<p>i know. 809-forever!!!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>I applied to CALS.</p>
<p>And I know where you are coming from. I took ESL when i first got here. And pretty much all the Dominicans that were with me dropped out of school. the ones that stay in school don't give a damm about school. ugh. it bothers me a lot. when i tell someone I'm Dominican they don't believe me because they are aware of my academics achievements. plus i look a little Indian.lol</p>
<p>Lol at 809!</p>
<p>When I came from DR they were going to hold me back a grade! Though ma moms went crazy and she attacked the office and was like, "Mi hijo no es un idiota!! Co</p>
<p>OMG----that happened to me too! they actually made me take a test. But i couldnt say triangle. they didnt really mind that. but they wanted to hold me back specially b/c im younger. i just turned 17.</p>
<p>'"Mi hijo no es un idiota!! Co</p>
<p>
[quote]
You might get in b/c you're black, but with those scores, you'll have a lot of trouble succeeding.</p>
<p>They let lots of unqualified people in and most of them end up at the bottom of the curve.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm sure school administrators know this and I'm sure they're fine with it. URM's drop out of med school for academic reasons at roughly 5x the rate of Asians and whites but med schools still practice affirmative action as fervently as colleges if not more so. Affirmative action is a brute force way to increase diversity and school officials know that there are some sacrifices to be made. If it means lower GPA's or slightly lower graduation rates, they're willing to deal with it.</p>
<p>That's also another misconception that people have with affirmative action. I always hear people asking "Why don't they just practice socioeconomic AA instead?" The point of AA is not to correct for disadvantages. It's simply to increase diversity. Because of that, a wealthy, middle-class, or poor black will always be more valuable than a poor Asian. There are two reasons for this: one, is that race is a more superficial, ostentatious kind of diversity. You can't tell the difference b/w a poor student and a rich student from a picture but you can tell who the black student, the white student, the hispanic student, and the asian student is. The second reason is that race might bring more diversity than socioeconomic status. For example, I knew plenty of poor Chinese kids growing up (heck, I was one; my family lived for years on a $9000/yr income). Rich Asian parents buy pianos for their kids and start them on piano lessons early. Poor Asian parents...buy pianos for their kids and start them on piano lessons early. The pianos may be more used and instead of that $200/hr world-famous piano teacher, they might get the $40/hr piano teacher. In the end, the values and familiar pressures are still the same.</p>
<p>Oh wow, you are FRESH off the boat! I came here in Jr. high School. </p>
<p>"This is the greatest quote in this entire site!" lol, the funny thing is, I became valedictorian of my eighth grade class. IN THEIR FACE!!! My dad has no idea what the difference is between CUNY: York College and Cornell University. He just runs his grocery store and pays the bills lol.</p>
<p>I'm hoping if, GOD FORBID, I don't get in, my mom will step in and fight. haha</p>
<p>and as for essays, common app was EXACTLY what yours is about, but mine kinda sucked. But my CoE essay was amazing!!!</p>
<p>im backwards. i loved my common app. one b/c it dealt with an ethic issue that i have faced back in DR and whanot. my CALS, i could have spent more time on it. it wasnt as creative as i wanted.</p>
<p>nonetheless, i hope we both get in.</p>
<p>keep in touch!</p>
<p>we are probably the only 2 dominicans that applied!lol</p>
<p>
[quote]
I used to hate affirmative action, now I like it. It's not fair for other races to have to compete against each other for college spots, when certain races (i.e. whites) are given better opportunities to begin with.
Example: Most minority area schools are given less funding. If a black student in this area does his best, and learns everything he can at that school, but then makes a 1800 on his SAT - is it his fault? Not really, the school didn't have the funding to teach what's necessary to make a 2300. So he should still have a short at Cornell and other top schools.
[/quote]
You're assuming that all whites are rich and all blacks are poor - what about all the poor whites/asians out there, and the rich blacks/hispanics? Your argument makes no sense because obviously you don't have to be black to be disadvantaged, nor is every white/asian/arab advantaged, many are poor. </p>
<p>norcalguy - I totally get what you mean, but don't you think it's kind of unfair? I feel like AA should help underprivileged kids, and instead it only seeks to help URM's - I guess to make the campus appear more colorful, by tossing some chocolate sprinkles over an otherwise vanilla cupcake. if AA were socio-economic, then all those poor black/hispanics from lower-funded schools would benefit, but so would their non URM peers who also are disadvantaged.</p>
<p>Molly, you're also assuming that poor people are more inclined to do badly on tests, and rich people more inclined to do better on tests. Unfortunately, assumptions are part of life. We must assume things about certain groups to better serve them. They assumed people weren't getting enough fluoride when they decided to put it in water, for example - but what about the people that do get enough? </p>
<p>Things must simply go on statistics. Sure, there are some rich black and hispanics, but using statistics, they are more likely to be poor. They are more likely to live in areas with bad schools and less opportunities. These assumptions have to be made in order for many minorities to have a chance at top schools. Every now and then a rich black guy with a private school education gets in - good for him. He would have got in anyway - so what's the problem here?</p>
<p>As for whites who are disadvantaged, the "first generation college student" helps them get in, yes?</p>
<p>
[quote]
if AA were socio-economic, then all those poor black/hispanics from lower-funded schools would benefit, but so would their non URM peers who also are disadvantaged.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You're mistaken. And the reason why you're mistaken is also the reason why socioeconomic AA will never exist. If race became irrelevant in the AA equation and only economic status mattered, almost no blacks or hispanics would benefit. Almost all the spots currently taken by underqualified URM's would be taken by underqualified but poor whites/Asians in the hypothetical socioeconomic AA program.</p>
<p>See graph below. </p>
<p>File:1995-SAT-Income2.png</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>Correct. The difference in performance is more due to cultural than economic reasons. So, schools will continue to stay with race-based AA over socioeconomic AA.</p>
<p>
[quote]
norcalguy - I totally get what you mean, but don't you think it's kind of unfair? I feel like AA should help underprivileged kids, and instead it only seeks to help URM's - I guess to make the campus appear more colorful, by tossing some chocolate sprinkles over an otherwise vanilla cupcake. if AA were socio-economic, then all those poor black/hispanics from lower-funded schools would benefit, but so would their non URM peers who also are disadvantaged.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You have to consider the mission of each type of school. For example, I hear kids complaining about how an English major with a 3.8 GPA got into med school over an engineering major with a 3.7 GPA even though the engineering major had to work a lot harder. It's not the med schools' mission to pick the hardest working or even the smartest student. It's their mission to produce the best doctors. If the English major has better social skills and more extracurricular activities than the engineering major, he will get picked every single time because he would make a better doctor, even though the engineering major may have worked a lot harder during college.</p>
<p>Similarly, colleges have a wide range of goals to satisfy. They pick athletes with subpar academic stats in order to provide a great sporting atmosphere for everyone. They pick legacies with subpar academic stats so that their parents would keep donating and the money can be used to improve the school for everyone. They pick URMs with subpar academic stats so that in class discussions all the students can be exposed to a wider range of ideas. It's not about picking only the students with the highest scores, the students who worked the hardest, or even the students with the best college applications. It's about assembling the best mix of students (filled with athletes, legacies, minorities, nerds, musicians, etc.) that would provide the best atmosphere (both social and academic) for everyone as well as providing good fodder for those brochures that they love to send out.</p>
<p>Norcalguy is correct. Universities seek for an overall diversity. </p>
<p>Often my friends joke around and describe themselves. and then say why would a college want, a white or asian, middle class, great grades, good ec, and good essays, when they can have the immigrant with good grades, who just learned english and is in the top of his class. though i do not get offended, i find the comment hypocritical. No one wants to go to a Utopian university. </p>
<p>To those who complaint that URM;s have the advantage, you are correct! And you know what- you should want it that way. After all, who wants to be around people who are the same as you all the time!?</p>
<p>^ I want the best universities to educate the best students so that the best/most promising students can efficiently serve the public good in the best ways possible. This probably means some kind of AA because there are some serious advantages that rich kids have over poor kids. I think the best ideal though would be an AA based on a combination of income, and zip code. This could be used to limit the boost given to rich minorities in affluent areas, and it could be used to give a boost to poor white students in urban/under served/rural impoverished areas. Blocking statistics like this by race lets far to many people fall through the cracks.</p>
<p>Good point, dontno - if AA was socioeconomic, then those poor asian/arab/whites would be filling a lot of spots. But you're basically saying poor whites/asians are more qualified than poor URMs...I guess that's reflected in their SAT. Kind of pathetic, but true. I feel like the current AA system based on color is so unfair though, but we need to keep it going for the sake of sticking more poor URM kids in good schools (I realize that they're a minority and most URMs are qualified to be in the colleges they're in). But wouldn't say, a poor Indian or Chinese kid who grew up in a crappy neighborhood also contribute a unique perspective, probably similar to the poor URM? Yet the poor Indian/Chinese won't get the advantage, because there's all those smart Indian/Chinese kids out there and he gets lumped in with them rather than his actual peers at his low-funded school. </p>
<p>DarkIce - yeah but you have to realize that poor asians/whites are getting screwed over. and they're not all 1st gen - I guess I sympathize towards them because my parents were immigrants living below the poverty line, and I have cousins who are living in areas with crappy public schools as well. Luckily they have HEOP to help them though :)</p>
<p>OP sorry I didn't chance you, I don't really know much about chances, i'm just an applicant too.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But wouldn't say, a poor Indian or Chinese kid who grew up in a crappy neighborhood also contribute a unique perspective, probably similar to the poor URM?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Would they?</p>
<p>As I said before, I grew up in an urban, impoverished, predominantly African American neighborhood. I went to a school that was 85% black (a school so crappy that it has since been shut down by the district for underperformance). It wasn't Compton and I didn't have to sell drugs on the street but it wasn't your ideal situation either. I had a few Asian friends who grew up in the same neighborhood and same economic situation. We ended up at University of Illinois (for electrical engineering), a couple at Duke, I went to Cornell obviously, one went to Stanford, and one went to Georgetown. Even though we were poor, we were still different from the black families that lived around us and our values were still different. Most of our parents were still educated or, at the very least, valued education. Hence, race is a bigger deal than simple economics.</p>
