<p>Ha, good find Foil. dontno, Iāll ignore most of your ad hominem arguments, and try to address your points directly. Iāll offer up a short argument from the achievement/ability perspective, instead of the moral obligation perspective, since you obviously wonāt agree with my āincredibly liberal bias.ā</p>
<p>Thereās a fundamental difference between the situation you describe and the situation that minority students are in, which is that the priming effect is something inherent, something that will exist regardless of the surrounding situation. Whether there are disruptive influences or not, this effect is going to happen, and theyāll be negatively affected by it. Your situation isnāt the sameāitās certainly not something that holds true universally for white students.
While I canāt comment on what you say after that (about highly doubting the score difference), the fact remains that URMs consistently perform more poorly on standardized tests. There really are only a few explanationsā¦either youāre going to go ahead and say theyāre less intelligent, or that theyāre systematically disadvantaged, through implicit racism, economic inequalities, and relative lack of educational opportunities. </p>
<p>So fine, the average high school GPA and SAT score are almost certainly lower for minority students. Honestly, I donāt know how big a difference it is, and neither do you. But how much does this matter? I assume your point is that schools should consider achievement objectively, without taking other (unchangeable) factors or the overall situation into consideration. But then, if youāre admitting students based solely on achievement in high school, most kids from public schools just donāt compare. In all likelihood, the above-average student at Exeter has accomplished more with his time than most other students at other high schools. Does that mean that that student should be admitted every time over the kid from North Dakota with two AP classes at his school?</p>
<p>My position is no, obviously. I think taking the surrounding circumstances into consideration is important in determining the ability of students. I think a student who manages to thrive with few opportunities shows more character than a marginally better student with more opportunities, and that this effort should be considered. Coming from a disadvantaged background in itself shows talent, and I think this actually is reflected in minority performance in college. The study you cited was not only sixteen (!) years old, but completely irrelevant. Much more important is performance in college. After all, the primary goal behind college admissions is to determine whether students will be successful at their school. Graduation statistics at top colleges (lower ranked colleges practice AA more rarely) show that minority students clearly perform at comparable rates to their peers.</p>
<p>Ultimately, your main point is wrong, as I said before. Youāre saying that he was rejected solely on the basis of race, because he likely would have been accepted had be been black. But thatās a ridiculous argument. You can just as easily say that he was rejected on the basis of extracurricularsāif heād just gone to the IMO, he likely would have been accepted. Or you could say that he was rejected on the basis of location. If he lived in Idaho, he would have likely been accepted. Because college admissions are so holistic, you canāt say he was rejected or accepted simply because he was Asian. While you can argue that individual students get accepted partly through race, you canāt argue the reverseāthat students are rejected because of race. </p>
<p>Oh, by the way, Iām an Asian American myself. Iām not arguing out of straight self-interest, if youāre wondering.</p>