fighting the intellectual hegemony of the privileged in the admissions process

Applying to College
41

<p>
[quote]
Conversely, if that girl were African-American she would practically be a shoo-in at many of these schools.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>correlation != causation</p>

<p>Race correlates with cultural and socioeconomic factors that come in a student -- those presented in recommendations and essays. Unless you specifically isolate for race (e.g. white girl living in the slum versus black girl living in a slum of equally deplorable conditions), then you cannot say that race was reason for the "shoo-in".</p>

42

<p>Galoisien- re #41: as a matter of statistical analysis- good comment. However, you ignore the fundamental premise of affirmative action: that a long history of racial discrimination requires a significant period of racial advantage to achieve a relatively equal playing field for the previously discriminated against; consequently race would be a significant independent variable It has also been argued (see the Bakke decision and the U of California admissions data) that favoring URM's today actually constitutes unacceptable discrimination against majorities such that admissions should be truly race blind. California is an interesting lab experiment in that regard.</p>

43

<p>Hon, could you please stop being defensive for a second and look at the facts? Go to Princeton Review and check out the number of kids who are recieving financial aid from their college. At Brown it's 42%, at Amherst it's 47%, at Pomona it's 53%. Obviously these kids are not being dismissed by college admins for not having a ton of money, or any, and admissions DOES take stuff like individual student's financial situations into account when reading their apps. Pinkpineapple is absolutely right. And guess what, this is what the American dream is all about, working hard to get what you want and ensuring that your descendents reap the benifits as well. My grandma arrived in this country at the age of 14, not knowing a word of English, and having just surrived oh you know, THE HOLOCAUST, and her parents not having a dime. She ended up as a genteticist and now lives in Westchester. Her son, my dad, is a law professor, and I am now living as an upper middle class "brat". I pay for my expenses with money I EARN, volunteer at the children's museum that caters to mostly kids who don't have the kind of resources I have had, do other community service, and attend a high achieving PUBLIC school where most of the kids who go to Ivies etc are from the lower income brackets. Honestly, you should check out your facts before becoming self-righteous and judgemental. Sorry, but I get mad at posts like these. So go walk a mile in someone elses shoes. Sure I have had privileges, but they were earned by my grandparents, and your kids will have the same ones I have now.</p>

44

<p>
[quote]
Galoisien- re #41: as a matter of statistical analysis- good comment. However, you ignore the fundamental premise of affirmative action: that a long history of racial discrimination requires a significant period of racial advantage to achieve a relatively equal playing field for the previously discriminated against; consequently race would be a significant independent variable

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That is one proposal for affirmative action. But there are many types of affirmative action. Some just want less homogeneity in schools, while others perhaps want to "correct the disadvantage". </p>

<p>


</p>

<p>I'm not an international student. I'm an American GREEN CARD HOLDER. AS AN IMMIGRANT I HAVE BEEN HERE SINCE 1995, PR SINCE 1997. (I moved back and forth because of my parents' divorce and later to escape my birth country's rigid education system.) </p>

<p>*** IS WITH YOU PEOPLE TREATING ME LIKE A SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN. I'm QUITE TIRED OF IT. I'M JUST AS AMERICAN AS ANY OTHER. </p>

<p>My father came here as a sole breadwinner with an offered income of $60,000. After the divorce, his income rose but we got none of it save the 11,000 / year child support.</p>

<p>I nearly had my financial aid and admissions put in jeopardy because we couldn't afford to renew our green cards (370 dollars each!). The nice thing was that without updated green cards we couldn't work.</p>

45

<p>
[quote]
Go to Princeton Review and check out the number of kids who are recieving financial aid from their college. At Brown it's 42%, at Amherst it's 47%, at Pomona it's 53%.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>How many applied by fee waiver?</p>

46

<p>
[quote]
Go to Princeton Review and check out the number of kids who are recieving financial aid from their college. At Brown it's 42%, at Amherst it's 47%, at Pomona it's 53%.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>And what qualifies one for financial aid? An income of $100k/year or less seems to be about the cutoff (which means that at those schools, over 50% make over $100k. At my school, about 20% make over $200k). A lot of people who receive financial aid are still in the $80-100k/year income bracket. The median income in the U.S. is something like $40k/year. So the vast majority of students at elite universities take in a huge income in comparison with the median.</p>

47

<p>If you check some of the boards, right here on CC, you'll find that most of the people who make 80-100 grand a year don't get much, if any, financial aid. It's like SAT scores, just because everyone gets cut off at such a score, doesn't mean everyone who is just at the cut off, makes it in. Sorry about the excessive commas.</p>

48

<p>GALO YOU DONT UNDERSTAND AT ALLLLLLLLLL</p>

<p>I grew up in one of those 100k+ "rich" homes and I have nothing but bitterness towards my parents' income bracket, which is in fact the worst place to be.</p>

<p>I understand that you're a big fan of literature. Well I'm not; I much preferred playing video games in my basement, lounging in front of my wide screen TV, and picking up chicks with my cocky, Abercrombie glow. However, one of the few things I did learn from a book was something called the evils of the middle class, a subtle affliction that, well, plagues the middle class.</p>

<p>We're rich enough to subscribe wholeheartedly in the culture of rampant materialism, but not wealthy enough to ease a deep-seated economic fear that keeps us from the self-actualization that, ironically, only the bottom and upper-tier get the chance to enjoy. As you depart from the lower rungs of society, your hierarchy of needs shifts to create a wide chasm between "self esteem" and "self-actualization", a fact that should be evident from your preening about our iPod obsessions. Poverty is, actually, a convenient cure for the banal horserace of competing statuses, incomes, and house sizes characteristic of a shallow and disadvantaged middle class. We're stuck in a canyon of shadows where we can't see beyond the latest fashion trend, where creating an aesthetically pleasing front lawn is as much of a concrete priority as finding something to eat is for you. Ah, I can only yearn for your simple lifestyle. The apprehension that we face from not being up to date on the latest tech gadget is just as great as that which you face from your parents' job insecurities.</p>

<p>Yet we're not so secure in our possessions to ease our psychological distresses, as you had previously claimed. While your socioeconomic status has its issues, ours is riddled with the anxiety that comes from our precarious position in the middle. Materialism breeds ever more materialism, and, situated in our creature comforts, the fear of economic regression is omnipresent even as we partake in frivolous luxuries to quench our need for the approval of our peers; this leaves little room for the educationally enriching activities you so envy, and actually promotes the sham European vacations that you so loathe. Is it any wonder that we, veritably enslaved to our minivans and iPods, are restricted to the careers of "doctor" or "lawyer"? You must understand that conscious social mobility rarely moves downward, don't you?</p>

<p>You, on the other hand, were brought up with the great opportunity to experience the full strata of the human experience, and yet you express your petty qualms here? You were granted with such priceless treasures as self-actualization, the freedom to choose your career, and the weightlessness of a blank slate of expectations. The full range of possibilities is open to you, and you will still be considered a complete success just from graduating from college. But I suppose you can't enjoy the luxury of pursuing your true passion without the tinge of guilt, but instead must challenge our access to our feeble material comforts.</p>

<p>The tone of your OP suggests that you feel superior to us spoilt brats, so why do you gripe about our supposed "advantages"? Your cognitive dissonance is silly; when you see me walking down the street one day, barren of all of life's worthy achievements except my iPod, miserable at my nearly inherited position as a doctor, chained by the judgements of a lifetime of "connections" with other middle class subjects... pity me, think "There, but for the grace of God, go I". Because that could have been you.</p>

<p>Ahh, woe is me, woe is me...</p>

<hr>

<p>On a more serious note:</p>

<p>For the topic of top colleges being disproportionately filled with well-to-do kids, you must know correlation does not imply causation, just sayin'</p>

<p>PS: You never responded to my PM about talent being overrated; I have a friend going to UVA too, he's middle class and white as can be :)</p>

49

<p>
[quote]
If you check some of the boards, right here on CC, you'll find that most of the people who make 80-100 grand a year don't get much, if any, financial aid. It's like SAT scores, just because everyone gets cut off at such a score, doesn't mean everyone who is just at the cut off, makes it in. Sorry about the excessive commas.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>At the Ivies, almost everyone who makes 80-100 grand a year (that is, without some kind of special situation like owning a family business) gets financial aid. And the fact that the people in the $80-100k/year income bracket don't get much financial aid is irrelevant to my argument: the percentage of students receiving some kind of financial aid shows how wealthy a student body is when you analyze the cutoff for such. In fact, I just now analyzed some statistics from my own school, which showed that only 160 of the 1300 incoming students last year earned an income of $45k/year or less. That's less than 1 in 8 people.</p>

50

<p>
[quote]
*** IS WITH YOU PEOPLE TREATING ME LIKE A SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN. I'm QUITE TIRED OF IT. I'M JUST AS AMERICAN AS ANY OTHER.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Please explain how you are being "treated like a second-class citizen," when you have been admitted to UVA (an "elite" college) with financial aid, as a green-card holder who chose not to apply for American citizenship (according to your postings on another thread). Now who is sounding like a "spoilt brat." You are achieving the American dream, in a very ungrateful manner, I might add.</p>

51

<p>
[quote]
who chose not to apply for American citizenship (according to your postings on another thread)

[/quote]

My birth country forbids dual-citizenship, and I'm going to have to choose between conscription and duty to my country, and having an education. </p>

<p>
[quote]
You are achieving the American dream, in a very ungrateful manner, I might add.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>How so? </p>

<p>I do not seek to be financially successful, only intellectually successful. </p>

<p>I intend to live a very frugal lifestyle. The wastes and excesses of the upper echelons simply disgust me.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Please explain how you are being "treated like a second-class citizen,"

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Because you assume somehow I cannot comment on the American system because I am an immigrant. </p>

<p>I will tell you that being a low-income immigrant in the US is a nightmare. But my family chose it because it was better than political and educational repression in my birth country. </p>

<p>I'm not an ingrate, and it is only through the Grace of Providence that I got my acceptance. But I do not like the entrenched culture I am witnessing (at any of the attractive schools).</p>

<p>ee33ee: Point taken. But you are one of the rarer ones who <em>are</em> conscious of their family situation, and is cynical of all those things afforded them. The richer kids I meet never seem conscious of their privilege. I want to attend a debate tournament where the excesses of wealth aren't like effusing out of all the top debaters.</p>

52

<p>
[quote]

The tone of your OP suggests that you feel superior to us spoilt brats, so why do you gripe about our supposed "advantages"?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I'm not envious -- it's just that I'm turned off by the entrenched culture of the privileged that saturates so many of my academic and intellectual interests.</p>

53

<p>I admit I haven't read the whole post, but here's my take on it.</p>

<p>Affirmative action, as practice now, works on a flawed premise. Take this one quote from this thread,</p>

<p>"And when society makes the most modest of attempts to level such a horribly unequal playing field with affirmitive action, priviliged kids go crazy."</p>

<p>Affirmative action works on 'levelling the playing field," yet it uses only one basis: race. It inaccuraately assumes that certain races receive less equal treatment, where in fact the opposite may be true for many people. Just because one happens to belong to a minority does not necessarioy mean they have had to 'overcome hardships.' </p>

<p>To the OP, I think that you are simply griping about feeling like the only one who has ever suffered 'segregation,' and 'like a second class citizen,' and are just looking for a scapegoat in the wealthy. You just have to get over it, and realize many other people are in the same position as you.</p>

54

<p>
[quote]
Affirmative action works on 'levelling the playing field," yet it uses only one basis: race. It inaccuraately assumes that certain races receive less equal treatment, where in fact the opposite may be true for many people. Just because one happens to belong to a minority does not necessarioy mean they have had to 'overcome hardships.'

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's Reconstruction Affirmative Action, at that time it <em>was</em> true (for 99.9% of the people involved). Most colleges do not subscribe to this anymore, and it's an attitude that died out fast (in a rather unfortunate manner I would say -- before the full brunt of the work could be achieved) as you can see from the <em>lack</em> of black senators in the decades following Reconstruction.</p>

<p>Modern affirmative action seeks to aim for a more heterogeneous environment.</p>

<p>
[quote]
You just have to get over it, and realize many other people are in the same position as you.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No, there are plenty of people in my position less lucky than me. And that is why I am disturbed -- because it was by a very very very very close shave that I am in my current fortune. </p>

<p>I won't get over it. I wish to find a means to eradicate the culture of the privileged.</p>

55

<p>You do that hon. I mean, there can't be THAT many people who want success, power, and the same for their descendents. Eradicating basic human desires should be simple, right?</p>

56

<p>
[quote]
I'm not an international student. I'm an American GREEN CARD HOLDER. AS AN IMMIGRANT I HAVE BEEN HERE SINCE 1995, PR SINCE 1997. (I moved back and forth because of my parents' divorce and later to escape my birth country's rigid education system.)</p>

<p>*** IS WITH YOU PEOPLE TREATING ME LIKE A SECOND-CLASS CITIZEN. I'm QUITE TIRED OF IT. I'M JUST AS AMERICAN AS ANY OTHER.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Speaking of language skills, where you so profoundly "dissed" those rich brats earlier, you completely overreacted and misinterpreted his post. This is what he said:</p>

<p>
[Quote]
Originally Posted by Bay
I see that you are an international student receiving financial aid to attend UVA. Sorry, but I fail to see that you have a leg to stand on with your gripe-a-thon about the unfairness of the American college admissions process.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I don't know where in that you saw him treating you as a second class citizen. His point was that you're an international student (which may have been a mistaken assumption, but reasonable given your profile) getting aid to attend a fabulous school in America. As such, you don't have much reason to complain about the unfairness of the college admissions process.</p>

<p>Also, try not to double post. Thanks. There's no reason to post again 4 minutes later when there's something called editting.</p>

<p>Edit: Like this!</p>

<p>
[quote]
I won't get over it. I wish to find a means to eradicate the culture of the privileged.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Whoa there buddy. So now people can't enjoy the fruit of their labors?</p>

57

<p>I would like the OP to please read my original post more carefully -- I can't believe that after all of these arguments he would insist that he is considered a "second-class citizen" -- well, if you choose to have "duty to the nation of your birth" then you are NOT considered an American on the same footing. If you chose to go through the citizenship process and swear allegiance to America, then you would be.
And somehow, I don't know if the OP has ever met any of the truly rich in this nation. He/she seems to be complaining about the bourgeiosie and middle class which is absurd - most of that group came from immigrant roots. But even the truly rich, whose families came over on the Mayflower, etc. and who are legacies at fine schools, have a great sense of noblesse oblige. They are for the most part unpretentious and do not dress in very expensive clothing, but choose instead to make their lives worthwhile. From personal experience, it is my belief that one should not judge this group of people unless you can honestly say you know what their lives have been like.</p>

58

<p>The OP's premise that rich kids are spoiled by their parents imparting work ethic is one of the most bizarre ideas I've heard in a long time. </p>

<p>It's not even correct. A lot of kids who are rich don't work hard because they have everything already. It's usually only the children of educated "rich" people that value education.</p>

59

<p>Galo, you are complaining about how spoiled middle class kids are, right? Well a high-minded intellectual like yourself probably reads the NYTimes (and that's no dis to the NYT, I personally love it). If so, you should check out Kristoff's coloum on how awesome kids these days are and then think about how pretentious you are sounding right now. If you're all for the downfall of privilege, why aren't you raising money for schools in Cambodia on your sickbed? Why didn't you host school dances for mosquiot nets? What have you actually done to rid the world of inequality? From what I've seen you haven't actually taken action. All you are doing is complaining on a message board and trying to rile people up.</p>

60

<p>
[quote]
So now people can't enjoy the fruit of their labors?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>They can. But that the wasteful and excessive should so dominate the intellectual fields?</p>

<p>
[quote]
As such, you don't have much reason to complain about the unfairness of the college admissions process.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>You don't get it. I'm not complaining for myself. I have been incredibly lucky by the Grace of Providence. </p>

<p>But my peers of the same socioeconomic status? There's this incredibly bright Somalian girl who I've helped tutor in calculus. But gee, she won't be attending college, because her parents don't think she needs to go to college, and none of the school authorities take notice of course.</p>

<p>There's this lower-income kid in special ed. I noticed him because one day he was observing the non-linear dropoff in sound intensity from a microwave (which made me smile) by comparing it to his voice as he walked away from the working microwave (where his food was cooking) in graduated steps. His caretakers must have thought his behaviour was retarded, because they continued ignoring him by talking to each other with a banal discussion of baseball. The irony was that his caretakers were the true retards, because they didn't do anything to foster his intellectual curiosity, and he had just personally discovered the inverse-square law! In the very least, if they had nurtured an intellectual ambition, he would be in the road to community college -- social skills would be his only problem. But guess what -- I saw a poster in the special ed department the other day, where apparently he was one of the "successes" because his employer was willing to overlook his "mental disability" and he had found a job sweeping busses. Fun stuff. </p>

<p>I have a Sudanese schoolmate who knows most of the vernacular Arabic dialects from the Maghreb to the Horn of Africa to the kind spoken near Iraq, ON TOP of Classical Arabic. No mean feat, if you know the historical linguistics of Arabic (they are arguably separate languages, not dialects). She effuses gregariousness and unites the different immigrant students together. She's a dedicated track runner. She escaped rape and civil war in her home country. But she was an immigrant student who didn't know she could assert her rights, and in fact she's not a very assertive person [why she enjoys the respect she does]. But she gets shafted in this manner, and her counselors don't even take into account her immense potential at least in the field of languages -- they just think she's another refugee student from Africa. Remedial math with awful teachers woohoo.</p>

<p>You are right. There's no cutoff that says if you're poor you can't join this class or this club. BUT THE CULTURAL TREATMENT YOU GET IS VERY DIFFERENT.</p>

<p>The wasting of intellectual potential to me, is one of the worst crimes there can possibly be. </p>

<p>You wealthy people do not seem to get the chilling effect of self-segregation which pervades the schools. And the school authorities do not notice it, and do not bother fighting it. When I commented about it as a submission to the literary magazine, it was censored. (Which was funny because all my other submissions were accepted.) </p>

<p>And so I find myself socioeconomically peerless in many of my EC's. </p>

<p>The only reason why I was successful in the admissions process and my peers of the same socioeconomic standing weren't -- was because at one point in my life, my parents were richer (and united). I was taught to expect a right to education, which I asserted. And I feel rather guilty.</p>