I Hate Myself For Being An Arm Chair Liberal

Parents Forum
201

<p>Asian Universities, also, are noted for strictly relying on scores and grades as the criterion for admission. If you are bloody brilliant, but test poorly, or even if you just had a bad test day---sorry Charlie. No soup for you!</p>

<p>I somehow doubt that many here, even the ones most vehemently opposed to AA, would want American colleges and universities to operate within such narrow parameters, because it would leave too many of their own children without a Harvard dream to stand on. Only when it comes to minority admissions do they want scores and grades to be the sole litmus tests for eligibility.</p>

202

<p>Calmom:</p>

<p>
[quote]
I am realizing now as I read the posts that you are a homeschooler -- and I can see where that presents an additional burden on your to make sure your kids test well -- though it really shouldn't be a case of needing perfect 800 scores.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Agreed. We really don’t emphasize this as much as it may seem. In fact, I can’t perfectly remember my D’s scores because I have a lot of other kids doing stuff and my D pretty much does her own thing these days. I know she scored 1550 or above the very first time she took the old test as a junior. And she nailed a handful of the SAT II’s, post prep, but she didn’t do this to prove anything to anyone but herself.</p>

<p>We have this thing in our house that we do. I might build a large canvas and then pull a kid aside asking them “If you were not a person, but were only a painting, how would you look?” I want that kid to look DEEPLY, I mean so deep that they disappear as a human and become a painting in their mind. As the kid’s eyes are closed, I am talking to him or her, getting them to move very far down into themselves to see who they are. When it happens, the kid automatically starts bubbling forth descriptions of the painting he sees. I ask the kid to take a snapshot of that painting and never let it go. Then I ask them to give me that painting.</p>

<p>I am telling you this because it is exactly the thing that is driving those high SAT scores in my home. What those kids are feeling is the need to put themselves in the performance so that when you see the result, you see them. That is what they bring whenever they open a book, or watch a movie, or eat a plate of spaghetti. Don’t you feel this even here? I am working with all my might to do the same thing right here. In everything we do, we are converting ourselves into it. So I would be perfectly happy with a 1200 score – as long as the kid was convinced that the score was him. I would be thrilled to get a painting that is nothing but a black line scratched vertically, as long as the kid is convinced that line reflects who he is. You can only do the very best that you can possibly do. Anything more, is just impossible. But I want to make sure that you do the VERY best you can do – nothing less.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I'll bet that despite your URM status, colleges actually scrutinize your kids even more, simply because they don't come with the indicia of class rank/school profile -- so the burden is on you to prove that you've covered all the bases in your home education program.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yes. The colleges are very clear that for homeschoolers, test scores are more important – and I think they like to see a nice variety of tests. I just can’t get over that these people think we matter—that we can contribute stuff too, because we can, but I wondered if they would be able to see it. I am very grateful.</p>

<p>
[quote]
In other words -- I think that wherever your kids go, they've worked just a little bit harder, especially as compared to a kid who comes from a high school with a designer label.

[/quote]

Indeed, I think for this reason my kids will probably avoid the AA stigma to some degree. Whenever people find out they are homeschooled, they assume they are great academically. I talked to my D about it. She just said she’d pour it on and let her work represent her. So that is that, as far as I am concerned.</p>

<p>
[quote]
But I still think its tough to be in a situation of always having to prove you are "deserving".

[/quote]

As I have said, from the moment I step outside of the comfort of my home, I am ON! ON! ON! ON! It is just the way things are here. Can’t say I’ll ever get used to it. But I am coping just fine. I don’t think my kids feel any of this. They don’t seem to. To tell the truth, they get so much praise from people due to their public work, they probably feel they don’t have to prove anything. I figure after they start college, they’ll just do more of the same. They should be just fine.</p>

<p>
[quote]
But I am grateful that I didn't face the barriers that even the women in the class a year before mine faced. My great aunt went to law school in the 50's - she graduated #1 in her class at UCLA - and when she got out of school the only job she could get was as a secretary at a Legal Aid office.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Me too. In fact, I have been grateful for the changes I have witnessed regarding new opportunities for women. When I read history, and see what god awful dogs we men have been toward women, I think of the women in my life and am very glad they don’t have to put up with so much of it today.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Well, that would be rude, LOL. Part of my daughter's charismatic personality is that she never says anything like that.

[/quote]

gggg- Of course rudeness is the point. It is kind of rude to be told you don’t deserve to be in a certain place too. So it seems to me someone who would be so mean spirited might benefit from a little of his own medicine. But, truth be told, I don’t think I could actually say anything like that. It’s not my style. But my goodness. I would be thinking it! The issue is sometimes so frustrating, I’d want to say something like that.</p>

<p>
[quote]
But when it comes down to it, the problem is that the kids who don't get in are focusing too much on the numerical qualities -- and that very well may be why they didn't make it. I still think that a lot of kids get rejected by top schools because they are over-confident and simply don't put the effort needed into the application process.

[/quote]

That is likely quite true, though D found out that it is possible to spend too much time on the application process too.</p>

203

<p>
[quote]
That is likely quite true, though D found out that it is possible to spend too much time on the application process too.

[/quote]
Actually, I don't think my d. spent too much time - she certainly put together the applications with care, but she didn't stress over it. I think my daughter's performing arts background was a big help - she's got the "audition" thing down pat. Including understanding the part about not getting chosen. I mean, most of the time it was some-other-kid who got the part and the process was always very subjective -- you just have to put on the best effort you can within the time or space alloted and then move on. </p>

<p>I don't quite agree with you about always doing the "very best" -- sometimes we need to prioritize and perfectionism can be overly stressful -- but I do think one thing about the college app process was that my daughter put a lot of effort into the small things. For example, she submitted a DVD of some of her choreographed dance works to Barnard and spent hours working with a student friend to get a professional look to the DVD, with subtitles, etc. But she also kept it short & simple - it probably was about 4 minutes long at most. Barnard is big on dance, so who knows? Maybe that was what helped her make the cut.</p>

204

<p>If there are lots of high-scoring URMs, and AA isn't about lowering standards, then why do we need AA? All we would need is adcoms who aren't bigots.</p>

205

<p>Drosselmeier! I'm tickled to hear about your daughter's acceptances! I was wondering how things were unfolding for her. (The homeschool forum has been so quiet.)</p>

<p>I appreciate the thoughts you have shared about raising free children. Your exprience with this is important for all of us. It takes incredible guts and determination to protect our children from our own demons, and you have both. However, I think raising free children is just part of what needs doing, given today's challenges. I don't think there's time to grow old and take our demons with us. </p>

<p>I think it would trivialize your experience and that of others, like sybbie719, to say you must "get over it", regarding the painful lessons you have learned. What you are accomplishing in raising your children with the healthy, rather than the destructive, aspects of those lessons is anything but trivial. </p>

<p>But isn't it most important now that we apply those lessons freely to the problems at hand, without limiting ourselves to our old contexts, no matter what they are? Isn't the the greatest challenge we face? Is it enough to say we've done the best we could and now it's up to them? We're not dead yet, and what we take with us remains to be seen.</p>

206

<p>TourGuide:</p>

<p>Great point. </p>

<p>I have no problem with "some" set asides to ensure that a number of qualified URMs are admitted to ensure diversity and equal access. Meaning that if a college is going to admit 1000 and they have a mix of 5000 qualified applicants, then they should make sure that a representative % will be URMs. That way, there isn't a big problem with people getting in with lower credentials.</p>

<p>That said, I dont' even have a problem with admitting a <em>small</em> number of that reserved % to URMs who are a bit "underqualified" as long as they are economically disadvantaged and there is a reasonable indication that those kids won't be overwelmed in a sea of higher achievers and then fail.</p>

207

<p>As a URM who was just admitted to an Ivy with an SAT of 2000 exactly, I must say that I am confused by the correlation made between high hard stats and a person's qualification to be admitted into an esteemed univ. No matter how much you say that everyone in HS has an equal opportunity to go on to higher level ed., the fact is they don't. Coming from an entirely black HS that's on the lowest end of the soc.economic scale, I can tell you first hand that that we DO NOT have the same opportunites or encouragement throughout our academic careers. EVERYTHING I have accomplished has been made more difficult just because of the fact that I am a poor AA female. You can disagree all you want, but I lived it. Think of how focused your son or daughter would be during the PSAT if he/she had just had her breakfast stolen at knife point in the cafeteria earlier that morning. That adcomms recognize this is simply a testament to their good judgment.</p>

208

<p>What happens to URMs admitted with very marginal qualifications? On a specific college forum here, one student was accepted with approximately a 4.3 gpa, top 1%, 2100 SAT and many excellent ec's. A URM was admitted with approximately a 3.3 gpa, top 25%, less than 1400 SAT and no notable ec's. When they are in the same classes, how do you think it's going to go? I guess it is possible that the lesser qualified student will somehow do great, but probably not. Probably he/she will never be able to be competitive with the likes of the other student (they will be graded on the same basis, no?), and this will provide even more reason for others to question URMs' qualifications.</p>

<p>Not only is it unfair to reject students who are clearly much better qualified, it really isn't fair to set marginally qualified kids up for failure just to meet the desired URM quota.</p>

209

<p>Think of how focused your son or daughter would be during the PSAT if he/she had just had her breakfast stolen at knife point in the cafeteria earlier that morning</p>

<p>Income and race are two different issues
as are schools who need but don't have metal detectors.
but here if you qualify free/reduced lunch- you can get free breakfast as well so that wouldn't be an issue :)</p>

210

<p>emeraldkity:
First, if the mobile county public school system COULD afford metal detectors, they probably still wouldn't buy them, at least not in my school (I live in Alabama, which has not come as far racially as one might hope). You're missing the point on the breakfast thing (which happened to me the day I took the PSAT, and I'm still a National Achievement Finalist). It's not about hunger it's about control, and even that's kind of beside the point. The point is, the harder the path is to getting what you've got, the more it means to you and the more it should be worth. I don't understand why that's so hard for non-URMs to appreciate. Income and race are two different things, true, but where I come from, one often comes with the other.</p>

211

<p>you are talking to someone who didn't graduate from high school-whose mother killed her father when she was 17 and whose daughter goes to an inner city school</p>

<p>we don't have a metal detector- but the neighborhood is very sketchy- kids are assaulted walking to the bus stop or home from school.</p>

<p>Since you agree that income and race are two different things- what about giving assistance to all low income students- instead of targeting minorities by race?
If it is an income issue- shouldn't that be what is addressed?</p>

212

<p>If I sounded like I was on the attack in my last post, I apologize, but URM representation something I have always spoken passionately about. Income is not the issue, social ills associated with being from a poor soc.economic backgroung are the issue. Then again, I guess it may be different for me because where I live, black means poor...period. They don't expect nor do they want us to succeed in the post-hs world. I realize that on a national level this is not so much the case, but how do you make the determination between the two in other places where the line is indistinguishably blurred?</p>

213

<p>They
Who is they?
What I see is more of a seperation of poor and wealthy- both numbers increasing with the middle decreasing.
As the numbers of poor or lowish middle income families increase-there will be more supports needed for these families- yet in instances where the support is targeted by racial criteria- there is a lot of resentment by those who dont qualify but need it.</p>

<p>However I see instituitions stuck on diversity by race- even when our district could have legally mixed kids by income to acheive greater diversity in the schools, they spent $$$$$$$$$$ taking the case to court 5x after I-200 , in order to be able to assign students by race to schools.</p>

<p>Incidentally I heard the districts legal counsel say that they didn't have to "use" this assignment, and indeed it will not change much the composition of the schools-my daughters school is 43% caucasian in a district that is 41%, but in a city that is 70% caucasian.</p>

<p>They could have acheived a mix of students by looking at numbers of free/reduced lunch- which actually if you go by graduation rates and test scores has much more of an impact by race- and would have allowed them to put all that money actually in the schools where it could have helped students, instead of paying attorneys- but then they wouldn't have looked so * politically correct*
;)</p>

214

<p>But as I understand it, the elite colleges usually do very well with the URMs - few of them fail to graduate, right, even if their entering stats were lower in some cases. </p>

<p>So what conclusions can we draw? How about entertaining the notion that those colleges aren't as difficult to get through as their marketing campaigns make them out to be?</p>

215

<p>Yulsie:</p>

<p>There is that. The fact is, elite colleges do well by ALL their students.</p>

<p>Factors contributing to the low drop-out rate:<br>
--fewer financial worries for students--a big reason for the high drop-out rate at many state universities.
--better support and advice for struggling students (of all background).
--narrower range of abilities among students which allows the top colleges to distribute their resources among more students;
--greater ease of teaching students of more similar abilities;
--often smaller classes, especially at LACs, but also in upper-level classes at top colleges.
--good range and number of courses, enabling students to graduate within four years more easily than at many state schools.
--good admissions decisions. Again, fixating on stats alone will not help determine who will or will not succeed in college. We have at least two cases of students, both Caucasian, who were admitted to great schools with lower stats but had something special, who have been discussed at great lengths in this forum. </p>

<p>So, yes, if all these factors are present, it should not be that difficult to get through top schools. The same applies to Oxbridge.</p>

216

<p>
[quote]
A URM was admitted with approximately a 3.3 gpa, top 25%, less than 1400 SAT and no notable ec's. When they are in the same classes, how do you think it's going to go? I guess it is possible that the lesser qualified student will somehow do great, but probably not. Probably he/she will never be able to be competitive with the likes of the other student (they will be graded on the same basis, no?), and this will provide even more reason for others to question URMs' qualifications.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>We would advise them the same as we would advise non-urms and their parents on this board when they talk about their struggles in school. </p>

<p>We let them know the resources that are available to them on campus; in the form of the academic skills center, talking/meeting with the professors, getting one on one tutoring, develop better note taking skills, all which are more readily available and more affordable at the "elite univerities" then the are at the state univerities. I can tell you for a fact that if your recieve $1 in financial aid from Dartmouth you can get tutoring for free and private one on one tutoring for $10 (and even the fee for this can be wavied) .</p>

217

<p>From JBHE</p>

<p>For many years Harvard University, traditionally one of the nation's strongest supporters of affirmative action, has produced the highest black student graduation rate of any college or university in the nation. But for some unexplained and possibly immaterial reason, Harvard slipped to second place in 2004. But now Harvard's black student graduation rate has increased to 95 percent, once again the highest among U.S. colleges and universities. </p>

<p>Amherst College, a small liberal arts college in western Massachusetts, now has a black student graduation rate of 94 percent, the second highest in the nation. Last year Amherst had bested Harvard by two percentage points. Princeton University ranks third in the nation with a black student graduation rate of 93 percent. Six other highly ranked colleges and universities in the United States posted a black student graduation rate of 90 percent or above. They are Wellesley College, Brown University, Northwestern University, Washington University, Wesleyan University, and Williams College. </p>

<p>Eleven other high-ranking institutions have a black student graduation above 85 percent. They are Stanford University, Yale University, Dartmouth College, Davidson College, Columbia University, Duke University, Georgetown University, Smith College, Swarthmore College, the University of Virginia, and Wake Forest University. </p>

<p>Academically selective institutions are almost always strongly committed to affirmative action in admissions, yet at the same time they tend to deliver a high black student graduation rate. Obviously, this undercuts the assertion made by many conservatives that black students admitted to our most prestigious colleges and universities under race-conscious admissions programs are incapable of competing with their white peers and should instead seek admissions at less academically rigorous schools. The fact that almost all entering black students at Harvard, Amherst, Princeton, and several other highly ranked colleges and universities go on to earn their diplomas shows that African Americans do compete successfully at our nation's most prestigious institutions of higher learning.</p>

<p>At Mount Holyoke, Smith, Macalaster, Wellesley and Pomona, the graduation rate for blacks is higher than it is for whites.</p>

<p>Explaining the Differences in Black Student Graduation Rates</p>

<p>Why are black graduation rates very strong at some high-ranking institutions and considerably weaker at other top-ranked schools? Here are a few possible explanations: </p>

<p>• Clearly, the racial climate at some colleges and universities is more favorable toward African Americans than at other campuses. A nurturing environment for black students is almost certain to have a positive impact on black student retention and graduation rates. Brown University, for example, although often troubled by racial incidents, is famous for its efforts to make its campus a happy place for African Americans. In contrast, the University of California at Berkeley has had its share of racial turmoil in recent years. The small number of black students on campus as a result of the abolishment of race-sensitive admissions has made many African Americans on campus feel unwelcome. This probably contributes to the low black student graduation rate at Berkeley. </p>

<p>• Many of the colleges and universities with high black student graduation rates have set in place orientation and retention programs to help black students adapt to the culture of predominantly white campuses. Mentoring programs for black first-year students involving upperclassmen have been successful at many colleges and universities. Other institutions appear to improve graduation rates through strong black student organizations that foster a sense of belonging among the African-American student population. </p>

<p>• Geographic location unquestionably plays a major role in black student graduation rates. For example, Bates College in Maine is located in a rural area with a very small to negligible black population. The same holds true for Grinnell College in Iowa, Oberlin College in Ohio, and Carleton College in Minnesota. Black student graduation rates at many of these rural schools are lower than at colleges and universities in urban areas. </p>

<p>• The presence of a strong and relatively large core of black students on campus is important. Among the highest-ranked colleges and universities, institutions that tend to have a low percentage of blacks in their student bodies, such as CalTech, Bates, Middlebury, Grinnell, Davidson, Carleton, and Colby, also tend to have lower black student graduation rates. Black students who attend these schools may have problems adjusting to college life in an overwhelmingly white environment. And these schools are less likely to have black-oriented social or cultural events to make black students feel at home. </p>

<p>• Curriculum differences also play an important role in graduation rates. Carnegie Mellon University and CalTech are heavily oriented toward the sciences, fields in which blacks have always had a small presence. It continues to be true that at many high-powered schools black students in the sciences often have been made to feel uncomfortable by white faculty and administrators who persist in beliefs that blacks do not have the intellectual capacity to succeed in these disciplines. </p>

<p>• High dropout rates appear to be primarily caused by inferior K-12 preparation and an absence of a family college tradition, conditions that apply to a very large percentage of today's college-bound African Americans. But equally important considerations are family wealth and the availability of financial aid. According to a study by Nellie Mae, the largest nonprofit provider of federal and private education loan funds in this country, 69 percent of African Americans who enrolled in college but did not finish said that they left college because of high student loan debt as opposed to 43 percent of white students who cited the same reason.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.jbhe.com/features/50_blackstudent_gradrates.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.jbhe.com/features/50_blackstudent_gradrates.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

218

<p>Calmom:</p>

<p>
[quote]
I don't quite agree with you about always doing the "very best" -- sometimes we need to prioritize and perfectionism can be overly stressful.

[/quote]

Perfection for us is nothing more than shaping your surroundings (including ideas, words and inanimate objects) into your own image, to the greatest degree possible within your constraints, whatever they may be. This is the driving force behind our home school.</p>

<p>So, there is no pressure, except the healthy pressure that comes from within. Everyone can do his best, and only the kid knows when he has met or failed to reach this goal. To help him judge, we work very hard early in the kid’s life to make sure she has the integrity to recognize when he is failing himself and how to make corrections. Once a kid sees the need to be true to who he is in all that he says and does, it nearly breaks his heart to be false in any way. So peer pressure, drugs, premarital sex, violence and other foolish behavior are just brutally rejected by the kid once he is confronted with them.</p>

<p>That works for us. And the kids seem very well-adjusted. But I can understand how others may not really accept it. I just don’t think in my case I can afford to do much else.</p>

219

<p>nan:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Drosselmeier! I'm tickled to hear about your daughter's acceptances! I was wondering how things were unfolding for her. (The homeschool forum has been so quiet.)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yeah. I’m tickled too, and we’re all humbled. I didn’t post on the homeschool forum because I felt uncomfortable announcing the good news without a fitting context. So many people are heartbroken right now, and I have been privately emailing them and encouraging them as best I can. But I couldn’t bring myself to publicly rejoice purely because of what happened to my daughter. I did it here to show what I think is the merit of AA. Some say my daughter was accepted only because of her great performances. Maybe so, but when I see a sea of non-URMs doing just as well quantitatively, I wonder if without AA she would have even been noticed. If I could get a better picture of the process, then I would be able to tell. If the admissions process is just this beauty contest depending more on essays than anything else, then yeah. I think my D would have gotten in, because the girl can write with a lot of serious guts and fire.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I appreciate the thoughts you have shared about raising free children. Your exprience with this is important for all of us. It takes incredible guts and determination to protect our children from our own demons, and you have both. However, I think raising free children is just part of what needs doing, given today's challenges. I don't think there's time to grow old and take our demons with us.

[/quote]

What is the alternative? If there is no time to grow old and take our demons with us, then it seems to me there is no time to work on getting rid of our demons and raising kids. My great fear is that in openly working on the demons, some of them will get to my kids. So, I have been choking the ever-living daylights out of them in private, with the support of my wife, so that my kids can go on with few problems. I have ways of coping very well. So that I am not overcome with grief and depression. I am a pretty low-maintenance guy because I tend to hide stuff from everyone. But I have a lot of friends who know me and who really love me despite it. Te most important thing for me is the comfort I receive daily from God. I’m not preaching here, and I really do have a deep respect the religious beliefs (or lack of them) of everyone else. I’m just telling you what keeps ME hanging in there. God isn’t just a crutch for me. He is life-support. I mean, He is all the pipes and IV units and lung and dialysis machines and stuff running all inside my nose and in my veins and arteries. Take Him away, and it would be curtains for me.</p>

<p>
[quote]
I think it would trivialize your experience and that of others, like sybbie719, to say you must "get over it", regarding the painful lessons you have learned. What you are accomplishing in raising your children with the healthy, rather than the destructive, aspects of those lessons is anything but trivial.

[/quote]

You know, when people tell me I should jus get over it and stuff like that, I used to get hurt because that sort of thing just means the person is unable to crawl into my place and be with me. It also showed that I was unable to crawl into his. Now, I’m both saddened by the breach and pleased by it because to tell the truth, I don’t want anyone to feel this stuff.</p>

<p>
[quote]
But isn't it most important now that we apply those lessons freely to the problems at hand, without limiting ourselves to our old contexts, no matter what they are? Isn't the the greatest challenge we face? Is it enough to say we've done the best we could and now it's up to them? We're not dead yet, and what we take with us remains to be seen.

[/quote]

I think I am in fact applying the lessons of my life to the problems at hand. In fact, that is why I have made the choices I have made. I am just not sure it is wise to expose the stuff to my kids. I am suspecting a lot of it is poisonous and has a way of corrupting my view of things. There are some issues that I have definite views and deep feeling about. But that I am unwilling to completely trust these views and feelings because they are often mixed up with a lot of old ideas that I haven’t been able to shake. For example, on one hand I know several whites who really have a serious love for me. I mean, the people would go right to the very end for me. And I feel the same for them. These are folks who just started moving toward me until I, for some crazy reason, just let them in. And now it is too late to put them in the “white” box and myself in the “black” box. I in fact often forget these folks are white, which is just insane to me. I have a lot of noise in my mind about it because there are MANY other whites in my country who want me dead just because of my color. And bitter conversations on AA also underscore the matter.</p>

<p>So, how do I live with this? It would be a whole lot easier if I could just have whites be “over there” and us blacks “over here”. But it is not as clean a thing as that right now. So, the way I have been handling it has been to just keep my noisy mind to myself and let my kids make their own judgments on race-relations based on their own reading and experience. I don’t want to cripple them with my own views because I seriously suspect my own views are really flawed. It has its downside. I am a little detached from my kids on this issue. I feel I am bolted down to the ground and my kids are running all around me believing that if I wanted, I could just get up and run as they do. And to keep up the deception, I will often say to them “Hey! Lets run over there and enjoy this new thing. Huh?” right away then saying “Actually, you guys go on. Maybe I’ll come later. Right now I’d like to just sit here a spell longer”. And the kids just run freely away.</p>

220

<p>sybbie,
I'm not sure if that was directed at my post, but if it was, let me just say this. I am not objecting to admission of qualified students of ANY background. I am only saying that admitting marginally qualified students to get the desired racial/religious/geographic mix does a disservice to those students.

[quote]
We would advise them the same as we would advise non-urms and their parents on this board when they talk about their struggles in school.

[/quote]

This issue is not dissimilar to the discussion on the engineering forum that questioned whether is was "right" to admit minimally qualified students only to weed them out later.</p>

<p>The elite colleges undoubtedly have a large and qualified pool of students to choose from, so it is not surprising to find that the graduation rate is high. The kids were qualified to begin with.</p>