<p>I’m a he.
And the reason Vals often time have such a low GPA at school in Detroit is because the culture at those schools is so against academic achievement. If you’re smart, you will most likely be picked on. Even if you’re not, it’s going to be hard to get your homework done because your nieghborhood isn’t that great and you have to work a part time job to feed your family, and you can barely get enough to eat. </p>
<p>If you can succeed in that kind of environment, you can succeed almost anywhere.</p>
<p>True. Nobody can make the argument that “a bunch of black kids took my place” because, tbh, chances are you weren’t one of the 50 or so spots that the AA kids took.</p>
<p>First, you are hung up on the “50 spots” taken by URMs. However, there are many other classes of applicants (football team, legacies, etc.) that take 50 spots and perhaps should be equally undeserving in your opinion.</p>
<p>Second, the Ivies get enough applicants that you can be comfortable that the URMs admitted are qualified. If you are lucky enough to be admitted to one of the Ivies, do not look upon your URM peers as somehow unqualified. They’re not (or they’re as unlikely to be unqualified as anyone else).</p>
<p>Third, admissions to the Ivies are not only based on numbers. They really are trying to assemble a diverse class. They want all kinds of people. Lots of factors can be a positive -athletic talent, artistic talent, legacy status, first generation in college, under-represented geographic location and and URM status.</p>
<p>To all those people in the thread who somehow got the idea that URMs are somehow all economically disadvantaged, or come from uneducated family background, or have super cool personalities, or write great essays or something else that makes them “holistically” better than the non-URMs with higher scores whom get displaced: there have been studies that show the benefit of being an URM while controlling for all those factors and more. Yes, that’s right, the boost comes from RACE ALONE. So it’s not accurate the pose the scenario where the URM always has a number of holistic factors on his side and then edges out the non-URM without those. The accurate scenario is where the URM has everything equal to the non-URM except lower SAT score by 150, yet still gets in over the non-URM. THAT is what affirmative action is. NOW WE CLEAR ON THAT?</p>
<p>^Can we get a link to these studies that relate to the Ivy League?</p>
<p>Also, isn’t there a benefit to society from increasing representation by groups that are UNDER represented - assuming that they’re QUALIFIED for admission? There are a lot of attributes that could allow someone with a 150 point lower SAT score (athletics, talent, legacy) to be admitted over another candidate with the higher score. </p>
<p>In the Ivies, the applicant pool should be large enough that these are QUALIFIED candidates. This isn’t a situation where unqualified applicants are admitted to meet some quota.</p>
<p>So this shows that race-based affirmative action is exactly that: race-based. I’m shocked how many people would believe that race-based affirmative action exists, and then say something like “oh well it can be explained by URMs being more qualified in other areas, or they’re uniquely disadvantaged.” Well, no. If that were the case, that URMs were simply systematically more qualified in other legitimate areas (note: not ones made up for the sole purpose of dodging the classification of race-based), then it wouldn’t be called race-based affirmative action, now would it? It would just be admissions counselors putting their appropriate emphasis on EC’s and URMs having better EC’s. Or it would be called something else like socioeconomic affirmative action instead of race-based, that is if they were targeting only the greater poverty that URMs live in rather than their race.</p>
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<p>Also there was some study I read a while back (I believe it might even have been posted on CC) that said despite the stereotypes, Asians have better subjective factors such as essays, extracurriculars, recommendations. So they are better overall, so the usual suggestion that “oh yeah that high scoring asian was rejected but it was probably cause he had bad essays,” and thus the implication that asians systematically have bad essays, HORRIBLE essays if it is this that must drag down their super high scores and grades, is a canard. I can’t seem to find the study now, though. If someone has it, please share.</p>
<p>Please stop your talk about “qualified.” It is and ought to be a relative term. You’re qualified if you’re better than others in the applicant pool, not all of a sudden everyone above a certain SAT/GPA is equal.</p>
<p>50 spots? Half the class at ivies are taken by the hooked. The biggest group is recruited athletes who are 17% or more of any ivy class. Then URMs, ~8-10% blacks ( so at the smallest ivy 125 plus), 8 ish% Hispanic and a small number of native Americans. Then legacies at 10 plus percent, a few percent staff kids and development. </p>
<p>That’s just the way it is. These colleges engineer their classes for their needs and desires.</p>
<p>^perhaps it is both. Considering the fact that URMs earn less on average than whites and asians and score lower on standardized tests. That’s not racist- it’s the truth.</p>
<p>^ even hinting that they are stupid is so idiotic. some of the smartest people i’ve met are black.</p>
<p>they do on average score a bit lower, but because in the poverty areas, i think there are more of the URMs which distort the stats. the URMs of high socioeconomic class should not be given any “advantage” in the process. that’s kind of unfair, and yet it still happens. I don’t really care beacuse in my school the URMs who made it big deserved to (they are geniuses, really not just hard workers, just plain old smart people), but i’m just saying.</p>