<p>I’m not sure that racial diversity is in fact achieved at hundreds of colleges throughout America without deliberate effort or consideration. Or at all. And if it is, what it actually might represent is “socioeconmic parity,” meaning that a sufficient proportion of people from differing races achieved sufficient socioeconomic autonomy to live in sufficiently funded suburban school districts with sufficient environmental stimulus and nutritional/biological stimulus, opportunity and attention to develop their innate potential to a level acceptable to meet admission requirements.</p>
<p>I think, or would like to hope, that intelligent adcoms recognize that there are a number of indicators or dimensions of intelligence, some of which are directly connected to the availability of resources, some of which reflect different approaches to learning and some of which can or might be biologically determined, others which may be encultured. So, rightly or wrongly, rather than packaging a product, I would suspect their intent would be to evaluate the level of effort and capacity to actualize potential a student has exerted in the context of their social environment, and to rightly or wrongly attempt to equalize what often begins as an unequal playing field.</p>
<p>That is not to say that I agree with the outcome of these measures or considerations, this social handicapping, particularly where merit appears to go unrewarded. I just don’t think the root cause is as cynical as some posters here suggest.</p>
<p>I keep thinking of that study that was released last year that showed that Asian families were, on balance, more likely to spend several hours a day discussing ideas, reviewing homework, and generally educating their children because that was a cultural priority and viewed to be a principal responsibility of parenting. And then I read about how many blacks there are living in single parented and impoverished homes, where usually a mom is working crazy hours to make ends meet while residents in urban neighborhoods don’t have the tax base (or the support of other urban residents) to receive as much school funding, yet have to spend even more money on students falling through the cracks. And then I notice the white suburbans, in a two-income household, who hire a tutor, go to PTA meetings, and pay for 6 rounds of the SATs. These are gross stereotypes – and it’s very true you can mix and match the conditions of each situation and race (I for example, have lived variations of all the themes) – but the stereotypes exist because there is a glimmer of trend underlying them, or was once. In my example here, I am merely illustrating the potential conditions numerically possibly in a given community, not a defacto claim, and I do so only to illustrate what I suspect are the underpinnings of the admission results we’re discussing.</p>
<p>So, all three of the kids have the innate potential to be great scholars. Some people thrive in adversity. Others learn to manipulate and exploit. Some are hard workers. Some expect someone else to do the work and operate from a sense of entitlement. Those characteristics will to some extent flow from the style of parenting and life events or encounters these students might have.</p>
<p>So, let’s take the white kid from the state’s top ranked (double per capita funding) school district, six prep tests, the availability of AP classes, the paid tutor, the teachers who like their jobs, and see how they do on the SAT. No one would get terribly excited about an 1150, I’m afraid.</p>
<p>Take the Asian kid, who has spend about double the time learning and discussing things over the last 18 years, whether in the urban or suburban setting, who has been given high expectations to meet and the understanding that it is their JOB to be a student. No one would get terribly excited about an 1150, again. It would not benchmark superior achievement within the opportunities available. </p>
<p>Take the single-parented black kid, who may have been latchkey since grade 3, who’s mom tells him to do his homework, say out of trouble, loves him a lot and gives him all the affection she can spare, but who just doesn’t have the time in the day to be teacher and doesn’t have the money to hire one. Have this kid score an 1150 – single sitting – at an underfunded and underperforming school where he ranks in the top 10%. Maybe he has a 4.0. Maybe he’s gone as far as he can go in his environment and is hungry for more. This kid volunteers at the food kitchen, plays in the school band, spearheaded a group for urban revitalization.</p>
<p>Who do you pick to admit?</p>
<p>Me, in my mind, I can pick all three. Because every child in this country should have the opportunity, whatever his or her background, race, or socioeconomic class, to actualize his or her potential to its full extent – to my mind. A SAT test that’s biased to English speaking visual/literal intelligence does not tell me the whole story about a human. Which is NOT to say that you don’t have to be very good at all the things you ultimately do on a SAT test in order to do well at a top school. </p>
<p>I don’t know. Some days the problems seem just too big to solve. The root of all this is so old and so often corrupted I feel like we just can’t seem to dig it out without killing the tree.
Other days, I remember we will evolve : )</p>
<p>The day when we don’t have to THINK about affirmative action is the day we will have truly beat racism.</p>