My dad thinks I'll get in

Colleges and Universities A-Z Harvard University
101

<p>Sorry, have to say it, but that's the most senseless argument on the topic. Here are three reasons why.</p>

<p>a) You emphasize "AGAIN" as if it is something that has been clearly explained many times. It hasn't. That is why this argument keeps coming up.<br>
b) You act like this argument is exclusive to "Blacks," as if we are targeting "Blacks" again. We are only targeting blacks because they are the prime benificiaries of this system. So, your implication is misguided.
c) You gave me one anecdotal story (which I don't even know is true), and you expect me to think that Blacks, even in terms of EC's, are on par with Asians and whites? unbelievable, honestly. You say that "not ALL" Blacks have EC's that are worse than those of Asians and whites. I never argued that. But MOST Blacks are LESS QUALIFIED than Asians and whites, as the statistics from the Princeton study showed.</p>

<p>Sorry, but your post just hurt your cause. It makes it hard for me to believe that you are in the top of your class.</p>

102

<p>Guys, this is getting ridiculous. It's just like all the subjective arguments that go back and forth between various scholars about this issue. In fact, just because this argument keeps coming back to people repeating the same stuff over and over again, I wrote this little parody of it, hopefully to display just how silly it's starting to sound:</p>

<p>Your Fault</p>

<p>To the tune of the same name from Sondheim’s “Into the Woods.”</p>

<p>(The scene: A group of affirmative action ADVOCATES are arguing against a group of conservative DETRACTORS about who is at fault for the lack of black advancement. Among them are Shelby STEELE, Henry Louis GATES, Al SHARPTON, John MCWHORTER, Stephan THERNSTROM and Jesse JACKSON)</p>

<p>ADVOCATES (spoken)
It’s because you that racism still exists and we need affirmative action!</p>

<p>STEELE
But it isn’t our fault,</p>

<p>MCWHORTER
I was brilliant in school</p>

<p>BOTH
And we will not take
Your bellyaching
About school,
How it’s all ‘too white’
And schools hate your race,
Because schools tried to help you in the first place!</p>

<p>JACKSON
Wait a minute,
You think our freedoms were restored?
You’re all Uncle Toms and racial traitors who’re adored
By our cracker foes!
True blacks are abhorred</p>

<p>THERNSTROM
Then explain why white men ruled for you in Brown v. Board!
See, it’s your fault!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
No!
It’s the whites’ fault!</p>

<p>DETRACTORS
No!</p>

<p>ADVOCATES
Yes, it is!</p>

<p>DETRACTORS
********!</p>

<p>STEELE
It’s guilt!
That’s the whole point,
And you only get to scream and cry because of
White guilt!</p>

<p>THERNSTROM
So it’s our fault?!</p>

<p>STEELE
Yes!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
No, it isn’t.
We are being kept down!</p>

<p>THERNSTROM
Oh, that’s all old news!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
It’s all the fault of Asians, Whites and dirty Jews!</p>

<p>STEELE
Jews don’t make such noise,
And they’re like our case,
Yet you don’t hear this **** from their race!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
Oh, then it’s our fault!
No!</p>

<p>DETRACTORS
Yes, it’s your fault!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
No!</p>

<p>DETRACTORS
Yes, this war’s all yours!</p>

<p>GATES
Nonsense.</p>

<p>Wait a minute,
Yes, we have culture problems, that may be
But those problems are from society</p>

<p>STEELE
It’s all ‘cause of liberal hypocrisy
About our race!</p>

<p>MCWHORTER
It’s our race.</p>

<p>THERNSTROM
Yes, that’s true.</p>

<p>JACKSON
No, it stems from whitey’s schemes!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
From whitey’s schemes!</p>

<p>GATES
From whitey’s schemes!</p>

<p>ADVOCATES
Let’s blame it all on whitey’s schemes!</p>

<p>STEELE
No, we shouldn’t!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
Yes, we should!</p>

<p>JACKSON
So it’s your f—</p>

<p>THERNSTROM
No, it isn’t,
‘Cause we give you all you like!
So it’s your f—</p>

<p>JACKSON
No, it isn’t!</p>

<p>STEELE
So whose is it?</p>

<p>JACKSON
Now you’re in it!
What about those folks in that Durham town
Where those rapists from the whiteys’ school kept black girls down?</p>

<p>THERNSTROM
She was telling lies, any fool can see
That those players’ names
Were free of blame –
They weren’t guilty!
So it’s your fault!</p>

<p>JACKSON
But they weren’t—</p>

<p>DETRACTORS
See, it’s your fault!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
But she wasn’t—</p>

<p>DETRACTORS
Yes, it’s your fault!
It’s not the whites’ at all!</p>

<p>ADVOCATES
But—</p>

<p>DETRACTORS
What?</p>

<p>SHARPTON
Well, if Jews didn’t take our dough away –
They’re like vultures!</p>

<p>MCWHORTER
It’s our culture!
That’s all I can say!</p>

<p>JACKSON
There are racists in this country!
That won’t go away!</p>

<p>GATES
’Cause the problem at this point isn’t our race!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
It’s Jews, man!</p>

<p>MCWHORTER
You’re all a bunch of demagogues!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
All demagogues?!
That statement leaves me agog!</p>

<p>STEELE
It’s true, though.</p>

<p>SHARPTON
No, it isn’t!</p>

<p>DETRACTORS
So it’s your fault!</p>

<p>SHARPTON
Wait a minute!</p>

<p>STEELE
If you weren’t demagogues—</p>

<p>SHARPTON
And you weren’t racist uncle Toms—</p>

<p>SHARPTON and STEELE
We wouldn’t have such problems stuck with our race—</p>

<p>THERNSTROM
Well, if you didn’t ruin things for your race—</p>

<p>JACKSON
It’s all your fault!</p>

<p>GATES
Well, if you weren’t racists towards our race—</p>

<p>SHARPTON
Right! You’re all just racists towards our race—</p>

<p>STEELE
You’re condescending towards our race!</p>

<p>MCWHORTER
It’s your fault!</p>

<p>ALL (screaming at each other)
You’re responsible!
You’re the racist here!
It’s your fault!</p>

<p>Oh, and by the way: Yes, I realize I contributed to this mess of arguments, but I regret it. It's just like yubi and I agreed: this is just too bloody subjective.</p>

103

<p>From the article:</p>

<br>


<br>

<p>Maybe so...but not because of Black History Month and black teachers, as the article implies. It's because now professional and working blacks have moved out of the inner cities (where they were forced to remain in the 50's). The only people left in the inner city today are the least educated, and they only interact with one another. So the huge difference between the 50's and now? There's a substantial black middle class in the suburbs, and 60's liberalism has a great deal to do with that. But somehow Will doesn't think that's relevant to the analysis.</p>

104

<p>OP,
You have a chance to get into Harvard. You certainly are the equivalent of the 85% of Harvard applicants who qualify for admission.</p>

<p>No one, however, can say that your admission is guaranteed. I've seen National Merit scholars who are African American and sal or vals from strong high schools be rejected while students of all races with lower stats were accepted.</p>

105

<p>Canaday - you're amazing! I can't believe you actually wrote lyrics to the entire song!!! I was in that play last year so I was sang the words in my head as I went - hehe, unfortunately I wasn't actually IN that song so I don't know it all that well. Anyways, kudos for your songwriting skills. I haven't been keeping up on this discussion, though, so I'm not making any on-topic comments. Heh. Sorry.</p>

<p>It's the last midnight...</p>

<p>Crap, now I'll have ItW songs stuck in my head all night.</p>

106

<p>Awww...now I'm blushing, lavender. :)</p>

<p>Yeah, that's what happens when you spend most of the second semester of your junior year writing a musical...lyricizing is addictive. Sorry to get the song stuck in your head.</p>

107

<p>I think you will hear from H. shortly.</p>

108

<p>Why are there posts started with the OP's screen name </p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=3407479%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/search.php?searchid=3407479&lt;/a> </p>

<p>that variously have the OP saying he/she is a black MALE or even an Egyptian? What's the reality of this situation?</p>

109

<p>I smell a troll.</p>

<p>And Byerly, what gives you the impression that I'll be hearing from Harvard? I was under the impression that the decisions are made at the end of the month.</p>

110

<p>OK, can someone tell me what the average SAT score for minorities is for getting into these colleges? To me, I don't see it being any lower than 2100, 2050 at the dead lowest. And a 2100 does still link to a higher score than about 98% of the population. So outside of the pool, I doubt anyone is underqualified, though admittedly less qualified. And even within the pool, a person who is a 2000 (and did better than 95% of the population (assuming this test is still normal)), how is this system so so flawed. I mean someone who is doing better than only about 3 or 4 percent of population between me and them does not seem to be that much more qualified. Just a thought. But the main thing is still what the average minority score is.</p>

111

<p>I'm not sure...for some reason, Harvard won't release that data...1,575,979 students took the SAT in 2005. First of all, 2000 is, by my experience, a high estimate of what the average black student gets, but lets use it. 5% of 1,575,979 is around 79,000. So, by Harvard's standards, that isn't much of an accomplishment at all! And a difference of 2% is 32,000 students! and a difference of 3% is even more! SO, if minorities have a score that is 2-3% points lower than other students' scores (on average), there is still a BIG gap between them in terms of the number of American students between them.</p>

112

<p>btw, my source is </p>

<p><a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2005/2005-college-bound-seniors.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2005/2005-college-bound-seniors.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

113

<p>Ok progatsby. I officially went through all of hte entries in the Official EA thread and averaged the results. Surprisingly, there were very few entries under accepted and a lot of just chatter, but I STILL took the time to average all of the statistics. I separated the groups into Asian male/female, White male/female, and Minority male/female. Minorities included Native Americans, Blacks, Hispanics, or Mixed students. Forgeign exchange students, unless I was sure of their race, I did not average in. Old SAT scores were converted if information about the writing section was not given. ACT scores were converted using a conversion table. Here are my results, and you can check them yourself if you would like or I can send you the spreadsheet: White female: 2218.75; White male: 2298.88; Minority Female: 2230; Minority Male (the most surprising): 2305; Asian Female: 2193; Asian Male: 2308.889. So on the whole men did better than women. And the scores went Asians, minorities, to whites. Now of course on that board there were very few scoring minorities for some reason, and CCers likely have higher scores on the average, but in Harvard at least, the whole minorities with lower scores does not seem totally true. I am from Georgia and am a black minority. For those who got in, and I have talked to 4 of the 6 of us, the lowest one had a 2170.</p>

<p>I'm going to do a different college's thread and see if I can get more reasonable results (becuase I know that the average score for minorities is not higher than the one for whites, so we don't have to argue that later on), but let me continue and see. If anyone would like the spreadsheet, send me an email at <a href="mailto:materrel@fas.harvard.edu">materrel@fas.harvard.edu</a>.</p>

114

<p>OK I have the Yale statistics too from their EA thread. Yale does seem to place a lot more weight on the SAT scores: White Female: 2330; White Male: 2263.75; Minority Female: 2228; Minority Male: 2191.25; Asian Female: 2352; Asian Male: 2360. So for Yale, the minority statistic is lower, though I would not say significantly. With these scores, we have at most 2% difference, which could still be big, but as we all know, SAT scores don't mean all. I personally after going to many admit weekends am yet to see huge numbers of minorities who scored significantly lower than white/asian counterparts. Most I have met have been in the 2100s and low 2200s with 2300s and 2000s being more sporadic. Again, I believe these results are somewhat skewed, especially noting that the number of minorities who seem to get in at Yale is exactly the same as just whites, but with a higher number of minorities reporting there score, that just adds credibility to the average score not being so low. Since many say that Princeton is the worse with these scores. I am going to do them now.</p>

115

<p>Hey, thanks for compiling these statistics. I must say, I'm surprised that the scores were so close (I did not see this in my experience at Princeton, but that might have been a subjective bias).</p>

<p>All the same, a 2% difference IS significant, as I noted in my post above. I don't think the difference can be explained by factoring EC's in, because, for that to be accurate, the EC's of minorities would have to be "32,000 students" higher than those of Asians and whites (if you don't understand the units I have used, look at post 112) to make up for the difference in SAT scores on average.</p>

<p>Also, if any group did have lower SAT scores, wouldn't you also think they would be hesitant to post them? ESPECIALLY on a site that vigorously debates issues of race (ie they might think they are contributing a poor statistic to this argument)?</p>

116

<p>
[quote]
Also, if any group did have lower SAT scores, wouldn't you also think they would be hesitant to post them? ESPECIALLY on a site that vigorously debates issues of race (ie they might think they are contributing a poor statistic to this argument)?

[/quote]
if they got in, then why would they be hesitant to post their score? when i got into Harvard, i didn't hesitate to post my stats because, quite frankly, i was excited about getting in. i gave absolutely no thought to how i might (or might not) contribute to future minority qualification debates.</p>

117

<p>Princeton's Statistics. White Female: 2228.571; White Male: 2297.222; Minority Female (based on one applicant): 2000; Minority Male: 2237.5; Asian Female: 2298.75; Asian Male: 2236.5. So in this case, Minority males outscored Asian Males. Pro.gatsby, I agree that many low scoring minorities would not post their scores, but then I do believe that many low scoring whites and Asians would not post their score either. I do believe there is a difference in score, and I would even say it may be 100 points from these different looks, but I still don't see anyone being underqualified. Further for the argument about EC's being over 32,000 students, all of those people do not necessarily apply to these top schools as I know many who are content with taking full rides at state universities. And even for the rest who do not have the ECs taken care of in between; there are several other groups to blame. Blame every person in your race with a lower SAT score; blame legacies; blame athletes; blame minorities; blame the college. I think people here take too much time looking at the SAT scores rather than looking at the whole applicant. Minorities probably now and for a long time into the future will get in with a higher admit rate because as previous people said, great minorities are rarer. And for the college, we can't really say whether they are taking the most qualified applicant or not because who they take s technically to them the most qualified applicant. I just think there is a lot more to the process than we all know. While in a perfect world colleges should just look for the best applicants, in this world, they won't. They are going to look for a group of people to make their college class the way they want it. Nobody but the college can choose this. Harvard, if it wanted to become a party school, would change there application to an application where they saw how much you could party. Harvard, if it wanted to become an Asian school, could choose only Asians. Harvard could choose any criteria it wanted to make whatever college it decided, and as applicants we could do nothing because we do not make the college. So whether we want to say if this is fair or not, it does not matter because none of us knows exactly how they do accept people. To hit another note, when people note qualified here they mean that people would be able to do the work at the college, not that they were more qualified coming out of high school. At Harvard, I think anyone with higher than a 1900 or 2000 could feasably handle the work if they wanted to and do reasonably well. Why? Becuase a lot of the work we do in college will be book knowledge and stuff that we are taught. Nothing on the SAT is directly taught to us. There is not a fully exhaustive list of ideas we should know for the test. The SAT measures something, I don't think I can pinpoint it yet, but I am pretty sure it does not measure how well you will do at Harvard or Princeton. And one more thing (sorry about the ramble). If only the top applicants did get in, even without looking at race, legacy, blah blah, Harvard would be academic hell, especially noting that MANY of the classes are graded on a curve. The last reason is likely the weakest, but Harvard likely still chooses it to be that way. That is just my piece. I would love to continue this conversation when the next post comes!</p>

118

<p>I agree hotpiece with you too.</p>

119

<p>@friedfun</p>

<p>did u really go through all the posts to calculate the average??? isnt that WAY to much work??? well... i dont mean to diminish ur efforts, but i dont think collecting material from forums is gonna get u representative results... the thing is that u need A LOT of material to do realistic calculations, the ones u did r obviously way above the average for all groups... more realistically i think:
average white applicant 2200
average asian applicant 2210
average URM 2000</p>

<p>dont get me wrong, I have a LOT OF RESPECT for ur efforts, i just think that they might create a wrong picture of the issue... and actually i think CC posters r usually above the average college applicant, since they show a lot of interest for their admissions chances, and i've noticed that theres a huge asian crowd... so probably the few URM posters on CC r execptionally strong their ethnic group... again, I'm not trying to belittle ur efforts...</p>

120

<p>friedfun--I'm a little confused about your stats. Were you only looking at the official EA thread as you said? I went through it and I only saw 3 minority males (who had very good scores) and no minority females, so I'm not sure where you got your minority female stats from (but maybe I missed one or two). Did you mean that you looked at the RD thread as well for your stats?</p>