<p>bizzyjudy, it may be different in New Jersey, but in Texas it seems like all the good debaters go to private or good public schools, is it like that in new jersey?
Also you know the two ppl in finals at nationals last year. Joan Gass and Todd Lipifort, they are both from Texas (so I saw them on the circuit and lost to Todd) and Joan goes to yale.</p>
<p>Gosh, I wish I would have applied SCEA T_T</p>
<p>Dbate- It's the same in Jersey. My school doesn't have a forensics team, but I know many students who do participate. Some top public school forensics teams include Ridge and Millburn, two very wealthy schools near me.</p>
<p>@Dbate</p>
<p>Nope; I didn't get that far. Basketball sort of drifted me from debate... </p>
<p>But my ex-debate partners debated together at Nationals (Gonzalez and Ahmed). I'll ask them if they do know them.</p>
<p>The NJ policy debate league sucks. We're mostly LD country, although I think LDers are kind of weird. lol. We got a few very good debaters, though, from my school. They just got a bid at Bronx and so we're hoping that they get another one, and that they come back from Illinois with good news tomorrow!</p>
<p>Most of the policy debaters come from poor schools in NJ, whereas the rich schools do almost strictly speech debate and LD. It's ironic how that works out because I am almost convinced that policy is so much harder and paper/research loaded.</p>
<p>and Texas is definitely a policy debate force.</p>
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@eatingfood- Well, you aren't exactly from an inner city school either...
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<p>Dearest, I never said that I was from an inner city school. In fact, I specifically said the following:</p>
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have had family members who attend inner city schools - or at the very least, work with some of these kids.
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<p>Both of which I have! I've also, like I said spent a great deal of my life in DC and LA and ALL of my family lives there. So I think I have at least a vague idea of what I'm talking about.</p>
<p>Lol- Sry, I didn't read the entire thread, just sort of skimmed it. I just know several people from your school and noticed the name. :)</p>
<p>But my opinion still stands :)</p>
<p>"Dearest" is kind of patronizing. If I were a feminist...</p>
<p>lol...just wanted to lighten the mood. ;)</p>
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"Dearest" is kind of patronizing. If I were a feminist...
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<p>:( I thought it was a term of endearment.</p>
<p>I agree with eating food, though I used to consider myself a staunch feminist. :P
Though I'd find it weird for a guy to use it to another guy.</p>
<p>lol, pianista.</p>
<p>i apologize, eatingfood. I just witnessed a recent spat between a friend of mine (girl) and her worst enemy (boy) battle it out about feminism. "Dearest" is just as good as any ole' word but I'd hate to see my friend read this. lol.</p>
<p>Haha- In middle school, actually the same year that I had that philosophy professor, I duked it out with a guy about how many girls would be on our frisbee team... He originally promised me 5 girls, so I rounded 5 girls from my hall, and then he reduced it to 2, the minimum number of girls, in an effort to "better" the team. We ended up forming a seperate team and doing pretty well :)</p>
<p>I embrace the feminists. They make this <3 go like this :)</p>
<p>Everyone who is accepted to Yale is qualified; why? Because Yale says so; and they get to decide that. </p>
<p>And once a certain threshold is reached, for example 2000+ on the SAT 4. whatever gpa, A's in whatever number (7?) of APs and EC's of distinction; EVERYONE is qualified; it is then up to the school to figure out what kind of class they want for THEIR organizational goals. </p>
<p>Likely it is doubtful that they are going to admit 1900 Asian students with perfect 2400's and 4.0s taking the maximum APs in their school. They could but they won't. They won't admit the 1900 best black students either. They're building a class that they think is best for YALE!</p>
<p>get over it!</p>
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It should weigh heavily (for example, it makes no sense to me that a very wealthy mediocre black/hispanic/asian student should get a spot over a very deserving poor white student simply because of their race).
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<p>Asians aren't URM's. AA makes it to where you compete with your race. White people compete with whites, blacks compete with blacks, asians compete with asians. Which do you think is the hardest?</p>
<p>I think some of you guys are missing the point. A wealthy black is still always going to hampered by the fact that he/she is black. Or, as Kanye West so eloquently put things in the song All Falls Down, "even if you in a benz, you still a (n-word) in a coupe." I can still come up with a 100 contemporary situations where active racism still occurs, regardless of wealth or status. You guys can point out famous people or even people who you know have "overcome their blackness" by rising to the top and becoming wealthy, or who "act white", but the fact of the matter is that you know them, and the public knows them, but in the eyes of a racist police officer or judge or stranger on the street, they're just a black person. Affirmative action (which I don't fully understand, so I will quote the Wikipedia definition) was created in order to "redress negative effects of actual or perceived, past or current discrimination." If more blacks are admitted to these top universities, which admittedly, some wouldn't without AA (look at the UC's), they will hopefully rise further and further up the ranks of society (see Barack Obama :)) and this will hopefully (along with the passing away of the old codgers of the racist days) move America to become a post-race society. The means of doing this- by giving blacks a small benefit in admissions- may not make everyone happy right now, but in 20 years or so, hopefully we will realize that the benefits outweigh the negatives.</p>
<p>Eating food, my school has a total of 400 people (my graduating class is less than 100), we had one AP last year, and that's not offered any more (it was AP Chem).</p>
<p>All the AP's I took were tests that I studied for on my own. I didn't have prep classes, I didn't have tutoring. </p>
<p>I'm a racial minority in an all white town, three of my classmates are in prison for methamphetamine related crimes. (Google "Meth Valley" - 60 minutes did a story on us, lol)</p>
<p>How about this for merit: The quality of the schooling someone has had access to is measured against their performance.
I have five 5's on APs, high 700's and one 800 in SAT IIs (M IIC, phys, chem), top ten, international chem olympiad, etc..., my SAT score is 760 Verb 740 Math 740 writing nonsense</p>
<p>My school has been on federal watch lists since 'no child left behind' came into effect.</p>
<p>That's right - my school is so crappy that the most poorly applied standards ever are too high for it to meet and it gets threatened with funding cuts as a result. (Budget of 15 million dollars between one high school and 3 elementary schools for 2007) </p>
<p>THAT should be compared to what I've achieved, not the "race" that gets tacked onto my name.</p>
<p>And that's how merit should be measured for everyone.</p>
<p>If you go to a public school in south DC and you do incredibly well, yeah, I think you should go to a kickass school, in fact, a better one than someone who did comparably so AND went to, I dunno, Buckingham Browne and Nichols. </p>
<p>What I have a problem with is "race" being used as a factor to assume what opportunities people did or did not have. Using race to judge someone's situation without a complete knowledge of who they are is racial prejudice - I don't care who it helps or hurts.</p>
<p>That's my stand, and that's what I think; if you really have a problem with it, PM me and I'd be glad to discuss some alternative with you. A forum like this isn't convenient for constructive debate. (What with response lag and all)</p>
<p>Amen. You're the kind of person I believe in, collegehopeful.</p>
<p>Collegehopfull:</p>
<p>1) I think it's pointless to use one's own life as an example during a debate because while you might be relevant to the topic, you're only one person. So great! You've achieved lovely things and you should definitely be rewarded for that regardless of whatever race you may be! But we're talking about the greater world here, not just you.</p>
<p>2) Read Princessbell's most recent post.</p>
<p>Collegehopefull,</p>
<p>Congrats! (And I don't mean it sarcastically :)). I agree with you that that is how merit should be counted. And, personally, I think that everyone in your situation should, and does, get into good schools (hopefully I'm not being naive). At this point, it's not really about your race, it's about the fact that you did well in a disadvantaged environment. People, however, are still going to blame it on you being a URM.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, not everyone is able to accomplish all you have. And that's not necessarily their fault. When you grow up, for example, in decrepit inner cities with crappy schools and a horrendous environment, it's not so easy to just do well. I personally believe that if education in the U.S. was equal (that is, if everyone actually had the same opportunities), I think AA would not be needed. I don't think that 40 years of "legal equality" is enough for this to happen. I do believe that if more people of color make it to positions of power, this will change and AA won't be needed.</p>
<p>Once again, however, I don't think AA is the issue.</p>
<p>mk i'm also gonna add some poopz onto this:</p>
<p>As was previously stated, affirmative action practices are not "taking spots" away from people of other races. The racial makeup of college classes (at least at the ivies) has remained relatively constant for the past 10 years or so - meaning that they're simply attempting to get the BEST of every race which colleges have every right to do. The fact that a black kid with a 1900 SAT may get in over a 2300 Asian is upsetting, but it's all relative. Maybe that Asian person wasn't the best of the 10000 Asians that applied, but the black person was of the other black people who applied. And isn't that the point of admissions? Paraphrasing what you so eloquently said collegehopefull, shouldn't colleges be getting the very best? Well that's precisely what they're doing, just in a way that simultaneously creates DIVERSITY - pure, blatant, obvious, superficially apparent DIVERSITY. This mean that your education will be filled not only with SMART people, but smart people of DIFFERENT races! Isn't that great?!</p>
<p>Remember that statistic that says something to the tune of "90% of our applicants can do the work"? Well to me, that sounds like just about 90% of all people are adequately QUALIFIED to attend these ivy league schools. That means that in addition to having the very smartest people around, you're also having the most intelligent people of different races around you - contributing new points of views that you likely wouldn't get were your dorm/classroom filled with 94% Asians/White New Englanders as they likely would be were affirmative action practices not set in place.</p>
<p>
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What I have a problem with is "race" being used as a factor to assume what opportunities people did or did not have. Using race to judge someone's situation without a complete knowledge of who they are is racial prejudice - I don't care who it helps or hurts.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I hardly think that admissions officers are just arbitrarily assuming what background people come from. You should give them a bit more credit than that, my love. Take me or princessbell, for example [notice I'm using TWO different people!]:</p>
<p>We are both black students who very obviously come from [relatively] privileged backgrounds. The admissions officers will know by what school we attend, our parents' level of education (we each have yale alums in our families) and current jobs, and even more tellingly our CSS profiles that we are not living in the ghetto. Additionally, to my knowledge, neither of us used fee waivers to pay our application costs (a service afforded to anyone in need, REGARDLESS of race). So basically what I'm trying to say is, if your concerned with people like us trying to pass off like we live in poverty OR about admissions officers thinking that way, don't be, because we're not and they won't.</p>
<p>Sweetheart, life isn't fair sometimes - nor are college admissions necessarily (from an objective standpoint). But look at it from a different prospective for a bit. Take a glance at some of these decisions threads! There are MANY white and asian applicants who were accepted who have been objectively less qualified than the minority applicants who were rejected or waitlisted. Granted this happens on college confidential much less often, but rest assured it does happen a great deal in real life. Here are two benevolent examples:</p>
<p>1) My sister (yes, she is black, from the same middle class family as I, and has legacy at Yale and Penn) was outright REJECTED from Yale, Princeton, Penn, Stanford, and Harvard (waitlisted at Columbia though, lolz) when she applied to each of those places for college. What's more? The EXACT same thing happened when she applied to law school four years later.</p>
<p>2) A great friend of mine last year, wanted to go to columbia like none other. She was black and had lovely grades, benevolent SAT scores (2210) and interesting ECs (they were actually good from the CC prospective). She too was rejected at columbia. She's happy now at UMD, but still...</p>
<p>Anyway, I guess my point is, not every black person is arbitrarily being accepted by these top colleges. The process sucks for everyone and if your great good enough and deserve it enough, the truth is that things will work out for you in the end. </p>
<p>note: I use Asian as my example not because you, collegehopefull, are Asian, but rather because they're the most convenient example. They're a relatively large group of applicants, and many would say that they're also the most affected by current admissions practices.</p>