<p>Cormy3, great find in that article from Princeton.</p>
<p>Affirmative Action is really stupid. It should be based on need not race.</p>
<p>Maybe these studies are what Cormy3 was talking about:</p>
<p>[News:</a> Testing for ‘Mismatch’ - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/20/mismatch]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/20/mismatch)</p>
<p>Half way down the page you can see the revealing graph. Look closely at the Admissions Office evaluations for the various groups. Look also at the family income section and notice the close match between Latino and Asian that somehow did not translate into comparable achievements, academic or otherwise.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.mckinsey.com/app_media/images/page_images/offices/socialsector/pdf/achievement_gap_report.pdf[/url]”>http://www.mckinsey.com/app_media/images/page_images/offices/socialsector/pdf/achievement_gap_report.pdf</a></p>
<p>Look closely at the graph on the right (exhibit A) of page 13, showing “Poor white students tend toward lower achievement than rich white students. Whites, meanwhile, significantly outperform blacks and Latinos at each income level. In fact, white students from the second income quartile perform about the same as rich black students”.</p>
<p>The truth may be inconvenient, but it is still the truth.</p>
<p>^You should spend your time being productive in a positive manner. </p>
<p>This is a free country…you do not have to apply to an ivy that practices AA. If you are so disgusted, go to another college.:)</p>
<p>What, you think just cause someone is black or mexican they should have an easier time getting into college?</p>
<p>^You can not judge an individual on one single factor. This is the arguement posted on cc all the time. SAT scores are important but not the end all and be all of an applicant. Applicants are judged on many factors…not just an SAT score.</p>
<p>I will repeat, do not apply to those colleges which are not in keeping with your philosophy. Fit is important.:)</p>
<p>I agree that AA should be used with socio-economic class rather than race. But first-gen hook covers that to some degree.
URMs perform lower than whites and asians in the same income classes. So even rich blacks are disadvantaged when compared to rich asians. Why? It’s a culture thing. Does this mean blasck culture is less conducive to learning than asian? What can we do to correct that? Is putting blacks in high-pressure academic situations with lots of smart kids the best option? Or is accepting that they are “stupider” than asians better? </p>
<p>No matter how you spin it, if we assume that URMs are just as smart as ORMs, we need to delve into the issue of WHY we face such underrepresentation.</p>
<p>So you like being told you’re basically inferior and need a boost in the app process?</p>
<p>If I have a minority doctor they better not have gotten in because of AA.</p>
<p>CanuckGuy, thank you, that’s exactly the one I was talking about. It’s all displayed on the chart in the middle of the page. I think I couldn’t get it to show up on any search results because the article’s main topic isn’t directly about the chart.</p>
<p>Aren’t the results interesting? URMs score lowest by significant margin in essays and recommendations and personal qualities. (And Asians are generally on top.) Oh no! Blasphemy!</p>
<p>Isn’t it ironic, though? I can’t count the number of times where defenders of AA have accused its opponents of racism, when they themselves insinuate that Asians are deficient in personal qualities such that they couldn’t possibly have been good in subjective factors. Hence, it’s all the subjective factors… URMs must be interesting and humble and have great stories to tell! While those they displace, Asians and to some extent Whites, must be boring and stale and have an obvious sense of entitlement that will come across in their application. So, uh, who’s being racist?</p>
<p>Yeah I guess i’d be happy if I were a wealthy black person helped by AA. But I’d also feel a bit insulted. If I were an actually disadvantaged URM, then i’d feel grateful.</p>
<p>Boo hoo. I get so tired of reading these endless complaints by entitled students about affirmative action. A poor black kid from the 'hood is taking my spot at Harvard! Boo hoo. On the other hand, I get tired of reading claims that affirmative action isn’t real. Of course it is–selective colleges take people that they wouldn’t take if they were a different race. That’s an obvious fact. But the colleges think they have a good reason for doing this, and at least for the private ones, they have the power to make that decision. If you don’t like it, boycott them.</p>
<p>bzva: Why? You’d still be boosted more than your socioeconomic disadvantage warrants. That’s the point of it being race-based, so you would be benefited purely by race in either scenario. There’s little difference.</p>
<p>Cormy, when has anyone here claimed that Asians are bad at writing essays? Nobody is saying that. I admit that if race weren’t a box to check off on the common app, WAY less URMs would be admitted. But then that would create a defacto upper class of asians and whites, and a lower class (assuming that good unis=good education= good job) of URMs.</p>
<p>THe entire point of AA is to eliminate that class sytem based on race.</p>
<p>I actually am lower class, so I would be grateful, but I’m only applying to Auburn and Vanderbilt xD so it doesnt really matter</p>
<p>Cormy, I dont care about AA on a micro level. But big picture, URMs tend to be lower class. Is helping URMs helping the lower class? As a socialist, I’d simply like to ignore race and make it a totally class-based argument. But AA isn’t meant to create more income equality through classes (or make it easier to pursue the American Dream). AA is meant to make it easier for previously disadvantaged races to get jobs, go to school, etc.
Advantaged people have other options if they dont make it into Ivies. But due to the fact the most need-blind/meet-full-need schools are elite, for poor smart kids it’s Ivy-or-community college.</p>
<p>The essay and personal quality thing is an insinuation, sometimes strong sometimes indirect. But it is probably the most common response by the defenders of affirmative action in affirmative action threads. The briefest and most common formulation could be this: “So what if URM have lower scores and grades? The process is holistic!” By saying something like this, the poster is implying that while URMs have lower numbers, ORMs have lower other things like essays and personal things. Sometimes this insinuation is as brief and plain as I stated it above. In that case, fine, maybe lapse of judgment/logic at that moment. Sure. But often it’s coupled with some snide remark about rich people feeling entitled, or people [non-URMs] studying too much to do much good in the world. Most frequently there’s some anecdote where an URM had some exemplary personal qualities and from there assumed that this must be true in general, like so-and-so had to overcome so-and-so struggles as an URM and came out of it a great person, so they all must have, or at least better persons than non-URMs.</p>
<p>Look, and this is to both you and Hunt, I don’t think I even disagree with AA. These posts definitely are not complaining about AA per se. I’m already in college. It’s just that there are so many misperceptions out there about it. And the way people cling to these misperceptions in order to defend their well-manicured, politically-correct view of the world, it’s just so nauseous to me. So please let affirmative action be judged by the truth.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree with your last point, cormy. But I note that while being URM may make it easier to get into an Ivy, it doesn’t make it easy. If you look at the results threads, you will find plenty of URMs who got rejected, including some with some pretty impressive stats.</p>
<p>It’s not a case about class though, it’s about race right now. Poor smart black kids get an easier time in the app process than poor smart white kids.</p>
<p>
But overall, which would you rather be, in this society? Chris Rock has a bit about this–that even though he’s rich and famous, many white people wouldn’t want to trade places with him.</p>
<p>When did that happen?</p>