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u reeeeeeeely proved ur intelligence.
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<p>I suppose you just did too, buster.</p>
<p>Dear guynameded,</p>
<p>Please learn to spell and use capital letters before saying someone's readings comprehension skills are "atrocious." Last time I checked, a 28 and a 29 on those two sections, while not stellar, are certainly not atrocious by any stretch of the imagination.</p>
<p>As far as ethnic groups being "under average," you might be forgetting about the trailer trash white people that you see on Cops. I'm pretty sure they're no better than any other race. You simply assume that the white and asian populations are overall more intelligent because they have the most presence in the top schools. I find it interesting how you ignore the bottom 98 percent of students who don't get into these schools, whether they be white, black, mexican, or martian. I'm sure the URM's that get into these schools are still vastly more "intelligent" than many whites and asians that can't even get into their public state school.</p>
<p>i dont think theres an accurate way to judge intelligence yet</p>
<p>I've read that if there were no such thing as affirmative action at top colleges and universities, if those openings that are traditionally reserved for URMs would be filled up based on merit alone, the dominating majority of slots would go to Asians with many of the remaining slots going towards Caucasians. What does that tell you? </p>
<p>Sure, many URMs may be at a disadvantage when socioeconomic conditions are involved (less access to opportunities, whatever they may be) but the fact still remains that given this disadvantage, URMs as a whole tend to be less "intelligent" or "qualified."</p>
<p>This is not to insult you personally, ZFanatic, so please don't overreact. But you're clearly above average for a Native American student, and you should accept that. As for your comment about "URM's that get into these schools are still vastly more "intelligent" than many whites and asians that can't even get into their public state school" you're missing the point. An Asian and Native American student, given the exact same qualifications and "resume" material, will not have the same chance at getting into an Ivy League school. And to compare well performing URMs to poorly-performing whites and Asians is just a ridiculous argument.</p>
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I'm sure the URM's that get into these schools are still vastly more "intelligent" than many whites and asians that can't even get into their public state school.
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<p>This is completely true and completely irrelevant. We're discussing URM's vs whites/Asians at Ivy League universities, not the entirety of these races.</p>
<p>The fact is that URM's have significantly lower standardized test scores than whites/Asians at every single high ranked school. This isn't controversial. It's a fact. I'm not even going to provide sources b/c it's just so damn well-known.</p>
<p>The asians came from a different culture/society which was conducive if not important for their physical well-being to learn. Blacks and hispanics have traditionally been shunned from top schools till recently. The whites, as consequence to preference, have had the ability to up their socioeconomical status and provide better opportunities for their children. Hispanics/blacks haven't had these perpetual opportunities because of their race and what that meant to early america; thus they haven't been able to provide for an education that is comparable. There are exceptions, as with anything, so don't think that this is a definite assertion over the whole race. Moreover, hispanics and blacks grew up in societies where work was more important to learning and many were shunned by their own parents from attending school. These two cultures had an inferiority complex which kept them from learning or advancing.
Now, however, affirmative action is for an equilibrium to take place amongst the different races. Nevertheless, i firmly believe that if there is affirmative action at all, these students should have stats comparable to other applicants.
Again, this is not an attack on anyone, just my reasoning through it all. I'm open to criticism.</p>
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Blacks and hispanics have traditionally been shunned from top schools till recently.
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<p>Your entire argument including the statement above has a rather notable counterexample: Jews. Thus I'd say all this pontificating about "shunning" and "not having opportunities b/c of race" is garbage. Everything you said above can be applied to Jews, yet they dominate the Ivy League.</p>
<p>your mom dominates the Ivy League</p>
<p>Are you kidding me Jews? I love Jews don't get me wrong, but they ARE NOT comparable to URM's period.</p>
<p>My high school is predominantly white. These kids have been accepted to a **** load of good schools (Ivies and the equivalent). A bunch of them are legacies, developmental cases, recruited athletes, one girl's father is a celebrity, etc. A bunch have private tutors for AP courses and SATs, professional editors for college essays, private college counselors, opportunities for ECs that others wouldn't have had connections for. The minorities in my grade on average don't have these same advantages. Affirmative action evens it out.
e.g. say there's a black girl with 2000 and B+ average. Who's to say that with private tutoring she wouldn't have had 2200 and A average? Those higher stats wouldn't have proven her to be more intelligent; they would have just proven that she had more money.</p>
<p>There are many first generation Asians with parents working for minimum wages (16+ hours a day), and many of them go to top tier schools through financial aid. I don't think high GPA and test scores are necessary tied to "more money."</p>
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Hispanics/blacks haven't had these perpetual opportunities because of their race and what that meant to early america; thus they haven't been able to provide for an education that is comparable.
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<p>I disagree that the Hispanic experience can be lumped into the experience of African-Americans (and Native Americans and some Asian-Americans) who have descended from the slave trade. </p>
<p>The contemporary Hispanic experience is much more comparable to the experience of Poles or Italians in the early 1900s, or Germans and Irish in the 1850s. The same could be said of recent African immigrants to this country.</p>
<p>To the extent that these different ethnic groups provide diversity of experience and background on college campuses, that's all well and good, but I don't think any affirmative action program should be specifically targeting these types of students above and beyond whatever socioeconomic considerations may be made in the admissions process. </p>
<p>Lumping all URMs together unfairly marginalizes the true victims of generations of racist institutions in American society.</p>
<p>Admissions based on melanin are inherently unfair.
URM's squeeze out poor white males from impoverished areas of Appalachia who have superior admissions qualifications.<br>
I notice that Cornell is considering admitting 100 or so more applicants than usual this year to offset budget deficiencies. I'll bet that these slots will all go to full pay candidates. </p>
<p>P.S. It is interesting to see all the posts that refer to a multitude of AP's and IB's - my high school does not offer any of these.</p>
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URM's squeeze out poor white males from impoverished areas of Appalachia who have superior admissions qualifications.
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<p>With all due respect, I suspect that any poor students from Appalachia are already being appropriately flagged in the admissions discussions.</p>
<p>Affirmative action is obviously unfair, I dont even think that's arguable. Many people dont notice this because they aren't the people who are being disadvantaged by this. Ask those poor white kids and poor asian kids how they feel. There's really no point in asking the advantaged cause obviously they'll support it.</p>
<p>There is nothing on the Common App or within the Cornell supplement that would supply any admissions committee with a demographic analysis accurate enough to discern if an applicant was a poor white male from Appalachia. Needs-blind would blind them to that fact. Anything would have to be inferred without extensive searching outside the application system. Given the large volume of applications, the time frame involved , and the cost of obtaining additional information I doubt that this would occur.</p>
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There is nothing on the Common App or within the Cornell supplement that would supply any admissions committee with a demographic analysis accurate enough to discern if an applicant was a poor white male from Appalachia. Needs-blind would blind them to that fact. Anything would have to inferred without extensive searching outside the application system. Given the large volume of applications, the time frame involved , and the cost of obtaining additional information I doubt that this would occur.
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<p>Don't be so naive. The schools provide for themselves a detailed breakdown of demographics of the school you attend and the zip code in which you live. Add to this any qualitative information that may appear in your letters of recommendation or elsewhere in the application, and you can get a pretty detailed picture of who the person is. </p>
<p>It's pretty obvious that the kid who writes about his time helping half-blind amputated orphans in Africa isn't from Appalachia when contrasted with the kid who writes about his father being laid off from the coal mine</p>
<p>^^And don't forget the ECs which require money in which to participate, or just to get to! Bagging groceries in the A&P vs. fencing, lacrosse, and many other activities such as Intel (or other academic competition) finalist.</p>
<p>Look. Money is the key, just as the person said up top, the rich students have more opportunities than the impoverished students. I believe affirmative action should be based only on need and background, not race. The only reason a large amount of minorities benefit is because the majority are extremly poor, imagine living in a household and your entire family makes $0.00 per year.....FML. Social economic status as well effects things too, listen up human ecology buffs. Let's compare a poor Asian to a poor African American. A poor Asian household Is more likey to push their children to succeed, while a African American household is more likey to hold their children back. Look at the African American role models, rappers, Jailbirds. E.t.c. Socially it is much harder to succeed, for instance I don't have one black friend! Not one! And I'm Black! They think because I'm a honor student and don't sag my pants I'm not black! My own people hate me because I'm smart. These social aspects are why things such as affirmative action exist.</p>
<p>This is a great topic everyone. This is what I expect from the Ivy League. Also don't gold anything back, no PC!</p>