<p>This definitely isn't what affirmative action is about in my opinion. Oh well. :-/</p>
<p>I don't think it's really so much because they think URMs need more time or no application fee, I think it's because they just want more URM applicants. Perhaps they're looking to make URM admissions more competitive by having more applicants?</p>
<p>Well, clearly, but I still don't think this an equitable approach.</p>
<p>This is what I am talking about per Swarthmore. It is obviously unfair to give fee waivers based on ethnicity and race, and not by need. There are lots of very needy people who are Caucasian. Just look at rural areas and poorer parts of cities. Did they send these to them? It is also insulting to think that URMs need more time and can't afford the fee. </p>
<p>The email could have been sent out to all potentials, asking those who truly need fee waivers to reply. Not just to URMs. This is not equality, it is pandering.</p>
<p>I believe that this is done in financial aid, as well. URMs are a desired commodity at Swarthmore and at many other schools. Until they release their admissions and financial aid formulas, then I will personally think there is unfairness. This does not create goodwill.</p>
<p>What a disgusting policy; I totally agree with swatparent. To think that just because someone is a minority who would make their stats look better, they should get more time than the rest of us (not to mention not having to pay) makes me angry.</p>
<p>Now that I just finished my (way too long) Swat supplemental, I wonder if I really want to go to a place that actively endorses such policies. I knew Swarthmore was hyper-liberal (I'm center-left myself), but this borders on inverse racism and idiocy.</p>
<p>just to address the question on the first page, the common app does not lock you out of submitting an application once the deadline has passed. i had a school with a supplement due on the 15th of december, which i did not submit until the 28th or so. (talked to the admissions office, not a problem, haha)</p>
<p>Debater88-my sentiments, precisely.</p>
<p>Look on the bright side my fellow melanin deficient friends- we have 25 less days of devoting ourselves to applications!</p>
<p>Seriously though- a fee waiver would've been nice!</p>
<p>"The email could have been sent out to all potentials, asking those who truly need fee waivers to reply. Not just to URMs."</p>
<p>are we completely sure that it was only sent to urms, or is it just speculation?</p>
<p>arach: Did you fit a particular category?</p>
<p>debater88: I am not sure that Swarthmore is much different than any other top college in this regard. I never liked the premium placed on URM statistics, because many of the URMs we knew were wealthier and more privileged than our family, but they still received special consideration. Or they were 1st generation African immigrants who were worthy in their own right, but did not make up for slavery in the US in the 19th century.</p>
<p>Many colleges pay lip service to the idea of first generation college admissions, but they still primarily recruit minorities for these slots. There are SO MANY Caucasians in poverty or from working class families who would be first generation college students, but these students are not recruited as heavily as URMs. Some state universities are making feeble attmepts to use zip codes for recruitment that are not race-based, but in my opinion this is just window-dressing to adhere to the AA laws. </p>
<p>The minority statistics are used as "a feather in the cap" of many admissions officers. Is Swarthmore any different than other schools in this regard? I doubt it.</p>
<p>My D is at Swarthmore. We are Caucasians and I earn less than $40,000 per year. Swarthmore has gone out of its way to make sure I could afford to send my D to school there. In previous years Swarthmore had D take out loans at amounts much smaller than the students who are in public colleges in my state. My Ds response to Swarthmore replacing loans with grants earlier this year, THRILLED.</p>
<p>A liberal education is not about what you know; it is about what you understand. Meeting and socializing with people who are not like yourself while you are young and open to new things, new ideas, and new people will be great personal benefit in a students later life. As the world becomes more integrated both socially and economically, individuals who can move freely between people of different cultures, and or economic circumstances, are going to have an advantage in pursuing their goals. Swarthmore understands this and is making an effort to exposes their students to as wide and diverse a group of people possible. </p>
<p>The ability to successfully deal with complexities that are foreign to your personal experience is the hallmark of a liberally educated person, and a liberally educated person is the goal of Swarthmore.</p>
<p>One thing to remember is that Swarthmore, as a community, is committed to being diverse (including ethnically). It didn't become a place where 37% of the students are people of color by chance. If you don't agree that, then perhaps Swat is not the best place for you. As far as fee waivers go, anyone who needs one can get one, regardless of race. If you have your guidance counselor write a note and include it in your application requesting one, you get it. The College Board also provides fee waivers that can be sent to colleges (for students who had their fees waived for the SAT). </p>
<p>Swarthmore wants to get as many quality applications from students of color as possible obviously, so they are giving some incentive for those who haven't applied yet to do so. That doesn't mean that white students who need fee waivers can't get them, though. If you truly need them, you can get them. Just talk to your counselor. Colleges just can't say, anyone who thinks they can't afford the fee, just let us know and we'll waive it. There'd be a lot of people who'd abuse that. It is still a honor system, though. Based on the assumption that your guidance counselor, for example, isn't lying when s/he requests a waiver for you.</p>
<p>That is more paperwork to go through a counselor to get a waiver, as opposed to just having it handed to you because of extenuating circumstances such as race.</p>
<p>Being of color does not necessarily mean that you are so different, if you are from a wealthy suburb and your daddy or mommy's made it big in industry. Diversity is about more than the color of your skin, and in their rush to make a school look a certain way, I think that minorities are stereotyped as being different based mostly on the color of their skin. I think that this type of stereotyping is another form of prejudice, as if blacks will bring rap music and soul to campus, and whites bring classical music, so they are more boring. Get beyond it, folks.</p>
<p>“as if blacks will bring rap music and soul to campus, and whites bring classical music, so they are more boring”</p>
<p>It is much deeper and more important than the type of music. The class room discussions (as well as the outside class discussions) on almost all of the subjects are much more fruitful because of the wide range of backgrounds among the participates.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Being of color does not necessarily mean that you are so different, if you are from a wealthy suburb and your daddy or mommy's made it big in industry. Diversity is about more than the color of your skin, and in their rush to make a school look a certain way, I think that minorities are stereotyped as being different based mostly on the color of their skin. I think that this type of stereotyping is another form of prejudice, as if blacks will bring rap music and soul to campus, and whites bring classical music, so they are more boring. Get beyond it, folks.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ignoring the fact that people of color and people who are white do often get very different privileges and opportunities in life is an incredibly dangerous thing to do. Yes, there are students of color whose parents "made it big in industry" - does that mean that those parents had just as easy a time as another set of white parents and that their kids will grow up in the same environments, with the same privileges? The environments which people come from can't be judged simply from socio-economic class, just as they can't be judged just from race. No one's stereotyping that all black people are going to bring rap music. But a discussion about race or gender or class or religion, etc, is only so fulfilling if everyone there is of the same race, gender, class, religion, whatever. Yes, diversity is more about the color of your skin, but attempts at "color-blindness" only serve to limit our abilities to understand where any member of a community comes from. I'm not sure how I feel about this fee waiver/extra time matter, but I do know that Swarthmore would not be the good place to grow and learn that it is if we all had this mindset. As a student, I could not be more glad that Swarthmore brings in as many different perspectives as it does.</p>
<p>Many people have struggles, and to say that black people have the corner on struggle is a self-righteous attitude that goes nowhere. To say that poor whites in this country have less of a struggle is absolute BS. Blacks have gotten far more opportunities given to them than any other group by far and have succeeded less. Time for them to stop feeling sorry for themselves unless they want to continue to play catch-up. There is absoulutely no reason that they cannot succeed in the same schools that Asians excel in. Time to turn off the TV, stop looking for the big bucks in drugs and settle down like everyone else. Enough of these special categories and time to just do homework like every other group that is succeeding in the US. It's going to be pretty embarrassing when the Hispanics from non-English speaking poor backgrounds overtake the blacks academically who have had 40+ years of Affirmative Action.</p>
<p>Is "black" the only URM status? No. Was this sent out to just black students? No. No one's saying anything just about black people, regardless of how you seem to see it. Following that line of reasoning, I certainly didn't mean to imply that "black people have the corner on struggle." Arguing over points that no one's even making isn't going to get any of us anywhere, and it seems fruitless to argue over something which neither party will change their opinions of. This has already been sent out - can we please stop this ridiculous debate?</p>
<p>What bugs me is not so much the fee waver as the extra time. In one sense, it's insulting--as though because someone's a minority they somehow need more time to apply, therefore implying intellectual "slowness" and/or lack of time management skills.</p>
<p>In another regard, why would Swartmore want to do that if they are as committed as they say they are to getting applicants who are genuinely interested by and engaged with their college. I thought colleges wanted students who wanted to go to their school, not kids who just applied for the hell of it.</p>
<p>And about the whole minority viewpoint thing--yes, different backgrounds can bring many different perspectives and ways of thinking to a community, which is a good thing. However, those different backgrounds are not necessarily rooted in the color of one's skin or where one's ancestors came from. A white kid from Massachusetts whose family has been here since the Mayflower came over can, depending on how his/her life has panned out, have had experiences in his/her life that bring just as much value to a community as the first-generation Mongolian immigrant whose parents still retain fond memories of living in a yurt and eating yak butter with everything. </p>
<p>True, race can bring certain unique perspectives, but there is no guarantee that it will. If you want to determine what a student will bring to a community, don't look at the color of their skin. Look at the content of their character--where they've been, what they've done and how they've come to view the world as a result. </p>
<p>Diversity is far from skin deep.</p>
<p>A Mongolian immigrant whose parents still retain fond memories of living in a yurt? Talk about stereotypes! </p>
<p>Diversity is far from skin deep, yes, and obviously racism is far from discrimination based on color! </p>
<p>I hope a Mongolian reads your post and gives you an appropriate response (while s/he makes a wireless internet connection from his/her yurt -- and I hope s/he doesn't spill any yak butter on the computer).</p>
<p>Why is acknowledging differences called racism? So, in other words, if it is a politically correct group that wants preferences, it is Affirmative Action. If it is a group that a school is not actively thinking is desirable to add to its trumped-up opportunity statistics, then it is racism?</p>
<p>The snooty young black lady from a fancy private school that we met while interviewing who was being driven around in her mommy's Mercedes SUV and being openly courted by all of the top schools was not going to teach the poor white kids that I know anything but resentment for preferences. Affirmative action breeds resentment, lots of it. It adds to the "Reagan Democrat" phenomenon. All Americans want equal opportunity.</p>
<p>Swarthmore and other schools each year lead off their admissions stats with the big statement of what percent they admitted and what percent who accepted them are "students of color." I mean, who the heck cares? Let's go for the accomplishments, not the percent of melanin.</p>