Is Affirmative Action Bad for You?

Parents Forum
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<p>I don't know if this belongs in another forum, but it seems relevant here for us parents. While it's specifically about law schools, the principles, if they are true, would appear to apply to anyone who intends to attend a highly selective college or university.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4204293%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4204293&lt;/a>
Study Disputes Benefits of Affirmative Action</p>

<p>Did anyone else hear this on NPR this morning? The author of the study argues that affirmative action results in students enrolling in law schools for which they aren't prepared. What he says is happening is that attempts by the top tier schools to meet their diversity goals result in their accepting students who can't handle their work load which in turn forces 2nd tier schools to dip in the pool that might be more successful at 3rd tier schools and so on. The result is that 50% of students benefiting from affirmative action wind up being in the bottom 10% of their class and less than half, 45%(?), pass the bar on their first try versus 80% for white students. He argues that these students might be better served, might be better educated, if they attended schools where they could handle the work.</p>

<p>To top it off, the person who presented the counter argument pointed out a larger study by the University of Michigan that showed that the measures this study used for preparedness, undergraduate GPA and LSAT scores, are not good indicators of how successful a student would be once out of law school. While that may put this study into question, it begs a different question. If GPA and LSAT aren't accurate indicators of long term success, why are they being used to decide who gets into what law school anyway? (And do the same findings apply to high school GPA and SATs?)</p>

<p>He also pointed out, as we've all heard, that there was more to attending the top law schools (HYP?) than classes, networking and such. That argument only convinces me that these schools are largely very expensive social clubs rather than universities and I always wonder if you couldn't find a more efficient, less expensive way of building networks for the disadvantages (or anyone else for that matter).</p>

<p>I know you shouldn't form strong opinions based on any one study, but boy, does it raise some questions in my mind.</p>

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<p>"If GPA and LSAT aren't accurate indicators of long term success, why are they being used to decide who gets into what law school anyway? (And do the same findings apply to high school GPA and SATs?)"</p>

<p>I think it would be worth your time and trouble to actually tease that one out, rather than asking it rhetorically.</p>

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<p>I didn't mean it to be rhetorical, but I admit that of all the questions this article raised, it wasn't the question most on my mind.</p>

<p>The first and foremost question in my mind was, would a student receive a better education if he attended a school that was consistent with his level of preparation rather than the best possible school where the work might be too hard for him? Even taking affirmative action out of it, can a student be better off in the long run attending a less competitive school?</p>

<p>The GPA/LSAT point is even more complicated. How does it compare with the studies that show how well you do in college is a better indicator of your long term career success than where you went to college? </p>

<p>And don't all these points tend to support each other?</p>

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<p>The reason I think you should try to tease out your initial question relates to what UC discovered about the SATs five years ago. The College Board folks claimed (in fact the ONLY claim they make) is that SAT Is are a sound predictor of first-year college performance. When the UC folks reviewed the data, they found: 1) this was true, but for white students only, and that the universities could use family income just as effectively in predicting first-year college performance, without SATs all together; (as FairTest recently published from College Board data, an 1100 SAT score is simply 1,000 plus $50k), and 2) it wasn't true for minority students, and that class rank was a much better predictor. </p>

<p>Professional degrees, especially those from HYP, are like club cards. Five years out of school, no one remembers (or even cares) where in your class you graduated - folks more likely care what model of car you drive. If the result of AA at the law schools is to make it possible to integrate the clubs, I would say that is a cause for rejoicing, not concern.</p>

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<p>I'm going to take a stab at answering.<br>
What is a competitive school? Does this mean difficult to get into?<br>
By this standard, H is, year in year out, the most competitive. Yet, its own faculty and students have acknowledged rampant grade inflation. Other colleges may suffer grade inflation (all seem to, since the late 1960s) but not to the same extent. So, without regard to a student's preparation or socio-economic background, it might be easier to achieve a high GPA at H than at some other less-difficult-to-get-into college.</p>

<p>Is it more desirable to have a high GPA for admission into law school? Until I read Ariesathena's comments on her own experience applying to law school, I had not realized that it is such a GPA-driven process. Thus, it would make sense to attend a school known for grade inflation and to select a major where it is relatively easy to get good grades (eg., not engineering). </p>

<p>How do we define long-term career success?<br>
In Boston, for a long time, it was more desirable to have attended BC than HLS. I have no way to compare the two law schools, though, of course, HLS is nationally known. But that was the hitch. BC Law School graduates were expected to make their careers in Boston and enjoyed a wide local network. HLS graduates were expected to seek careers elsewhere. Tough if you did not conform to stereotype. In other words, long-term career success may not correlate closely with how well one does in law school or college because other variables come into play. </p>

<p>Finallty, a general comment on GPA and SATs. When making admission decisions, adcoms who stress GPAs and SATs may have to decide between a student who scored 1450 and another who scored 1600, a student who had straight As and one who had the occasional B. My own feeling is that in college, there may not be a lot of difference in the performance of both types of students.
What is expected in college differs a lot from what is done in high school. My S explained the chief difference between high school math and college math that way: in high school, the goal is to find a statement (solution to a problem); in college, the goal is to find a proof to a statement that is given to you. Students who thought they loved a field in high school find that they no longer excel in college and turn away from it (reading the College Search Criteria really brings that out).
Adcoms realize that high school grades can only give them a partial clue. The MIT teacher's rec form recognizes that there are many ways to earn a particular grade: hard work; grade grubbing; brilliance among others. Some of these factors will be more important than others in shaping the performance of students in college. The rec form is one way of acknowledging that not all As are equal.</p>

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<p>I heard NPR this morning, and I thought the study was intriguing, if unsatisfying. As happens on many news programs, the study author and rebutter were talking past each other, they weren't really discussing the same points at all. The scientist in me wanted the next study to be done - What is the Bar pass rate for URM admittees with stats closer to the average or median at both top tier and second tier schools (those that might have benn admitted without AA)? Assuming that lack of preparation causes poor performance, reduces the number of grads, etc is different than proving it.
What colleges did these students attend? What were their undergrad GPAs?</p>

<p>The most interesting part to me was the notion that the because of this downdrift, in the end fewer URM attorneys were produced. Doesn't that imply that the top tier law schools are doing a poorer job teaching? If the author's supposition is correct - the same students admitted to a second tier school would pass the same test (the Bar) at twice the rate they are now - doesn't that imply that the second tier schools are doing a better job at "value added"? Stats can say anything you want to make them say.</p>

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<p>Carolyn...no stats, but have to agree with you 100%. this was very clear to me when visting colleges with S last year. the knock against AA seems to be that it gives the nod to minority students that are less qualified while displacing otherwise qualified majority students. i don't think this has ever been the case to any significant degree. The real reason for AA, it seems to me, is that otherwise qualified minority students were simply not getting into schools for the simple reason that they were minorities. To the extent that AA puts an end to that, it's highly desirable in my opinion. it's no different than someone being denied membership in a club because they're the 'wrong' color or religion.</p>

<p>no doubt some schools have mucked this up over the years. while i've always been a staunch supporter of AA, i can see where the michigan system of adding points based on race gave rise to the perception that this was unfair. in that light, the Supreme's decision seemed fairly even handed, eliminating the point system, but supporting the underlying principle.</p>

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<p>"The real reason for AA, it seems to me, is that otherwise qualified minority students were simply not getting into schools for the simple reason that they were minorities."</p>

<p>That was what was disturbing about hearing that 50% of those benefiting from AA at these law schools were in the bottom 10% of their class. The issue isn't only about whether they're taking the places of "more qualified" students. If they would be "better educated" at less challenging schools, is AA in the end detrimental to them?</p>

<p>"Professional degrees, especially those from HYP, are like club cards. Five years out of school, no one remembers (or even cares) where in your class you graduated - folks more likely care what model of car you drive."</p>

<p>But how does that jive with the studies that suggest how well you did in school is a better predictor of future salaries and titles than where you went to school? What I can't help but wonder is, would you (take AA out of it) sometimes be better off being a bigger fish in a small pond, that not all of us automatically do better because we went to a higher ranked school.</p>

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<p>"But how does that jive with the studies that suggest how well you did in school is a better predictor of future salaries and titles than where you went to school?"</p>

<p>It doesn't jive - those studies had nothing to do with HYS professional schools, which are essentially club cards.</p>

<p>The study that you want - which compares salaries/placements etc. of minority students at HYS law schools, bottom 10% and all, with grads of Podunk School of Law and Cranioscopy -- don't exist. But I'd be quite willing to venture a guess. What you see as a potential failure of AA I see as a virtually unmitigated success.</p>

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<p>"The study that you want - which compares salaries/placements etc. of minority students at HYS law schools, bottom 10% and all, with grads of Podunk School of Law and Cranioscopy -- don't exist. But I'd be quite willing to venture a guess. What you see as a potential failure of AA I see as a virtually unmitigated success."</p>

<p>Again, perhaps you're right. The problem is that while I don't know how law firms work, I can't help but imagine they're a lot like the professional firm I work for. Yes we recruit from top schools, but we're only interested in students who have performed well - C students need not apply. Oddly enough we recruit top students from "second tier" schools, too. Once they're through the door they're judged on their performance on the job and that alone. From what I've seen over the years, their careers follow from whether they were successful at their work or not AND that they worked for a "name" firm like mine. No one cares where they went to school, though it can help IF you have a good reputation and use it as an intro.</p>

<p>For that matter, the old saw about "who you know" is a two edged sword. What I know about someone matters more than that that I know them. Plenty of people I went to school with (or who established their reputation for good or bad among other alums) I won't do business with because of how I saw them performing in school. A school tie may be all you need from HYP, but I doubt it.</p>

<p>The real thing that troubles me though is that I can't help but wonder at the impact of being that student at the bottom of the class, of realizing you can't really do the work, of being aware how the other student see you. I don't care if we're talking about AA or athletes or anyone else. The students we like to hire are the ones who have a sense of accomplishment, of having achieved something in school. I'm not looking for an excuse to end AA, I'm worried that we're not doing the best thing for some of the individuals involved.</p>

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<p>Let me clarify a myth that I have noticed about affirmative action. Although I am NOT in favor of any program that promotes admission on any criteria other than competance (thus, I am against affirmative action), the kids that get into a university under the program are not that different from the rest of the admitted kids. Yes, they may have a slightly lower GPA or SAT,,but usually it is just a slight difference. Universities would not admit applicants that they think won't succeed. Thus, this myth that affirmative action students are much less qualified is, for the most part, just that- a myth.</p>

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<p>"Thus, this myth that affirmative action students are much less qualified is, for the most part, just that- a myth."</p>

<p>I believe that, too, but part of what this study asserts is that the professional schools have set targets that drive them lower in the applicant pool and force them to admit students who aren't qualified. It would be interesting to take a closer look at the study.</p>

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<p>At most selective schools admissions office, each applicant is considered "holistically," which means the admissions officer will read and consider them as individuals in their specific context, assessing the privileges they have had and the adversities they have overcome. The students in the acceptance pool are all highly qualified students who made the best of what they were given in their school environments. They are never accepted to Dartmouth because they simply checked a box marked Native American, Hispanic, Asian or African American.</p>

<p>Even with affirmative action, minority students still face great obstacles. The cost of education makes it difficult for financially strapped minorities to consider college at all. </p>

<p>Once they get into college, they need to pay for the tuition </p>

<p>They find the proper loans, they may need to get an off-campus job for other expenses </p>

<p>They might not be able to take the prestigious internship everyone else gets because they need to make money for the next semester. </p>

<p>Once they get into college, find the proper loans, get an off-campus job, and get the prestigious internship, they may face a small thing called racism when applying for a post-grad job. </p>

<p>With all these obstacles to overcome, it is rather hard to argue that affirmative action is providing unfair advantages to minorities. The truth of the matter is that privilege, legacy and financial security perform the same function as affirmative action -- they make the playing field uneven. </p>

<p>The use of privilege in admissions processes has never been written into legislation. Still, privilege is just as important a component in education and business achievement as affirmative action, some might argue even more so. What better example to use then our own president -- a man who relied heavily on legacy to receive, among other things: his prestigious Yale education, countless billions of dollars to invest in businesses of his choosing, and possibly the presidency.</p>

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<p>George W. Bush certainly didn't literally receive "billions" in business investment funds. Millions, yes, but not billions.</p>

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<p>But was it stil his connections and privilege working for him?</p>

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<p>I stand corrected, however was it still his connections and privilege working for him?</p>

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<p>Well, I think the first time George W. Bush was offered a chance to be a partner in a business venture in which he didn't invest as much money as the other partners, it was in view of the political connections of his dad. But the second time it happened, it was because of W.'s proven track record of being able to help a business thrive by his engaging personality. I heard a report on National Public Radio (not known for being a shill for W.) in which his experience with the Texas Rangers baseball team was described. By all accounts, W. was very successful in helping that baseball team become a thriving business. He had a leg up by being able to be a partner in the business without putting up his own capital, but most of the gain in value in that baseball franchise over those years is attributed to his work. </p>

<p>I have no such connections, alas, so the work I do builds up value from a much smaller initial base in the businesses my wife and I operate.</p>

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<p>While I could debate -and dispute- the sempiternal claim that the University of California demonstrated conclusively the weaknesses of the SAT and other standardized tests, I rather focus on one small element of AA. </p>

<p>When analyzing the reasons why under-represented minorities fail to make great strides in college attendance numbers, one element comes up time after time: the lack of positive models to emulate. Teenagers are bombarded with the glorification of Michael Jordan or Ruben Sosa ... but where are the successful lawyers and doctors? </p>

<p>Witnessing minorities breaking the glass ceiling and being admitted in schools that represent the pinnacle of our education system is extremely important, even if the students perform at below average. Showing their peers that it is possible is what really matters; others will follow and continue to raise the bar, and also pass the bar.</p>

<p>Every time I forget that message, I try to watch Finding Forrester. Works every time!</p>

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<p>Xiggi:</p>

<p>I agree with you. I really hope that the publicity showered on Barack Obama will achieve results.</p>

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<p>"Well, I think the first time George W. Bush was offered a chance to be a partner in a business venture in which he didn't invest as much money as the other partners, it was in view of the political connections of his dad."</p>

<p>It may help to understand that the Rangers deal followed a pattern that's traditional in the oil business. </p>

<p>To manage risk inherent in drilling wells, it's normal for a group of partners to come together to share costs and profits on each deal with one partner, usually the one who put the deal together, chosen as the operating partner to manage it. The operating partner generally puts up less upfront money to compensate him for the idea and the research and due diligence he's done put the deal together. Convincing other hardened business types to invest in something like this is no easy (or cheap) challenge. He's also given a larger percentage of the profits (current and equity) to compensate him for the work he performs running the business on behalf of all the other partners.</p>

<p>There have been literally millions of this kind of partnership formed over the years and it would be natural for people from oil country to put one together to buy a baseball team even if that's not how people normally purchase or run teams. By their standards Dubya didn't get anything for free. His profits were for the "sweat equity", the personal effort he put into putting the deal together and running the team as general manager (in spite of the Sammy Sosa trade, of course).</p>