<p>"A record 10.9 percent of admitted students are from Latino backgrounds"</p>
<p>"Alumni/ae interviews were more important than ever this year as the Admissions Committee had to choose from so many highly qualified applicants."</p>
<p>I'm from a latino background. AND I had a good interview :)</p>
<p>Lets hope Yale is the same!</p>
<p>Harvard</a> University | FAS | Financial Aid the Key to a Record Admissions Year</p>
<p>To be honest, it is ridiculous that colleges consider/acknowledge ethnic background in admissions</p>
<p>Interesting article, those minority numbers are enormous…</p>
<p>Sweet, I’m a Latino with an awesome interview (at Harvard. My Yale interview SUCKED.)</p>
<p>omg. my interview totally sucked
my interviewer didn’t even ask me any questions about myself
he just asked if i had any questions about Yale, and when i ran out of the few i had, talked about all this stuff about Yale that i already read about on the website
weird, cuz the same interviewer asked plenty of questions for my peers who also applied
it was as if he already knew i got rejected and was like “here, this is all the stuff you’re missing out on” :(</p>
<p>socioeconomic status, not race,should be the criteria for Affirmative Action.</p>
<p>Agreed b/c I saw an accepted student at Harvard today that had a 150k income and mediocre stats (at best) relative to Harvard applicants (i.e. all SAT scores were in the 600s range, class rank was like 20/400) and was a black female…the Indian male (me) with seemingly stronger stats can’t help but feel cheated b/c race should not account for something like a 300-400 point gap on the SAT I…call me jaded, but the admissions process at some of the elite schools is simply pathetic</p>
<p>Just the fact that they have press releases to brag about the fact that they accpeted 10% Latinos and 10% Acfrican-Americans (and 17% Asian-American) illustrates the point; Also, I think it is fair to say that Asians (inc. Indians) account for more than 17% of applicants and Blacks and Hispanics account for fewer than 20% of applicants.</p>
<p>But, maybe that’s just me.</p>
<p>Regarding Harvard’s newsrelease–Latino more than 10% admitted…</p>
<p>Does it mean that Harvard intentionally gave preference to Latino group??? Isn’t it unfair to the other ethnic groups?</p>
<p>YEAH! Latinos represent!</p>
<p>Now I feel much better for being rejected by Harvard. It is not because I am not good enough, it is because I was not born Latino. </p>
<p>I am glad to take my tuition some place else!</p>
<p>I would agree with you ajr, besides the fact that Harvard financial aid is so generous that tuition is minimal</p>
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<p>You need to up your critical reading skills, 10% of admitted students were latino, they said nothing about their admit rate and don’t separate applicants by race so they have no idea how many applied or their acceptance rate.</p>
<p>At Harvard there will be much less of a discrepancy in rates because Harvard can choose among the best of all backgrounds. But at most schools the acceptance rate gap is less than 7% between urm and the general student body (10% vs 17%) and this is among urms who choose to apply. </p>
<p>The advantage is very much over stated. Even at WashU, which enrolls a student body that is 10% black and surely doesn’t rank high on the minority pecking order, the acceptance rate was actually LOWER for black students (16.5% vs 22%)</p>
<p>For a rate chart see here: [url=<a href=“http://www.jbhe.com/firstyearenrolls.html]JBHE[/url”>http://www.jbhe.com/firstyearenrolls.html]JBHE[/url</a>]</p>
<p>So no, minorities can’t be blamed for whatever the outcome of your admission.</p>
<p>Paying any attention to race whatsoever will always, ALWAYS be unfair in my eyes.</p>
<p>Like supereagle10, I believe socioeconomic affirmative action should be the only form of affirmative action employed. Socioeconomic status is a real indicator of disadvantage (growing up in poorer neighborhoods, attending mediocre high schools, struggling to balance school and a job to help out your family, etc.) Race, however, is NOT. Sure, there is a correlation between race and disadvantage, but correlation is not causation. There are so many disadvantaged whites who don’t get the special attention from college admissions they deserve because they’re not a “minority.” </p>
<p>Racial affirmative action is nothing more than socially accepted rascism.</p>
<p>Tyler I never said anything about admit rates explicitly, but did imply that there Latinos and African-Americans probably were accepted at a higher clip than the the one at which they applied (for example maybe 8% of applicants were African-American but they accounted for 10% of the incoming class)</p>
<p>And here’s some food for thought… ([College</a> Admission Officers](<a href=“http://www.asianam.org/college_admission_officers.htm]College”>College Admission Officers | Asian American Politics))
College Acceptance Rates (2005)<br>
Overall Acceptance Rate Black Acceptance Rate % Difference
Harvard University 10.0% 16.7% + 67.0%
MIT 15.9% 31.6% + 98.7%
Brown 16.6% 26.3% + 58.4%
Penn 21.2% 30.1% + 42.0%
Georgetown 22.0% 30.7% + 39.5%
The advantage is OVERSTATED? No, my friend it is understated because I, like most others, was not aware of some of the raw data. Look at the overall acceptance rate at MIT and the black acceptance rate (quite a discrepancy if you ask me). Blacks were accepted at nearly twice the rate of the applicant pool overall. What gives?</p>
<p>And some more (<a href=“http://opr.princeton.edu/faculty/tje/espenshadessqptii.pdf[/url]”>http://opr.princeton.edu/faculty/tje/espenshadessqptii.pdf</a>)
A 2005 study by Princeton sociologists Thomas J. Espenshade and Chang Y. Chung compared the effects of affirmative action on racial and special groups at three highly selective private research universities. The data from the study represent admissions disadvantage and advantage in terms of SAT points (on the old 1600-point scale):</p>
<pre><code>* Blacks: +230
<p>So Tyler, I feel my argument has weight and your questioning my literacy was a d.o.u.c.h.e. move</p>
<p>^I disagree about it being a d.o.u.c.h.e. move as your argument and supporting study are cliche and highly criticized.</p>
<p>And with respect to people calling any qualified black student a “shoo-in”, yes the advantage is HIGHLY overstated, as evinced by several cases on this board. </p>
<p>But at the same time, it’s all irrelevant. The extent of affirmative action shouldn’t influence how much you agree with it.</p>
<p>The problem with affirmative action in undergraduate admissions at elite schools is that the policy is both counterproductive and counterintuitive as evidenced by the studies. If you need more explanation than that, go to the Official Harvard Board and on the first page you will see a post that will scream affirmative action acceptance. Remember, I am not criticizing individuals, just the practice of affirmative action itself. Disagree with me all you want, but that poster claims to have be in the top 1% at a very competitive school. However, her test scores, a clear way to compare applicants academically, reflect that her school is not as difficult as it is made out to be and/or there is grade inflation. In addition, that accepted student, who was black, was in the 150k+ income bracket. Now, that supports the theory that middle and lower class Asians and Whites are penalized when compared to middle and upper class so-called URMs. This is why affirmative action is paradoxical; It actually penalizes Asians, which is a group of minorities the last time I checked.</p>
<p>Underrepresented minority is an incorrect term. It should be under-achieving minorities. The reason I say this is that it is clear that Harvard boasting about their 10% black and 10% Latino incoming class is a clear representation of the school attempting to “correct” the imbalance of qualified applicants, which, let’s face it, is filled with many Asians. Reading some of the following data shows just how obnoxious it is for a school to compensate for a particular race’s performance on tests:
*<a href=“http://www.apsva.us/154010717123425543/lib/154010717123425543/SAT/2008/SAT2008_Ethnic.pdf[/url]”>http://www.apsva.us/154010717123425543/lib/154010717123425543/SAT/2008/SAT2008_Ethnic.pdf</a>
*[SAT</a> and ACT Scores by Race/Ethnicity](<a href=“http://www.blackexcel.org/06-sat-act-scores-by-race-ethnicity.htm]SAT”>SAT and ACT Scores by Race/Ethnicity)
*[Average</a> Scores on the SAT and ACT For the Year 2006 by Racial and Ethnic Group](<a href=“http://www.blackexcel.org/sat_act_by_group_2006.html]Average”>Average Scores on the SAT and ACT For the Year 2006 by Racial and Ethnic Group)</p>
<p>I would like to see the average black and latino accepted students’ test scores, again the only known assessment of academic prowess of amongst applicants, put against the accepted Asians and the rejected Asians. However, Harvard would never release such data because anyone with a brain knows that an Asian student has to do more than a black or latino student in order to get into a top school. Why should an applicant suffer because his ethnic group tends to have more qualified applicants?</p>
<p>I recently heard that CalTech actually assigns students numbers and the Adcom does not look at name and race. That way, there is not even a chance that the Adcom will give preference to any ethnic groups.</p>
<p>Again, I have nothing against any group of people, in fact that is my point. I do not see people by race. Once races are grouped in any type of competitive process, there will be an unfairness. I am against affirmative action as a policy. I believe it penalizes certain ethnic groups and tarnishes and makes unfair the college admissions process.</p>
<p>I apologize for calling you a ******, but you questioned my literacy when I was right. After seeing MIT accepted black students at double the clip of the rest of the field as recently as 2005, it is clear that if anything the discrepancy between ethnic groups in college admissions is UNDERstated.</p>
<p>Any thoughts?</p>
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<p>There is no evidence that conclusively supports that statement ESPECIALLY at the undergraduate level. Graduation rates are the same for minority students at elite schools as others (taking income in account, the largest reason for dropping out is money) and SAT scores predict their performance even less than for nonminority students.</p>
<p>A key flaw in the anti-AA argument, which seems to center around a desire to line up all of the test scores or some other allegedly objective measure from highest to lowest and admit the top 1,600 or so, is the presumption that only URMs benefit. Nothing can be farther from the truth. College is a a chance to be exposed to multiple intellectual, social, cultural, political and economic perspectives. By bringing together a range of views and experiences that more closely mirrors the environment outside the ivy-covered walls, all groups benefit - even those members of the traditional majority fortunate enough to be admitted.</p>
<p>I really do think people are overstating the minority boost. If you look up my stats you will see that I was more than qualified but I was rejected from Harvard and Princeton, although i was accepted to Yale.</p>
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<p>I take high offense to that.</p>
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<p>If you do not see people by race, why do you assume so quickly that skin color is the reason why minority students are getting a boost from Affirmative Action? It could simply be that there is a significantly greater amount of Latinos and Blacks in the lower end of the socioeconomic pole than Asians and non-URM. You act as if no Asian can get into a selective school if he/she is poor with a less than stellar SAT score (By the way, SAT is only part of the application. Who wants a smart a s s if he’s too lazy to even lift up a pencil? lol). If anything, white females get the greatest advantage from AA. I’m not sure if that’s AA in general, or AA practiced only in higher institutions of learning.</p>
<p>To me, it sounds like “the chosen 1” is just upset that he got rejected from Harvard (If you didn’t, I apologize for the assumption). Go spew your anger somewhere else. And if you want to bring in arguments against AA, don’t bring in insults or sound so belligerent and obnoxious. It makes you appear bitter. :(</p>
<p>And please don’t try to turn this into an AA battle, especially with me (if you were thinking about it). You believe in what you believe, and everyone else has his/her own opinion. I’m sure you mean well, but I just don’t think that the tone of your “voice” is helping you in any way. It’s too confrontational and abrasive, and turns people off.</p>