<p>
[quote]
Dartmouth accepted 44.6 percent of African Americans who applied -- 2.5 times higher than the overall rate of 18.3 percent. Native Americans were accepted at 34.6 percent and Latinos at 29 percent. White students, on the other hand, had a more difficult time getting accepted; only 16.2 percent of white, non-international students received letters of acceptance.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>
[quote]
The number of Asian American college applicants has grown substantially over the last decade, so that Asian Americans no longer receive a significant preference for being a minority sub-population. Asian Americans applying for the Class of 2008 at Dartmouth enjoyed just a four percent boost over the average applicant, being accepted at a rate of 22.8 percent.
<p>I was surprised to say the least. While I did expect the admission rate of African American students to be higher than the overall admission rate, I didn't expect it to be that high. I was also surprised that the admission rate of Asian American students was higher than the overall admission rate. How come so many people on CC complain that Asian Americans are disadvantaged because they are an "overrepresented minority"?</p>
<p>I don't think there is much to it, remeber the applicant pool is self selecting. If 1000 blacks apply and 1 is admitted then that is going to yield a high admit rate compared to 10000 whites and 1 is admitted, basically since fewer minorites apply, then for each one accepted it causes an intrisic higher acceptance rate, i mean look at the Asians, would anyone say they are underqualified? Nope, but they have a higher admission rate than whites, bc of the aforementioned.</p>
<p>Dbate is missing the point. If 1,000 blacks and 10,000 whites apply for something, you don't expect them to be admitted at a 1 to 1 ratio. You expect (if this is a colorblind situation and they are roughly equal on the whole, which might not be true) them to be admitted at the same percentage.</p>
<p>In general, I think rohin is right. The Asians get that little boost because they are better applicants on average (well, academically at least, that's fairly indisputable I think). In truth, I think the % Asians admitted is still artificially low. If the process was colorblind, I would probably expect the Asian % admitted to be the highest, not blacks.</p>
<p>I'm curious though why Dartmouth would release these statistics, as it puts them in a very poor light from the standard of the large number of people who believe that basic fairness trumps skin color.</p>
<p>drummer, actually no. Based on basic analysis as to statistically impact every black person admitted would imply a high percentage admitted. There is no reason that ppl would be admitted at a one to one ratio, or that the whole point of the matter is that there are more whites so every one that is admitted represents a smaller percentage of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>If the statistics were not correct, then why do Latinos and Asians have almost comparable admission rates, wouldn't that imply a counter intuitive affirmative action, and as to the comment that Asians are academically superior i think should probably be placed into context, usually Asians are superior in sciences and not as often as in the humanities, Dartmouth being a very humanities based school may have a lower admittance rate bc Asians may not have the ECs to stand out, or that neccessarily reflect what the admission comittee is looking for, a better analysis would be to show the Asian percentage at MIT, bc that would probably reflect a higher percentage for the Asian population as the school is more science oriented.</p>
<p>First of all, it's just like someone said to begin with. Less underrepresented students are applying to these places for whatever reason, so the percentages are going to be higher within group. If they wanted to maintain a balance of 30% minority students and only 25% of the students who apply are minorities, they're going to have higher acceptance rates within-group. Even without wanting to maintain a certain amount of diversity it's still going to make sense that a higher percentage of underrepresented ethnic minorities are going to be accepted.</p>
<p>In addition, the group of minority students who apply to schools like Dartmouth are even more self-selecting than the white students who apply. I went to an high-achieving predominantly black Magnet school where students routinely scored in the upper echelons of the SAT and had lots of AP courses and whatever else, but most of us never dreamed of applying to or attending Ivy League schools. We felt like they couldn't fit in at elite colleges, or we wanted to see more than the token underrepresented minority student or know people in our socioeconomic class. (Or we couldn't afford it.)</p>
<p>The black students who want to go to elite schools are the few who go to elite prep schools or live in the upper-middle-class areas, or who are especially determined and willing to live in an arena where they will likely be the only person they see like them for days with the exclusion of a few others.</p>
<p>It doesn't necessarily have anything to do with a preference for ethnic minority students in admissions.</p>
<p>i defintely agree that the minorities who apply to these schools are from the upper-middle class, i mean really in order to have the ECs to get into these schools and to a lesser extent the scores you almost have to have money. I remeber hearing that the SAT is a good predictor of income, case in point several ppl from my school got around the same score about 1900-2200, with different class ranks to.</p>
<p>What color is the sky in your world? In your world, every white person is privileged and every person of color, except Asians, are disadvantaged. Are you serious?</p>
<p>My high school has 3500 kids and is very racially diverse. The African-Americans and Hispanic kids in my school don't do as well as the Asian-American and white students because they don't study as much. It's that simple. Our school's top 10 percent is largely made up of Asian students, with a few white students. There are no hispanics or AA in our top 10 percent. I am not in the top 10 percent. But guess what? These top 10 percent study their butts off. That's why they are at the top. They are not smarter or more privileged. They just work harder. They certainly work harder than me. And you think it's O.K. that colleges make it harder for these hard-working students to attend the elite colleges because of what happened in Jamestown 400 years ago? or what happened in the South 150 years ago? Are you serious? </p>
<p>My grandmother was a Native American. That part of my lineage was treated very poorly 200 years ago. But people treat me very well. Why should I be rewarded for what happened 200 years ago? Why should my white friends be punished? Why should my Asian friends be punished? </p>
<p>Here's what I have observed. I have five very good Asian friends. Each one is in the top 10 percent. They are not smarter than me, but they work much harder than me. My mom doesn't push me and she is very happy when I get a B or better. In contrast, my Asian friends study all of the time, including on weekends. If they were to get a B, they would die, and their parents would be very upset. When my Asian friends are studying, me and my other friends are goofing off. Pretty much every student in my school is smart enough to be a top student. However, the ones who end up as top students are those who harder and who come from homes where education and success are encouraged and valued. But I have a better chance of getting into Stanford than they do because self-hating people like you want to label people: all whites are privileged, all people of color, except Asians, are disadvantaged. </p>
<p>I guess I should thank you for your racist view of life, but I won't.</p>
<p>What color is the sky in your world? In your world, every white person is privileged and every person of color, except Asians, are disadvantaged. Are you serious?</p>
<p>My high school has 3500 kids and is very racially diverse. The African-Americans and Hispanic kids in my school don't do as well as the Asian-American and white students because they don't study as much. It's that simple. Our school's top 10 percent is largely made up of Asian students, with a few white students. There are no hispanics or AA in our top 10 percent. I am not in the top 10 percent. But guess what? These top 10 percent study their butts off. That's why they are at the top. They are not smarter or more privileged. They just work harder. They certainly work harder than me. And you think it's O.K. that colleges make it harder for these hard-working students to attend the elite colleges because of what happened in Jamestown 400 years ago? or what happened in the South 150 years ago? Are you serious? </p>
<p>My grandmother was a Native American. That part of my lineage was treated very poorly 200 years ago. But people treat me very well. Why should I be rewarded for what happened 200 years ago? Why should my white friends be punished? Why should my Asian friends be punished? </p>
<p>Here's what I have observed. I have five very good Asian friends. Each one is in the top 10 percent. They are not smarter than me, but they work much harder than me. My mom doesn't push me and she is very happy when I get a B or better. In contrast, my Asian friends study all of the time, including on weekends. If they were to get a B, they would die, and their parents would be very upset. When my Asian friends are studying, me and my other friends are goofing off. Pretty much every student in my school is smart enough to be a top student. However, the ones who end up as top students are those who harder and who come from homes where education and success are encouraged and valued. But I have a better chance of getting into Stanford than they do because self-hating people like you want to label people: all whites are privileged, all people of color, except Asians, are disadvantaged. </p>
<p>I guess I should thank you for your racist view of life, but I won't.</p>
<p>anyways, um, yeah, it's called affirmative action...get over it.</p>
<p>As for it being difficult for Asians, competition's cutthroat (at least in top colleges) for every race (like Whites) and because so many of them apply it's pretty hard but it isn't exactly a super-disadvantage.</p>
<p>Old College i agree that certain groups work harder but that is because they are motivated to do so. I don't personally feel that sorry for whites, even regardless of whatever, the simple point of the matter is that certain groups were disadvantage and that has an impact on a cultural level. I mean it was not until the sixities that blacks could get a good education, in fact my uncle's class was the first intergrated class. So the arguement that it doesn't affect ppl today is really skewed, sure slavery might not impact blacks, but segregation does, bc it affected our parents, which were the first group to actually have an opportunity to get an education and look what that generation did. We (blacks) went from not being allowed to go to the same school, and now a black person could be president. This is not an excuse to not do well, bc i personally feel education is important, but it puts perspective into why the policy was initially put into effect.</p>
<p>URMs get a holistic boost in admissions at many schools. They don't have to get the boost--it is not a law that they must, but it is not against the law to do so. It is illegal to have a point system based on race or a race quota. But to take race into consideration just as sex is in some schools, geographics, nationality, legacy is allowed and is done so, because diversity has become valued in the college scene. </p>
<p>Asian and caucasians are not given an extra treatment in admissions unless they belong to some category that gives them that extra. Adcoms do not categorize these apps--nondefined, caucasian, asian. However, as a group asian students have been very strong academically, so they have been getting into selective schools at numbers that are non proportional to how many asians there are. They are overrepresented proportionally, and if colleges did not use holistic measures and special categories for legacies, athletes, hooks, URMs, there would be even more asians in select schools.</p>
<p>There are times asians are URMs, in schools where there are not many asians, and that would be taken into consideration. THere are a number of schools in the US that are so vanilla that any ethnicity would be welcomed as they are truly trying to get more diversity. Unfortunately when there are few of a certain ethnic type at a school, it tends to not attract more of that type. That is why schools try to keep the M/F ratio close. They have learned that if it gets too lopsided, you start losing applicants of the underrepresented sex which causes a further declilne and even more loss to a point that the entire selectivity of the school can be threatened.</p>
<p>But think about it, even if all white and Asian applicants are harder workers (which they're not), why would any university want to be filled with the same type of people all of the way through? Then that really makes the URMs self-select because as a Black applicant with the pure merits to get in, why would I attend that university? If it wasn't for Affirmative Action, the schools would also force the minority students who worked hard and succeeded in school to choose a different one due to the environment. Who wants to be stuck with the exact same type of people? Not me. And if that means the university should slide some kids between the cracks to make it a better place for everyone, I'm all for it.</p>