<p>Here is UCB:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, I can see that MIT is more diverse. However, the question was phrased, “Does saying there are too many Asians make me a racist?” I’d say yes.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a capital offense, especially if it’s one’s own ethnic group where we take liberties, like wearing our hair down and shuffling around in our slippers.</p>
<p>Still, if one of my kids said, “I don’t want to go to Brandeis because it’s too Jewish” I <em>would</em> consider it anti-Semitic, even though we are nominally Jewish. And I might say it myself. Still, it is anti-Semitic in my book.</p>
<p>Sometimes these things are meant seriously, sometimes lightly.</p>
<p>MIT sounds like a wonderful environment. If only I had that mathy brain I’d love to go there myself. Come to think of it, I’d love to have that mathy brain!</p>
<p>Cal is more economically diverse than MIT or Stanford.</p>
<p>Can we reframe it this way…</p>
<p>Does the school have too many in state kids–?</p>
<p>Is that wrong–? for a kid to feel a school is heavily weighted in one way or another…</p>
<p>in this case 43% asian (ethnicity) vs</p>
<p>too many in-state
too many men
too many women
etc etc</p>
<p>We have eliminated schools which had too many instate kids, too many commuters, etc…</p>
<p>If the OP felt the balance wasn’t there for their “match”, it doesn’t mean the kid is a racist…just that they didn’t feel like they fit…</p>
<p>Brandeis too Jewish? How ironic. Named for the first Jewish Supreme Court justice. Now the Supreme Court is about to become 33% Jewish.</p>
<p>My kid is also 6 foot 4 and still growing. His Pakistani friend is over a foot shorter. My kid is the periscope walking the halls between periods, with his smaller friends following behind to find their way through the crowd. I guess he’ll continue to stick out wherever he goes.</p>
<p>^^
that made me smile–
you know what I am talking about!</p>
<p>And my kid was always the tall one, middle of the back row of the class photo. They call him the shamash.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Would you call it a racist if a student pick
MIT over Princeton because it is more diverse or for that sake pickup
MIT/Stanford over HYP</p>
<p>From POIH
</p>
<p>No, those are the <em>consequences</em>–inevitable consequences, in my opinion–of racism.</p>
<p>This is a better definition of racism: A belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities.</p>
<p>When someone makes assumptions about the character, attitudes, talents and personality of individuals because they are members of some very broad “racial group”, then that person is guilty of racism.</p>
<p>Needless to say, I think much of current thought about diversity exacerbates racism and the consequences, noted above, of racism.</p>
<p>EDIT: I feel obliged to make it clear that I am wholly in favor of all universities practicing economic diversity, and I also think it is a positive thing to have a significant international presence on university campuses.</p>
<p>
Yes, by definition - like it or not (if by ‘diverse’ you mean ‘racially diverse’ as opposed to other metrics)</p>
<p>Yes, I think it’s racism. Here’s a way to put it: UVA is a white-student MAJORITY school. Berkeley is an asian-student PLURALITY school. Will the said person feel turned off by UVA because it has too many whites? If not, the person is clearly exhibiting RACIAL preference - NOT diversity preference.</p>
<p>The real question is: Whether it is racist for a school to accept someone who is a weaker applicant solely because of his or her race. Personally, I believe that all colleges should judge race free, so the best applicants are chosen.
For example:</p>
<p>Kid 1:
SAT:2200
Participant in many clubs, but no leadership.
Not much community service
Kid 2:
SAT: 2300
started and is president of two clubs
raised thousands of dollars for a charity that means much to him</p>
<p>Obvioulsy Kid 2 would be chosen, but if kid 1 said that his grandparents are from Cambodia and Kid 1 was just a white kid, I believe they would be looked at equally.</p>
<p>bronxbombers, I believe that’s another whole different issue…AA. I feel like everyone’s been there way too many times.</p>
<p>A. Racialism vs racism. Look it up :)</p>
<p>B. Diversity vs “looking like America”</p>
<p>From what I can gather from the above stats, UCB is just as diverse racially as MIT. ivyhopes concern, IIUC, is that UCB is so different from our society, that it may not prepare his kids for the real world, as much as MIT.</p>
<p>I think thats a legitimate concern, though its usually held by members of minorities concerned about going where they are overrepresented - Jews at brandeis, blacks at Howard, etc - " i need to learn to function with folks different from me". OTOH in some situations I could see it applying to a majority group member. There ARE gentile kids who get along particularly well with Jews, and Brandeis might be TOO comfy for them. That might be the case for my kid at a heavily asian school (IF you buy some of the stereotypes, anyway). </p>
<p>I would note, as others have there are different, sometimes more important kinds of diversity. MIT is less diverse economically than a state flagship. State flagships are usually less diverse geographically.</p>
<p>Perhaps even more important is ideological/philosophical diversity. How many schools seem to be ones where most Obama cabinet members would be considered reactionaries on the one hand, or where anyone who is an progressive activist would be out of place on the other?</p>
<p>POIH</p>
<p>Do you think MIT grad school more diverse than Cal?</p>
<p>^^^I looked it up. Many of the definitions for racialism are identical to those for racism.</p>
<p>It isn’t as if there is some law handed down from the heavens about how to define these terms. Attitudes about what constitutes racism have changed a lot since I was a teenager in the 1960s. At that time, I knew a lot of people who thought they could discern exactly what all black individuals were all about simply by looking at them. No one who was college educated had any problem identifying that as racism. Now, it seems all sorts of college educated people think it is not racism to assume all “Asians” think and act alike because of their racial appearance. (Which, as has already been established, varies greatly across SE Asia, E Asia, S Asian and so on.)</p>
<p>okay, well i have seen the distinction as the follows - racialism implies a belief in inherited racial differences, without implying superiority, or advocating discrimination.</p>
<p>Post 237:No one is asserting that all Asians think and act alike except you – as a straw man to knock down and apparently feel self-satisfied about.</p>
<p>Many students, given the choice, want to choose to interact with varieties of Asians plus many more varieties from many more continents than is quantitatively represented in freshman classes at UCB. As said before, they may indeed end up with Asians as close friends in non-UCB environments, but they want a much larger variety than the localities represented in undergrad levels at Berkeley.</p>
<p>It’s actually your problem if you see that in some perverted way as “racist.”</p>
<p>One last comment before I really do bow out forever.</p>
<p>As the poster coureur has pointed out a couple of times, there is nothing illegal about walking around assuming you know all about someone, or even a room full of someones, on the basis of racial identity. If you don’t want to acknowledge that you are making race-based assumptions (i.e. practicing racism), fine. But it is my opinion that you are making a mistake that may well cost you the opportunity to get to know someone with whom you have a lot in common, or from whom you could learn a lot.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP, can you please cut the anti-Obama screeds?.. The people who want to make take away our freedoms are the conservatives. They are the ones who want to dictate what goes into school textbooks (see Texas) force us to recognize the Christian religion as American law (Sarah Palin this week), dictate what we can do in our bed rooms (the Evangelical base of the Republican Party) and with whom. The right wing nutters want to control the TV and cable programs we can watch. They interfere with every aspect of our lives. The only thing they don’t want to dictate is for corporations. They want to deregulate industry, let industry do whatever the hell it wants to do, but control Americans, limit our individual liberties.</p>
<p>Nuff said. Back to topic.</p>