<p>It drives me nuts to read through the stats of Accepted/Rejected students to a top school like Brown U. and see plain as day the unfairness and apparent reverse discrimination taking place. That is, why do so many URM applicants get accepted with low scores and not necessarily great EC’s, whereas a much stronger applicant (on paper at least) will not stand a chance and will get rejected because perhaps they are a white male? I don’t care about political correctness here, I just think it highly unfortunate that perhaps my S (a HS Jr.) who busts his butt every single day in his IB program and all may end up being rejected from a top school in order to let in the less qualified URM’s. When space is so limited-- and it is-- why can’t just the most qualified potential students make it in? How about the applications be ‘blind’ as to any identifying info, until the decision is made, much the way financial need is at the Ivy’s?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/651345-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-3-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/651345-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-3-a.html</a></p>
<p>Go for it!</p>
<p>If I’m understanding it right, while it may be an ‘option’ to identify your race and all on the application, any URM would be a fool not to do so, since it completely works in their favor and helps with the school’s diversity ratings to admit them (to the detriment of course of the better qualified non-urm student). The white male applicant, for example, gains nothing by leaving out that information.</p>
<p>Note: Please read my post carefully, or not at all. I’ve put a lot of thought into my wording to try to represent the issue fully. It’s not meant to be argumentative or defensive. I have my own personal opinion on this issue—that race should be removed from the application together, but I still understand the issues that drive the justification for the process and face a personal dilemma on how we should, if we should at all address those issues. </p>
<p>The strongest argument, I think, out of all of it is this:</p>
<p>—College admissions to private colleges isn’t about who “earned” it. It’s not a reward for a certain level of objective achievement. Competitive private institutions are free to accept whoever they very well want who they think will contribute in whatever way they want and not necessarily by other people’s standards of “most qualified.”
As such:
“When space is so limited-- and it is-- why can’t just the most qualified potential students make it in?”
–Because that’s not the criteria they’ve set and they don’t have an obligation to set that as their standard. I have my own opinions on what the criteria should be, but this is not for me to decide. I personally don’t like that we recruit athletes. I don’t find that they add to my experience or that of my social circles…but I don’t set the criteria, they do. </p>
<p>Other arguments that colleges have made are as thus:</p>
<p>1) They have less opportunity to have as strong as an application.</p>
<p>—Many(though certainly not all) URMs don’t necessarily have the same opportunities growing up and often have a lot of challenges directly pertaining to testscores/grades/EC’s----more discrimination in their everyday lives, pressure from their social group to NOT succeed(sometimes seen as “acting White”), the effects of stereotype threat.
—Many URMs fall into a lower socioeconomic bracket. Some argue that we should be paying attention to socioeconomic status instead, which is a valid argument(though doesn’t take into account the other unique challenges above), which means they are far less prepared score-wise and less likely to have great EC’s. </p>
<p>2) They will gain more from the experience.</p>
<p>—I can’t cite it, because it’s been a while since I read it, but often it’s the students coming in at a disadvantage who grow the most. Honestly, while I have grown and thrived at Brown, I probably would have grown and thrived anywhere, because I had the preparation and skills to do so. Those who have come in disadvantaged have probably been pushed to grow more by having advantaged peers to set a higher standard. </p>
<p>3) It’s important to expose EVERYONE to diversity.</p>
<p>–I will honestly say that this is the reasoning that rings the most true to my own experience. I came from a community that was predominately White and Asian and had never encountered many African-American or Hispanic/Latino individuals until I came to Brown. And to tell you the truth, I can’t really tell if any of them had lower SAT scores/worse extracurricular than I did coming in. While I’ve encountered maybe one or two individuals who were, in the opinion of those around them, only admitted because of their status as a racial minority, most I wouldn’t be able to tell and though I rationally thought that there wasn’t necessarily a racial difference before, my experience has solidified this on a deeper level. </p>
<p>I understand that it’s frustrating that your son, who is a “white male”, could be rejected by “top colleges” while others who, by your own set of criteria, are less qualified find admissions. But, honestly, if your son is competitive for admissions in the first place(as in, has a good chance), then he will still be successful if he ends up elsewhere.</p>
<p>luv2plant wrote:
<<I don’t care about political correctness here, I just think it highly unfortunate that perhaps my S (a HS Jr.) who busts his butt every single day in his IB program and all may end up being rejected from a top school in order to let in the less qualified URM’s.<<</p>
<p>I have excellent news for you! Your son <em>is</em> an URM:-) As a man (of whatever race or origin) he would have had a 16.9% chance of being admitted to Brown in 2008. My own daughter (the ultimate non-URM) faced much worse odds: 11.6%
Have a look at page 5, section C1, (Common Data) available on the Brown site:
<a href=“Office of Institutional Research | Brown University”>Office of Institutional Research | Brown University;
<p>I will ask my daughter whether she feels that about 4 out of 17 male students at Brown were admitted despite having worked less than her and being less gifted intellectually;-). Of course, she may also think that, in the interest of diversity, it is worth having a few more guys around, even if 25% of them only made it in through affirmative action.
BTW, Brown is not the only college favoring men: most schools have to, since <em>on average</em> girls work harder and score better.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, this is completely untrue. The lack of balance occurs because of an unbalanced applicant pool which may or may not have anything to do with effort or performance.</p>
<p>To the OP:</p>
<p>I used to think like you, but that’s because I came from an area which was relatively homogeneous and where those who were URMs were easily accomodated and held to the same standards and were largely indistinguishable.</p>
<p>Then I gained a significantly broader perspective both on what was going on in this country as a whole and the institutional perspective of a school like Brown and what they needed to do to be successful in the pursuit of their mission. My mind was thoroughly changed.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s far to say that you don’t care about being “politically correct” on this board, I think the truth is what you don’t have a fear of is discussing this issue from an emotional and anecdotal position rather than from a larger, institutional and intellectual place. It can be hard to remove ourselves from the realm of our personal experiences, biases, and the stake we hold in ourselves and our children, but I’d caution anyone from making any kind of argument from the position of “my son may not get in even though I know he deserves it more than someone else”.</p>
<p>Our secondary school system (and neighborhoods, for the matter) are essentially racially segregated. Whites long ago either fled to the suburbs or chose private schools for their children, leaving the URMs to fend for themselves in the worst schools in the worst neighborhoods.</p>
<p>The well-documented edge given to URMs in the college admissions process is basically an acknowledgment of white guilt. For a large majority of white applicants, they’ve been given a 13-year head start for their education in schools just like you see in the “Brady Bunch”, while minorities in urban areas have to deal the worst this country has to offer.</p>
<p>Would you be willing to have you S swap places with an inner city kid, or better yet, have his high school swap 50% of its teachers and students with Thurgood Marshall High School? Ten or fifteen percent of Brown’s freshman class is a small price to pay for the status quo, indeed.</p>
<p>To the OP, I know exactly how you feel (coming from the opposite side of the argument). I am hispanic and I was accepted RD for Brown two years ago, and it felt amazing. I did not see any difference in race because I attended a upper-middle class school in Miami where the majority of people are hispanic. My class was competitive and everyone tried to beat each other in AP classes, SAT scores, class rank (class rank was super uber competitive). Plenty of people from my school have been accepted to Harvard, UChicago, Cornell (in 2005 4 people were accepted from Cornell), Dartmouth, Duke, etc, etc. Then after seeing how affirmative works it made me think, “was I only accepted because I’m hispanic?” Honestly, that made me feel awful. I want to be measured just as anyone else from the country.
After reading more on affirmative action it made me think that it was rather unfair. Why not accept a smart girl with a perfect score, straight As, and a community service super star; rather than hispanic male who has not worked on the community, with a gpa of 3.5, and with mediocre sats.
The only hope I have is that the admissions people look beyond race and scores and look for an individual who will thrive in their school and graduate. After all, rankings have in mind the percentage of people who drop out. I’m pretty sure they want people who will make it through the four years.
If it was for me, I would not make race and social status a factor in college applications.</p>
<p>You know, you all make good points. Just to clarify, however, I have nothing against top schools admitting URM’s – in fact, the whole feel of a homogeneous college with no diversity is very unappealing and bland to me. My objection solely lies with the admittance of students who are less than qualified in terms of grades and testing and whatever else kids like mine are going to be held to. Thus, I object to the double standard that exists. </p>
<p>Same can be said for recruited athletes, as justbreathe pointed out. I realize that each school is looking for elements that go above and beyond ‘good scores’ and all but unfortunately, that makes this whole college application process a real crap shoot! </p>
<p>Can you tell it’s my first child that’s soon to be college bound??</p>
<p>I don’t really believe in the “more qualified” argument.</p>
<p>I think, honestly, in this case, there is a minimum qualification-- you’re qualified or not qualified. From there, out of the pool of largely qualified applicants, we construct the class we want, and that’s a process of community and culture construction.</p>
<p>I’m not sure there is a merit continuum that matters-- I think once they know that you’ve demonstrated you’d be capable of handling the work, we move on to other factors that help to make Brown maximize it’s human capital.</p>
<p>I think a lot of opinions would be changed for people if they actually spent some time in low-income urban areas. Some of the things you see are absolutely awful.</p>
<p>All I can really say is, believe it or not, but many schools in this country simply don’t offer kids the same sort of resources that other, more affluent schools are given. The kids aren’t expected to succeed. Simply getting them out of high school and out of the district’s hands is the main priority. </p>
<p>So their SAT scores may not be in the 2000-range, but for the kids that are applying to these schools, they’re taking a huge risk: They’re looking for a way out of their situations. They may not have the best test scores or the greatest GPAs, but they have a whole world of opportunity ahead of them and a whole other world behind them, desperately trying to pull them back down. </p>
<p>I’m just sharing. Though I do agree that income should be taken into account as well. But thankfully, programs such as Questbridge give those kids, regardless of race, a leg up in admissions.</p>
<p>I think its about time that white parents stop blaming affirmative action if their son or daughter’s mediocre test scores and personality fails to land them admission into the school of their dreams. Luv2plant and grateful mom, you obviously have no idea of the amount of discrimination minority students must overcome in order to achieve in what still is a white man’s world. Save your racist complaints for the next klu klux klan rally.</p>
<p>saskia2- you have no idea what you are talking about. If you read my posts you’d know that in my case my S hasn’t even applied to college yet. And let me tell you- getting 7’s on IB exams is no easy feat, so ‘mediocre test scores’ doesn’t apply here either. He works like a dog to be one of the top students in his school. If he doesn’t get into the college of his dreams he will still be a success at whatever college he chooses to attend. But don’t kid yourself-- discrimination of ANY kind is wrong, and this includes reverse discrimination. </p>
<p>BTW saskia2, you are very presumptuous to assume that I myself am not in a minority grouping who faces discrimination in this world. I am and I do. So lose some of that attitude (if you can). You don’t know the first thing about me.</p>
<p>modestmelody: I understand what you are saying about building ‘human capital’. It does makes sense to me. Just that why do some kids have to do handstands to prove their worthiness to a top school and some kids just have to somersault (if you know what i mean :))</p>
<p>Because handstands are cool and so are somersaults, but a team that can only do one or the other is not nearly as cool as a team that does both.</p>
<p>^^ha ha. That really does make sense in a weird sort of way. I still have trouble though understanding why some kids have to pour blood, sweat and tears into their ‘handstand’ while others only need to ‘somersault’ to make the same team? And should the kids handstanding be told that they don’t need to work as hard, that maybe the other attributes they bring to the ‘team’ will be enough? Where do we draw the line-- that is, if everyone were equally qualified (there goes that word again) then of course, other things enter into the picture to determine who gets admitted. But if one clearly possesses less of a potential for success than another at a particular college (YES based on grades, scores, EC’s, rec’s, essays, etc.-- the usual things that make up the application!!) then how do we or you justify their being chosen over the more obvious candidate (assuming the more obvious one is a great person with super attributes besides academics as well)?</p>
<p>I know, the school band could be looking for a tuba player, right?</p>
<p>You know, there are some kids out there that literally do have to pour blood, sweat, and tears to make it where they’re at. </p>
<p>I just wonder, as a human being, would you be able to tell someone who has lived an impoverished life, lives in a single parent household where the mother works until 10 PM, has a father that is in and out of prison and attends a school with a 85% dropout rate, that he hasn’t “worked hard enough” because he has a 3.6 GPA and a 1680 SAT score?</p>
<p>“I still have trouble though understanding why some kids have to pour blood, sweat and tears into their ‘handstand’ while others only need to ‘somersault’ to make the same team?”</p>
<p>Since we’re talking a sports metaphor, I’ll give you the answer and a real example.</p>
<p>Because some kids get private coaching for handstanding from a very young age, while other kids are told to go out there and somersault with no background in anything. </p>
<p>When I was in high school, the tennis rankings correlated exactly with the socioeconomic status of each school. If you were to make a list of each and compare them, they were identical. The top three wealthiest high schools won year in year out while the poorest high schools were at the bottom year in year out. Difference: At the wealthier high schools, kids were trained at the local health club since age 5. Had private lessons. Hell, they even had private trainers to keep them thin. At the poorer high schools, the kids liked tennis, and they sure did try, but were late to the game, couldn’t practice when it rained (which was often) because they didn’t have access to expensive indoor courts like our varsity team did (because they all happened to be part of the local expensive health club and so, by coincidence, they all could get in, and they had practice there when no other team could practice because it was raining), and didn’t get to have the one-on-one attention from private lessons that kids at our schools did. So on college applications, our girls got to put down that they were on Varsity and made blah blah level at State…while the other girls, who sure did try as best they could, were creamed with scores like 0-12 game after game after game. The poorer girls at our school made junior varsity or not at
all.</p>
<p>The same holds true for academics. While I am not ridiculously wealthy and did not opt for a lot of the advantages that money can buy that a lot of kids in my school did–tutoring for classes, SAT classes, etc. I do recognize that I had a lot of privilege growing up. I attended a school district that was well-funded and had relatively good teachers. I had a small handful of really impressive teachers in my K-12 education—individuals who had seen the world who decided to teach later in their career because they loved it, but who brought interesting perspective to the classroom. My AP Govt. teacher was previously a lawyer in D.C. He occasionally brought in “important” people to talk to us…because they were his friends. Teachers like this are sparse–and I’m sure most in the state ended up in high schools like mine. There are studies showing that a lot of teachers out there are rather unqualified academically–I’ve heard horror stories from friends who grew up in poor regions of English teachers with atrocious spelling and grammar, but poor districts can’t really be all that choosy. That puts them at a distinct disadvantage. </p>
<p>A lot of poor kids struggle when they get here not because they’re not smart enough, but because their preparation was weak. But in the end, by senior year, a fair number overcome and succeed. And they grow and learn a lot. And honestly, as someone who acknowledges that I come from a fair amount of privilege, I’ve learned a lot from them. </p>
<p>Like modestmelody said, I used to share the view that it was “unfair” when I was in high school. I didn’t understand why some upperclassmen who were smart and so talented, the superstar kids, didn’t get into universities while some URMs that I didn’t even know of because they weren’t the superstars made it in. Now I understand–and I wouldn’t have had I not myself been exposed to the URMs on the other side of the barrier–at the institution itself.</p>
<p>Additionally, honestly, like you said, your son will be fine even if he doesn’t make it into a top institution. The same can’t be said for the individuals we’re discussing. The support offered by top universities can revolutionize their futures in a way that they don’t for those who are already privileged.</p>
<p>Time to get through this one, luv2plant, before the whole, sometimes grueling, process of a child applying to college really gets going. If you can write now, when your son is still a junior in high school, “I just think it highly unfortunate that perhaps my S (a HS Jr.) who busts his butt every single day in his IB program and all may end up being rejected from a top school in order to let in the less qualified URM’s,” I can’t imagine where you are going to be in another year, should he may not have been admitted to his school of first choice.</p>
<p>Fair enough to raise the issue, and fair enough to disagree about what may be the solution, but to begin the process by thinking about the students ultimately admitted to a particular school as divided between “qualified” and “less qualified” is heading for nowhere. Your son is, no doubt, succeeding very well indeed within the circumstances he has found himself in. But at this very moment, there are countless other sons who are succeeding equally well in the very different circumstances they find themselves in. Colleges today are struggling to evaluate their diverse sets of applicants with this reality in mind.</p>
<p>Try looking at your son’s future in this way: wherever he ends up in a year and some months (and my expectation is that it will be at a very fine institution) he will benefit enormously from the intellectual exposure, social interaction and, yeah, even friendship he will gain from the diversity his college will have provided him.</p>
<p>Obstinate and justbreathe-- I feel bad reading what you are saying. It’s all true and quite sad. When you put it all the way you did -I get it. But when I think about it a little longer I still come back to their being a double standard. While my family is most certainly privileged compared to those scenarios-- that doesn’t take away from the blood sweat and tears that I see my S pour into his schooling and EC’s on a daily basis. So should he and others like him be penalized because he DOES have 2 loving parents who live in a nice neighborhood with a good school system (and we are not rich). Not to take away from the plight of others, but he is not a spoiled rich white kid (very far from it actually)-- he’s just a motivated, bright, hardworking, down to earth, modest student. And if he strives to get into a top college I would hope his lack of an impoverished background won’t hurt him.</p>
<p>outside1-- i agree that i’m an anxious first time parent, for sure! This whole college application thing is for the birds (sure wasn’t like this in my day). Anyway, my S’s safety school thus far is one that he really likes a lot, so I’m not terribly worried if he does not get into his first choice school. And I do agree with you, there are countless other kids doing equally as well in their schooling and other aspects, making it very difficult for the colleges to select from. Just for the record-- when I speak about my S I’m not just speaking about him but about anyone else that may be in a similar situation. </p>
<p>I know my S will find happiness and success wherever he ends up going. And diversity is a good thing. We’ve been on college visits to places that have very little diversity and I personally find it very stifling. I just think I’d better stop looking at the stats for the Accepted and Rejected students :)</p>