<p>Among the kids I know, they are all very different. But I don't think someone being poor, or black, or being a debate champion really defines their differences. For me, it comes down to personality. Schools like Harvard have a lot of diversity on paper, but in reality the students are very like-minded(overachiever,
highly motivated, maybe a bit arrogant, etc) in terms of personality. Maybe colleges should redefine diversity, having students with different personalities makes a school better, different backgrounds not so much.</p>
<p>I totally agree with you.</p>
<p>Buuuuut guess what? How would colleges measure personality? They think that ECs, essays, and the rest of the things on your application SHOW what your personality is like. AKA if you have been volunteering at a day care, they'll assume you're nice and caring, etc.</p>
<p>If a couple pieces of paper COULD gauge our personality, I'd be all for it, but that's impossible.</p>
<p>Yes, Harvard should diversify and add more underachievers, unmotivated students, and self-deprecators. It would make for a better school. :)</p>
<p>While students at certain schools tend to have certain personality traits in common, you are kidding yourself if you think that their personalities in general are similar. Even at schools where the admissions people select for specific personality traits, you get a wide range of personalities.</p>
<p>I also think that this, while it sounds appealing, is a naive way to look at diversity in society. People who come from different backgrounds are socialized differently in various ways, and they bring the effects of that different socialization to the table. People have different perspectives because of their backgrounds, and can learn from each other in that regard. Being exposed to different demographic groups can cause someone to rethink a stereotype (I have seen this happen with Arabic and Jewish college students, for example). It is not as simple as "We are all special and unique snowflakes, therefore group identity has no meaning."</p>
<p>When I was in elementary school, I went to the neighborhood school (upper-middle-class white kids) for the first half, and a math/science magnet on the other side of the county for the second half. The upper-middle-class white kids had nothing in common except demographics - race, wealth, neighborhood. The magnet kids were from all over the county. A lot of them were poor and black, others were Asian or Hispanic, others were the children of immigrants. But they had obvious personality traits in common. They were high achievers who gravitated toward math and science.</p>
<p>Guess which group I learned more about the world, outside of my own bubble, from? Hint: It wasn't the kids who, diverse personalities or not, had been brought up in the same bubble.</p>
<p>^So people in China (read: almost all of Han Chinese race) are retarded because they didn't have "[racial] diversity" in their schools?</p>
<p>
[quote]
So people in China (read: almost all of Han Chinese race) are retarded because they didn't have "[racial] diversity" in their schools?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Is this how you debate in your competitions?</p>
<p>Different societies are different. In a society where the people are nearly all of the same ethnicity, there will be different demographic factors that influence experience and perspective. Gender and family wealth, for instance, are still applicable, and I suspect (I can't confirm because I know little about Chinese culture) that they have factors that US society does not.</p>
<p>A Chinese student who has never been exposed to different ethnicities is absolutely not "retarded" because of it. A Chinese student who, say, comes to the US for college, after having been around only other Han Chinese her whole life, is going to have a significant learning curve to deal with (even beyond the "adjusting to a foreign country" part).</p>