Interesting Take on Diversity

Parents Forum
1

<p>This is not a rant from a parent whose kid didn't get in (he got into 10 schools) but a point of genuine curiosity. Over the last couple of weeks, I've visited a number of campuses with my son on admitted students day or when admitted students were gathering for overnights. One thing that I saw were lots of kids of mixed couples -- e.g., Hispanic mother, white father or Black mother, white father or Cuban father, Jewish mother, etc. -- who appeared to be upper middle or middle class. The schools in question pride themselves on their diverse student bodies. And, I'm sympathetic to this desire. </p>

<p>But, I wonder if this relatively high proportion of mixed couples is sort of gaming the system. As I thought about it, I started to think about a couple we know; the wife, a bright, charming and attractive woman with some Hispanic heritage, pulled herself out of a rather dreary working class life (I think poor but not impoverished), became the first kid in her family to attend college and then went to law school and later married her distinguished and somewhat older Jewish law professor. They are both great people. Their kids have attended the best private schools, have several lovely houses, go on great vacations and the like. They are, I believe, treated as URMs when they apply to college. They are extremely bright and privileged and need no advantage. Similarly, I recall a blond political science grad student who is 1/nth Cherokee, although nothing about her upbringing reflect this background (I mention the hair color because she doesn't look or seem Native American in any way). Again, great advantages in admission. The colleges count these kids in their diversity numbers so that they can make the claim that they are diverse, but in reality, these kids' contribution to diversity is relatively fictitious. In contrast, I think one can make a strong argument that the mother mentioned above should have gotten an advantage in admissions. She did, by dint of intelligence and determination, use education to advance her socioeconomic status. I don't see a compelling argument for advantaging her kids. Do you think the colleges are aware that they (the colleges) are gaming the system? I'm a little unclear on how I should think about it, but following the goal of high diversity seems to be leading to some admissions results that probably are a little off target from any obvious ideological objectives.</p>

2

<p>It’s only anecdotal evidence but yes, I know a few instances where people have used their “backgrounds” for admissions advantage. In one case, a classmate used 2 photographs of her “ancestors” to prove she had Native American heritage. The same kind of pictures that can be bought at thrift shops. </p>

<p>In another case an adoptee raised by extremely successful professional parents was allowed to claim disadvantged minority status because of her looks. I know them very well and never knew (or even had thought about it) that she is of anything other than typical European descent. In neither case would it be apparent to an observer that these kids are bringing diversity to the campus. For sure they are not bringing cultural diversity.</p>

3

<br>

<br>

<p>Since this is an issue of curiosity only 
 what sort of system would you suggest for separating those who should be advantaged from those who shouldn’t? Would it be “yes/no” system, or perhaps a sliding scale? Would being a developmental admit over-ride the URM determination, much like athletic admits over-ride academic deficiencies? Would the major of the prospective student matter? I mean there are many GREAT black dancers. Should a black student applying to a performing arts major be given an (unnecessary) advantage? I’m curious as to how this system might be organized.</p>

4

<p>When I was in grad school, one of my classmate had blond hair blue eyes and a bit of Native American blood. It was enough to qualify her for a scholarship. It could not have gone to other applicants as it was specifically set aside for the education of Native Americans. In fact, Harvard and Dartmouth have these scholarships and have been pretty delinquent in fulfilling the goals of the scholarship programs (Wasn’t Dartmouth originally established to educate Native Americans?)
There were also all sorts of scholarships whose terms were extremely limited, descendants of xyz, for instance, which often meant that only students of a particular ethnic background–usually white–could make use of them.</p>

<p>That said, I think geographic and income diversity would be better than face diversity. I, too, know URMs of highly educated, upper middle class background as well as whites from Appalachia.</p>

5

<p>Maybe the advantage for “diversity” should be 50/50 economic vs. race/culture ? Or 33% race/culture, 33% economics, 33% family education?</p>

<p>I too know of kids from very mainstream homes who decided to check one of the URM boxes. Just because Grandma was a war bride from Guam, should you be considered “Native hawaiian/Pacific Islander” along with someone who’s family just arrived from Tonga?</p>

6

<p>

</p>

<p>My guess on the rationale is that the presence of her kids is benefitting the other students at that school, by creating a racially diverse student body. Universities believe there is value in learning in a racially diverse environment, separate from a socio-economically diverse environment (which is also beneficial).</p>

7

<p>Marite, a funny side story - when I was in grad school one of my classmates was of Japanese heritage but third generation in Hawaii. He got a “diversity” scholarship (at that time very few asians in my field). When the dept chair announced it, he looked a little puzzled and said something about being surprised that being Hawaiian was racial diversity since Hawaii was a state. We all just sat there, stunned.</p>

8

<p>Diversity is supposed to help the college community, not the student who gets a boost in admissions. A black kid from a middle class family adds to diversity on campus, regardless of his/her socioeconomic status. (At the very least, the other students learn to accept these kids as peers and friends, and treat them as equals.)</p>

1 Like
9

<p>Bay and mmgm, given the way these kids were raised, they do not actually add any meaningful diversity to the class as far as I can see other than counting as a Hispanic or Native American in the schools report. They are great kids, bright, hard-working, etc. so this is not a criticism of them. </p>

<p>I’m less concerned with the parents/kids gaming things as with the schools taking credit for diversity without really getting it, which probably does disadvantage kids who could really benefit and who would add substantially to diversity. And, really, the quest for diversity came into play largely after the Supremes said that affirmative action via quotas was not OK but that a desire for diversity was the constitutionally acceptable way to achieve the same goals as affirmative action. I guess I don’t have an answer, but I have a sense of discomfort that what’s happening is the best way to achieve broader social or institutional goals.</p>

10

<p>

</p>

<p>Her looks? Do you mean her race? </p>

<p>I’m very troubled by the idea that in order to provide “meaningful diversity”, a person must not only have the skin color but they should have to be from a home where the total income is less than X number of dollars. Oh, and no successful parents allowed either. Do you have any idea how offensive that is?</p>

11

<p>Is being mixed really an advantage? How exactly would you indicate that in the application, when you can only “check one of the following”?</p>

12

<p>I think the colleges know exactly what they are doing. They are filling out pie charts. If a box is validly checked, proceed. If the check comes from having a father with a hispanic surname it matters not that you were raised essentially as a white middle class kid. It’s a numbers game.</p>

<p>My son was awarded a “diversity” scholarship along with admission to a college in Ohio. I was more than a bit puzzled until I learned that it was a geographic diversity scholarship, as we were from New Jersey.</p>

13

<p>Diversity can also be increased by diversity of experience. The many racially and ethnically main stream kids who grow up in other countries, negotiating different cultures, have a different world view, and generally a lot to offer a university/college community as a result of their experiences.
In the same way, I think that children of mixed backgrounds, even growing up in an affluent community often have a unique perspective.
Perhaps this is expressed in other areas of their applications, their essay, their extra curricular focus that shows something to the colleges/universities, and therefore, they are not simply identified by a checked box.</p>

14

<p>pugmadkate:</p>

<p>How does this strike you:
A young man of my acquaintance who is white, from Appalachia, first person in his whole community (which had not heard of Harvard or Princeton or Yale) to go to college
Vs. S’s friend: One parent African-American, Harvard undergrad, Yale MD, Harvard MBA; the other parent white, Yale undergrad, Yale MA.
If they have similar academic qualifications, who will bring more of a different outlook and set of experiences to a class?<br>
At HYPS, the overwhelming majority of students are of urban background. They do not know how farm life is like in the US, they cannot fathom how the world’s farmers live.
URMs even if they are of middle class background, do bring something valuable to college; but they are not the only ones who do.</p>

15

<p>“But, I wonder if this relatively high proportion of mixed couples is sort of gaming the system.”</p>

<p>There is an underlying tone to this discussion I find unsettling. Gaming the system? Are you kidding? Being a part of an interracial family is a challenge, it takes strength and confidence to deal with issues other families never have to face. (It is also a tremendous joy to have love triumph over physical and cultural differences and a family to thrive because of those differences, but that is another discussion). </p>

<p>I think the supposed advantages of URM are overrated. My biracial (Caucasian and African American) son applied to a range of schools. He was accepted at the schools that were statistical matches or safeties for him, rejected at the reaches. I do not see any evidence that his ethnic background was any advantage in his acceptances which is as it should be. We are grateful for the opportunities he has been given and think he will do best in a college that is an academic fit for him. When you look at the thread for African American Students, the kids who were accepted at ivies and top colleges all have incredible SATs and grades, they would be qualified to attend a top school no matter what their heritage was. Being an URM, (or athlete or legacy or donor) might get you in a smaller stack of applications in the Adcoms office, but if you do not have the grades, scores or ECs, you will most likely not be accepted. </p>

<p>When a student applies to college, they show to the school who they are as people and as students. Your culture and ethnicity are a part of that. So are your interests and activities, your character and values, your academic strengths and your future goals. My son discussed his racial background briefly but in the context of his life experience.
He did so to present himself in an authentic manner, not to “game the system” or look for some kind of preference. He was simply being who he is.</p>

<p>What he will offer to the school he chooses to attend will be his leadership, his values, his accepting nature, his sense of humor and fair play and his ability to get along with people of all backgrounds. My belief is those are the qualities that were apparent in his recommendations, not merely the color of his skin or where his ancestors came from.</p>

16

<p>My children are ethnically mixed. To the best of my knowledge, there is nothing significant about their upbringing or lifestyle which distinguishes them from the middle class ethnic majority in the community in which we live. I do not believe they would add any cultural diversity to a campus. But like HeartArt, I also don’t think S’s ethnicity altered his admissions outcomes.</p>

17

<p>I have two friends who were both very conflicted on whether to identify as African-American. One was a quarter African-American but was honestly one of the palest kids I’ve ever seen. The student recognized their ancestry but didn’t’ completely feel comfortably checking the ethnicity box. The other student was born in South Africa and lived there for several years on and off through elementary school. The student was Afrikaner and again was unsure of what to check.</p>

18

<p>HeartArt, I may have written my post imprecisely and apologize if what I wrote seemed offensive; my focus is on what the schools are doing, not what the kids are doing. I don’t think that the kids are gaming anything – they are just filling in the boxes on the application. To the extent that there are advantages to being in the right categories (and you believe that these are smaller than the average CC poster), I don’t see anything wrong with checking the boxes as requested just as I don’t see anything wrong with taking all the tax deductions that you qualify for. </p>

<p>The gaming I was talking about was the school’s toting up of diversity numbers (filling in the pie chart, as NJRes described it) while getting a lot less socioeconomic and cultural diversity than is implied by the numbers. </p>

<p>pugmadkate, I am puzzling about the social and institutional objectives of diversity as an admissions criterion as distinct from affirmative action for targeted groups that American society has systematically mistreated. My sense is that if diversity is a goal in and of itself (and I’m not persuaded that what was designed as a tool to reduce the percentage of Jews at HYP is a better tool when it is being used for more benign social engineering), we should be looking for broad cultural and social and socio-economic diversity. Well-to-do kids are going to be the bulk of elite institutions due to the advantages they’ve had in upbringing and to the hereditable component of academic achievement, if such a hereditable component exists. So, if diversity is a goal, getting diversity should involve a greater emphasis on socioeconomic diversity as well as ethnic diversity. I don’t know why that is offensive, but I’m happy to be enlightened.</p>

19

<p>I don’t see why rich minority students are not just as valuable for creating diversity as poor ones. They may be even more valuable, as they dispel stereotypes that are likely to be held by many insulated rich white kids, for example.</p>

20

<p>Shawbridge, you must be white. I don’t mean that in an offensive way but I do know that because if you were black and American, you would know that the easiest way to be reminded that you’re black is to go into a department store and linger at an expensive display. That goes for rich blacks, 1/2 blacks and even Caribbean blacks. There are experiences that AA can bring to the table that don’t have to do with $. </p>

<p>By the way, my children are mixed race. They are black, Hispanic (one parent is first generation) and a fraction native american. No, they didn’t check American Indian on the forms but they did check black and hispanic. Yes, many of the kids at the top schools are half-white. To be very honest, you would need a lot more info to judge what you think you may have seen. I think if you saw my kids, for example, you would think they are upper-middle class blacks. We are not-- we qualify for Pell although we live in suburbia-- but they have spent a lifetime with rich kids and know how to blend in for parent events. </p>

<p>That said, one of my kids’ schools (a small, top LAC) says it has a lot of diversity but many of the kids are
 um
 not what I would call diverse. That seems to be more common at the top LAC. There are kids who are 1/4 Hispanic, do not speak Spanish and check off Hispanic. I do have an issue with that-- but it’s really not the school’s fault. They are taking what the kid wrote and, frankly, the way the US defines Hispanic, they are Hispanic and so are kids who are 1/16th, amazingly enough. (Different states had definitions as to what constituted black but, as far as I know, not Hispanic.) </p>

<p>While there <em>are</em> people who take advantage of the system, my LAC kid has really had to deal with race in a new way for the first time in her life. At college, she met students who have asked to touch her hair because they’ve never met a black person. She is often asked to ‘translate’ culture and can a little more easily than most because she’s moved between cultures. My favorite experience was when someone asked her if all the black kids knew each other. She asked if all the white kids knew each other! </p>

<p>Anyway, the truth is, regardless of the rhetoric, the colleges do not want to bring in a bunch of poor minority kids. They may take a chance on one or two but they do not have the $ or the resources to fill the school with poor kids-- and they don’t want to be seen as the Milton Hershey College. I do personally wish more disadvantaged kids would get into the top schools but I don’t think they’re the <em>only</em> ones who contribute diversity. And I do think the schools look for kids from different backgrounds, different places, who have lived abroad, who have done exciting or just plain different things. </p>

<p>Just to confirm what others posted, my kid with top stats (10 APs) had wonderful acceptances but my other kid (B average, 1900ish SATs) was only accepted at safeties (state flagships) so I do think the urm tip is overrated and depends entirely on the school. At the great majority of schools in the US, the only color they care about is green.</p>