<p>Big Daddy:</p>
<p>You make some good points, but the issue is not as simple as you make it out to be. The end result of affirmative action is indeed reverse discrimination. Society has decided to accept that, but don’t expect the “over-represented” groups to be happy about it. For example, I have read that if admission was done just on the basis of test scores, that UC Berkeley would be all asian, indians, and jewish. Rightly or wrongly, society has decided that this is not an acceptable outcome. So when you say colleges look at applications “holistically”, in my opinion, in some cases, that is just an excuse to admit URMs. I say this because there is no reason to presume that the extracurricular of URMs are any better, or worse, than that of non-URMs. If it were truly holisitic, then the white kids would probably have just as good ECs, so they would still be admitted. So because URMs, for whatever reason, do not get high enough test scores to beat out “over-represented” groups, colleges have no choice but to expand the criteria to include more subjective criteria. I am not even saying this is wrong, but don’t ridicule the asian kid for not being happy about this. (although his 2.0 gpa comments are indeed silly). I fully agree that some holistic criteria are important—for example, a reknowned violinist, but just chanting the word “holistic” does not mean that the process has not become biased in favor of URMs. Society has agreed to accept the bias, but don’t pretend it doesn’t exist. Even african americans who post threads on this websight openly state that they realize that there scores are probably not good enough to get into a particular school, but then ask if perhaps they might nonetheless get into a particular school because they are a minority. Now, that being said, no fair minded person would object to a person from a poor socio-economic background being given a coveted spot, because he has climbed a much higher mountain, and has done almost as well as the person who had the easier mountain to climb. For example, while I am not rich, my son has been given advantages a poor kid has not, such as participating in the Duke TIP program, special math tutors, and the advantage of having two parents who have seven college degrees between them. What people do object to, however, is a MIDDLE CLASS URM being admitted to a school simply because the school needs more “diversity”----people of that particular ethnicity, at the expense of an asian kid, or a white kid, who actually may be MORE disadvantaged from a SOCIO-ECONOMIC standpoint than the african american or the hispanic. For example, should Barack Obama’s kids be given a preference over a poor white kid from a single parent home, simply because a school is searching for qualified african-americans ? My roomate at Michigan, 30 years ago, was African American, and his father owned a prosperous gas station. So I am so sure that he deserved extra help. Although I do believe in affirmative action, I do sometimes do a double take on this websight when I read about a kid who is #2 in his high school class, and is on every honor society imaginable, yet only got a 28 on his ACT. To me, this shows, that all the A grades that kid may have earned were not “truly” earned. My wife taught calculus at a white school, and she was under tremendous pressure not to give out bad grades, so the same may be true in a majority black school. And again, if the top 50% of the applicants are asian, and the school only admits 20% asian, that is discrimination. I understand that jews make up 3% of the US population, but earned 20% of the spots at Emory. If you cut that down to 10%, it is still discrimination, even though they are Over represented. The fact that the college searches through an URMs background to look for a reason to admit him over the asian IS discrimination, because since this is so subjective, you could easily do the reverse, and find some interesting EC that the asian has. On the other hand, I would not say that a person who gets a 34 ACT is “better” than a person who gets a 32 ACT, but it is my impression that the colleges are going much further, and admitting a kid with a 28 ACT over a kid with a 34 ACT. My son is 1/2 jewish, and I have had to warn him not to let people know he is jewish, to avoid being put into the “over”-represented pool of applicants. I think all americans should be concerned about that. Instead, on CC, I often see kids openly complaining that a school has too many asians, or too many jews (although they often say the school has too many “New Yorkers”). So in sum, yes, I believe in affirmative action, but it should, as an american, at least leave a bad taste in your mouth. Especially if you are an asian, and grew up in a poor family, and had your own great obstacles to overcome in life.</p>