My Story (Rant). Am I wrong to be bitter?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
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<p>I have spent the past hour reading this thread from beginning to end and I am amazed. 23 years ago, I applied to Penn. All of my teachers told me it was a long shot. Some even asked why? I was a 4.0 student; in the top ten of my class; why not? So I ignored them and I applied.</p>

<p>I got in and was so excited to be the first person from my family to go to college and an ivy to boot. Penn invited all of the first gen students, mostly minorities, to campus early where we took our tours, spoke to professors, sat in on classes. It was a fun two weeks.</p>

<p>Then the other students arrived and it was clear, early on, that the perception was that we were there because we were minorities. All our accomplishments, gpas, test scores, rank, no longer mattered. We took a spot from someone’s girlfriend, best friend, or name any white person who didn’t get in that year. It was a terrible feeling for a 17 year old from a small town and not at all what I expected. </p>

<p>I think the adcomms do the best they can with a tremendous number of qualified applicants. As far as I’m concerned they knew more about me then the guy in Bio class who very loudly and rudely joked amongst his friends about what a break I got. It was the other students and parents and even a few professors who made an effort to make me feel I didn’t belong there because I was black. The fact that we are still having this same argument over 20 years later, with my daughter applying to college in a couple of years saddens me. </p>

<p>I’m on this forum because she has expressed an interest in Stanford but if times realy haven’t changed that much in 20 years maybe we should look at a few HBCU universities as well.</p>

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<p>@ Amazhon
 While I understand your frustration, I also think that you should let your D pursue a degree at a top university regardless of what people’s perceptions may be. My S just got accepted to Stanford and I could care less what others say. We are hispanic and live in a socio-economically depressed area. The average ACT score nation-wide is 21 and in our area is a 17. His ACT score was a 34 and may not be as high as some people rejected but is exceptional considering that most teachers teach to the level of their students
 I should know since I am a high school teacher. Don’t get me wrong, he has some good stats: Salutatorian of his class, National Merit Scholar, 13 AP’s taken, President of various clubs, internship at NASA for the summer, etc., etc
 However, if he got an extra boost because he is hispanic, then so be it. Thing is, I know he belongs there and just like you earned your place, has he earned it so the heck with what others say or believe. </p>

<p>I hope your D gets into a great program and you should always be proud of your accomplishments.</p>

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<p>@tripletime
First congratulations to your S. I am sure I may be speaking from frustration, but the feelings of not being welcomed at a place where you worked so hard to get to and to have that hard work questioned and invalidated
well I guess those wounds haven’t completely healed. Rest assured, I’m happy if it’s Stanford or the state school around the corner, but I want her to be happy. It angers me that we are still having this discussion. I feel empathy for any child who didn’t get into their first choice school. It’s a tough process. But, come on people, don’t dismiss an entire race or even socio-economic group as being unqualified because someone saw something in them that they thought would lead to success at that institution.</p>

<p>Have you seen Stanford’s stats? Trust me, these kids are qualified to go anywhere, regardless of who they are or where they came from.</p>

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<p>@ Amazhon I agree
 it is unfortunate that this discussion is still taking place. Change takes place slowly sometimes. Take care, God Bless, and thanks for the congrats to my S.</p>

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<p>[Behind</a> The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR](<a href=“Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR”>Behind The Scenes: How Do You Get Into Amherst? : NPR)</p>

<p>truly a Lottery.</p>

<p>Hopefully more colleges will become more transparent.</p>

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<p>Amazhon, I unlike you, did not read through this whole thread, but I will say that actually, things have changed and overall, for the better. Why do I say this? I think it’s because now if someone has been insulted, there is the opportunity to take issue in a public way on the internet. I’m referring to YouTube, blogging, etc. It’s amazing what democracy is all about, and the internet is definitely democratic when it comes to the ability to voice one’s opinion. Young and old can push back against this sort of mistreatment if they have the willingness to do so, and I would hope that someone like your child has that willingness.</p>

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<p>DD, also is accepted to Stanford. When she visits she will be on the lookout for any of the “hangups” I’ve read about in this forum (not just this thread). Hopefully, these hangups only exist in the minds of the CC community, and not at Stanford. If she spots ANY of the hangups as read in this forum, she’ll attend one of her Ivy options.</p>

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<p>The OP was right to be confused and disappointed. And the arguments put forth by her many supporters are, in the main, correct.</p>

<p>Listen: sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; and all the long-winded rationalization in the world about the holy grail of “diversity” and subjective parsing of the “holistic” nature of student applications won’t remove the rather unpleasant smell that has been emanating from college admissions offices for quite some time now.</p>

<p>As freezing beast suggests, there is no level playing field in place here - at Stanford, or any of the top schools. Social engineering by stealth is taking place, just as it was in the past under the feel good rubric of affirmative action. When that policy was proven unconstitutional, it merely went underground – and no matter what your opinion of it happens to be, to deny that it is going on is delusional.</p>

<p>As I read the many people on this thread bending themselves into pretzels trying to defend or obfuscate the indefensible, I am reminded of the stellar writings of Thomas Sowell on education in the US, and Victor Davis Hanson’s 30+ years of experience as a professor within the California post-secondary system. As Hanson put it recently:</p>

<p>“I know that UC Berkeley is worried about diversity since Blacks and Latinos are under represented (as are whites) while Asians are vastly “overrepresented.” And I think I understand how such proportional representation will eventually be achieved by various ministries, and all contrary to state law: the underrepresented whites will be assumed to be overrepresented; the Asians will be quietly and insidiously pruned back by considering “community service” in preference to grades and test scores, and far more African-Americans and Latinos will be admitted by rejecting unfair criteria such as meaningless grades and test scores—and that all this—not science or the humane arts—will be mostly the business of the architects of undergraduate education. The alternatives? They are too ghastly to contemplate. Just let things alone, and the underrepresented communities will decide on their own why they are not going to college in sufficient numbers, and take self-help measures to the degree they see it as a problem—or shrug and admit that the ministries are using archaic neo-Confederate racial criteria in a mixed-up, intermarried world where one needs a genealogist to plot one’s precise racial ancestry.”</p>

<p>Couldn’t have said it better myself.</p>

<p>As Sowell says: "All of this is politics. If you were serious about helping blacks and other minorities, you would try to get them some decent education long before they reached the college level. But that would require upsetting the status quo with things like vouchers. More to the point, it would upset the teachers’ union that supplies millions of dollars in campaign contributions. Politicians find it more expedient to sacrifice the education of another generation of minority students and offer the symbolism of getting them into the kinds of colleges where their poor preparation almost ensures that most are going to fail.</p>

<p>Minority students need a realistic prospect of succeeding at places like the University of California at Irvine until such time as they get the kind of education that would enable them to succeed at Berkeley and UCLA. If that kind of education means stepping on the toes of the teachers’ union, so be it."</p>

<p>Pretend all you want, folks, but AA is still going on. And it’s not only patently unfair to people such as the OP’s daughter and millions of others like her, the law of unintended consequences means that it often results in outcomes contrary to the original purpose.</p>

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<p>Enkephalon, you dare quote Hanson and Sowell ? Here in this pantheon of grandly Correct Thought? What is next? Slipping in some Hayek or Von Mises into Berkeley’s Mayday fest? Placing Colonel West into a General Powell fetschrift? Sending Milton to give the speech at Thomas’ birthday party? Reenact Reagan at the Berlin Wall, at a Soros celebration? Why, comrade, might as well be a Solzhenitsyn and “Crimson” up a Harvard commencement with some obscenely inconvenient Veritas.</p>

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<p>Igor and Enk . . . isn’t is all that, and this thread, over?</p>

<p>Thought so.</p>

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<p>Cool Running: I, and presumably Enkephalon, are not judge and jury over this thread and when it should die. That kind of self-annointed grandeur I leave to you
 As for “isn’t is all that
over” well, crikey comrade/comradess, it depends on what isn’t isn’t
capisce? </p>

<pre><code> To go back to the original point of this thread, the poor guy was not wrong to be bitter.
</code></pre>

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<p>^ the reason is that it’s been 9 pages, everything has been said, it’s controversial, and people would rather see the topic die. That happens on message boards (which you’ll see when you’ve been here a bit longer).</p>

<p>Nobody said AA wasn’t going on, ekephalon, but some of us realize that there are complexities in the admissions process which can’t be broken down into one single factor. Others’ views, unlike yours, reflect the realities of this, grounded in actual data and facts. I could just as easily say, “Pretend all you want, but socioeconomic factors are more important”–see what kind of impact a weak statement like that has?</p>

<p>Of course the OP has every right to be bitter. Everyone who’s rejected has that right (I don’t think they should, but they have the right to be). Unfortunately, even if she got in, there would be thousands of other cases of students and their parents who are bitter. Even if Stanford completely eliminated every advantage in admissions, there would still be thousands upon thousands of students who would find some way to justify their bitterness of being rejected. That’s just what happens when close to 1 in 20 students are accepted. It’s inevitable.</p>

<p>But remember what the OP’s essential argument is: “affirmative action may have stopped my qualified daughter from getting in! But I’m even more mad at Stanford for not giving her the unfair advantage it supposedly gives to legacy applicants!” She’s completely fine with unfair admissions, so long as her daughter can benefit from them (it’s also worthwhile to note that her daughter is biracial, and no matter the makeup of the biracial student, they get the same or similar boost as other URMs–biracial students are very underrepresented). So let’s not lavish the OP with too much sympathy. If she were whining about not getting a legacy boost in another thread, people on this site would have torn her to shreds. They’re vicious. She’s lucky to have gotten so many nice responses with encouragement. Her type of post is not typically well-received.</p>

<p>The most she could complain about Stanford is that it made them overconfident in her chances–not Stanford’s fault, because it didn’t lie (they just didn’t have the sense to realize that legacy applicants are always going to get in at higher rates, because they tend to be among the most privileged applicants). And so her main complaint is that they were too confident and were disappointed–hardly something to warrant sympathy.</p>

<p>The only sympathy deserved here is over rejection
 and even then, that was 2 years ago.</p>

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<p>Several questions</p>

<p>As noted above, the essay means as much at Stanford as grades (the Dean wrote a paper several years ago on this).</p>

<p>As a legacy, your D had two readers (instead of the usual one) - so two advocates positive or negative.</p>

<p>It your friend was a legacy and active (either money or volunteer) = “super legacy”, the Dean reads the application too (= 3 readers).</p>

<p>There are many variables. I was admitted in 1974 where it was about a 27% admission rate. I probably could not have gotten in today.</p>

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<p>as to AA
Private schools may do it, but the California State Schools cannot after several Court rulings.</p>

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<p>Amazhon I identify so much with your posts. It’s so jarring how this cycle continues . . .</p>

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<p>I’ll say it again. 4.0. Top 10 in my class, NHS, Gifted Program. Volunteered when volunteerism wasn’t “cool” yet. I just wanted to work in a hospital even if they didn’t pay me. Yet many apparently would still believe my golden ticket to going ivy is because I was black. How dare I work that hard to steal someone else’s spot who deserved to be there much more than I apparently did.</p>

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<p>Personally I don’t feel like anyone is trying to take away my accomplishments because I am black and do not feel that people look down on me for getting into Stanford at all. Ranked #2 in my class with a 4.3, captain of my JV volleyball team, editor in chief for the school paper, lead editor for the lit mag, the only student representative on curriculum panel, a member of student council, involved in community service every saturday, played piano since the age of five, guitar since the age of 12, and clarinet since the age of 9, Multiple National Qualifier in LD, CX, and Extemporaneous speaking over my four years in high school, Teacher for inner city students in the summers while I attend college Universities, and a member of a renowned Denver ski club in the winter, on top of taking all AP’s and honors courses since my sophomore year, and attending one of the top two private high schools in my state, I doubt very seriously that anyone thinks I got in because I am black. I worked for this. I didn’t get into Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Vanderbilt, Rice, and UVA because I am black. I got in because I put in the effort.
I personally appreciate the way colleges do not put everyone at the same level. Honestly, how can you compare an applicant who is from a wealthy family to a applicant from the slums of the city who has to work to make sure his family can eat? If both have the same gpa, tests scores and extra curriculars, it should be apparent that the less advantaged should have the slot: they put in more EFFORT. I hate bringing up the race card but think of it this way - not even 50 years ago, AA were fighting for basic rights. Doesn’t it make sense to allow AA (most of whom did not have the same advantages) to have a tie breaking edge in order to even out economic imbalances, social imbalances, etc. ? Obviously an AA who is from a wealthy family should not be placed above a WASP male from a poor background - which is again why I hate focusing on race as an example, but since people seem to be fixated on this I brought it up. Yes, I understand everyone’s frustration, whatever side you may support, but really, it must be apparent why colleges cannot rank people based off of extra curriculars, gpa’s, and test scores.</p>

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<p>^ exactly. Don’t let any bitter student or parent make you think or feel that your race has anything to do with your accomplishments. You deserved to get into these schools. Unfortunately, though you may not have run across them, these people do exist. It’s just more comforting to those rejected to think that they didn’t get in for something they couldn’t control (like race), rather than face the rather uncomfortable reality that they just weren’t qualified enough.</p>

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<p>Well stated. I agree.</p>

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<p>^^^so glad you didn’t let anyone steal your thunder. I wish I had that experience, but hopefully my daughter will. Looking back a lot of this does seem to be parent issues, not student issues. I hope most students embrace their fellow classmates and learn from each other. Best of luck to you and thanks for sharing.</p>