<p>@logicx24, Yes, you’re right. Even if I was accepted to Columbia, I would still be very confident that Asians are the most discriminated. Either way, Asians would always be the discriminated ones for their ethnic values of hard working and high achieving. But it would be very irritating if some people call the rejected Asians inferior in their application to other accepted URM’s application. There is certainly some people like them as we can witness from some ppl in CC</p>
<p>“The fact stands that an Asian applicant must score much higher on their SATs and must be much more involved in extracurriculars than applicants from any other race/ethnicity (including whites).”</p>
<p>Even these things are no longer enough. Asian applicants looking to distinguish themselves from the 2300-or-better SAT and near-perfect GPA pack are eschewing ECs they enjoy in favor of those that appear more exotic. It’s no longer enough to have mastered the violin, tennis and be president of the science club. I find this very unfortunate.</p>
<p>I’m black and I was rejected from Columbia. I know that I’m a great student; my stats aren’t the only things that validate that. If your argument about black students reaping all the benefits held water, then why didn’t I get accepted?..Pretty sure that’s an answer NONE of you can give me. To attack a system that has diversified so many of our colleges, assuming that it’s the reason why you didn’t get in is complete ignorance. Having perfect stats doesn’t make you a candidate for admission–it’s time for those who were rejected to get the hell over it and move on. You will go to college. You will do what you intended to do at Columbia at another institution that wants you.</p>
<p>@SpaceDuck</p>
<p>“You haven’t proven and won’t be able to prove that blacks and other minorities have a huge advantage in college admissions.”</p>
<p>Straight from Wikipedia, there was a study done at Princeton that examined college admissions: they found that Asians scoring 1550 (out of old 1600 point scale) on their SATs had the same admissions chance as a white kid scoring 1410, or African-American scoring 1100, and that, “Whites were three times, Hispanics six times, and blacks more than 15 times as likely to be accepted at a US university as Asian-Americans.” They controlled for “grades, scores, legacy status and whether or not the student was a recruited athlete.”</p>
<p>Affirmative action is a good thing, diversity is a good thing, but it’s true that it is easier for an URM to get accepted to a college than an Asian, all else being equal. It’s just a fact.</p>
<p>Lol at SpaceDuck</p>
<p>You need to listen other’s opinions and reasonings. Just because their ideas are radically different from your, you cannot blame them for their ignorance and lack of understanding. When more than two people point out something, there is always reasons behind it. And it seems like you are the minority in this debate. Your attitude of accusing all others for ignorance and stepping out of the debate only makes you look bad.</p>
<p>I truly find it amusing that some of you have denied the advantage minorities have! It isn’t fair-- never will be. But it’s a fact we all have to get through. </p>
<p>Good luck to all!
Your hard work will pay off</p>
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</p>
<p>Uh…this isn’t AA so I feel okay with responding. </p>
<p>Have you ever taken an economics class? Economics is the exact opposite of a zero-sum game. Taxing the rich to increase the productive capacity of the poor helps everyone — rich and poor. </p>
<p>The poor become enabled to contribute to society, are less likely to commit crimes against richer people, and are able to buy the products that other individuals are selling, providing both rich and poor people a source of income.</p>
<p>Investing in the poor is sound economics, because economics is not a zero-sum game.</p>
<p>Calm down guys. I think many people really don’t care if Affirmative actions exists, but many people, ESPECIALLY asians (and rightfully so), want it understood for what it is. AA increases diversity (which is good) but denying the fact that minorities get an advantage in admissions is just myopic (sat word, haha). That being said, it is not the people who get in because of AA that are to blame, it is this system that replaces one form of racism with another (though not nearly as bad) form of racism. All must deal with it and move one. AA is good to some and bad to others, it isn’t going to change for a while, I think private institutions can discriminate if they want, and I think those Asians that do get in (hope I do!), are going to be glad that AA exists because diversity is a good aspect of college . </p>
<p>My 2 cents.</p>
<p>Aw, screw it. Apparently stepping out of a debate makes someone look bad, rather than more civil.</p>
<p>@clssnr</p>
<p>I’m sorry to hear that. We are in the same boat. What we are saying that blacks are in advantage in admission process. Of course, Columbia is very competitive school and consider lot of other factors. Things students can contribute to their community, the ‘match’ etc. Your case would be similar to other Asians’ cases in which more academically qualified Asian got rejected whereas other Asian got accepted with lower stats. Academic accomplishments are not everything as we can see. There is some values we lack that Columbia apparently appreciate. Blacks have advantage in general admission but it doesn’t mean every smart Black applicants get admitted. But that’s still better than Asians. MOST of smart Asians get rejected due to competitive nature of Asian admission.</p>
<p>@drac313</p>
<p>I couldn’t have said it any better 
</p>
<p>@drac313</p>
<p>You hit the nail on the head, but some want to squelch any discussion of this topic by exaggerating what others have said (most of us seem to be in favor of at least some form of diversity), or vilifying them for expressing reservations about the system as it currently exists.</p>
<p>@Philovitist</p>
<p>I don’t want to get into playing with words. I think my point is straight. It is evident rich would have to sacrifice for the welfare of poor at least in a short term. The effect that comes after taxation not only in long term but also varies. If you have already studied economics as I have, you would know that taxation deprives the motivation to work, hence lowers the productivity which explains lower productivity in socialist states and communist states. I’m not going to keep responding to pointless arguments people bring to defend their opinions.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The problem with this argument and a lot of the others made so far in this thread is that it assumes that African Americans have the same academic experiences as Asians. You guys seem to possess the racially stereotyped schema that blacks perform less exceptionally because they don’t work as hard; in reality, they lack the social fabric that Asians do that makes success to the degree your group has feasible. There aren’t very many “Tiger Moms” who are black at all.</p>
<p>The fact of the matter is that African Americans have to overcome a lot more than Asians have to in order to succeed academically. Their 2100 is just as impressive as an Asian’s 2350 because it takes a lot more effort to achieve with their cultural background. </p>
<p>Imagine how differently you might have performed if you lived in a culture where your parents didn’t encourage you to spend long amounts of time studying and working hard. If your request to take courses at the nearby university elicited a rant about developing common sense and having interests more like “normal kids” — and an implied “hell, no”. Imagine if choosing to emphasize academics in your life meant alienating yourself from everything your culture valued, rather than embodying it.</p>
<p>It’s difficult crap. And if affirmative action made college admissions easier for blacks than it was for asians, you’d see a higher proportion of blacks than asians at ivy league schools. But there isn’t, because even the huge admissions chance boosts that colleges seeking to maintain ethnic diversity give do not begin to counteract the difficulties that trying to be a highly-achieving black person entail.</p>
<p>@Foxfoxfox</p>
<p>That study doesn’t hold water because it’s correlation, not causation within those statistics.</p>
<p>It’s a fact that Asians score higher than any other ethnic/racial group, there are stats to prove that.</p>
<p>But because they generally score higher means they HAD to score higher to get into a selective institution? The answer is no. There are Asians with low scores that still get into there colleges. That’s where that Wikipedia source you quoted from completely flunks.</p>
<p>@HateSMUS and everyone else who disagrees with me</p>
<p>Those on this thread are arguing that high scores and mastery in EC’s will get you into a school.</p>
<p>That isn’t the case, one of the biggest factors is how one will fit into the culture of that school. </p>
<p>If the black kid is found to be more of a fit than the Asian kid, then so be it.</p>
<p>If the Asian kid is deemed a better fit for the school over a black applicant, so be it.</p>
<p>Don’t blame AA for your admissions decisions, it isn’t yours or anyone place to debate whether one person is less qualified after they receive their admissions letter. </p>
<p>That’s where the argument should end and you should congratulation those who got into in, regardless of race, instead of trying to diminish that by saying they had a special privilege working in their favor.</p>
<p>While Philovist’s argument is understandable, getting 2300+SAT as an ESL Asian requires painstaking effort. For Asians whose mother-tongue isn’t English, they would feel unfair because most Blacks whose mother-tongue is English can score less and succeed in admission. Even if those Asians weren’t ESL, studying for very high score in SAT is tough to anyone. Also, while Asians are struggling to get high SAT score, Blacks can spend time on other ECs such as sports. Some Asians just don’t get SAT and fail to perform well in it (like me). Honestly, I understand both sides of the arguments. But the fact Asians need 2300+ SAT and better ECs to stand similar chance with Blacks who have 2100SAT and less impressive ECs, is not debatable.</p>
<p>@SpaceDuck
It’s true that high scores and great ECs won’t guarantee any admission since there are many other factors. But you haven’t considered the racial quota and the effect of it. Asians are not allowed to compete against Blacks in any situation cuz of that. I’m also about to stop this debate at this point.</p>
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</p>
<p>Oh, now who’s the one avoiding a debate? :P</p>
<p>As you probably know but misspoke about, communist and fully socialist states don’t do “taxes”. They do incomes — and they provide the exact same one to everyone. That completely erases the profit incentive — which a good system of taxation does not.</p>
<p>Progressive taxation, which takes a higher proportion of income the higher the income you have (as opposed to regressive taxes, which take a higher proportion of your income the poorer you are), have loads of benefits.</p>
<p>They—
Control income inequality (which, as you know, screws over the economy by restricting demand and increasing the cost of social welfare programs)
Collect more money from the people who actually have it
Shift the burden of taxes to people who can actually handle it, promoting social mobility in a different way by giving them breathing room in which to act</p>
<p>Now, regressive taxation (which is the alternative to the sort of taxation you seem to oppose) might seem to encourage productivity, but without certain social services readily available at extremely low prices (which is hard to pay for under a regressive system), it makes productivity, and social mobility more impossible. </p>
<p>If we can’t pay for a robust public educational system and the lower class, saddled with taxes, cannot do so, either, they will not be productive. The same goes for health care, food, housing, and so forth. </p>
<p>If individuals who are both poor and saddled with a disproportionate amount of taxes cannot obtain these goods in optimal amounts, instead of worrying about lazy workers, you have workers in poverty to think about, an equally unproductive bunch.</p>
<p>It’s my belief that there are better and more moral modes of motivating people to work than saddling them with taxes and threatening them with poverty.</p>
<p>@SpaceDuck</p>
<p>Yes, all observational studies examine correlations. Correlation does not always equal causation, but that does not mean that correlation does not often provide substantial information to infer causation.</p>
<p>“But because they generally score higher means they HAD to score higher to get into a selective institution? The answer is no. There are Asians with low scores that still get into there colleges. That’s where that Wikipedia source you quoted from completely flunks.”</p>
<p>Asians, as a group, had to score higher than other minority groups. Of course, of course, there will always be instances where a lower-scoring Asian is admitted and a higher-scoring URM is rejected. But these statistics show that on average, this is not the case. Means, medians, etc DO represent something. If you don’t agree with the study’s findings, then what do you think are the alternative explanations?</p>
<p>@HateSMUS</p>
<p>Prove to me that’s there’s a racial quota. Please do. </p>
<p>Asians are not compared against Asians, blacks are not compared against blacks, and that goes for any other ethnicity/race. </p>
<p>Each applicant is compared holistically and individually.</p>
<p>So wait a second, “Also, while Asians are struggling to get high SAT score, Blacks can spend time on other ECs such as sports.”, Asians don’t have time to spend on sports and other ECs? </p>
<p>You’re just perpetuating the stereotype.</p>
<p>And now you’re saying Asian’s have to overcompensate against blacks in order gain admission. That’s completely false on 2 (and probably many more premises)</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Each applicant is considered individually and holistically. Not compared against others in anyway (except maybe with others from the same school applying to the same institution).</p></li>
<li><p>You make a baseless assumption that blacks will have less stellar ECs. You don’t seem to understand that perception of achievements within ECs also has to deal with the background an applicant comes from. Someone who has to support their family and has a national EC is much more grand than someone who comes from a relatively stable, financially secure background (assuming all other factors are equal). You completely ignore the context in which EC is received.</p></li>
</ol>