<p>8911 UGs. Remove the 861 unknown race, 215 aliens, 147 2 or more race, and consider the remaining students- 93.4% of those are white. Leave the 147 2 or more race in and still get 91.75% white, pretty white I think.</p>
<p>Exactly. In addition, the institution may want this really bright kid to get to know the children of other wealthy and influential blacks so he can be more effective in his life after school. He will need these networks after college. Then, he can look to his white peers, not from a position of isolation and social weakness but as an equal who can talk and make friends with them on his own terms. The more I think about what these colleges are doing the more I respect them.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Racism was still institutionalized between 1940 and 1960. Why, then, did the black poverty rate drop from 87% to 47%?</p></li>
<li><p>I never “declared racism dead.”</p></li>
<li><p>Can you quantify how many Americans refused to vote for Obama because he is (half) black? He was re-elected, wasn’t he? Now, make no mistake; I am not asserting that Obama’s re-election proves that we are “postracial” or “colorblind.” I am, however, asserting that his re-election makes it clear that we have moved beyond 1963, something that perazziman refuses to acknowledge.</p></li>
</ol>
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<p>What is “de facto segregation”? Do you mean racial imbalance? As for your last sentence, if you want to bring that topic up, I’m sure you don’t mind my asking you whether you live in a community created by white flight.</p>
<p>So, how does increasing black enrollment NOT make it easier for blacks to “sit on their own [sic]” everyday? Oh, let me guess, with enough black students, whites will be forced to interact with their black peers. OK. Let’s suppose that’s true for a moment. How many blacks do you need for that to happen?</p>
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<p>I won’t accept them as “white schools” because they aren’t. It cheapens our nation’s bad history of abusing racial classification to call them “white schools” when it was not that long ago that a “white school” meant just that: 100% white.</p>
<p>“Predominantly white” is a much more accurate description of those schools’ demographics.</p>
<p>I am fine with socioeconomic and geographic preferences as tools to broaden the student body. These do not use racial classification. Kindly note that due to its history, racial classification is not the same as other categories. Its use must pass “strict scrutiny,” whereas even gender requires only that “intermediate scrutiny” be met.</p>
<p>For the last time, I am opposed the use of racial classification. You have consistently tried to portray me as anti-black. I now have no qualms asking you the same question I asked CTScoutmom: what is the racial composition of your neighborhood? Is it mostly white? How about your son’s “mainstream competitive high school”? Mostly white and Asian?</p>
<p>Let me give you an example of what happens here in TX where one gets automatic admission to UT Austin if one is in the top 7%. This 7% plan fills up about 75% of the class at UT. Then 10% of the class is out of state and foreigners. The remaining 15% are in state on a case by case holistic review basis. These are usually for kids who attend really competitive schools with very high academic standards super high SAT scores, taking very rigorous courses, but who are not in the top 7%. Most of the top 10% from these schools go to CalTech, MIT, Stanford, Harvard etc. So, basically, you are either in the top 7% or you are not getting in without extraordinary stats. </p>
<p>So, how does a predominantly white school prevent URMs from transferring from neighboring schools and taking their top spots in TX? How about giving the the URM who transfers a 7% class rank penalty? In other words, when the URM transfers from a poor neighborhood school, automatically drop his gpa down about 7%. So, that even if he gets straight As in a white high school his rank is below 7% and he will not make it into UT. It sounds so unbelievable you would think I was making it up, but it is true. It happened to my child. Here is how it works:</p>
<p>Most underperforming poor minority schools do a lot of remedial work in their normal (academic) classes. Therefore, the normal kids in these middle schools take courses that are classfied as high school courses for advanced middle school students but are actually just regular middle school classes. These so called high school courses receive internal grades, but the grades do not transfer to high school transcript for class rank/ gpa. Then the kids can take other courses in high school and graduate will a high school gpa.</p>
<p>So, what the white school can do to dissuade a transfer, is to deny the internal grade status of those high school courses and add those grades into a transcript as unweighted courses. Now suddenly the child who transfers to a white high school has a ton of unweighted high school grades from classes that were graded by teachers who did not think the grades mattered! A normal student in middle school will accumulate almost a dozen of these in middle school. So, now the kid has to get atleast a dozen A grades in honors courses in a white school, which is next to impossible, to earn a weighted 4.5 GPA! Even then he will not be in the top 10%. Of course, the kid will also have to take many academic courses in high school such as PE and Arts etc which will further draw his GPA down. Then the kid will have to earn more As in honors and AP courses to prevent his GPA from dropping below 4.5. In other words, the wealthy white schools have and use many different methods to discourage any movement from the poor districts to the wealthy white districts.</p>
<p>This is a circular discussion that goes round and round over and over again. Ultimately, affirmative action must logically come to end. It is a form of reverse discrimination to undo the negative effects of discrimination. Obviously, no politician is ever going to undo it for fear of the wrath of voters.</p>
<p>As far as admissions, skin tone should not decide what one gets or doesn’t get, unfortunately, it was used to deny hope, opportunity, liberty and life for others for far too long. The history of man is one long tale of oppression. One group dominates another until the dominated become the dominators. It is the way of the world unless we can forgive and find common ground which few in power truly want because unity dilutes their power. Conquering consolidates it, hence the cycle continues.</p>
<p>You are right, the goal is that affirmative action come to an end. However, I do not think there is reverse discrimination in college admissions, due to affirmative action. </p>
<p>The adcom should consider the quality of schools and the opportunities available to kids and how these kids utilize resources. The adcom may feel that a Black kid with a lower SAT score may end up doing better in college after 4 years on the GRE because she shows good resource utilizing skills than a white. That is not reverse discrimination. </p>
<p>Then, there is the Black kid who attends a regular secondary school and is brilliant. The adcom may invite less brilliant Blacks (that I call marginal students) to provide this brilliant Black kids a social life. The fact is that without the marginal Black students the brilliant Black would be socially isolated and perhaps would not attend. As a practical matter, there are never enough marginal Black students to create a perfect social environment because colleges have minimum academic standards. If a qualified Black is not found, these seats are given to non Blacks. So even now, it is non Black taking seats from Blacks.</p>
<p>The non Blacks who whine are usually those marginal candidates who may have higher stats than some marginal Black candidates. What these marginal non Black do not realize is that they were never in the running for the marginal blacks reserved for those who would serve the social needs of Black stars.</p>
<p>Ethnic School: economically disadvantaged ~ majority,
URM >80%,
white ~10%
0 Duke TIP recognized,
0 National Merit Semifinalist in school. </p>
<p>Competitive School: economically disadvantaged ~5%,
URM< 30%,<br>
white Majority
Majority in Advanced Classes DukeTIP recognized,
35-40 National National Merit semifinalists in school. (juniors & seniors).</p>
<p>I can’t even laugh at this anymore. You deplore self-segregation and how it shocked you as an international student, but you are all for making it as easy as possible for blacks to self-segregate. By your own words, “less brilliant blacks” should be admitted to elites so that the “brilliant black kids” are provided “a social life,” as if blacks can’t form friendships with whites in 2012.</p>
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<p>Thanks for confirming my guesses. You talk a great game about how much you care about the plight of blacks, yet when push came to shove, you ran away and sought a majority white school. In that regard, you are no different from the whites who ran away from the cities in the 1970s following court-mandated desegregation. I do not begrudge you for wanting your son to have a better education. But I am telling you straight up that you do not have the right to act like you are on some high horse and assert that I don’t care about blacks.</p>
<p>The demographics at my high school have stayed fairly constant over the past three years. Blacks made up ~51% of the student body; whites made up 41%; and the remaining ~8% was made of Hispanics, Asians, and students of two or more racial classifications. At least half of the student body was eligible for free or reduced lunch. </p>
<p>So don’t try to act like you’re intimately familiar with the “plight” of blacks. Don’t act like it’s impossible for a non-white to be friends with whites in 2012. Don’t act like there are “white schools” in 2012.</p>
<p>Did you read about the obstacles that were created by the “mainstream competitive high school”? Did you read about how his internal grades on advanced middle school courses were unweighted to academic level and stuffed onto his high school transcript to make sure he could never graduate with a gpa and class rank to get into the flagship? So, in addition to facing the difficulty of more rigorous courses, he started with a gpa less than everyone else. It was like Harvard telling you that your As will be Bs and Bs will be Cs … for the first year because you did not graduate from Exeter or Andover because otherwise you might end up graduating with honors from Harvard. Then, would you go to Harvard if that was the policy? Would you go if you knew that all the recruiters will only invite you if you were an honors student? These are the kind of obstacles that are created for people who want to move out of the type of schools he attended. </p>
<p>I am guessing you attended the type of school that usually creates about 1 or 2 National Merit Semifinalists in a class of approx. 700 students each year. Were you an nmsf? How many AP courses did you take? What were your scores?</p>
<p>I do not support the rules as you described them. Again, I do not begrudge you for wanting your son to have a better education at the “mainstream competitive high school,” which despite the obstacles, surely does the job better than the “ethnic school.” My criticism is directed toward your self-righteous belief that you are more intimately aware of the “plight” of blacks than I am, even though you ran away from neighborhoods and schools that were mostly nonwhite (though not necessarily black).</p>
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<p>Your guess is incorrect. The year I graduated, I was one of two National Merit Semifinalists, and I did earn Finalist status and a scholarship, as did my peer. But no, it did not occur every year in my high school, or even every other year. And our graduating class was under 320 students, not 700.</p>
<p>Quite frankly, I don’t think you’re qualified to judge whether I am “insensitive” to the “plight” of blacks. The black students I went to middle and high school with are the ones who are always referred to in the abstract by defenders of racial preferences. They are the “less brilliant blacks” you claim should be admitted to elites to provide the “brilliant black kids” a “social life.” Does that in fact happen? NO.</p>
<p>My classmates are NOT the ones who end up at elites. There are no “less brilliant blacks” at the elites; they’re all “brilliant,” and they almost all come from “mainstream competitive high schools.” I’m not going to do as you did and pretend that I am upset that my black classmates were not at the elites. What does upset me, however, is that you see them only as tools to be used to aid the development of “brilliant black kids” and worse, that you actually think they’re the ones who get admitted to perform your “socialist commune” social duty.</p>
<p>That sounds like an above average school. It is not the type of underperforming school my son attended for elementary and middle school. </p>
<p>So, what distinctions did you earn beyond NMF at this above average school, that you think you deserved admission to an elite university? Even my son, after 8 years of pathetic schooling in underperforming minority schools could enter a mismatched high performing high school and earn NMSF, score in the 700s in all sections of the SAT and SAT Subject Tests, take 12 AP courses, 5 APs in junior year and get one 4 and 5s on all the rest. What did you manage in high school, with 12 years of above average schooling? </p>
<p>I am assuming that you are aware that most cognitive and academic skills develop before age 13. There is usually just a single standard deviation improvement between age 13 and 17. It is the reason ethical people, such as the authors of the book Mismatch, suggest minorities should not be given large preferences because it is almost impossible to overcome academic deficiencies developed due to poor early primary school education and the mismatch itself stops further development.</p>
<p>“What can be done about the problem of mismatch? Most obviously, we need dramatic improvements in elementary and secondary schools to narrow the racial gaps in academic achievement. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, the average black 12th-grader is on a par with the average white eighth-grader. That project will take decades.” WSJ Saturday Essay, Oct 13, 2012-by RICHARD SANDER and STUART TAYLOR JR.</p>
<p>Actually my guess was correct, 1 or 2 out of 700 is 0-1 out of 300. In your year there were two. Then, as you say there would be and would not be some in other years. So, you actually attended a borderline average type of school not above average.</p>
<p>No, your initial guess and your initial subsequent reaction were both wrong. You thought I attended an “above average” high school. I did not. It was, as you now state, a “borderline average” high school.</p>
<p>You think you know a lot about me, or at least you think your guesses about me are accurate. You do not, and your guesses are not. I never thought I “deserved admission to an elite university.” I applied to two in-state schools, one out-of-state flagship, and a top-ranked LAC. My rejection rate was 0%.</p>
<p>You seem to have struck out on all your guesses about who I am. I’m not in high school; I didn’t attend an “above average” one; I’m not “bitter” from rejections; and I know a lot more about the “plight” of blacks than you do because unlike you, I didn’t run away from a mostly non-white school.</p>
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<p>You’re contradicting yourself, again. In post #265, you wrote, “I have no problem in believing that given opportunities in college they could do equally well as my child or at least had the potential to do so.” Now you seem to be saying that most students cannot see significant improvement after the age of 13. So which is it?</p>
<p>And once more, don’t act like self-righteously and pronounce yourself an “ethical” defender of racial preferences. You see “less brilliant [sic] blacks” as mere tools to be used for the development of “brilliant black kids”; I see them as individuals.</p>
<p>Did you read that entire article? The authors contradicted one of your repeated assertions that you have never backed down from: whites in 2012 refuse to interact with blacks.</p>
<p>Sander and Taylor wrote, *Economics professor Peter Arcidiacono and his colleagues at Duke University found in a 2011 study that students were much more likely to become friends with classmates they saw as academically similar to themselves. Students with large preferences were more likely to self-segregate and find themselves socially isolated.</p>
<p>The reason wasn’t racism. At Duke University, for example, large numbers of whites and blacks formed friendships at the outset of college. But for those with large academic gaps, the friendships atrophied.*</p>