I never knew minorities had such an advantage until I read...

Applying to College
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<p>...this book at B&N today written by a Dartmouth/Duke? admissions officer. There was an entire chapter on minority admissions and how applications are given a red sticker for Hispanics, blue for Blacks, and a green for Native Americans. The book even described the case of one NA student with SAT scores of 530/520 CR/M and 600 writing, 490 Physics, and 500 math 1. The student was accepted by Dartmouth and the author even said that the student would be accepted at most of the Ivies because he displayed a competency for writing and had decent teacher recs despite his extremely low scores and 130/500 class rank.</p>

<p>I had a hard time believing what I read. This was written by an insider but for some reason I have strong doubts. Enlighten me, please.</p>

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<p>Yep, and that's why I think affirmative action should be abolished. I'm white and not from the best economic circumstances. Should a hispanic in the same economic circumstances get an advantage over me? I would hope not, but it happens.</p>

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<p>I agree whole heartedly with astrife. Four years of a "good" education won't make up for 12 years of a sucky one. AA offers no remedial benefits or corrects society's wrongs in my opinion.</p>

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<p>Touchy subject</p>

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<p><a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/%7Enap/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/~nap/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>A non sequitur, but Dartmouth says: “The Native [American] student graduation rate ..... has risen to an average of 72%, nearly ten times the average graduation rate for Native Americans attending college nationwide. Currently, 157 Native American students are enrolled from more than 50 tribes.”</p>

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<p>It's hard to say how widespread that practice is, or how credible the story is.</p>

<p>FWIW, remember that affirmative action is not just about correcting perceived educational inequities in a candidates' past. Sometimes institutions just want a healthy mix of students, race being one of the factors in the mix. It makes a minority candidate increasingly attractive, just like a candidate from the boondocks, or from a poor family, or majoring in a nontraditional field, or with a wild life story, or with an unusual hobby attractive. It's not just about how downtrodden and disadvantaged someone is. If some school uses (or formerly used) a sticker system, it doesn't automatically mean that the school believed all blacks are disadvantaged educationally.</p>

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<p>dude........... im agianst affirmitive action but really dont be foolhearted. these people have had hard times in the U.S. in a way to improve thier culture colleges provide them with more opputunties than whites. most whites have homes, good schools, great neighborhoods. blacks and natives and hispanics dont have that. although these people have had low scores they are top of thier league. among blacks maybe 500 on sat is good. these people didnt recieve the same oppurtunites like we did. when u where bathing your self or stuffen their mouths they had to work to support thier families. while you played outside our lawn with your friends some were forced to stay inside to fend from crime. while your parents are doctors and lawyers, thier mothers if father is even around has 5 jobs and tries to take care of her children. so next time you say its a shame they get this treatment put your shoes where they used to live and compare it to yours. the only shame is in our socity we dont find a way to improve them. although they are below among us they rank high within thier culture. which means they have an eagrness to improve themselves.</p>

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<p>I really don't want to turn this into an AA thread. But how credible is the story that the author cited in the book? I thought that URMs would have to atleast score in the 600s. Mind you, this student was not an athlete either.</p>

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<p>We do need AA to lift some promising kids out of the bad neighbourhoods and such. I couldn't imagine focusing on my studies and even being interested in the SATs if I lived in the ghetto or something.</p>

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<p>I hate it when people talk about AA and then they talk about minorities like we are the ones that are inferior. I won't say any particular names, but certain people are making it seem as if minorities were born a certain way so its the job of the big white institutions to be nice to us. Thats not the case, AA is in place because there is a huge difference between many predominately black schools and white schools, and I can attest to this. This doesn't even have to do with African American homes, but it has to do simply with the terrible school system. A couple of years ago, a little over 2 million was allotted to build a new school in my neighborhood (black) while over 50 million was alloted to build a school in a neighborhood where more white people live. As far as books, my school doesn't get new books every year, but i know there are a lot of schools that do. At a certain school in a predominately white part of the city, all the students get laptops. They have several different science labs with the latest technology, big athletic complexes, and can afford to pay the best teachers in the city. My school on the other hand, has one crappy lab that can't even be used cause it doesn't really have anything. We have a couple of computer labs, but most of the computers don't work. We have a shortage of teachers cause the board won't give us any money so many of the ones we do have are unmotivated and don't have the passion to really try to train students like good teachers do. </p>

<p>I am fortunate enough to not be affected by these circumstances. I am just as qualified, if not better, than any other white applicant; however, there are some who can't escape their circumstance and they shouldn't be penalized for it because they didn't make the system. White America created the struggle so they should at least try to rectify it.</p>

<p>Is it fair to judge two runners in the same context when you make one race with a 75 lb bag on his back and also make him start later than the first runner?</p>

<p>The umotivation of many minorities is a tradition that stems back to a problem that was created by the racial inequalitiy that has existed in the United States throghout the 20th century. While some white students have 3 generations of legacies at colleges, many African Americans don't because their parents and grandparents didn't have opportunties to go to universities and colleges, and if they did, they weren't very prestigious. The fact that legacies are given a boost in admissions somewhat offsets the boost that a URM is given.</p>

<p>People talk about how it is in the ghetto while looking from the outside in. I live in it and go to school in it everyday. I have seen many bright kids who lived in the ghetto and thrive. I've gone to Andover during the past 3 summer sessions and have seen the brightest minorities that'll put any other student to shame. However, I've also seen the kids affected by the system. The ones who honestly think there is no hope outside of being a basketball player, a rapper or a singer. If someone isn't getting support @ home, they should at least be able to get it at school, and a lot of the schools in the ghetto aren't giving it to minorities. This isn't about competition about what race can do more with what, but its about make the playing field equal and relative to the opportunities you had. College admissions officers say they judge applicatiant's transcripts within the context of their school...well its only fair for them to judge test scores within the context of the disadvantages minorities have with these standardized tests. I mean, the SAT has been proven racially biased in the past, so until education systems around the world make an effort to give whites, blacks, hispanics, native americans, etc...the same opportunities in high school, the opportunities can never be equal in college admissions.</p>

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<p>I really don't want to turn this into an AA thread. But how credible is the story that the author cited in the book? I thought that URMs would have to atleast score in the 600s. Mind you, this student was not an athlete either.</p>

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<p>bananas,</p>

<p>Do you even know that Dartmouth's original mission was to educate native americans? </p>

<p>The Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, a Congregational minister from Connecticut, founded Dartmouth College in 1769. He had earlier established Moor's Charity School in Lebanon, Connecticut, principally for the education of Native Americans.
<a href="http://www.dartmouth.edu/home/about/history.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.dartmouth.edu/home/about/history.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I would like to know where the big advantage is considering that you would be hard pressed to find 100 african american students admitted into any freshman class (70 is considered a large number), the numbers are even less for hispanics with native american admits in the single digits while whites still make up between 65-70% of the admitted class in most selective colleges.</p>

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<p>well said Jeff Wun. it is very unfortunate though, that azns tend to be the ones losing out. In the past i've been for AA, diversity and consideration of circumstances are important... but i'm beginning to hate how far colleges are willing to bend to have higher numbers of minorities in their stats.</p>

<p>I hope that in the case of the Dartmouth student, the adcoms looked at his family's financial situation as well as his race. I think minorities' personal situations should be evaluated, however, i don't think tier one colleges should lower their standards by that much... 500 for Dartmouth and all the student has is competency in writing and a race? ~650 and that would be better. After all, it also depends on how hardworking individuals are. </p>

<p>Oh well, that's probably a very extreme case. I guess it is also in Dartmouth's original mission, as Sybbie719 says, and since they are private they can do whatever they like. Im sure in most cases they dont go that far....</p>

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<p>A friend of mine got like 2280 on his SATs, 3.7GPA, and really good ECs. He is African American. We discussed AA in ASII last year and he was totally against it. I kind of agree with him. Frankly i dont think it makes much of a difference. He believed that AA is whats keeping African Americans from achieving better in school and after they graduate by instilling a mentality that they will be treated a little differently. In workplaces that is the total opposite.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
He believed that AA is whats keeping African Americans from achieving better in school and after they graduate by instilling a mentality that they will be treated a little differently.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Only is he subscribes to this as some sort of self fulfilling prohesy and see it as his experience, otherwise you and he are totally off base because there is tons of data that states that once admitted, many do hold their own.</p>

<p>Havard's overall graduation rate is one of the tops in the country -- typically around 96-98% for all students, and around 95% for black students.</p>

<p>According to the Journal on Blacks in Higher Education:</p>

<p>Nearly 19 out of every 20 black students who enter the highly competitive academic environment of Harvard, Princeton, Haverford, and Amherst go on to earn their diplomas. Other academically demanding colleges do very well, although not as well as these four. </p>

<p>Sixteen other highly competitive colleges and universities turn in black student graduation rates of 85 percent or more. They are Wellesley College, Williams College, Brown University, Davidson College, Colgate University, Duke University, Northwestern University, Swarthmore College, Wesleyan University, Yale University, Georgetown University, Stanford University, Washington University, Dartmouth College, Columbia University, and the University of Virginia</p>

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<p>minorities are not the only group who are given a break when it comes to college admissions. what about athletes and legacies? of the three groups i feel minorities deserve the benefit of the doubt more than the other two groups.</p>

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<p>Why don't Asians get any benefit from AA? I mean I am an Asian and I heard people talking about how being an Asian is a disadvantage if I apply to the most selective schools. And i read some where that acceptance rate of Asian students is even lower than White American, therefore much much much lower than other minorities. Why do they do this? I know that Asians tend to be more high achieving, but so? Yeah they put stickers to native American and Black but not to Asian. I feel that we are being discriminated!!</p>

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<p>Jeffwun, I agree with you on some points. We should fix the lower end school districts because that is the problem. However I disagree that we should blindly admit underqualified students; this will not change anything. </p>

<p>One has to remember that just because a mediocre student is admitted to a highly selective college, doesn't mean that the student is going to improve. Affirmative action should be reevaluated to see how well the students who were admitted under this system fared in the real world. </p>

<p>One other point I have to disagree with you about is your statement on the SATs. Asians are one of the highest scorers on the SATs even though many Asian parents don't even speak English and many Asian children don't speak English until kindergarten. My Chinese friend who came to the US in first grade knew only one word in English, "hello". On the past SAT, he scored a 730 on verbal and 800 in math. He lives in a fairly poor neighborhood. </p>

<p>In India and China, it is very frequent that people score 800 on the sat math section. Many of these students are poor and in much worse situations than students in a US ghetto.</p>

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<p>The author of this message is an idiot and should have any right to speak on this issue. America faced this issues for hundreds of years. Yes, the colleges mybe more favoring to minorities. But you shouldn't have that mind set. Think of it as your getting in on merit as oppose to skin color. I just hard for me to believe that "potential college students" bring up the race issue and AA. Grow up, we are the future and if you let little things like this get in the way of your out look, then I don't think you will be a very happy person in life. </p>

<p>Hopefully yoy take what I say to heart.</p>

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<p>I'm an elitist and I won't attempt to conceal it in this post. Blacks, Indians, and Hispanics have absolutely no reason in the year 2005 in the United States to have any advantage over equally qualified whites or asians. Sure these groups in the past have been socio-economically challenged, but the United States in these times is geared toward giving everyone an equal shot. If a disadvantaged kid who is academically geared goes to a disadvantaged high school in our country they still have the same opportunity to be first in their class and make that elusive 4.0; I would also argue that they actually have a better chance to attain that going to a disadvantaged school over the rich kids who go to prestigous boarding schools. They still have the same chance to show their aptitude for further study by taking the SAT. </p>

<p>I am not an asian to preface this. But, I am utterly appalled at the fact that our nation's college system discriminates against this race for the pure fact that they are more academically inclined than other races. It's no secret that blacks rule the basketball due to their athletic superiority. Do colleges choose sub-par white guys to play for them in order to help out their race's athletic disadvantage? No, they don't. If alot of Asians make excellent scores on their standardized tests and have excellent grades then their should be no reason that they do not have absolutely priority in admission to selective universities. It makes me sick to think unqualified URM's are getting these spots.</p>

<p>I am marking "prefer not to answer" on all of the race questions on my college applications.</p>

<p>The people who are in favor of AA need to get over their idealist views of the world. To make it in this world you need to be good at what you do, and if you're not good at what you do then you have absolutely no right to have an advantage over anyone else for any reason whatsoever.</p>

<p>Alas, I'm one of the few realists in this world. And what I say has no bearing on anything that will happen.</p>