<p>Agreed, he is most def a ■■■■■.</p>
<p>2010 Hopeful: I feel your pain! Swissbrat & Hcos: Based upon your comments, Mission Accomplished!</p>
<p>Yours Truly,
The Liberal ■■■■■</p>
<p>“Stuyvesant School in NY, a top school, only admits based upon the strict criteria of test Scores. As a result, the school is 65% Asian. There is more to creating a dynamic school environment than just test score numbers that only tell part of a persons capabilities to be educationally proficient.”</p>
<p>maybe you didn’t mean it that way, Prepveteran, but somehow your post makes it seem like that asians are worth nothing but “test score numbers”…i mean, getting stellar SSATs doesn’t mean we don’t bring something special to the school community…</p>
<p>This thread is stupid. It allows everyone to say a lot of racist things.</p>
<p>Didn’t mean that at all Somnusc. They’re cool, fun, diverse, athletes, musicians, artists and hardworking like the rest of the population. They don’t fit into some neat little box like popular culture defines them. Asian culture has some great aspects to it that are beneficial for all to learn from. So does American, Latino, Native American, African American, Indian etc… For my test score example that everyone uses to support URM disqualifications for admissions, nothing symbolizes it more “factually” than the prolific Asian Community of young scholars. Daniel Golden also mentions them in his book to exemplify their outstanding standardize test scores among the other wonderful things about the Asian Community. Just to let you know, my two nephews are half Asian and I would never stereotype them or anyone else. I know minorities that are brilliant and score well. Unfortunately, due to stereotypes on this forum, people think they get into the best Boarding schools because of their minority status and not their hard work and intellectual acumen. Stereotypes affect my daughter because they think that position and wealth got her so many acceptances instead of her hard work. My position is simple, we need all types of people to create a vibrant intellectual community wherein all can learn from others experience and grow in this Global Economy. As a member of the dominant group in America, I hear these foolish scapegoating of minorities all the time regarding the admissions process. It’s wrong and silly as everyone in my opinion has some type of hook, priviledge, special something that schools are looking for. The blame game for individual disappointments in admissions has gotten tired real quick!</p>
<p>That’s the problem 2010hopeful, nobody wants to have an honest discussion about race. Go ahead and express your feelings and it can add to the discussion as you’re the next generation.</p>
<p>Read Dyermakers post, it’s beautiful!</p>
<p>I really don’t think it is an honest discussion. As far as I know, none of us are admission officers, therefore, we do not know how race influences a admission decision. We can only take guesses.</p>
<p>Admissions Dept’s, Academic Deans and Head Masters & Mistresses seek diversity because it is educationally enriching and culturally beneficial for all. It’s that simple believe it or not.</p>
<p>But that isn’t the discussion, the discussion is whether coming from an under-represented background will give you an advantage over a person coming from an over-represented background.</p>
<p>2010Hopeful: The fact that one gorup is “over represented” answers your question.</p>
<p>I don’t understand how that answers my question. Please enlighten me.</p>
<p>I believe I made a mistake in concluding that a lot of kids applying to Boarding school come from top prep day schools. If that were the case, you would have met many bright Latino’s and African Americans who are outstanding academic achievers and this “URM” talk would be muted and relegated to Fantasy Island where it belongs. However, it’s becoming apparent that most of the kids on CC must go to Suburban Schools where the student make up for the most part is homogenous with little diversity which explains this lack of knowledge about all the brilliant highly qualified minorities that are applying and competing for admissions into the top Boarding Schools. No one at my D’s prep school talk about this URM punch line. It all makes sense to me now. There are plenty of minorities that are kicking butt academically that kids from homogenous communities never get to see. I get it now.</p>
<p>…ok??..</p>
<p>2010Hopeful: Forget about race, just think of any generic human being. Would you rather fall within the “under represented” group or the “over represented” group in a particular societ?. Answer honestly and there’s your answer.</p>
<p>I can not make the decision. Everything isn’t black or white, there are intermediate levels. There are pros and cons to each choice. This is my honest answer and I still don’t have an answer.</p>
<p>I understand 2010. In time as you move along in life, really become engaged in this society, the answer will be crystal clear. Press on, press on!</p>
<p>Prepveteran, your longwinded arguments didn’t have much new. If just for simplistic equal-representation reason, it wouldn’t pass the “NBA Test,” i.e., look at its compositions.</p>
<p>It’s easier to accept other human body features differ by races, but harder to accept when people talking about intelligence… accusations of racism will come in. I am a liberal myself, but just not the naive kind.</p>
<p>All I am hoping and wanting to see is that Colleges and Boarding Schools are for the education of future workforce and leaders of this Nation, facing mounting competitions from other powers. AdComs shouldn’t be allowed to play God in deciding almost at will/random who they like in their 30 minutes of reviewing of each candidate. The more objective and less subjective the criteria, the better. We all want to play by the same set of fair rules. Change the rules openly if they dare, just dont do it murkily and open-secretly. Will a Nation lower its Olympic sports team standards, just to have equal representation of all races in sports? Why do we have to do it in the academic or scientific Olympics? May the best candidate win! If someone works hard for it, and pass ALL that was asked of her/him, in terms of academics and ECs, WHY penalize some of them by adding the race factor? Its fine to pick an URM over an Asian or White if their stats are in the same level or order of magnitude. But in reality, I am seeing 1 or 2 Standard Deviations apart for some of the URMs.</p>
<p>Diversity is a good goal to reach, but there shouldn’t be implicit quotas involved. If in one particular year, a certain URM race happens to not have enough academically qualified candidates, live with it! They don’t have to award the precious slot to someone whose academic preparation is probably only suitable for a middle level state Univ. or BS, and insert him/her into Harvard or Andover.</p>
<p>Not only an unqualified candidate is taking something from someone else who is more deserving (either through more hard work or through natural smarts), but also make this unqualified candidate suffer through the academic challenges at the bottom of the class, or dilute the rigor the school could otherwise have.</p>
<p>It’s not the intention of seeking diversity that is bad; It’s the execution of this strategy that has become so sickening, and so out of hands lately, especially in the admissions to elite colleges and some boarding schools (BS is just playing along the game, so that their URM graduates will help them increase their Ivy admission stats as well)!</p>
<p>Fireworks: Standards are not lowered to create diversity. Believe it or not, there are enough qualified blacks out of the 40 million in this country to enter each class at the top Boarding Schools & Elite Universities. Once you accept that, then you’re on your way to enlightened reasoning regarding this issue. There are no quotas as the number admitted depends on the applicant pools qualification on any given year. Sports can not be equated with the overall goal of educating the citizenry of the United States to be global leaders in the world economy. The main issue with diversity is not the applicants qualifications as there are many, but helping them and poor and middle class whites, latinos, asians etc… afford the tuition. Remember, what ever B School you attend or will attend, a strong argument could be made that someone else in that applicant pool had better grades, EC’s, essays or higher test scores than you. You were or will be accepted because there was something unique about you beyond the numbers that made the Admissions Committee vote yes. The URM issue/excuse is a red herring. Have you ever met a URM just as smart or smarter than you? If not, I can introduce you to quite a few at my D’s Prep School.</p>
<p>By the way, there is a “quota” to accept a certain percentage of men in top Universities for the sake of gender balance. If acceptances were handed out purely on merit, Women would be 60-70% of the population at each Top University. I agree with the Top Universities that gender balance is important enough for the overall good of the College experience that the criteria should be curved a little bit when evaluating the applications of young men. You see, everybody has a hook.</p>