What the title says. Just cause you are a URM doesnt mean you get a boost in college admissions. If they see on your fin aid app that your parents make 80k every year, even if you are black or hispanic, you wont get much of a boost at all. If your dad a a harvard trained doctor, you wont get much of a boost. The point of the boost is to compensate for differences in socioeconomic status. If your socioeconomic status is already up there, you will not get much of a boost.
<p>Evidence please?</p>
<p>I am not sure of what type of boost is being referred to, however, with regard to my African-American son I can say that he received no perceivable boost in admissions or financial aid.</p>
<p>Squarehead, I wish you were right, but you're not. The thing is, elite schools just need to fill a respectable percentage of acceptances with URMs. They don't care whether these are of low socioeconomic status or not. When they make their stats public, nobody knows the difference whether their 11% African-American student body population has an average income of 100,000 a year or 10,000. This is why so many people call for an affirmative action system based on socioeconomics rather than race.</p>
<p>The article A Thumb on the Scale in the Current issue of Harvard Magazine states: </p>
<p>Race in America, and especially the treatment of African Americans, has been, and continues to be, the hardest marker of disadvantage to counterin large part because color is such a visible marker and is associated with deeply ingrained stigmas and stereotypes. However, race is by no means the only lens through which to look. The more privileged colleges and universities (as defined by both financial resources and selectivity in admissions) might do more to address the disadvantages associated with low socioeconomic status (SES).</p>
<p>We should remind ourselves why there is such a strong case to be made for being broadly inclusive in crafting a class:
[ul]
1. As part of their quest for excellence, colleges and universities want to attract the most promising students, and there has never been reason to believe that all outstanding candidates will be able to pay whatever fees are charged without help. Society at large needs all the trained talent it can marshal.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>The quality (excellence) of the campus learning environment is improved for everyone when students from a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds are present. Students need to learn how to put themselves in other peoples shoes.</p></li>
<li><p>Finally, a commitment to this form of inclusiveness is an essential part of a broader affirmation of opportunity and is at the center of our concern for equity. An important societal goal is to enable individuals to move up the ladder of accomplishment as far as their talents, character, and determination will take them. This proposition, central to a well-functioning democratic society, is especially important at a time when education is more critical than ever before in determining access not only to the best jobs (and the accompanying economic rewards), but also to a broad set of less tangible opportunities that help us live a life. Moreover, the sense of democratic legitimacy is undermined if people believe that the rich are admitted to selective colleges and universities regardless of merit while able and deserving candidates from more modest backgrounds are turned away.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>[/ul]</p>
<p>I've been getting in trouble for my posts lately. I don't know which ones, exactly, but I'll try to say this with as much civility as possible:</p>
<p>Four = the number of extra keys it would have taken to change the "u r" into something that wouldn't have made me think less of your post before I even opened it.</p>
<p>That being said, you're 100% wrong.</p>
<p>A top 5 law school: accepted 85% of the Black people with lsats over 155 while accepting no white applicants with below a 158 and still rejecting 60% of the white applicants with 165-170. </p>
<p>FYI: the LSAT is the main factor in law school admissions (more important than even grades and much more important than SAT in undergrad admissions). A 155 is nothing special - my dog could be trained to get it, yet they accepted 85% of the urm 155's. Anything over a 165 is 95th percentile. Anything over 168 is 99, yet they rejected 60% of non-URM's with a 165-170.</p>
<p>regarding "Class based Affirmative Action"</p>
<p>the aritcle states: </p>
<p>Those of us who favor encouraging academically selective colleges and universities to do more to enroll students from modest family backgrounds need to examine the implications of adopting specific, realistic alternatives to the traditional approach that combines need-blind admissions and need-based aid. The most direct alternative is simply to put a thumb on the scale when weighing the qualifications of applicants from lower-SES categories, much as colleges do now when they consider minorities, legacies, and recruited athletesan approach sometimes called class-based affirmative action. But what kind of thumband how heavy a thumb? What would be the effects of such an approach on the composition of the entering class (including the number of minority students), the academic qualifications of enrolled students, and financial aid requirements?</p>
<p>There are four reasons that we favor giving some preference to well-qualified applicants from modest backgrounds.</p>
<p>[ul]
[li]First, this group of students is poorly represented in the most selective institutions [see page 50; for example, only] 3 percent of the students are both first-generation college-goers and from low-income families, whereas the national share of the same-age population in this category is nearly 20 percent.</p>[/li]
<p>[li]Second, enrolling more students from economically as well as racially disadvantaged backgrounds would unquestionably promote social mobility and be seen as representing a schools serious commitment to enhancing opportunity in America.</p>[/li]
<p>[li]Third, it is essential to remember the odds that students from modest backgrounds had to overcome in order to get into the credible applicant pool in the first place. Students from families in the top income quartile were more than twice as likely as students from the bottom income quartile even to take the SAT. Among the test-takers, the odds of scoring over 1200 were three times higher for those in the top quartile as compared with those in the bottom quartile. Combining these probabilities, the key fact is that the odds of both taking the tests and doing very well on them were roughly six times higher for students from the top income quartile than for students from the bottom income quartile. Family circumstances have an enormous impact on the chances of applicants even being considered by the admissions staff at an academically selective college or university. Those who have bucked the odds to get into the credible pool would surely seem to deserve special recognition.</p>[/li]
<p>[li]Fourth, enrolled students who come from modest backgrounds do very well academically; in contrast to both recruited athletes and minority students, this group of students does not underperform[/li][/ul]</p>
<p>What do we find when applicants from low-income families receive the same admissions advantage as legacies (and underrepresented minority groups also retain their current degree of admissions advantage)? The admissions probability for such candidates at the schools in our study could be expected to increase substantiallyfrom 32 percent at present to 47 percentwhich is, coincidentally, essentially the same as the admissions probability for minority applicants. The admissions probability for non-minority students from the bottom income quartile would increase even more dramaticallyby almost 20 percentage points, from 30 percent to nearly 50 percent. Especially interesting is the effect on the admissions probability for all other applicants: it falls, as it would have to, but only by about 1 percentage pointfrom 39 percent to 38 percent. The explanation is, of course, the relative sizes of the applicant pools.</p>
<p>There would be significant dollar costs involved in providing financial aid to a larger number of needy students (and perhaps some additional institutional expense for support services). We estimate that for our group of private liberal arts colleges, with an average of 500 students per class, grant aid funds would have to increase about $460,000 per class, per year, or just under $2 million for all four classes per year (an approximately 12 percent increase), if current financial aid policies were maintained. For the private universities in our study, with 1,500 students per class, the necessary increase could be expected to be about $1.4 million per class, per year, or between $5 and $6 million for all four classes (which is also approximately a 12 percent increase).</p>
<p>Turning to enrollment, our simulations show that the share of the class comprised of students from low-income families could be expected to increase from 11 percent to about 17 percent. The minority share would (by assumption) stay constant at just over 13 percent, and the share of all other students would decline from 79 to 74 percent. (These percentages add to more than 100 percent because there is an overlap between students from low-income families and minority students.) A side-effect of this kind of shift in admissions policies might be to reduce somewhat the number of students from wealthy families at the most selective institutions and, in effect, redistribute some of them to other liberal arts colleges and universitieswhich might be healthy all around. There is another potential effect: giving a boost to applicants from low-income families might encourage more such applicants to apply to highly selective schools.</p>
<p>I read this in Michelle Hernendez's book "A is for admission". The example of the black kid whos father is a harvard educated doctor is in her book.</p>
<p>The admissions office does not see you financial aid info and need-blind schools</p>
<p>Even though admissions and financial aid applications are considered separately at need blind schools, adcoms can figure out income through:</p>
<ol>
<li>The student's statements in essays and interviews.</li>
<li>Zip code, address</li>
<li>Reports from Guidance Counselors, teachers and alum interviewers</li>
<li>Parents' jobs and levels of educations.</li>
<li>ECs. For example, a student may have participated in programs for low income students. For example, most teens who use Boys and Girls Club are low income. </li>
<li>fee waivers</li>
</ol>
<p>In addition when the school turns in therr school profile it does list information as the following:
[ul]
% of kids getting reduced/free lunch
% of kids that graduate and attend 4 year colleges
Average SAT scores for that school</p>
<p>[/ul] </p>
<p>Since an overwhelming number of students attend their local high schools, many adcoms are familiar with the schools int he areas that they represent including the SES of students that live in that and the surrounding neighborhoods.</p>
<p>okay, according to the title, "JUST CAUSE you are a URM doesnt mean you get a boost" is true. otherwise every URM that qualifies to apply would get in, which is not the case. but if all admissions factors (i.e. sats, gpa, ec's) EQUAL between two HIGHLY QUALIFIED applicants, the URM will probably get the boost, regardless of socioeconomic standing. yes, you still have to make admissions standards if you are a URM. that's why you referred to it as a "boost," and not an admissions factor.</p>
<p>It is really not su much a boost as it is a tip factor between 2 similiarly qualified candidates.</p>
<p>I know a URM who got into MIT with a 660 math and a 3 on calc AB. It def makes a big difference.</p>
<p>An angry mailman,</p>
<p>So what about the URM who is in at MIT? There probably are non URMs who got in with similar stats. In addition, there's no evidence that being a URM caused that person to be accepted at MIT. Presumably you didn't see the application nor hear the adcoms discussion so you can't conclude that URM status made any difference.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So what about the URM who is in at MIT? There probably are non URMs who got in with similar stats. In addition, there's no evidence that being a URM caused that person to be accepted at MIT. Presumably you didn't see the application nor hear the adcoms discussion so you can't conclude that URM status made any difference.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>All we know is what they tell us, and the fact remains no matter how rosy your glasses are or how much you try to minimalize it, being URM is a huge admissions factor. At Michigan, its nearly a 200 point SAT difference now (hell, under the point system decided to be unconstitutional, URMS were given a full letter grade increase on every class they took throughout highschool - essentially letting them graduate with 5.0 uw gpa's). Umich's new system is designed to "keep the same proportions" as the old system (a system widely emulated across all of the selective institutions of higher ed).</p>
<p>Why not address the law school stats I provided instead of spitting PC falsehoods? I've provided facts. Where are yours? AA itself can be debated up and down all day long, but to say that the effect is minimal is to insult the intelligence of everyone here. It's interesting to note how AA apologists will always stress "they must have had great essays/interviews" etc when looking at anecdotal evidence, despite the fact that those are widely acknowledged to be the least meaningful app portions for almost all schools. Why won't you look at the white elephant in the room? All the rosy-colored glasses in the world won't preclude you from seeing white!</p>
<p>You know as well as I why that kid got into MIT, and you know as well as I what his application's fate would have been had he been white.</p>
<p>what if a white kid and a black kid are equally qualified. But the black kid's parents are well educated and the kid comes from a wealthy family. The white kid on the other hand is the son of a poor oklahoma farmer. Whic one would get in.</p>
<p>Black kid, every time, hands down, no "ifs" "ands" or "buts" about it.</p>
<p>AA apologists will admit to that. It only gets sad when the black lawyer's children are being accepted over more qualified poor farmers' children.</p>
<p>EDIT
[quote]
I read this in Michelle Hernendez's book "A is for admission". The example of the black kid whos father is a harvard educated doctor is in her book.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>ahh - I see. I wouldn't put too much stock in that. I'm not familiar with it, but from what you've posted it seems like somoene trying to "legitimize" the degree or acceptance they probably didn't earn.</p>
<p>in case anyone is wondering, Michelle Hernandez is a former Dartmouth admissions officer.</p>
<p>Her book also came out years ago and is based on her adcom experiences, something she hasn't been now for probably close to a decade. Things have changed a lot since then.</p>
<p>So Michelle Hernandez says it in a book about one particular case, and URM's no longer get a boost anywhere. What about the other three dozen admission guides and books on the admission process that say the opposite? Am I supposed to believe what the OP says is true because I read it on CC? Come on. This flies in the face of all evidence everywhere.</p>