<p>[Princeton Professor Russell K. Nieli notes], "To have the same chance of gaining admission as a black student with a SAT score of 1100, a Hispanic student otherwise equally matched in background characteristics would have to have 1230, a white student a 1410, and an Asian student a 1550."</p>
<p>Well this is obvious. We need to stop racial affirmative action at private schools and start socio-economic affirmative action.</p>
<p>agree with cowman809 :D</p>
<p>Third with cowman haha</p>
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<p>Why should there be any kind of affirmative action?</p>
<p>Because, quite obviously in fact, the rich can throw mone around for prep-classes while the poorer can not. Simple fact.</p>
<p>Although, in my humble opinion, affirmative action does not and should not really affect a person’s chances. Anyone can work hard enough to achieve greatness.</p>
<p>^Agreed with gthopeful. We should allow merit, achievement, and experience determine admissions.</p>
<p>Note: I am South Asian, so I am biased</p>
<p>I agree that there shouldnt be but the fact is, for the foreseeable future, there will be AA within the college admission process, whether we like it or not. Socioeconomic, in my opinion, would be the lesser of the two evils</p>
<p>Look, I’m asian too and I hate AA and how i am “forced” to get better scores/stronger ec’s but AA being there is just what it is</p>
<p>This is why</p>
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<a href=“http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2008.png[/img]”>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2008.png
![http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2008.png[/img]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/US_real_median_household_income_1967_-_2008.png%5B/img%5D){kind=link}
</a></p>
<p>Fix that first.</p>
<p>racial affirmative action is a form of balancing action that serves to benefit those who were subject to racial unfairness in the past. Socio-economic AA is used to help those who are not able to have as many opportunities due to their financial troubles. Basically, affirmative action is supposedly justified because it helps to make up for inequalities in the past or present (socially, or financially). </p>
<p>It sounds really nice to those who benefit from it but to those who suffer from it as a result (asian americans, indians) it can be quite unfair. Afterall, shouldn’t opportunities be given to those who work the hardest for them? For example, in England, colleges such as Oxford and Cambridge do not look at legacy/ethnicity and only look at your grades/scores and is really fair with respect to a merit based system.</p>
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<p>And? By the standards of colleges, they are more qualified then. You’re confounding ability to succeed with what colleges think measures ability to succeed and then suggesting that poorer students get a handicap in this particular metric because they can’t afford to inflate their scores. Why should scores even be that important? You should really be asking more why colleges put so much weight on things that almost trivially result from a privileged upbringing to begin with: volunteering, high test scores, tons of extracurricular activites, and so on. Most kids of my class that I knew ended up working long hours during the school week for extra money or to help their folks out, and they suffered accordingly in college admissions.</p>
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<p>Do these classes teach anything that isn’t covered in the vastly less expensive books from Kaplan, Princeton Review, and so forth? And if you want to use this line of argument, aren’t you actually defending socioeconomic preferences as opposed to racial preferences?</p>
<p>Last year, I paid around $50 for the three official GMAT review books and scored in the 97th percentile overall. I doubt that forking over twenty times that amount or more really would’ve made any difference in my score.</p>
<p>Why should this matter to any of you? A private school should have the right to accept anyone they want. Show me where it says that students with the highest SAT and GPA will be accepted.</p>
<p>Socioeconomic data reflects not solely on how well the student prepares for the SAT through test preparatory services but in a macro sense, how well the community and school are tailored to the students’ success. Regardless of the socioeconomic status of a given student, he or she will (in almost all certainty) be better prepared in an upper middle class public than one in the inner city. </p>
<p>Further, the student may have familial obligations that require less emphasis on school but are still productive and helpful. These should not be assumed based on an income number or an ethnicity (an African American hailing from a middle class suburb is far, far better prepared than a poor white living in the city, and to argue otherwise borders on the racism that AA tries to avoid) but, rather, a holistic process.</p>
<p>Anyway, I don’t see a point in this topic’s existence. “Race” in College Admissions covers affirmative action as a whole; therefore, this could be introduced to spark debate where – I’m sure – it’s already active.</p>
<p>I agree with SteveJanowski, the ivies are private institutions, they can do as they please, if they want affirmative action then that is there choice regardless of how fair it is. Public universities however are government funded and therefore should have or not have AA based on the people’s opinion. </p>
<p>Nonetheless, I also am against AA, mainly since I am indian and that hurts my chances but I think Hispanics and African Americans should mad about AA as well. As a human being, I don’t want to be given acceptance into a college simply because hey, I was born black so since society has a guilty conscience I am accepted. I want to get into college because I did the requisite work, so I guess my point is that minorities should be more offended by affirmative action in today’s society. I think the philosophy of Ayn Rand needs application here, merit alone should determine acceptance, nothing else. </p>
<p>On another note, the point of AA is really lost on the general population, it is meant to get poor underprivileged minorities into colleges that they otherwise could have never dreamed of, the reality of the situation is that minorities in the same tax bracket or higher than their white and asian counterparts get all the benefits, they are roughly equal statistically to their counterparts but also get the plus of race, so in the end the poor inner city kids stay poor, middle class America stays rich and AA simply keeps the trend going.</p>
<p>I’m white, and I support a watered down version of AA. I believe that it is necessary, and perhaps should take on more of a “tip” factor in college admissions, but definitely carries too much weight as it is.</p>
<p>And I agree with AvisMath. No matter what, money makes getting into college easier. Who has the easier time getting into college; kid A that attends fancy, well-regarded private school, teaches underprivileged kids in Africa over the summer (funded by good old mom and pop), and has ample time to devote towards their research project for the Intel contest, or a lower income, kid B that has too attend their sh***y public school where they have crap teachers and horrible guidance and has to work a job over the summer (and all year round) instead of that trip or research? Kid A will always look more impressive, so kid B needs some compensation.</p>
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<p>Is this implying that because blacks are in general poorer than Asians, that you give preferential treatment to the black child of a rich doctor over a poor Asian immigrant?</p>
<p>Colleges deal with individuals. Or at least, I wish they did.</p>
<p>You guys seem to be under the impression that AA is done purely for the benefit of the students and the student body…but a lot of it is done for the college. The college wants to at least appear ethnically diverse to appeal to students who want to attend a diverse college.</p>
<p>lol Affirmative action is the greatest thing that has ever happened to Asians in college admission, especially during their perilous journey to MIT, what the heck are you guys talking about?? Long live LBJ!!! :D</p>
<p>kjiggy - that is only true for those who look at people as components of groups and not as individuals. (It is beneficial that college age students go to schools with biases, blatent and otherwise - how else are kids going to learn about the real world.)</p>