<p>for the sake of anonymity, my friend asked me to post this for her. she she has legacy status at two ivy league schools and is african american (powerful combo?). her SAT score is in the 1300s with a B+ (3.6~ish) avg and decentish ECs. she's applying to most of the ivies. i figure legacy+URM is a pretty powerful combo with strong ECs. what are her chances? </p>
<p>thanks,
ILC</p>
<p>Interesting.....It would help if she had a higher GPA....what Ivy schools is she applying to? Though she is Afr. Amer., she should have pretty decent scores on her SATs, etc.</p>
<p>ok</p>
<p>bump</p>
<p>she's betta off if her gpa wuz higher</p>
<p>oh.. really?</p>
<p>According to some statistic I saw on this site, only 2000 African Americans per year get above a 1300 on the SAT I's. I don't like affirmative action, but that and her legacy status are going to get her in to those Ivy League schools. But seriously, for someone whose parents have gone to such great schools, those scores and grades are not so good. A lot more would be expected from a nonminority, which is really sad.</p>
<p>I expect her to sail into those two Ivy League colleges, with zero problems. However, I think she'll find the competition to be a lot tougher when she's actually in. The admissions bar is lowered for minorities, but you can bet no professor will invoke affirmative action and give her a higher grade. She will be close to the bottom of the admitted pool at the especially selective Ivies.</p>
<p>Thank God Bush and the Senate kicked out the Quota Queen from the US Civil Rights commission. More will be expected of nondisadvantaged minorities in the future.</p>
<p>Joey</p>
<p>i'd say Bush had more affirmative action going for him than my friend..</p>
<p>son and grandson of Yale alumni..coming from a rich and politically powerful family. yeah, i'm sure he would've gotten into yale with his 1200 sat score. if he's going to oppose minority recruiting, he should oppose all types of recruiting..legacy, geographic, etc. what a hypocritical piece of ****.</p>
<p>colleges can recruit whoever the hell they want. they aren't trying to pick the best students. they went students that are going to glorify their schools in various ways, including the admittance of star academians, star athletes, famous people, legacies, the promotion of racial/georgraphic diversity, and anything else they see fit although some of the students may be considered "subpar" in stats compared to the others.</p>
<p>anyway, i appreciate the insight</p>
<p>There's a big difference. A large number of kids that are not up to par for the college can be admitted because of affirmative action. Now, in Bush's case, if one inferior student is admitted so 5000+ can have a better library, I don't mind. There's a big difference. One group of kids is large enough so that it causes a measurable difference, the other group doesn't cause one. Not to mention, the school gets very tangible benefits from the second.</p>
<p>Sports bring a huge amount of money to the school, and athletes actually have a talent! Music, theater, and arts recruits also have achieved something. If an otherwise ordinary person is admitted beacuse of affirmative action, what do they bring to the school? Zero. Zip.</p>
<p>Other types of recruiting are based on nonarbitrary distinctions. But if we're not allowed to discriminate based on race, it follows that no race should get preferential treatment either, since that would constitute "reverse" discrimination to the races that don't get such treatment.</p>
<p>Joey</p>
<p>they bring "diversity." simple. its the new craze for colleges just like when people started wearing baggy pants. are they necessary? no. do they make you look cool in the eyes of a lot of people? yes. you are saying that it's ok in some situations for people to be admitted because they bring monetary benefit to the school. we've got schools sitting on 15+ billion. this isn't about paying for a toyota camry, this is "Pimp My Ride." its about lowering your car and putting expensive spinning rims on it that reduce performance.</p>
<p>I think the "diversity" rationale is good in theory, bad in practice. If weaker students are in a college where they wouldn't otehrwise belong, that brings more segregation of students than anything else. I think by trying to artificially incorporate diversity into a place, people will willingly segregate themselves.</p>
<p>Joey</p>
<p>again, minority recruiting is not the only mechanism by which weaker students are admitted. opposing minority recruiting while supporting all the other categories of students who dont "belong" (totally unfounded, who are you to say who belongs or not) is racist, plain and simple.</p>
<p>Wouldn't your legacy status sort of cancel out your URM. I mean if you're parents went to college, then you should be expected of more than some one whose parents never went to college.</p>
<p>Hmm so you have two parents or such at Ivies and you also get affirmative action for being disadvantaged.. something doesn't seem right with this picture. </p>
<p>One seems to say you're privillages and more likely will donate to the school and second says you had less chance so they'll break the cycle. Unless they do this automatically I think she'll get one or the other advantage.</p>
<p>Diversity comes with one misconception: That if you are recruiting someone from a certain ethnic group, you are assuming they have that group's perspective, and can offer a unique point of view. IMO, this is not true in most cases. I can speak form experience. I have been in the U.S. for 14 years afteri moving from Kazakhstan, and I don't know the next thing about Kazakh culture.</p>
<p>i'm pretty sure that URM status won't get washed away by her family being successful</p>
<p>i agree with you, tennistennis. i think colleges are simply trying to get black faces at their schools. the trend is that most of these students are really immigrants from africa and the caribbean, their children, and affluent blacks instead of the people who really need the affirmative action, the poor blacks who have been enslaved in this country.</p>
<p>
[quote]
i agree with you, tennistennis. i think colleges are simply trying to get black faces at their schools. the trend is that most of these students are really immigrants from africa and the caribbean, their children, and affluent blacks instead of the people who really need the affirmative action, the poor blacks who have been enslaved in this country.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is why I believe in compensatory action by economic status. The minorities that really need affirmative action will get the same benefits, while the richer students whose parents went to Harvard Med and Yale Law will not get any such benefits. Think about it - is it really fair to give a student a big "tip" in the admissions process simply because they're of a certain race? That's arbitrary. </p>
<p>I've always been for helping the disadvantaged, however, and I think the admissions process should be a greater reflection on giving people of different socioeconomic means who have achieved greatly for their circumstances an equal opportunity.</p>
<p>Joey</p>
<p>"This is why I believe in compensatory action by economic status. The minorities that really need affirmative action will get the same benefits, while the richer students whose parents went to Harvard Med and Yale Law will not get any such benefits. Think about it - is it really fair to give a student a big "tip" in the admissions process simply because they're of a certain race?"</p>
<p>Joey,</p>
<p>This is admirable, but "economic action" as opposed to "affirmative action" would worsen the situation. Sadly, most of the blacks/hispanics who are indeed qualified are the affluent ones; you know as well as I do that parent income is a good indicator of one's SAT scores. If anything, economic action would benefit asians more so than any other ethnic group.</p>
<p>affirmative action and minority recruitment should be about getting motivated people with potential out of the gutter. however, you can't attribute lower admission standards for minorities solely to colleges trying to help disadvantaged people. like legacy and athlete recruitment, it's to make certain people happy. it's not fair, but that's life and that's how the rest of the world is going to work, especially in politics.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If anything, economic action would benefit asians more so than any other ethnic group.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>true, and that's because the work ethic of asians is overwhelmingly more prevalent than that of blacks/latinos in every social class. a phenomenon that I observe in a large, PREDOMINANTLY black (over 90%), urban area near my home is that almost every single store owner is asian. you'll see that asians come to this country and experience the same economic ****hole as blacks/hispanics but will be successful within a generation. in no way am i saying that asians are superior, but they succeed because</p>
<ol>
<li><p>they are immigrants - immigrant parents in general come to this country seeking opportunities and have a very good work ethic, value education, and push their kids to do better than they did economically.</p></li>
<li><p>customary manners and practices - "One of the most disturbing, I think perhaps the most disturbing fact in our whole book is that black students coming from families earning over 70,000 are doing worse on their SATS, on average--it's always on average--than white students from families in the lowest income group." that's a quote from The Shape of the River by Derek Bok and Bill Bowen. it can't be explained precisely or completely, but you have to look to the parents and wonder what is going on. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>the main approach to accomplishing the goal that affirmative action is intended to ameliorate, must be a greater emphasis both in parenting and culturally which, quite frankly, is happening at a snail's pace. </p>
<p>i was not really planning on getting into a discussion on affirmative action with this post, but i'm open to it.</p>