<p>The criticism here is completely stupid.</p>
<p>I believe AA should only be used for the underprivileged. Black DOES NOT EQUAL underprivileged. There are many rich black people in my school (mostly african immigrants whose parents are both doctors/lawyers) who get an unfair boost in college admissions just because of the color of their skin, not their actual conditions.</p>
<p>^ it’s called Questbridge</p>
<p>clouder,</p>
<p>Like I said, hispanics shouldn’t get AA.</p>
<p>Affirmative action is mostly just reparations for slavery+discrimination, with the aim of providing windfall for the black community. The assertion is that the aforementioned two factors help explain many of the societal aliments than plague blacks today. Thus, in that regard, class doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>Diversity is the legal reasoning.</p>
<p>you are 100% wrong Keile.
in fact, i think most would agree that hispanics have an even easier time with admissions, especially to schools like columbia.
a lot of blacks have smart/professional ancestors, and a lot of them come from homes where education is preached (most of them, actually). that is not as prevalent in hispanic society.
the number of students that identify themselves as hispanics in columbia amount to 16% of the population.
the same category for blacks only amounts to 14%.
although those statistics can be argued either way, clearly more hispanics choose to attend columbia (and/or are accepted)</p>
<p>Keile… are you crazy? What you just said is absolutley 100% inaccurate.</p>
<p>wow i totally misinterpreted what keile said haha…
i thought you said hispanics DONT get AA.</p>
<p>based on that claim, then yes, hispanics shouldnt be granted AA.
but i dont think its about the “we owe them” factor anymore.</p>
<p>i think the ideology behind AA is good: help the underprivileged achieve something better than what they would have. however doing it by race is simply wrong. i propose rather that schools should do this based on the area that student it coming from. for example, students from south central (whether black, latino, even white) are disadvantaged compared to students from beverly hills or another affluent area. </p>
<p>There was a student my year, who got into stanford on URM and legacy. now im not sure which one played a role in it more because it was only his cousin that went to stanford, but this child had obviously more opportunity than other students did that I honestly think worked much harder. his parents were in an income bracket of >$300,000 annually, but the need-blind approach prevented the college from knowing this.</p>
<p>now, the worst part about all of this, is that it hurts the people that genuinely deserve AA. for example lets say that a particular college designates 30 seats markedly for URM/AA. now say a there are two kids looking to get one of the spots. one is from a worse area, has a low income, and is a single-parent household and therefore has responsibilities to his siblings. the other is from a rich family, lives in a nice area and home, can afford a tutor and academic assistance for tests like the SAT/ACT, and generally lives comfortably. now both of these students are say, african american. they clearly do not have the same opportunity but because of a need-blind policy, schools do not know the difference between the two candidates. while schools do look at the areas and the average opportunities to a student from a particular area, because it is possible that poor students can live in rich areas and rich in poor areas, schools will side with the candidate that has the better stats, which 99% of the time, i will guarantee is the privileged student, which honestly really really annoys and concerns me.</p>
<p>Yo, I’m Jesse Jackson, and I think all of you are racist.</p>
<p>llooppii - </p>
<p>research/statistics say that students who come from races/ethnic groups that have been disadvantaged (regardless of income level) face significant struggles going through school, and that their performance on standardized testing across the board is lower - and that the SAT as a predictor of ability is not as accurate for black, latino, native and some asian students. </p>
<p>so the problem with your socioeconomic proposal is that it doesn’t realistically understand the role of privilege that comes with coming from a more highly perceived socioeconomic status. in a study (i forget when), psychologists/sociologists would ask black students to choose the doll they would consider beautiful and overwhelmingly they would choose the white doll, and white students only chose the white doll. </p>
<p>the nature of power in daily life is so strong that it impacts not just folks from lower socioeconomic statuses, but also delimits people across a range of issues. folks who are disabled regardless of their socioeconomic status will face significant hurdles to succeed - should we treat those students the same? a black student who comes from a wealthier background, who may indeed be the only black student if they go to a nice suburban high school, has to face the pressure of ‘representing the whole race’ when taking a test, playing in a sport team, running for student council. the sheer psychological pressure is far stronger for the comparable student who comes from a more privileged racial/ethnic group.</p>
<p>failure to understand these dynamics is precisely why folks do not understand affirmative action, nor the fact that as dynamics shift there will ALWAYS be a need to admit students differentially.</p>
<p>Maybe we should stop looking at it like “so-and-so DESERVES to get in more than so-and-so.” Every time I’ve ever heard from a Columbia AC, they always say it’s about FIT, over and over again. We all know that there are tons of people with really high SAT’s and GPA’s who don’t get in to places like Columbia- I honestly believe that the adcom thinks about whether or not that student would contribute well, be it for their personality, or background, or research abilities, or athletic talent, or whatever. Every Columbia student I’ve ever met- URM or otherwise- has always been so INTERESTING…you feel like you could have a conversation with them for HOURS and it would stay engaging. And lots of smart, nice people are, let’s face it, not that interesting. Just because they’ve performed well doesn’t mean they DESERVE to get into Columbia. </p>
<p>Think of all the high schools in all the states and all the countries, public, private, home-schooled, whatever, and they each have that 5-10 people who are the best in the school, who everyone thinks they’re amazing. Now think of the fact that Columbia’s incoming class is what, 1300 people? To think that you DESERVE to be in that elite group, or even feel sure that you BELONG there (especially considering the spots left after athletics) is mind boggling. I could never imagine what it must feel like to be that arrogant.</p>
<p>admissiongeek,
I think your post has validity. However, from what you’ve said, what about Asian American students, who actually constitute MORE of a minority than blacks in U.S society? Don’t they also face the same challenges if they go to a all white school, and, as you said, have to “represent the whole race” when taking a test, playing sport, or playing an instrument? Yet they are actually disadvantaged in college admissions?</p>
<p>I still think that affirmative action exists because of the number in a certain race that are “academically fit”…if there aren’t that many, then in order to keep diversity high (both for student’s sake and for public image) schools have to “cut slack” for that group</p>
<p>But of course, when not talking about race, schools are definitely also on the lookout for other disadvantage factors, and things like disability factors in</p>
<p>collegeftw - </p>
<p>studies show that they don’t face the same issues. often it hurts asian students that come from poorer means (or the fact that everyone lumps all asians as being chinese, just like all hispanics are mexicans), especially in southeast asia, where a lot of disadvantaged markers do hold strong.</p>
<p>but most asian students do not find themselves necessarily out of place nor that expectations are so low that they end up not feeling pushed; quite the opposite. asian students both internally (family side, think of Amy Chua’s recent hoopala) and externally have high expectations placed on them to perform at a high level. things that do not necessarily lead to exclusion, but often inclusion. you want the asian kid to be your lab partner because you will do better, that student is chosen for the select chamber orchestra, he/she is given other opportunities - at times because of the presumption of ability and not actual ability.</p>
<p>there are some asian american scholars out there, most prominent in my own understanding being folks working with South Asians in urban communities, that have begun to talk about the students that are ‘left behind’ by the overwhelming sense that asians don’t fail. those that just don’t have the raw talent, or crack under the pressure of it. more needs to be studied there.</p>
<p>but the notion of being disadvantaged is awfully strong. when there are MORE qualified asian students academically, then the way you parse the difference out has to be finer. the point being especially from the most selective schools - the asian student is going to college and a good college at that. and also having read scholarship applications before, there is a rather constant degree of repitition that comes in reading the same story over again - violin player, good testing, captain of the tennis team, essays about their father. i could only imagine what it might be like over thousands of applications. </p>
<p>the black or latino student situation is a lot more complex. a) underrepresented minorities that attend top tier schools have the highest chance of graduating (regardless of socioeconomic status) and most in lower rung schools do not finish, b) most (not all) underrepresented minority students are less savvy about the application process even if their parents attended college, and often apply to fewer schools, thereby their admission to a top tier school is often the choice between that school or something more rungs lower. white and asian students do not as a whole have these problems. </p>
<p>and then there is the fact that at a school like Columbia where over 1/5 of the student body is asian, over 1/10 is east asian, what does ‘disadvantaged’ mean? in the end most folks have called it overrepresented…i have some trouble with that idea. i think you have to stop looking at practices at a place like Columbia, and go to your Berkeley’s where asian percentage is sky high, and the fact that across the university system in the US the percentage of blacks and latinos does not even come close to their percentage in society.</p>
<p>^ that was very well said. There are some specifics that are still a bit on the line (like when you say Asians are picked in this this that, I’m pretty sure they’re disadvantaged when it comes to things like picking for basketball teams or football teams lol) but I feel like the way you put it is as close to a compromise as there can be. I love the reference to Amy Chua there haha, I’m pretty sure every Asian parent has read it by now lol</p>
<p>College Confidential v. Bollinger</p>