<p>On sounding black; Sarah Jones, the Tony Award-winning performer, talks with linguist John McWhorter ( I know this is OT, but we already have an affirmative action thread)</p>
<p>“Blackcents” and “code-shifting”</p>
<p>(I hope this isn’t breaking the rules…just in case, copy and paste )</p>
<p>studio360.org/episodes/2008/10/24/segments/113356</p>
<p>“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?”</p>
<p>Thinking that race mattered in her child’s admission is different from what she said: That the only reason her son wasn’t admitted was because he was white. </p>
<p>I bet if her son had been admitted to a top LAC, even though LACs admit that to try to maintain at least a 60:40 balance of males to females, they admit men who are less qualified than are women, the mom wouldn’t have said that the reason he was admitted was because he was male.</p>
<p>I am shocked by the poor choice of words used for a dejected Mom who thinks her child is special… But then, what is the real spike>.<</p>
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<p>By accepting that “it is what it is”, I mean that there is no practical benefit to complaining about the system. My D was a white girl from Massachusetts. Dime a dozen at the elite colleges. Probably the worst possible stack of applications to find yourself in. So what? She couldn’t change it. It wasn’t going to do any good to complain about affirmative action costing her a “spot”. Those are the cards that she was dealt and she needed to figure out some way to play a winning hand. Part of that starts with the college list and a realistic assessment of her odds. It drives me absolutely crazy to read “what are my chances” questions here on CC with page after page of “stats” but no whisper of ethnicty or type of high school. Those absolutely fundamental to understanding chances. My daughter would have had better chances if she had been Latina. It is what it is.</p>
<p>I do disagree that there are no differences in affirmative action. I can name colleges where hitting high diversity goals is paramount in admissions (Swarthmore is one – 55% white US, Harvard is another – 57% white US). I can name schools that barely lift a finger to enroll a diverse class (Washington & Lee, Davidson - 82% white US). Those are huge differences and I guarantee that affirmative action is a higher priority in admissions at Harvard and Swarthmore. It is what it is. Neither would deny it; in fact, both tout their commitment to diversity/affirmative action. </p>
<p>I would strongly recommend that parents take the time to jot down the diversity statistics for every college under consideration. There are huge differences; some regional, some clearly indicative of differing institutional priorities and cultures. If you don’t think Biffy’s going to get a fair shot because of affirmative action, there are plenty of good schools where that won’t be an issue.</p>
<p>Kinda funny story that fits with this thread. When my daughter got into Swarthmore, her grandparents were at party with another grandparent-aged couple who were Swarthmore alums. They said their granddaughter had just gotten into Swarthmore. Conversation went like this:</p>
<p>Friend: “She got into Swarthmore?”
Grandpa: “Yep”
Friend: “Is she black?”
Grandpa: "No’
Friend: “Is she Hispanic?”
Grandpa: “No”
Friend: "Is she gay?
Grandpa: “I don’t think so.”
Friend: “Wow, she must be really smart”.</p>
<p>Now, that conversation is probably unfair to the minority students, who (from what I could tell) are just extraordinary kids. But, there’s the perception. It is what it is… That’s how affirmative action is viewed. The deal is simple. If you are an URM, you get the benefit of a boost in admissions and you have to live with people thinking you got the benefit of a boost in admissions. It’s a two-edged sword.</p>
<p>Harvard and other private institutions clearly state they want a diverse student body; which does increase a URM chance for acceptance; but not because he/she took a spot away from a non-hooked student.
[quote= interesteddad
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To parents of all shapes, sizes, and colors trying to figure out this admissions game, I would urge them to understand that admissions takes place within sorted stacks of applications. The white kids are competing in the white kid stack. The African American kids are competing in the African American stack. The Latino/a kids are competing in the Latino/a stack. And, deny it to the cows come home as they do, the admissions officers have target quotas they are trying to hit from each stack.
[/quote]
Harvard is not going to admit an URM or any other hooked student who is NOT qualified. The number of AfAm kids who apply is relatively small, thus their chance of being admitted is greater. The same is true for the number of kids from rural areas, or academically strong athletes. Most of the applications are from White and ORM students which decreases their chances for acceptance. The mother who complained to the OP is wrong - it wasn’t an Indian or Black kid that took her son’s spot but another White, NE urban, math whiz kid that got her son’s spot.</p>
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<p>Yes, it is difficult for me to understand why she thinks that. </p>
<p>Yes, being an URM is a hook. So is being a legacy, so is being the child of wealthy donors, so is being an athlete, so is being an oboe player when that’s what the college is looking for that year. </p>
<p>How in the world would this woman know what exactly drove the admissions committee decision on her child? Why has she decided that race was the hook that another student had that her child didn’t? </p>
<p>She made that assumption because racist assumptions are acceptable in far too many circles. </p>
<p>I’ve shared my child’s stats on this board many times, with my child’s permission. ACT 35. SAT 2350. His gpa, ecs, leadership roles and so on were in line with those stats. His essay was about being the gay son of a United States Marine, hardly a well worn topic. I’m willing to bet that my kids stats and overall picture was more competitive than a lot of parents who cling to this “my child was wronged only because they are white” so-called reasoning. </p>
<p>Yale and Brown rejected him outright. I have no idea why and neither does any other parent whose child was also not admitted. The fact is that a spot at those colleges never belonged to him so there is no way that someone “took” his spot. The fact is that why my son was not accepted will never been know to us nor to him. </p>
<p>I happen to believe that Yale and Brown made a horrid mistake in not admitting my son. I think the school he’s attending is lucky to have him and he is lucky to have found such a good match for his abilities and interests. I know that we are incredibly lucky that our child was competitive for these colleges, that life has blessed us far above and beyond what we could ever claim to have earned. To turn that into an excuse to marginalize people of color? No, that’s not reasonable to me at all.</p>
<p>I think people in general would be surprised at the difficulty of URM admissions at top colleges. Swarthmore slipped up a couple of years ago and, putting together bits and pieces from two different admissions articles from the same year, I was able to piece together some acceptance rate numbers for ethnic groups. The acceptance rate for African Americans (and Asian Americans, btw) was in the 35% range – roughly double the overall acceptance rate. </p>
<p>Yes, that is a higher acceptance rate than white applicants. However, part of that is that the number of applications from black students is smaller and the yield of accepted black students is lower (the competition to enroll these all-star URMs is fierce). On the flip side, if you think about the caliber of Swarthmore’s African American applicant pool, a 35% acceptance rate is pretty darn low. Rejecting 2 out of 3 very highly qualified and self-selected African American applicants is hardly an affirmative action free ride.</p>
<p>I would think the AA applicant pool at Swarthmore and other like schools is fairly self-selective as well.</p>
<p>The woman was rude and thoughtless. NSM handled it politely and graciously. Who, with any sensitivity, common sense, manners would make a statement like that to someone of color? To say it to anyone is sour grapes, but to make a statement like that to someone who would be in the URM category, whose children would be in this category borders on nastiness.</p>
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So-kay. But, lol, only the people in Western New York have no accent. Everyone else sounds like they are from somewhere else :).</p>
<p>I guess this is a side note but the woman while being completely ignorant and plain rude was not really being racist. By definition being a racist means that you put your ethnicity above others, like Hitler and slave-time America. It just irks me sometimes when people throw the word racist around like it applies to every other situation, the woman’s comment was not racist, she didn’t seem to put white people in a different class above others, she was just blatantly ignorant and needs some manners.</p>
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Actually, it’s kind of interesting to mention that. Last week DS and I toured St. Bonaventure University. There was also a dad with his S with us on the tour, so we were chatting. He casually mentioned that S had a better chance at some places because he was a guy. I commented on how ironic that situation seems to me, but I realize it’s true for my DS as well, depending on where he applies. And I wonder if it will be a disadvantage for DD when her turn comes.</p>
<p>Yep, it will be a disadvantage at some schools for DD. I saw a striking example of this when a friend of mine with a D and S, went through the process. No question that the D was the better student. In fact, S had lower grades, easier courses. But he got into schools where his sister was waitlisted. Catholic schools tend to attract more female applicants. It is easier for a male to get into BC, for instance. Providence College too. </p>
<p>But when you are looking at certain schools with big engineering programs and other majors that tend to attract the males, the females would have an advantage. CMU offers females in engineering and like majors merit money, but not males. Probably an admissions advantage as well. I know a young lady with very high math scores who was accepted to Cooper Union and some other engineering programs when male peers were waitlisted. The enthusiasm with which admissions greeted her was apparent. She was a rare bird.</p>
<p>Okay, I agree with the poster that said that it is not surprising that the woman said this, but that she said it to NSM’s face. In this woman’s case, it sounds like sour grapes; in some cases, not having a hook may make a difference, whether it be ethnicity or race or geography.</p>
<p>It’s easier to swallow when someone has maybe an athletic ability or plays an instrument or developed some kind of skill that made a difference. But admission based on something you’re born with ( whether race or gender) - that can be more difficult to deal with.</p>
<p>I, as a white female, have run into ‘isms’ throughout my life - class-ism and sexism, as well as sexual harassment. It was unfair and unpleasant, and demeaning.</p>
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<p>Legacy status and Developmental Admits are also something that one is born into. Regardless of which box one falls into, selective schools are not admitting unqualified students.</p>
<p>“But admission based on something you’re born with ( whether race or gender) - that can be more difficult to deal with.”</p>
<p>Most people admitted to top U.S. colleges had the good fortune to be born in the U.S. to reasonably supportive parents who valued education, and to have received a quality education that allowed them to be competitive for top universities.</p>
<p>They probably weren’t foster kids, offspring of crack addicts or prisoners, and they weren’t brought up in developing countries or by people who were illiterate or thought education was a waste of time.</p>
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<p>There most certainly are plenty of elsewheres. Many state schools are strictly numbers based. Make the numbers, you’re in. Don’t make them, you’re not in. Funny how that option never appeals to the folks who want it all to be about academic merit.</p>
<p>We all complain about legacy, athlete, residency, race, sex, first generation…as hooks. But it is race that is a taboo. (it is not possible that URM could possibly be accepted with lower stats, but atheletes, yes) At my kids’ high school, 35% of kids are accepted to top 20 schools. Everyone knows that most of those 35% are made up of athletes and legacies, and people do make sly remarks about it. Are those accepted with hooks not qualified? Probably not. Are there more qualied and talented students without hooks who were turned down? Yes.</p>
<p>But you keep acting as though the 3.95 /2350 kid is more qualified than the 3.9 /2300 kid and that simply isn’t true.</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 would? That’s like saying if a black person stole my friend’s purse, I should be suspicious and hug my purse tight around 100% of black people, even if I’m sitting at the table at a National Association of Black Physicians meeting or I’m at Northstarmom’s house for her family reunion. Where I come from, assuming a bad thing about everyone based on race is called racism.</p>