Does race play a larger or smaller part of the application process than we think?

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Pennsylvania
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<p>BigAppleDaddy, why did you make the very racist assumption that only “random white folks” view me in terms of affirmative action? You couldn’t be more incorrect. Countless times in the last four years I’ve had African American leaders point to me as an example of affirmative action success. My gf is from Malaysia. She told me years ago that when we first met she just assumed that I was admitted to Columbia because of affirmative action. Such assumptions are not the exclusive domain of white people; every race makes them. </p>

<p>As to your question, “What do you think that those same people who think you were admitted to an Ivy or hired because you were black would have thought about you BEFORE afirmative action?” I believe the answer is that they would have had no choice but to conclude that I made it to Columbia because of merit. Affirmative action has given all them the ability to assume otherwise.</p>

<p>But don’t get me wrong. I am not against the underlying purpose of affirmative action. I wish more of my brothers and sisters were beside me. However, my hope is that someday our culture will somehow lose its fascination with hip hop, the NBA, and the gangster vibe and start focusing on education. I grew up poor in bad neighborhoods but I (and my siblings) succeeded because our parents emphasized education – every bit as much as my gf’s Asian parents emphasized it in their home. To me, it is obvious that home expectations are the single most important factor in whether a student succeeds academically. </p>

<p>I do agree with you that what people think of me is irrelevant. Perhaps as I age and mature, this stigma will bother me less. I hope so.</p>

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<p>jamma</p>

<p>Your posts underscore to me the oft-wide differences (or experiences) between the attitudes of native-born black people and first-generation immigrant black people. I went to a top school in my time and I never had any black person say or imply that I was there for anything except being good in school, even though they assumed affirmative action played a part. They realized good and well that Ivy League schools don’t let you in “just because you’re black” If anything, the prevailing attitude I think for most native born US black people is that color more often works against you, not for you, which is why we still need affirmative action. One black president does not a post-racial society make. I think an immigrant might not make these assumptions ( in general, not necessarily about Obama). </p>

<p>A first-generation black immigrant might also think it is racist to assume that its white people who assume you are unqualified. A native born black will think it’s almost ALWAYS a white person making that assumption. To be fair, I have heard such expressions on rare occasions from Asian or Hispanic people, but never, in my experience, from anyone black. Home-grown black people may be (sadly) unsupportive in other ways, but I’ve never heard a black person use the affirmative action thing against another one of us. I guess your experience is different, no? </p>

<p>Interesting too, and a little sad, I think, that your foreign-born GF had the same response – you’re at Columbia “just because you’re black”. To me that shows how some immigrants can pick up on the worst attitudes the US has rather than the best. The implication of her statement is simply that you’ weren’t good enough to be where you are. (Presumably she knows you now and that’s changed, but I’m talking first impressions.) </p>

<p>The assumption that white folks would have simply thought you qualified had you attended an Ivy League school before AA also shows me that immigrant and native born blacks see the world differently. Many (but not all ) of those who were admitted to top predominately white institutions prior to the '60s had miserable, lonely experiences. Read sometimes about Benjamin O. Davis at West Point to see what this was like at its worst. </p>

<p>The obvious reason there were so few blacks at places like that was color, and the cost of attending. But a big reason was that blacks simply found a friendlier reception at Morehouse, Fisk, Howard, Hampton, Morgan State, Spellman et al. where people weren’t constantly questioning their very right to be there. At Fisk or Howard you were simply another smart black kid. At Harvard or Yale you were on exhibition. </p>

<p>The immigrant experience is different I guess. It comes with a whole different world-view, without the baggage of history for those of us born here. Make your school, your family, and your friends proud of you. I wish you nothing but success at the Big C.</p>

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<p>BigAppleDaddy,</p>

<p>You are correct. There is a significant difference between first-generation African immigrants and African Americans. Speaking in general terms, we first-generation immigrants see America as the proverbial land of opportunity. In our homeland, our family’s future was limited by our status. No matter how hard we worked, our future was limited. My parents brought us to this nation with the hope that hard work would allow us to escape our social status. My parents knew that education was the key, and they expected excellence. My mum’s biggest fear was that her children would adopt the African American culture, and she refused (at first) to even play with neighborhood children. My parents were not uncommon. Many first-generation Africans feel this way. Although I disagree with much of my parents’ initial feelings, I do appreciate my culture’s emphasis on education and hard work. All of my cousins and more distant relatives who worked hard in high school were given opportunities to further their education in this country. Indeed, a sizeable percentage of African Americans whom I’ve met at top schools in the Northeast are first-generation immigrants. </p>

<p>We also look differently upon America. Having lived in a nation where our safety could not be guaranteed, having heard stories of my father’s family’s struggles in our homeland, and having witnessed the success of our family in this land, it is difficult for me to see America as a land of oppression.</p>

<p>As for racist behavior, if you travel this world you will see that every race, every culture, and every religion tends to judge outsiders harshly. It’s a universal weakness of our species. If you doubt me, walk into any borough and ask an African American how he feels about Jews or Koreans. Then walk to another borough and ask a Jew how he feels about Muslims (or vice versa). Visit Seoul and ask how they feel about Japanese. Why pretend that the notion is limited to white people? </p>

<p>I won’t burden you with any more of my comments. I find this topic very tiring. I appreciate your views and wish you much success.</p>

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<p>So apparently according to some people on this post it is so impossible for a black student to be accepted on merit. I know this may shock some of you but it is possible to be black AND intelligent. SHOCKER! Way to insult the intelligence of thousands of black students who are in top-ranked schools AND thriving! You may take one person who was accepted in a good school with “low” stats and say it represents every single case of minorities in colleges. You are overgeneralizing! There are white students who get in with stats that seemed as low but no one makes a big deal out of them. Did you know that the recent valedictorian of John Hopkins was a black female?!?!? Did you?!?!? How could this have possibly have happened if black students are inherently less intelligent and not qualified to be in such institutions? Oh and to the person who said blacks have a high poverty rate, whites have high amounts of people in poverty as well. Your PERCENTAGE may be smaller, but your POPULATION is bigger. Do the math people. Do the friggin math! There are extreme amounts of poverty in parts like the Appalachia which is predominately white. And by the way. This may be a surprise to you but affirmative action does not hold that much legal weight like it did when it was first initiated.
this is a timeline of all affirmative action legislation
[Affirmative</a> Action Timeline — Infoplease.com](<a href=“http://www.infoplease.com/spot/affirmativetimeline1.html]Affirmative”>Timeline of Affirmative Action Milestones)
In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke the Supreme Court banned quota systems, and in Gratz v. Bollinger the Supreme Court ruled against extra points added to students ratings in admissions. Affirmative Action basically allows private institutions (affirmative action in public institutions is illegal in quite a few states) and businesses to look at race as factor but not completely base their selections on it. Have you ever thought that race might only be a factor in looking at applicants who are equally qualified? And besides we are only a small percentage of those enrolled in these schools. Race would not be a big enough factor to knock out this ‘overwhelming’ amount of qualified white applicants. So all these assumptions and stereotypes about the affect of affirmative action are based on myths and prejudiced thinking. It seems to me that the people who are angry about this are people who were rejected and can’t accept the fact that a minority was MORE qualified than they were. Or people who just don’t want to believe their classmates are equal with them. Either way it’s infuriating and it makes my stomach churn that even today smart black students can’t be seen as equal. It’s simply ignorant and disgusting.</p>

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<p>Of course one can be black and smart. The point is that with the positive discrimination in their favor, one can also be black and not as smart as the others. That’s why they face prejudice, same way a donor’s child might be judged for getting in only thanks to his parent’s contributions.</p>

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<p>That’s not the point I was making. The thing that irks me is that people overgeneralize or exaggerate that idea and make it sound like black students are not qualified or worthy of being in these schools. I am working my ass off to try and get into Penn. I’ve got the “good” stats as some would say. But according to some, I and many others would not be seemed as equal with other students because people would look at us and say, “oh she’s just here because of affirmative action” or “he’s just here because of sports”. A lot of black kids work as hard as everyone else to get into these schools and if they get in they deserve to be there. I like affirmative action and schools like it because they see the benefits in having diversity in their schools. But, I hate that people prejudge African Americans with the long running stereotype that blacks are less intelligent than whites. It’s easy for people to say “Oh look at that guy! His stats are…! That proves that blacks only get in cause of AA!” But, they don’t look at all the other black students out there who don’t fit that description. And another point. Women are also included in affirmative action. No one’s questioning whether the women deserve to be there or not. Engineering programs where women are a minority accept women at higher rates. Does that mean that these women are not qualified as the other men? Hell no. It just really unnerves me when people question my intelligence based on my race. Truly.</p>

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<p>Ok…but since you have some many intelligent African Americans (like the Johns Hopkins girl) who are mostly admitted to schools because they are equally as talented as Asians and Whites, why the hell do you need AA to cultivate diversity. They all should be able to get in with out it! Whartonite is aboslutely correct here. No one is saying that blacks can’t be brilliant. What we are saying is that AA makes it VERY possible that blacks/hispanics/native americans can be admitted to these schools when they are not as academically qualified as their white/asian peers.</p>

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<p>I think that many people just need to admit that affirmative action is a very complex and controversial issue that one cannot fully understand immediately.
Dealing with racial differences has always been a struggle in American society, as well as pretty much ever other society that has ever existed. It is really hard to make an accurate assessment of a situation when one does not have all of the information on the topic. As a white person will never be able to enter the body of a hispanic person and see the world from exactly their vantage point and a black person will never be able to switch bodies with an asian person and look through their eyes, it is really hard for people of different races to truly understand how different races are affected by certain stereotypes that are endemic in society. The book A Hope in The Unseen confronts many of these issues. The most important this is that people just need to keep an open mind and have empathy.</p>

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<p>Well this shows that it plays a major role in determining the decision of a URM. But what about the opposite end of the spectrum. How much affect does it have on someone with a ORM status?</p>

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<p>candygyrl0811, </p>

<p>I appreciate your passion, and I wish you the very best of luck in the application process.</p>

<p>Do you know the name of the Hopkins’ valedictorian? I keep a research file on noteworthy success of African Americans in America’s top schools, but I wasn’t aware that Hopkins had an African American valedictorian. Katie Washington just graduated from Notre Dame as its first African American valedictorian, and she will be attending Hopkins for medical school. Could you be speaking of Katie? If not, perhaps you could bm me the name of this Hopkins graduate. Thank you.</p>

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<p>jebar-</p>

<p>I haven’t studied this much. However, I think consensus is that Asians and Whites really are treated about the same in the admissions process. Make of that what you will.</p>

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<p>^As an Asian I can confirm one of the posts above that talked about all races being prejudiced. Chinese can be terrible when it comes to other races. THe name “China” means “Central Kingdom.” I think it’s pretty normal for a culture and race to believe that they are superior to other cultures and races. The Chinese words used for “black person” and “white person” and even Mexcican are very offensive. So I agree that it’s odd that when racism is discussed the underlying belief is that only white people are prejudiced. I was called a “chink b****” two times in high school, each time by an African American. So racism comes from all colors. </p>

<p>A year ago, affirmative action bothered me. Like most Asians, I was a little offended that blacks and hispanics were admitted to top schools with lower numbers and Asians were being turned away even with great numbers. Asians are “minorities” as well, just not in college. Anyway, I’m over that. My fears were misplaced. I’m going to Penn and all of my Asian friends are going to great schools so I don’t think Asians are hurt by affirmative action all that much. I also think it’s nice that URMs are given the chance to excel. I think the system works.</p>

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<p>^^^^
When you said “its nice that URMs are given a chance to excel” are you insinuating they would be unable to excel without it? If you do believe they could not attend ivies without AA, what do you believe drives this inability to do well in school. Is it poverty? racism? biological issues?</p>

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<p>^I think that intelligence is spread evenly amongst all races, and that no race has superior or inferior intellectual genetics.</p>

<p>I think there are many factors to academic success with the biggest factor being how a person is raised. If you take two people with identical abilities and place one in a typical Asian home where students are driven to work hard and attend good schools and place the other in a home where academics are much less important, more often than not the first student will achieve more than the second. I don’t consider myself to be that intelligent, but I knew as a 6th grader that I wanted to attend an Ivy school like my cousin and older brother. I worked hard in sixth grade to qualify for the junior high GATE program. I worked hard in seventh to qualify for Algebra I as a eighth grader. And so it went; year after year I was trying to achieve. The entire time, my parents were behind me doing whatever they could to help me achieve, even though we are far from wealthy.</p>

<p>I had a very good African American friend in sixth grade who, like me, was a diligent student. By the time she entered high school, her attitude changed. We remained friends and one time she told me that he African American friends accused her of trying to “be white” so she started taking school less seriously. That doesn’t happen to Asian kids. If anything, Asians push their Asian friends to achieve.</p>

<p>To answer your question, I think the biggest factor for success is the Asian culture (the only one I know) is a home where success is expected. Although I can only guess, I assume the biggest reason why URMs have less success is because their parents don’t place the same value on academic success. Poor Asians I know succeeded, and wealthy African Americans I know (like my friend) did not, so I don’t think poverty is the answer. Racism impacts everyone, including Asians, so that can be it. Biology doesn’t seem to be that important, since all races have many people who are smart and many who are not. </p>

<p>Like I said, I am for affirmative action. If I were an adcom and saw an Asian with a 1900 SAT and an African American with the same score, I would assume the African American had more promise because he or she likely had to overcome cultural barriers to achieve the 1900 whereas the Asian had all the help in the world. Is this always fair? No. Is this always accurate? No. But like most generalizations, it does hold some truth when applied to large numbers of applicants, so in the end some URMs with promise are able to study at great colleges. I think that’s nice.</p>

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<p>^^very good point.</p>

<p>I’m probably getting off the subject what schools do you’ll think needs diversity and that I could apply to and afford even tho I don’t have the best of grades… FYI I’m an AA male with a 3.4 college gpa after 32 credits and a 3 high school gpa, mist colleges don’t ask but FYI, and a efc of 1000 also a 23 ACT, perferably colleges in the northeast but any info would be nice I wanna transfer to a better college for engineering</p>

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<p>Hopefull, I go to a school where theres a ton of asian and most of them are academic terminators but don’t give me that “asian parents care more” line. My parents also care alot about grades but the asian parents I know go wayyyyyyyy beyond caring about grades. To them it’s life and death. It’s like they get a free pass to heaven if their kid does well in school or something. My asian friends go to school 7 days a week. Weekends are worse than school days. One dude is ranked like 30th out of 600 in our class and each time I go to his house his mom tells me what a slacker he is and how he’s a terrible student and how he’ll never be successful. I asked him if she’s doing that to be funny and he told me that she’s dead serious and is even harder on him when no one’s around. It’s just my opinion but this is way beyond “caring about grades.” This is sick.</p>

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<p>Jamma: If it wasn’t for African Americans (mostly uneducated) marching through the streets protesting and getting hosed and dogs sicked on them, us White Americans would never admit an African like you solely because of the Color of your skin. You would have had to go to an Historically Black College period. So before you go distancing yourself from Black Americans with lower scores than you and Affirmative Action, it is those same kids grand parents that paved the way for your opportunity to go to an Ivy League College. Colleges by the way don’t have an “affirmative Action” policy. It’s called “diversity” which benefits everyone under the sun including middle class and poor whites, also whites from the South, Midwest & rural areas. Why are you so concerned if narrow minded whites automatically assume you had low scores as progressive whites know the deal and know better. Worry more about equal opportunity instead of what the ORM’s think about you. For those people, they’ll always feel that you did not earn a seat next to them in the Ivies. Let me tell you, the biggest hook of all belong to the wealthy, just ask George Bush, Sen Bill Frist & Al Gore whose children got into the Ivies with very average academic records.</p>

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<p>Old College Try is correct as everyone’s parent care deeply about them. There is a different culture and things are not as rosy and fantastic as they seem. The cram schools in South Korea is a form of horrendous sickening child abuse. Kids feeling worthless if they don’t get into a top school, parents obssessed with the prestige of where their kids get into as Asian societies can practically predict your future proseprity based on the schools name and the stigma that follows if you graduate from “lower” schools. This is also the reason why admissions are not solely based on SAT Scores because there is more to a student than statistics. Read Alexandra Robbins best seller entitled, “The Overachievers” The Secret Life of Driven Kids". There is a character in the “non-fiction” book called “AP Frank” who is an asian kid. Things fall apart…</p>

<p>American culture does not always produce the highest test scorers, but it produces the most well rounded kids with the intellectual and social skills to thrive in a work environment that requires “team work & team players”. Some cultures prepare you for more isolated roles in the work force wherein interaction & social skills are not key to having a very successful career. At the end of the day Americans can take some of the good of Asian Culture and vice versa. However, everyone in the world is trying to get into American Ivies, not Asia’s top Colleges. There is a reason for that as our culture has produced something dynamic, challenging and overall enriching culturally.</p>

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<p><a href=“A Taste of Failure Fuels an Appetite for Success at South Korea’s Cram Schools - The New York Times”>A Taste of Failure Fuels an Appetite for Success at South Korea’s Cram Schools - The New York Times;

<p><a href=“China Prep ~ Video: Full Episode | Wide Angle | PBS”>China Prep ~ Video: Full Episode | Wide Angle | PBS;