<p>
[quote]
what are orms and urms?
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</p>
<p>Usually those abbreviations mean on College Confidential forums "over-represented minorities" and "under-represented minorities." I'm not sure how many college admission offices, if any, use either term in a formal way.</p>
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but overall it is far easier for URMs to get into school.
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Tell that to the disappointed (and highly qualified) URMs at my school who weren't accepted to their "dream" colleges...</p>
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[quote]
First of all, when I was taking my apush exam last friday for example, the boxes you could check were like "African-American" "Pacific Islander" "Native American" etc...and then "white". Why "white"? Why not caucasian? It made me idignant, along wiht several other friends, including an Indian, an Asian, and an African-American. How totally degrading
[/quote]
Degrading how? (ugh, PC crap)... My memory is probably failing me at the moment, but as I recall, the Collegeboard tests ask if you're "White/Caucasian, Black/African-American, etc." Cual es el problema?</p>
<p>^^^la problema
lol</p>
<p>^^^ no, it's actually "el problema"... (el mapa, el alma/las almas, etc.).</p>
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[QUOTE]
I guess I am just tired of hearing the same rant about how "easy" URMs have it when it comes to college admissions. People seem to forget what a long shot it really is for many of them to even make it to the application stage. Peace.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>The difficulty you speak of should be evaluated on a case by case basis. Plenty of URMs have no trouble at all getting to the application stage, and affirmative action gives them an undeserved boost at the expense of ORMs.</p>
<p>If an applicant has really faced overwhelming odds in their lives, they should be able to articulate such in their essay. If one had to undergo tremendous hardship because of their race, what better place to put it than in your essay? Assuming that every black/latino has had to overcome so much adversity is generalizing that need not be done. Additionally, there are plenty of Asian americans who have to deal with overt racism, and this would level the playing field for them as well.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
[QUOTE]
but overall it is far easier for URMs to get into school.
[/QUOTE]
Tell that to the disappointed (and highly qualified) URMs at my school who weren't accepted to their "dream" colleges...
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>While there are definitely qualified URMs who are rejected by their dream schools, their numbers pale in comparison to those of qualified ORMs who don't make it.</p>
<p>I have just updated the thread-opening post with a moderator's edit to update statistics and add more links to official websites.</p>
<p>JO-</p>
<p>I think you are confusing two distinct diversity goals. Elite u's want a racially diverse campus, and they want an economically diverse campus (as well as geographically diverse, EC diverse, etc.). Applicants having an under-represented socioeconomic background of any race get special consideration.
U's value racial diversity for its own sake, i.e., there is educational value in having their students learn, live and recreate with students of all races, because racial harmony is important to our country and our world.</p>
<p>@arachnophobia</p>
<p>Actually, it asks for "white" not caucasian. I would know because I usually check caucasian instantly but not "white". My parents are Iranian. Iranians are caucasian, but I don't think "white" is any real designation.</p>
<p>I prefer the more descriptive "European American" as a parallel to other accepted labels.</p>
<p>While I do agree that a racially diverse student body is better than one that is weighted more towards one or two races, this is a case where I believe that the ends do not justify the means. Compromising equal opportunity in favor of racial diversity is in my opinion not at all worth it. Diversity can be found in a multitude of ways, and even a mono-racial student body can be incredibly diverse in thoughts, beliefs, and viewpoints.</p>
<p>My other complaint with affirmative action is the way it generalizes. After all, all of the racial classifications (white, black, asian, latino) are very broad, so even if a student body is say, 70% asian, this might be divided between malaysians, japanese, chinese, etc. What AA promotes is diversity based on skin color, nothing else.</p>
<p>Compromising equality and giving applicants undeserved advantages in order to ensure a very shallow skin color based diversity is not worth it.</p>
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[quote]
What AA promotes is diversity based on skin color, nothing else.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Supporters of “diversity” of course verbally deny this, but they do not practice what they preach. To them, it’s not diverse unless you can “see” it.</p>
<p>In reality, diversity is much more subtle. When a Times journalist asked Gustavus Adolphus College students what differentiated their school from nearby St. Olaf College, the response was, “They’re Norwegian. We’re Swedish.” That’s diversity you can’t “see” but nevertheless exists.</p>
<p>Politeness and Authority at a Hilltop College in Minnesota</p>
<p>"Compromising equal opportunity in favor of racial diversity is in my opinion not at all worth it."</p>
<p>There is no "equal opportunity" in selective college admissions; it just doesn't exist, whether it should or not. Colleges are crafting their classes according to multiple criteria, and "equal opportunity" isn't one of them. There is no equality, so it can't be compromised.</p>
<p>wow</p>
<p>what are we going to do </p>
<p>we have a whole generation of people that dont know what their ethnicity is!</p>
<p>I want this to be split from the other affirmative action thread, because this specific issue seems to be quite muddled where it matters. This is not a thread to debate the merits of AA, but whether race-based AA actually exists.</p>
<p>It's not like a college is required to fill race quotas. Or even attempting to fill self-imposed ones, or even just to get a higher ranking.</p>
<p>I mean, look at the FAQs -- when asked if they practice affirmative action -- schools say admissions policy looks at promoting diversity in a student body. Now you may be all conspiracy theory and say that's just a euphemism -- but see, to me that only says other things will be noted for by which race correlates.</p>
<p>When will CC'ers have more sense? Ultimately, if there were a racially-guided policy at a school - IT WOULD BE NOTED AS A SCHOOL POLICY. Otherwise, I can imagine it now:</p>
<p>[In the Admissions Committee Room] </p>
<p>Dean of Admissions: Okay, several dozen slots left. So ... how about this student: she synthesised a new update to the p53 gene, (p53.1!) in the fight against cancer!</p>
<p>Committee Member 1: But she's white, and our white quota is already filled! Why not this other minority girl?</p>
<p>Committee Member 2: But her SAT score is 120 points lower! Plus, she's absolutely showing no awareness of her high-income-privilege throughout any part of her application.</p>
<p>Dean of Admissions: But we still need to fulfill our URM race quota. Admit her anyway. </p>
<p>Yes, there you have it folks. Let's assume that people who cry foul about AA, are right and that at some schools, there is AA that will get someone in because of race. </p>
<p>An AdCom has the ability to look at every applicant's data, from personal history to unique community service initiatives, to judge hardship and character. </p>
<p>An AdCom wants interesting as well as high-performing individuals in their school.</p>
<p>So in the goals of making their school look good, the AdCom will somehow concentrate on that little tiny checkbox that the US federal government forces to put on the application.</p>
<p>Of course the foul cry people are right!</p>
<p>I seriously doubt most of the information would ever leak out anyway; it'd cause a huge uproar. Look no further than Bakke v. Regents.</p>
<p>There aren't race quotas per se, but affirmative action is based on race alone. Any admissions counselor would openly say this. There is also a separate preference based on economic hardship (family income, first generation.) Some people may have both.</p>
<p>As an aside, U. of Michigan undergrad admissions was based on a point total and being a minority was worth a lot of added points to your score.</p>
<p>So was the UC system. (Well, I'm not sure point-wise, but I do know they had a quota. Think the court case against Michigan happened around a decade later though).</p>
<p>There's overwhelming evidence. I don't know where the OP got the idea that it wasn't school policy.</p>
<p>As noted above, before courts prohibited it, the University of Michigan had a clear point system where a certain amount was needed to achieve admissions. Being black or hispanic filled up 1/5 or so of that amount by itself. How many points did whites and asians get? Zero. If that's not school policy that provides racial preferences, I don't know what is.</p>
<p>That is just one example of a very open and objective approach to affirmative action in admissions. Most schools keep their policies behind closed doors and behind euphemisms like "holistic admissions" or "diversity." If they openly reveal their policies with point systems like Michigan's, people are going to be outraged.</p>
<p>For further evidence, look at schools' differing acceptance rates sorted by race. MIT, for one, accepts black applicants at twice the rate of the overall applicant pool. </p>
<p>There was also a study by two Princeton professors a few years back which determined that being black or hispanic was the equivalent of about a 200 pt. SAT boost to one's application. (on the old scale) That same study found that, without AA, the acceptance rate for black candidates would fall nearly 2/3rds while the acceptance rate for hispanic applicants would drop by half.</p>
<p>There are right in saying that there are no racial quotas. But that isn't the same thing as saying they don't consider applicants of different races differently. I'm not arguing here that AA isn't a social good. I'm just arguing that it exists.</p>
<p>Look at the Naviance data for your high school for the evidence.</p>