<p>I’ve said a gazillion times on this site that “building” a college class is a bit like casting a high school musical. No director is simply going to cast the best X # of singers/dancers/actors. If (s)he did that, she might end up with too few males, too many sopranos, and leads that can’t work together.</p>
<p>Instead, you’re competing with others who are qualified to play a particular role. The more roles you can play, the more likely it is that you’ll get a part. </p>
<p>Say, the director is going to cast the musical “Guys and Dolls.” There might be 20 girls with beautiful soprano voices vying for the part of Sarah Brown. Nicely Nicely, the character who sings “Sit Down You’re Rocking the Boat,” is usually a plump guy with a deep voice. There may be only two or three–if that–plump guys with good deep voices who try out for the part. So, the odds that any of them will get to be in the show are much higher than those that one of the 20 girls vying for the part of Sarah Brown will. </p>
<p>This is just reality.</p>
<p>There are fewer African-Americans vying for spaces in top colleges. Thenumber of African-Americans with 1300+ (out of 1600) SAT scores is fairly small. So, just like the plump guy with the deep voice trying for the role of Nicely Nicely, they’ve got better odds. </p>
<p>But so do some other folks. It’s certainly true of athletes, particularly in the “helmet” sports. It’s also true of legacies. It’s true of developmental cases and celebrity kids. The desire for geographic diversity means the kid from Wyoming has a better chance at HYPS than the kid from Manhattan. However, the kid from a public high school in Boston has a better “shot” at Harvard than any other top college because Harvard gives a “boost” to those kids in admissions. </p>
<p>Someone brought up Obama’s kids. Obama’s kids would get in because they are Obama’s kids. Chelsea Clinton is a smart young woman who had great grades and high scores. She still had a heck of a lot better odds of getting into top colleges than she would have had if she’d had the same record and not been the D of POTUS. </p>
<p>Asian Americans have the bad luck to be the sopranos of college admissions. If you lump them all together, there are just a heck of a lot of them. (Some colleges DO break Asians down into different categories as reality is again that Filipinos and Hmong are NOT over represented. Very few colleges give any sort of “boost” to Cuban-Americans because they ARE over represented. )</p>
<p>More Asian Americans should do things to enable themselves to play additional roles. There was an Asian American kid from my offspring’s high school who was a star swimmer. He got into lots of top colleges that rejected many of this classmates with better grades and higher scores. There aren’t a heck of a lot of Asian American swimmers. There aren’t a heck of a lot of good swimmers who are willing to go to college in New England. </p>
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<p>I think that’s only true in a limited sense. Traditionally, higher education was the way to advance in Asian society. If you wanted to go to a top college, it was all about the test results. Going to a top college was sometimes the only way to get desirable jobs.
Some Asian Americans carried that mind set over to the US. That doesn’t mean that they necessarily valued learning as an end in and of itself more than others do. It was just the way you got ahead. </p>
<p>It’s somewhat analogous to the way some segments of the African American population view sports and performing arts. These were the paths of advancement that were open to them. </p>
<p>Look, I know it’s tough for the Asian American kids. I watched while kids who arrived here at the age of 10 and have parents who speak limited English and can’t read or write it, got rejected by colleges that accepted African American kids whose parents are doctors and lawyers with worse grades and scores. They were understandably bitter. I don’t think criticizing their “personalities” is going to make them feel better.</p>
<p>And I had to laugh when someone suggested that “holistic” admissions were begun to help “everyone.” Don’t the schools teach history any more? “Holistic” admissions were introduced shortly after the intro of the SAT when colleges realized that if admissions were based on grades and SAT scores they would end up being “too Jewish.” </p>
<p>There are several reasons why colleges should exercise affirmative action. One reason is so our young people actually get to know people who are different than they are. There was an interesting study of racism at UCal-Berkeley a long time ago now. They questioned lots of students about their attitudes. Two groups of students were noticeably less bigoted than other students–athletes and musicians. It isn’t rocket science to figure out why–students in these groups were much more likely to actually know and interact with students of other races. They were more likely to see racism in action hurting people they knew and trusted. It’s been a generation since we were warned against the creation of “two Americas,” but it’s still a reality. </p>
<p>While every African American I know gets annoyed about it–with good reason–reality is that they ARE an “educational experience” for many of their white classmates. All those highly qualified white and Asian students at top colleges are more likely to benefit from meeting some highly qualified African American students than from meeting one more highly qualified Asian American. (Believe it nor not, “The Cosby Show” had a major impact on the racial attitudes of a generation of Americans because the Huxtables were the only exposure a fair number of white and Asian Americans had to educated, upper middle class African-Americans. )</p>
<p>And, then the best way to “tame” any group is to give it a place at the table. The election of Barack Obama has helped this nation by helping to convince African Americans that the “system” can work. A lot of African Americans who had never registered to vote did so in order to vote for Obama. And a lot of African Americans were stunned when they realized that Obama got a slightly higher percentage of the white vote than John Kerry did. We’ve got a LONG way to go, but Obama’s election did improve race relations. </p>
<p>So, if you want to convince African Americans that the system does work then they darn well better see some African American doctors, lawyers, judges, engineers, teachers, etc. --not just basketball players and musicians. </p>
<p>That is, by the way, why white military officers overwhelmingly support the use of affirmative action in admissions to military academies. I don’t think most people think of military officers --of any race–as flaming liberals. They do, however, recognize that the military isn’t going to work if a “majority minority” enlisted group sees an almost all white officer corps. And, young white officers who have never known a single African American well may find they have a hard time leading their men and women. For many white cadets having a commanding officer who is NOT white will be a formative experience. Surveys have shown that white officers recognize that the military academies MUST have a substantial number of URMs and they support affirmative action to achieve it. </p>
<p>So, the reasons for affirmative action are complex. And, yes, sometimes the results are unfair to individuals. Denying that to the individuals who have been hurt isn’t going to convince them that they are “wrong” or didn’t get in because they lacked “personality.” We’ve basically got to say that sometimes the system does things for the sake of the greater good which hurt individuals and that, in the long run, our nation will be better off if its leadership reflects its diversity and that’s not going to happen until the student bodies at top colleges reflect it.</p>
<p>And, of course, in the US having to settle for a top 50 school rather than a top 20 school isn’t really going to ruin anyone’s life.</p>