation of the SAT. Apparently, both white and black kids with lower scores than her got in. At best, it is possible some of these low scoring AA kids wanted to major in a field that the plantiff had not expressed an interest in studying, such as Black Studies, Football, basketball etc. At worse, I think we are talking about very small consideration being given to race of the applicants.</p>
<p>Also thanks to xiggi and TX for enlightening me on the subject.</p>
<p>“I’m missing your point. Is it that white females should be admitted even if their scores are below average (but within range) for admitted blacks?”</p>
<p>Yes Newhope - you are missing the point. The point is that there should not be a “range for admitted blacks” (or any other racial group).</p>
<p>There should only be a range for admitted students.</p>
<p>(Unless you want to repeal the 14th Amendment.)</p>
<p>“Newhope – I think the ranges for the non-automatic admit should be the same for all. The auto admit does result in diversity.”</p>
<p>Let’s assume UT makes “same range for all” official policy. This means that either (a) blacks admitted have higher stats than whites, in which case the (below mean) Plaintiff’s slot would be taken by a higher scoring black; or (b) whites admitted have higher stats than blacks, in which case the Plaintiff’s slot … as well as all the black’s slots … would be taken by higher scoring whites that were previously denied admission. The third option, that blacks and whites score the same, gives the same result … no admission slot for the Plaintiff.</p>
<p>Basically this is not a case where the Plaintiff would have been admitted if there was no AA pool. The only way the Plaintiff gets her “Welcome to UT!” letter is if the entire 75% system is abolished.</p>
<p>So back to the core issue, do we rescind the Valedictorian from Pumphrey TX so Miss SAT 1160 can have that slot?</p>
<p>glido - I agree with you. But the Plaintiff has no shot at UT unless the entire 75% system is overturned. All this “range stuff” is an artifact of the 75% system.</p>
<p>NewHope – its not just about this one plaintiff. Its about should there be seperate pools when there is already the 10 (or 8 or 9) percent system.</p>
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<p>How many of those were recruited athletes?</p>
<p>^My point exactly. I don’t know how many, but if there is just a dozen or so blacks with low SATs, who were not in the top 10%, I am guessing some of them could be recruited atheletes etc.Same for the whites who had these low scores.</p>
<p>Texans could not come up with a better candidate to challenge this law?</p>
<p>What I did find some interesting information from the Texas charts about SAT and freshman GPA. Girls tended to high lower SATs across the board but had higher GPAs in college. This leads me to believe the the SAT test has to be gender biased some how. The 10% admitted students had on average higher freshman GPAs with same cooresponding SATs to the non 10% students. It leads me to believe that rank must matter too in how well a student performs in college. That the top ranked students should not be discounted. Even though non 10% students on average had to have an higher SAT it did not always coorespond with better performance in college. </p>
<p>The most troubling thing I saw is that students studying educations had both lower SAT and GPAs too. No wonder our k-12 has had problems.</p>
<p>
Fisher ended up at the flagship university of another state. She is scheduled to graduate from Louisiana State University in May 2012.</p>