<p>“race is a tip factor for admission just like being a prospective humanities or arts major or residing in a state like Mississippi or Idaho or on a farm”.</p>
<p>I doubt that is true. I think being black is far more helpful is securing admission to a highly selective school than is living on a farm. Get real.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>With all due respect, northstarmom, race as a factor in race-based affirmative action admissions is hardly comparable to the negligible tip someone might get from being an Idaho resident.</p>
<p>At the heavy affirmative action schools, and Harvard is one of the heaviest, meeting those racial targets in admissions is arguable the highest priority of the admissions office.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You NEVER heard anyone say that to YOU? </p>
<p>I guess that you must not talk very often to people who apply (and get rejected) to highly selective schools!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If there was evidence or even reasonable doubt that certain people within a system were receiving special treatment due to a characteristic not available to other members of said system, you would be suspicious of those certain individuals, even if only 5% of them were the recipients of that special treatment. Therefore, if you know 5% Plutonians were receiving special treatment because, and only because, they were born in Pluto, you as an Earthling would suspect 100% of Plutonians of receiving that special treatment until individual Plutonians proved themselves otherwise.</p>
<p>I am very aware that there are LOTS of people smarter, better qualified, etc. than me. I am also aware that some people will unfairly judge me on an individual level because some people sharing my characteristics receive special treatment due to those shared characteristics. It is what it is. I may prove myself individually, convince people sharing my characteristics to stop accepting special treatment, or both.</p>
<p>
But that’s because YOU are defining “qualified” as being limited to academics, whereas the college in your example values athleticism as well. YOU may think that a college should only value academics – but the college spends a chunk of its budget on athletics, so their ad com thinks that athletic skill is also a valuable qualification. Therefore the applicant with remarkable athletic skill is deemed “more qualified”.</p>
<p>
No, I don’t believe that at all, because it would be completely untrue. I was simply using your words. But I don’t think people expect white people to get over it just because they’re white. People get accepted/rejected for all kinds of reasons, reasons that aren’t always clear to the general public and that causes a ton of anger and frustration, I get it, but that doesn’t excuse her comments. If a black person said they didn’t get accepted because some “rich, snobby white kid took their spot”, no one would chalk it up to frustration.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Do you know that not everyone how lives in Idaho or Mississippi lives on a farm? It’s true!</p>
<p>Have you ever looked at stats by state for admissions to schools like Harvard? Some years kids in more rural states have 50% acceptance rates. If you can produce evidence that supports that 50% of people of color who apply to Harvard are accepted, I’d love to see it.</p>
<p>Of course, evidence of that does not exist because it is not true. But it’s far easier, and much more acceptable, among white Americans to declare that affirmative action is the “real” problem with tip factors.</p>
<p>
It’s not the accent, it’s the dialect. If I were to talk to you on the phone, I would have no idea what part of the country you were from, or whether most of the people there were white, black, or green. But there are African Americans all over the country who have at least some dialect in common, regardless of their accent. I once worked with an A-A architect who talked as white as the next guy. One day, several of us were heading to the airport in a cab after a meeting and he started talking to the cab driver in perfect Ebonics. We thought it was hilarious.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I suppose that’s true. My son was the first family member to apply to an Ivy and not be accepted. I hope his many Ivy Leage educated family members will start speaking to us soon but time will tell (rolling my eyes.)</p>
<p>And, not, no one has ever said that to me. When people found out our son was not accepted to Yale or Brown, they most common reaction was some variation of, “I’m sorry. Their loss entirely!” Sadly, a few people did share with me their conviction that my son was surely rejected because a person of color no doubt was admitted. As I’ve shared already, I found that highly offensive.</p>
<p>No one said to me, nor have I ever heard a parent say, “My child was not accepted because no dout a legacy child took their place.” Not once. It’s not random that people are so quick to jump to, and so defensive of their assumption of, race.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Obviously your interaction with AA’s has been limited. Give me your phone number and I’ll have my AA D call you. I will have you swearing you are talking to “Buffy.” </p>
<p>My, how people paint with broad brushes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Speaking of evidence, would you be kind enough to point the readers to this forum to the source of this detailed information. I for one would love to see the source of information that reports the rates of admission along rural versus urban students, or the rates for different races and income level. </p>
<p>A link would suffice. Thank you for helping us lifting the veil that covers the details of Harvard’s admissions.</p>
<p>
The problem with this idea is that “best” is a very subjective concept. You cannot just assign numbers to everyone and everything and then pick the people with the largest overall numbers. If you could you wouldn’t need admissions personnel, or human resource people or hiring managers, etc… You could have a machine do it all for a lot less money.</p>
<p>“It’s not the accent, it’s the dialect.”</p>
<p>And sometimes timber and resonance.</p>
<p>
OK, are you having trouble reading? I never said that EVERY AA talks in a certain way. I said that it is dialect, not accent in particular that makes someone sound “white.” You are making my point, since I assume Buffy has a Georgia accent, as opposed to an Upstate NY one. I live in a very diverse region, and have known many people who speak Ebonics AND “white” (whatever that is), or mostly one or the other. I have known students straight from AFRICA who, amazingly enough, spoke passable Ebonics.</p>
<p>Sorry if I took your post wrong sylvan. BTW, Buffy did grow up in GA, but with a mom from CA, so Buffy has no accent. </p>
<p>No, I don’t have problems reading, but I sometimes do have problems conveying what I want to say to written text.</p>
<p>Totally agree with Idads post #90, disagree with coases post #93 in which student in the example was most qualified. Admission is NOT all about the test scores and GPA. In the 2010 hs class here. There was one student accepted EA to Yale with RD acceptances to Harvard and Stanford. He was not the Val or Sal or NMF. He had a strong GPA and excellent SAT scores, but not the best in the class. What placed him in the acceptance stack? Along with his many other attributes he served as an interpreter at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing and again at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. What a unique experience and great topic for his essay.</p>
<p>Regarding admissions to Harvard or any other private institution - they get to decide who is accepted and who is not. If you are not happy with their decision making process and which students they admit then dont apply.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is often assumed because colleges make no secret of the fact that they want a diverse student body. I’m a bit surprised by this thread. I’ve been on CC for six years and it feels like there are certain kernels of conventional wisdom that appear over and over again in chance me threads, etc. One of those is that being a URM ups your chances of admission. Am I wrong about this? Has this not been said over and over and over again all over CC? Why would it be a surprise if someone thinks that this factored into their child not being admitted, if there is truth to the fact that colleges actively seek out URMs? It may have been a completely tacky thing to say, but it’s not hard to understand why she thinks that. That’s the strong impression I’ve gotten here. Someone asked upthread if anyone would complain if they felt upstaged by someone rich or athletic. I believe there is currently a thread about someone whose friend’s family made a sizable donation, etc. People on CC feel upstaged by everything whether it’s someone getting in for athletics, as a legacy (heaven knows there has been tons of talk about legacy admissions here) or something else.</p>
<p>On some level, Interesteddad is right that it is what it is. But it’s also understandable that people have feelings about something as high-stakes as college admission. Pizzagirl suggested people apply elsewhere if they don’t like it. There probably is no elsewhere, since all schools care about diversity and there are lots of things people may not like about college admissions that they can’t change. It doesn’t mean they should just skip college.</p>
<p>My husband applied to law school at the height of affirmative action. He applied to a number of schools, some private and the top public law school in our area which would have been far less expensive for us. At the time the LSAT was scored on a scale of 48 and he scored 47. The public university law school instituted an admissions policy that all scores above 41 would be looked at as a 41 and the school would turn a blind eye to the difference between 41 and 47, which is obviously a statistically significant difference. They were open about the fact that this was part of their affirmative action policy. When, as an alum of this university, he did not get in, he went in and asked why. He was told he was almost admitted because he was an older student who had worked in an interesting field, which might have made the class more diverse, but he essentially wasn’t different enough from being a plain old standard white male. They admitted he was a top candidate from an academic point of view but that there were other factors in their admissions decision-making. </p>
<p>Of course, overt affirmative action policies like that are no longer the norm, but schools still do practice affirmative action. I think that private schools should be freer to do what they want, but I think that public schools, funded by taxpayers, need to be more careful. My husband and I have paid into the UC system our whole adult lives and we ended up paying significantly more for law school than if he had been admitted on merit to the UC law school. </p>
<p>At one point, President Obama said something interesting on this subject [Eugene</a> Robinson - A Question Of Race Vs. Class - washingtonpost.com](<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/14/AR2007051401233.html]Eugene”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/14/AR2007051401233.html) which I agree with. He said that his girls should be treated as privileged in college admissions and that there should be a way to look at kids of all races based on the advantages or disadvantages they had. I think there is a big difference between admitting someone who is college-bound as the first in the family and who worked through high school to help the family, regardless of race, as opposed to just trying to make a class look diverse in terms of color of skin. I see that as merit though – rewarding kids who made the most of more difficult circumstances. Merit should be looked at in context of someone’s circumstances, in my opinion. But I do think the current system is flawed and overly subjective.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, there is no doubt that schools will treat the Obamas as privileged ! And also as incredibly poweful children of alumni. Just as the children of all the Washington, DC inner circle. </p>
<p>And, by the way, that statement could be the poster child of the term … hypocritical. We can safely assume that the President sent a note to the private DC school that accepted the children to make sure they would evaluated according to the toughest standards and give them no breaks whatsoever! Not that this should come as a surprise for the Obama family when it comes to access to education. Pfft!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It is not a surprise, but being a URM is only ONE factor of a students admission profile. There are many more factors that make up an acceptance or rejection. I like to think of college admissions like blackjack card counting. 2200+SAT = +2, class rank top 5% = +1, lack of leadership in EC’s = -1, bad rec’s = -1, state/national academic or athletic award = + 1, national = +2, legacy = +1, etc. At the end of the day, a students TOTAL score determines whether or not they will be admitted. Those with more pro’s (points) get admitted. Isn’t that what holistic admissions is?</p>
<p>(I was only using the + and - points randomly, wasn’t trying to assign a weight to one factor more than another.)</p>
<p>"I said that it is dialect, not accent in particular that makes someone sound “white.” "</p>
<p>It’s accent and/or dialect and/or the resonance/timber of the voice.</p>
<p>Barry White had the kind of very resonant voice that I’ve only heard from (some) black men. </p>
<p>Dialect is usually obvious and relates to Ebonics.</p>
<p>Accent – unusual to find black people with, for instance, Minnesota, Alaskan, or Upstate NY accents since relatively few black people live in those areas. </p>
<p>“The problem with this idea is that “best” is a very subjective concept. You cannot just assign numbers to everyone and everything and then pick the people with the largest overall numbers. If you could you wouldn’t need admissions personnel, or human resource people or hiring managers, etc… You could have a machine do it all for a lot less money.”</p>
<p>So very true. When it comes to top private colleges, the best applicants are the ones who are best able to help create a smart, active, diverse student body. This means that in many cases those colleges will bypass a person with higher stats for one who’ll contribute more to how the college views its mission. A person may be highly qualified academically for admission, but the college may choose someone less qualified academically who’s more likely to contribute to the campus in a way that the college views as desirable. Consequently, by accepting the latter person, the college would indicate that that applicant is more qualified for being admitted.</p>
<p>When it comes to some other types of schools, the best applicants are the ones with the highest stats.</p>