<br>
<blockquote> <p>She's royalty, for lack of a better word. That's why she got in.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Since when is it surprising that a politically well-connected kid gets into an Ivy? Yale is the Bush family school. It's Harvard for the Kennedys and Princeton for the Frists. Why aren't you upset about those?</p>
<p>Granfalloon, michwoman:</p>
<p>This aint really about AA or about this girl you despise. As I have said, I myself, though accepting AA, have a problem with it. I think it is needed, but I admit I could be wrong about it. It is a tough issuethough not NEARLY as tough as the 400 years of slavery and Jim Crow that gave rise to AA. I just wish there were no racism, no sordid history underlying our current problems. But it wont do anybody any good to just sit around pining for what can never be. There are valid issues on both sides of AA. To resolve the issue, we are going to have to take a different, less combative posture toward each other.</p>
<p>But what is really bugging me about what is going on here is that it is just particularly mean spirited. I see a kid here who is basically harming others and also harming himself in a variety of ways. What Granfalloon has done has been to run down some girl he despises simply because he has judged and sentenced her as unworthy of the honor of a spot at Columbia (You know, admissions officers must get a real kick out of so many immature kids, many of whom are parents, who, having no experience at all, think they have what it takes to craft a class for a university). There arent a lot of black girls at Columbia, certainly not a lot whose fathers are state senators. Anyone reading Granfalloon here can find who the girl is. He has dumped on the girl on a public forum when such a thing will help no one at all. Plenty of small-minded people will be prone to dump further on the girl just because of reading bitter, obviously biased stuff like this. The truth is, the girl is in for whatever reason, and few here are in the position to definitively tell what that reason is. So, rather than sit on the sidelines taking cheap shots at her, it seems to me we should just let her sink or swim like everyone else. Columbia wanted her, now they have her. She doesnt need the added pressure of our public scorn. It is just a mean thing to do.</p>
<p>The other thing that worries me is the potential harm this can cause for Granfalloon himself. He obviously has some great qualities: hes articulate, passionate, focused. But the kids heart and spirit are still undeveloped and small. Yet these are exactly the things he will need if he is going to reach his potential. All of this bitter and public attacks upon other people wont make him a better person. It will just wither him, making him smaller and smaller until at best, the only thing he will be is just some jerk who has money. The world is full of monied jerks. I was just hoping to point out to the kid that he is acting like one. Also, and as a practical matter, it probably wont take a lot of effort to discover who Granfalloon is, based upon all that he has posted here. If the girls dad is a senator, and he gets wind of this, he may himself be small-minded enough to somehow make this kid pay for his public foolishness here. I hope this isnt the case, and I suspect the father is a fine man, but, you know, we just dont know. It is rarely good to run down people. The saying if you cant say something good about a person, then say nothing at all is just good sense.</p>
<p>I dont care anything about what this girl looks like or what kind of obnoxious music she listens to. I just dont trust ANY of your descriptions here. In fact, Id bet that upon looking at the girls application, I likely would find some terribly attractive things about it that would bring it repeatedly to my mind. If she is as outgoing as you claim, this is probably very much the case and were I an admissions officer, I may even be prone to take someone like this just because she could do the work and also liven up the place. The issue is not about this girl. It is about you and the awful stuff you are doing here.</p>
<p>Now, I am done with this.</p>
<p>First off...</p>
<p>Why are you concerned that someone with lower stats who is AA got in and you didnt. It doesnt matter!! They would not accept a student into a school if they did not think they would make it out of the school. It doesnt matter if they graduate with a 3.0 or a 4.0. Secondly, why not be happy for the person instead of jealous. And the fact that she is in a few activites and PASSIONATE ABOUT IT is better than being in a lot of activities and spreading yourself thin. Not to say that you are not..but that is what it looks like to admission reps. Second because she is AA doesnt have anything to DO WITH ANYTHING!! Open up your eyes, race is a SOCIALLY CONSTRUCTED CONCEPT THAT MAKES SOCIETY MORE DEVISIVE THAN IT HAS TO BE!! Race is not JUST "color of your skin". It is the social, economic, and political situations that surrounds the individual. How could skin color determine intellgence. Its your environment. And second shes not the only one for this to happen to..there are rich white kids..and other rich black kids that get in too. They parents donate money, they wine and dine etc. Also politics is in everything. At the end of the day..you will be where you were meant to be. Stop worrying about where you didnt get in and start looking forward to how you will make the most of where you DID GET IN!!</p>
<p>Granfalloon ,
if you really "know" this girl as well as you say you do, and know all about her laziness, lack of effort and so forth and so on, go talk to her yourself instead of wasting ur time at CC
tell her how you feel about her ivy league college acceptance, tell her how you think she doesn't deserve any of it
this might be a whole lot more productive and may just get rid of all that annoyance/anger ur harboring inside</p>
<p>
[quote]
Race is still a hook in Ivy admissions pools and that's more than enough to trump the 2400, the valedictorian or the Intel semi-finalist. It's upsetting to granfallooner and justifiably so that this was the daughter of a senator who benefitted from AA.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The daughter of the senator did not benefit from AA. If anything she benefitted from the fact that she is the daughter of a senator.</p>
<p>And how does this make her different from any other kid of a senator/politician, celebrity or child born into extreme wealth?</p>
<p>When you consider the fact that Barak Obama's kids are too young to attend college, Carole Moseley Braun's son has already graduated college and Edward Brooke is 87 years old. </p>
<p>When you factor in and got though the process of elimination when it comes to hispanics and native americans serving in the senate, it was a grimmy thing for the OP to post something that exposes someone else.</p>
<p>Granfallooner wrote: "What I'm seeing from most of her defenders is a clear case of what I call 'Ivy League Validation Syndrome.' Columbia accepted her, so she must have some sort of virtue. Is this the case? Does everyone who gets accepted by an Ivy necessarily have some redeeming, validating characteristic? Are the Ivy Leagues the be-all-end-all of human worth?"</p>
<p>Granfallooner, you are smart to see this false logic and right to point it out: a great number of posters here have assumed that the girl's Columbia acceptance alone is proof that she was a qualified candidate. In other threads posters console rejected or nervous applicants with arguments that Ivy League decisions are either random chance or based on inscrutable logic, but when push comes to shove most people (as revealed in this thread) do believe that Ivy acceptances are certification of the candidate's value as a person. The belief in a just universe is common within our culture - we cling to the belief that good people are rewarded and bad people punished. We should all know that this is not the case, and should really not become so emotionally invested in college acceptance decisions.</p>
<p>However, the same fallacy is at the heart of your argument too. You are terribly offended that someone you view as inferior would be extended an invitation to Columbia; you too believe that Ivy League enrollment should be or is reward and certification of high personal worth. Why not just say, "Columbia is a flawed institution just like any university; it's a good place, but its claims to divine perfection are nothing but name-brand advertising. Its students are regular humans; some are spectacular and some are merely ordinary."</p>
<p>Lol.</p>
<p>You know, you're right. And good point, Mary. Truth be told, I've been thinking of myself as a hypocrite this whole time. I usually oppose a radical bidding for fairness, avoid jealousy, seldom try to convince others of my ideas and control them, and uphold a philosophy of "living for oneself." When this stuff hits home, however, you suddenly realize that you often can't change how you feel.</p>
<p>Rude of me? Fine, I apologize. That said, I've met this girl's parents and they're both nice people.</p>
<p>Look, I don't hate this girl. Sometimes she annoys me, but honestly I sometimes find her a fun person to have in class. I don't approve of her admittance over the rejectee's, and I still don't. I've clarified the reason that I'm unhappy about this isn't her "statz," but her attitude. But I guess the most sagacious message I've picked up from various posters is: move on.</p>
<p>Originally, I posted this as a question. If you look at the first post, I'm not terribly envious or bitter. Then, people began accusing me of jealousy and pettiness while automatically defending the acceptee, and I had to clarify why I thought I didn't approve of the acceptance. It grew into a fued of "she's qualified; someone else is not/you're bitter; Columbia is right." Whatever.</p>
<p>PS... I'm not rich. And I'm not motivated by money.</p>
<p>Crap happens. Ivies let in underqualified rich people, and they let in underqualified minorities as a well of compensating.</p>
<p>Welcome to the politics of equal results and political correctness.</p>
<p>A final point: Anyone who says "You're mad because she got in and you didn't," isn't even reading the original post.</p>
<p>Hope I can have any use of my international connections (homie with Saddam, Chirac, Hu Jintao and a bunch of other political broilers). Saddam might get executed before application time later in the fall though but I can call in Bagdad Bob for replacement. I know this joke is lame but hey, at least I wasted your precious time.</p>
<p>The reason why she was accepted to Columbia was because she was qualified, apparently - in the eyes of the adcoms.</p>
<p>In another post, you (Granfall) say that the girl is Black and that is the reason she got in. I'm stunned to say the least.</p>
<p>So, that is why you think she got in?</p>
<p>"...I don't hate the black girl and I can read. I hate the decision made on her behalf, though I have a fairly good idea of why it was made, pertaining mainly to politicians in the family. I think you set a new standard of bitterness with that post. Go squeeze your stressball..."</p>
<p>That is not how you made it sound during most of the AA discussion. Only when confronted with the issue.</p>
<p>That sounds a bit like...like being bitter. non-URMs use political and legacy connections, but the thread here is about the african-american being less qualified, and on the AA thread about you stating that AA is lame because of it.</p>
<p>Just an observation.
IB.</p>
<p>Do you have the statisticky-mollicky-phoot to quantify your deoxyrhybohydroxil-moloxide-sodiummetadiaminoparadioxyarsenobenzoemethylenesulphoxylate sarcolemma heheheheh snort laughs and pushes his glasses up?</p>
<p>You should really do some research on the concepts of rationalization and inductive reasoning. Then you should contrast them with empiricism and deductive reasoning. Then you should cross out that little "just an observation" remark and put "just an inductive, rationalized, non-empircal, non-deductive assumption.</p>
<p>Then you should go eat shaving-cream.
:D</p>
<p>"many of her grades are higher than they should be because the teachers apparently bump them up--I doubt her SATs are even close to decent, she does no extracurricular activities except Track & Field (in which she's not especially good... not bad, but not amazing) and student government--she once played a minor role in organizing a relief effort for Hurricane Katrina--she's also been an extra in a few plays, and I can attest firsthand as someone once forced to do a project with her that she's just really, really lazy. But she's the daughter of state senator, and she's black. Bingo."</p>
<p>Perhaps she got in because she has better abilities at logic than you have because the following are gaps in your thinking.</p>
<p>""many of her grades are higher than they should be because the teachers apparently bump them up"</p>
<p>There is no way that you could know this. Your statement simply seems like bitterness and jealousy.</p>
<p>"she does no extracurricular activities except Track & Field "</p>
<p>There's no way that you know what her ECs are. You possibly may know what she does at your school, but it is highly doubtful that you know what she does over the summer, in your community, at her church, etc.</p>
<p>" and I can attest firsthand as someone once forced to do a project with her that she's just really, really lazy."</p>
<p>And, of course, you are not biased and based on that one experience, you know everything about how she does assignments.</p>
<p>" But she's the daughter of state senator, and she's black. Bingo."</p>
<p>Let me introduce you to the definition of libel: Publishing something that exposes someone to shame, hatred or ridicule and is not provably true.
Bingo.</p>
<p>Hey Mom.</p>
<p>I know her. </p>
<p>You don't.</p>
<p>Unless you're her mom... and I doubt it.</p>
<p>And this thread has been exhausted to the very depths and breadths of all possibility.</p>
<p>the ivy leagues are incredibly concerned about minority graduation rates. they wouldn't have admitted her if they didn't think she could succeed or at least graduate. that's the school's judgment to make and not yours, and i'd venture to say they've been doing this admissions thing for a long time.</p>
<p>also, life doesn't tend to be fair... it's a hard lesson to learn, but now is the time to start accepting it.</p>
<p>According to the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, 90% of white students who enter Columbia graduate from Columbia; 87% of black students do. Some of the students who don't graduate may have transferred to other colleges. <a href="http://www.jbhe.com/features/50_blackstudent_gradrates.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.jbhe.com/features/50_blackstudent_gradrates.html</a></p>
<p>I highly doubt that Columbia accepted a black student who isn't likely to graduate. </p>
<p>I believe that a student who's smarting from a rejection may be looking for a scapegoat.</p>
<p>"I guess I've failed to clarify what really irks me. See, those of us who know her are maddest for this reason: not that she's lacking smarts, not that she's lacking good numbers, but that she has no attitude. She's a loafer in class and a showoff at the pep rallies. You'd have to know her. I'd love to just post a link to her myspace and bring up the obnoxious hip-hop music; the pics of her in these rehearsed little ostentatious Cosmopolitan Magazine poses; her friends and her with the Backstreet Boys on her birthday. I'd love to invite you to spend a day, a week, a year at my school. But I can't."
"</p>
<p>You've clarified what irks you: She got in. Your friend didn't. Instead of moving on, you've decided to trash her on a public forum. All that does is makes both you and your friend look bad.</p>
<p>Not to be harsh but I think it is time for everyone to just TAKE A DEEP BREATH AND STOP WHINING. This was just a bad and in many cases a disappointing year. Read the US News article which dubbed it "The Perfect Storm." We can't go around worrying about other people and their qualifications and why so and so got into Harvard and so and so didn't. Sometimes there are situations we can't see from the outside. We are all in the same boat and playing the blame game doesn't help a bit. Although college may seem like the most important thing ever, take a step back from the bubble. Things happen for a reason and I challenge you all to understand that.</p>
<p>i know a hispanic kid, he's ranked at most 14th. w/ a 28 on the act. He was accepted to princeton somehow.</p>
<p>Granfallooner, seriously just give it a rest.</p>
<p>The more you do this, the more you are twisting your insides with bitterness and dare I say, envy.</p>
<p>Those are not good emotions to carry around and twist your inner self with.</p>