And, “judging by names,” some people probably think my kids are Jewish , but they are not. Typical German last name. I just still don’t understand your statements regarding STEM and “nerds”, pizzagirl. For instance, implying that STEM is the “refuge of those who would have bombed out on those other fields, who don’t have any sensitivity or depth or nuance.” And lots of posts about “nerds.” I just don’t get what your point is. Are people who study engineering or computer science , in your view, somehow less evolved than people who study liberal arts type subjects?
“Technically”, will “check white” help her? Well, I guess it depends. The unhooked white applicants are probably not “better off” than Asian. There are more legacy applicants, faculty kids, athletes who are white, aren’t there? And many many white girls are strong candidates with excellent grades and test scores as well as great EC’s. You will be jumping in a deep pool by “checking white”.
"For instance, implying that STEM is the “refuge of those who would have bombed out on those other fields, who don’t have any sensitivity or depth or nuance.”
Except that’s not in the least what I said. (may I remind you that I was a math major and married a biology major?)
There is a certain TYPE of STEM major found on CC, who elevates STEM to the ultimate meaning of life and has complete disregard for other fields. They’re all “easy” and pointless anyway because the only possible jobs these days are in STEM. They make the kind of comments seen above where there’s just no bigger picture realization that there are other skills necessary in life (and in business) and yeah, the guy who runs Google’s corporate communication or government relations office is pretty darn smart too - just a different kind of smart. Such people are in fact very one dimensional and I’m quite certain they present as somewhat awkward and “off” in real life.
Luckily, in real life, I’ve met very few people like that. Most STEM majors I’ve known were well rounded, enjoyed other activities, and valued the humanities.
I think you overestimate the number of STEM majors found on CC who “elevates STEM to the ultimate meaning of life and has complete disregard for other fields.”
From a paper by Espenshade:
From a recent article in the Harvard Crimson:
People who can’t tell the difference between “we are trying to ensure a minimum number of x in a class” and " we are deliberately trying to limit the number of y" are too dumb for words.
When an ad on chooses between yet-another-kid from Long Islsnd and a kid from a ranch in Montana, everyone knows they aren’t “discriminating against Long Islanders.”
“think you overestimate the number of STEM majors found on CC who “elevates STEM to the ultimate meaning of life and has complete disregard for other fields.””
No. My comments are aimed directly and specifically at those posters, not STEM majors in general. For others, if the shoe doesn’t fit, they have no need to wear it.
What constitutes a “minimum number”?
Well, people who can’t understand that a person can choose to live in Montana, but can’t choose to be Asian are too dumb for words. And rude.
Not to pick on you specifically, Swimkidsdad, but what’s the point of reposted the point about SAT scores, when we’ve been talking for about a dozen pages about a non-discriminatory explanation for that disparity–STEM identification?
Also, how many times do I have to reiterate that there is a difference between using race as a factor in affirmative action for URMs, and the issue of whether race is being used to discriminate against Asians in favor of whites? If you don’t distinguish between those two things, you can’t discuss this issue sensibly.
@bogibogi: That was really uncalled-for, and wrong.
(1) Kids applying to college rarely choose where they live. Remember, it’s the kid who is applying to college, not the parents. And when kids do choose, they don’t choose Montana. If you are talking about applying to HYPS, there are dozens of factors that advantage kids growing up on Long Island vs. kids growing up in Montana. (And, yes, there are kids from Montana at Exeter, but they’re not getting admitted as kids from Montana.)
One of my college roommates was a kid from Montana. There were three of them in our class of about 1,300. The cultural distance was actually really tough for him to negotiate. (Fifteen years earlier Dick Cheney couldn’t handle that divide.)
(2) African-American and Hispanic kids don’t choose to grow up in families and communities where there is limited, sometimes negative support for academic achievement. And it can be desperately hard on them to go to college and find no one like them, no one who shares a cultural frame of reference with them, there. That’s not a problem many Asian or white kids face, thank heavens. (Unless maybe they come from Montana. Or Burma.)
A long time ago, I wrote a lengthy comparison of my son and his friend and classmate, M, a Hispanic child of an undocumented father who would be the first in his family to go to college. They had sequential class ranks – almost identical GPAs. My son’s SATs were meaningfully higher, and he had lots more ECs, in large part because M’s unpaid work in the family (informal) business was economically important to the family. The bottom line was that there were 30 or 40 kids in the region who would be indistinguishable from my son on paper, while M was unquestionably the top Hispanic student in that cohort in the region. And all my son’s great achievements represented living up to the expectations (and using the resources) that had surrounded him since birth. I said, “The next truly independent decision my son makes will be his first, while M has been solely responsible for his own education and direction in life since he was 10 or 11.” It is positively obscene to suggest that there would be anything wrong in some college preferring M to my son notwithstanding his lower test scores and thinner resume. And in fact, that did happen, but less than I thought it would, because M got a lot of rejections.
Of course, my son was fine – all of his advantages ensured that he got a good education, if not at his first-choice colleges. Not for a minute did he, or I, begrudge the relatively small number of offers his top-choice colleges had extended to qualified and truly impressive URMs. Nor did either of us complain that an Asian classmate with similar GPA and test scores, and poor ECs, was accepted at several colleges that rejected my son. Everyone, including my son, knew that was the smartest kid in the class, the one everyone listened to when he opened his mouth.
If you are going to argue to me about discrimination against Asians, it’s fine to talk about that 50-point difference Espenshade found in now 15-year-old data, but not the URM comparisons.
"Well, people who can’t understand that a person can choose to live in Montana, but can’t choose to be Asian are too dumb for words. "
Really? Average high school students can dictate where their families live? That’s interesting.
And hey, if it’s so easy to up-and-move to Montana, why not move there and get an advantage in college admissions? Easy peasy.
“One of my college roommates was a kid from Montana. There were three of them in our class of about 1,300. The cultural distance was actually really tough for him to negotiate. (Fifteen years earlier Dick Cheney couldn’t handle that divide.)”
JHS, I knew someone from Wyoming who had the same trouble. Moving to Evanston was a culture shock because even this suburb was larger than the largest city in his state (and he wasn’t from that city, but a much smaller one).
“said, “The next truly independent decision my son makes will be his first, while M has been solely responsible for his own education and direction in life since he was 10 or 11.”* It is positively obscene to suggest that there would be anything wrong in some college preferring M to my son * notwithstanding his lower test scores and thinner resume”
Quoted for truth.
This is maybe getting even farther afield, but what the heck. I think some people who are from immigrant families don’t fully “get” affirmative action. This may be because supposedly affirmative action can only be used for diversity purposes. However, savvy people realize that this is just window-dressing, and the real purpose for affirmative action is to respond to past wrongs. This explains (in my opinion) why a lot of white people support it–they (we) feel that it’s appropriate for white people collectively to make some sacrifices to make up to some limited extent for a horrible history. (Don’t bother telling me that the Supreme Court says affirmative action is allowed only to achieve diversity. I know that, but I know better, and so do they.)
So, immigrants may fairly ask, why should I make sacrifices to atone for wrongs done by white people in the United States long before my family ever got here? Well, it’s for the same reason your tax dollars go to pay for environmental cleanup resulting from actions before you came, and many other things. When you immigrate to a new country, you buy into both the benefits and the costs of being a citizen of that country. It’s a trade-off.
This is explain why a white person might agree with you that it would be wrong for colleges to discriminate against Asians in favor of whites, while still supporting affirmative action for URMs. Again, this is a reason to be careful about separating these issues.
And one more thing: this is why proof that colleges are discriminating in favor of URMs based on race doesn’t constitute proof that colleges are discriminating against Asians in favor of whites. The reasons for doing so are completely different.
@JHS, why would you call me out and not pizzagirl? While I admit that what I said was not nice, I was just piggybacking on what pizzagirl said. Seems to me that pizzagirl routinely uses strong and rude language and somehow gets away with it. I’m still puzzled as to why that is the case.
I think any reasonable person (not too dumb for words) can understand that colleges will consider geography when reviewing applications. And that reasonable person should be rational enough to say, “oh, I’m from NY and it is overrepresented at Harvard, so they chose that kid from Montana. Makes sense.” My point is there is a certain amount of control as to where a person lives. But as far as I know, we have no control over what race we are.
Yes, maybe someone from Montana may have had more hardships than someone from New York, but that is a different issue and certainly something colleges should consider. Without regard to race.
I have a lot of compassion for those who grow up overcoming significant hurdles. My parents came to the US with $200. The six of us were cramped in a one bedroom roach infested apartment. I routinely found baby mice nesting in my coat pockets. Both my parents worked 2 full time jobs. My two siblings practically had full jobs throughout high school to help support the family. I worked since middle school walking 2 miles each way to make $2.50/hour. My point in over sharing is that, hardships are not the domain of only URMs; plenty of ORMs have struggled.
@pizzagirl, what I once thought was a civil discussion has now devolved because I see now that you are in attack mode. You are so quick to label Asians as unsophisticated because of their desire to attend certain elite schools. I wonder why you always want to make it clear that your kids go to a top 20 university and a top 10 LAC. You have also said on many occasions that it was important to you that your kids go to schools “thick” with ambitious, high-achieving students. What? Asians can’t want those same things?
The “window dressing” aspect may be more important to colleges looking at their marketability to potential students. Some students prefer there to be “enough” other students of their own racial/ethnic group present at the college, for example. “Enough” can vary; it was claimed in another thread that many white students would not want to attend a school that is not majority white. In contrast, non-white students cannot be so picky and often have to settle for smaller percentages of “enough” if it matters to them.
Or even if you believe they are going to. It’s a cynical and hypocritical response, i.m.o. I don’t think much of the declared “principle” of such an action.