https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TquKLF0sT54
Interesting debate, take a look
Does a lower income White/Asian student get a boost over rich URMs? I understand the diversity part and that many URMs are lower class, but what about the lower class Asians/Whites? Do they get a boost for their socioeconomic status? Just curious because I always hear the discussion on race, but socioeconomic status is also taken account. Does URM status matter more than family income?
No they do not as the system doesn’t work that way. AA would be a minor factor if it only boosted lower income disadvantaged students and would in fact end up boosting Asian admissions. In fact AA as it exists today almost exclusively benefits middle class and affluent URM’s. Please remember highly competitive admissions only exists for less than 35-40 schools and at these schools almost every student scores above the 95% on the SAT. The vast majority of HS students are not prepared for the rigor that is required at such schools.
I only know of a handful that consider white/Asian lower income kids to be an admissions plus. A clue is who is invited to diversity fly-ins and similar programs at the college. Often a requirement is being URM (some include Asian there) or low income or first-gen or more than one of those.
Some lists of those: http://getmetocollege.org/hs/tag/diversity-fly-in-programs or http://jlvcollegecounseling.com/2015/08/11/2015-college-fly-in-programs/
You can google “diversity fly-in program” or “diversity college visit programs” for others.
Often (usually?) Asian-American is considered “diverse” for these programs and you can guess, also in admissions. Most require financial need to be flown in for free, so in that sense, yes, lower income Asian kids do get that whereas wealthy black kids do not.
Kids of any race get a boost at the majority of US colleges if their families are wealthy enough to be full-pay or close to it. A small number of schools explicitly say a low income background is a plus in admissions, but many more take it into account when looking at an application holistically in terms of challenges faced and overcome, strength of character, etc.
Actually it does, at several institutions that participate in the holistic process. Your app is read individually and if those are issues that can be conveyed in a manner that indicates you overcame some adversity to achieve or if it separates you socially or academically it very much could give you an advantage in the pool based on what the rest of the pool looks like.
While technically true you are giving classOf2017 false hope. Yes UCB among a few others does allow applicants(even for grad school)to write almost endless essays about their personal struggles but simply being a lower income white/asian doesn’t come close to the boost of being a URM. Now if you came from a war torn country as an orphan then that certainly would stand out.
Being Asian IS being URM at some schools. Like the ones I listed above. In some cases more if lower income.
If @classof2017 is asking the question in order to consider schools where s/he might have a boost for that, then those lists are worth a look.
Mom your list includes many Ivies and the top NESCAC schools. Please post your evidence that any elite school considers standard Asians to be URM’s. Amherst for instance only has @14% Asians. This would suggest just the opposite. The other point to keep in mind is the games people play with the word Asians. When used in the context of elite colleges it primarily means Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. However their a number of smaller poorly educated aboriginal groups(Hmong) from Asia in the US that might indeed get a boost since they might be first to go to college. However that is quite different from stating that being a standard Asian is considered URM at any top school.
When they say “Asian” we can only assume they mean the very large and diverse group the census refers to as Asian. I am not going to have evidence that they prefer one or the other.
However, at Amherst, I know for a fact that DIVOH fly-ins include Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, etc students. If you click through to the program pages from those links, Bates, Bucknell, etc., they have photos of East-Asian looking kids, and in some cases explicitly say “Asian-American”. Some say they want first-gen and low income kids regardless of race. Take it however you will.
I’d add that many of these are LACs where Asians are in fact under-represented.
PS: the question was:
…and the answer is, yes, sometimes.
Mom that will be big news to all the Chinese and simply isn’t true. As I said Amherst only has 14% Asians while Cal Tech who shuns AA admits over 40%. Yes it might help a few individual Asians but overall Asians get no boost at Amherst or any other elite college. The applicant has asked a very specific question and the answer is no; lower income whites/Asians do not get a boost over rich URM’s. The proof is in the admission stats not a photo on the web site. The higher standard required for Asian applicants has been widely documented and soon going to be tested in court.
The complaint, filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleges that for Asian-American students to gain admission, they have to have SAT scores 140 points higher than white students, 270 points higher than Hispanic students, and 450 points higher than African-American students.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-asian-race-tutoring-20150222-story.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-cahn/whats-behind-asian-discri_b_7498760.html
Well it’s also in the free fly-in literature, for example:
http://www.bucknell.edu/journeytobucknell
http://www.grinnell.edu/admission/visit/programs/diversity-preview
http://www.middlebury.edu/admissions/visit/programs
http://new.oberlin.edu/arts-and-sciences/admissions/mvp/
http://www.reed.edu/apply/rome.html
Nowhere does it say “only Hmong Asians”.
Also, these programs are all (all the ones I looked at anyway) open to low income students, and first-gen, of any color. Given that students who are chosen for these fly-ins have a MUCH higher acceptance rate than anyone else, it’s not out of line to say the college wants them to attend. Why pay for a student to fly in and turn them down? Your line of argument just doesn’t make a lot of sense. Asian - even east Asian - students DO get a URM bump at many schools, mainly the ones not many apply to. (Hence the relevance of the “U” in URM).
Do you think it’s possible that more Asians apply to Caltech than they do to Amherst or Bucknell or Carleton? Might that be because Asian students tend to favor universities, tend to favor STEM-focused ones, and are concentrated on the coasts, particularly CA? Do you not get that top schools like Colby or Grinnell that are not on the radar of many top Asian students might be interested in having more? If you don’t get this concept, maybe just refrain from chiming in on this particular question.
@SAY “The applicant has asked a very specific question and the answer is no; lower income whites/Asians do not get a boost over rich URM’s”
First of all, there aren’t that many rich URMs in the united states as a whole only a small percentage of African Americans have $100,000 household incomes relative to Asian and White households. For every rich URM there would be a 1000 rich Asians and whites so this is an unfair comparison in itself. A college is not going to simply admit low income students either. The point is African Americans have a higher rate of poverty and most come from low income families. An African American male is more likely to get incarcerated than get into college and is more likely to drop out of highschool. Despite affirmative action in employment African Americans have the highest unemployment rate and kids are more likely to be raise by a single mother.
In comparison Asians and Whites are unlikely to face such challenges or these socioeconomic disadvantages that people of other races face. To answer your questions a larger percentage of African Americans applying come from low income families so Asians/Whites don’t have a similar rate to URMs are less likely to get a boost. Comparing Asians and Whites to extremely rare rich URMS is ridiculous and I doubt there would be any data or study that would prove such nonsense.
“The complaint, filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, alleges that for Asian-American students to gain admission, they have to have SAT scores 140 points higher than white students, 270 points higher than Hispanic students, and 450 points higher than African-American students.”
This statistic is absolutely ridiculous and seems to be used by a lot of the anti-affirmative action crowd against URMs. Asians nationally have higher test scores than URMs however the 140 sat point gap between whites and Asians is a myth. The gap is 60-70 points that is mainly on the math section of the SAT, where nationally Asians get a 598 and whites get a 534.
In fact, whites outscore Asians in reading and Asians only slightly outscore whites in writing. Were it not for the gap in the maths section Asians would be indistinguishable from whites in terms of test score. In comparison on the ACT Asians only have a 1 point higher advantage on a national level also due to math scores but this is truly a trivial difference and wouldn’t translate into any advantage especially in the most selective colleges.
Overall, the difference is trivial and shouldn’t result in Asians even getting a minor advantage over other whites. The main reason Asians are overrepresented at top schools is they have a higher application rate and are over represented demographically in the applicant pool that translates into the entering class.
Don’t believe me here’s my source(SAT score 2015 ethnic group breakdown):
https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/digitalServices/pdf/sat/sat-percentile-ranks-gender-ethnicity-2015.pdf
Back on topic yes Asians have higher scores then URMS who apply to top selective colleges but does this mean they are more worthy of admission? First, your score gap is wrong. On average African Americans score 1277 on the SAT and Asians score 1654, the gap is 377 you can check my source. Given that African Americans are more likely to face socio-economic disadvantages and are more likely to come from low income/poverty households the score gap is expected. This doesn’t necessarily mean they are given a major advantage in admission over other ethnic groups, they are mostly given a boost because of socioeconomic factors and because universities want a diverse student body. Even UCLA that has no affirmative action has African Americans make up 4% of the entering class.
Therefore, I conclude no Asians aren’t held to a higher standard they normally have a higher test score than URMs mainly because of socioeconomic factors) and have a no test score advantage over whites since the test score gaps are trivial. The authors of these articles are playing into Asians insecurities and causing paranoia amongst Asian students/communities to increase the Anti-affirmative action crowd. There have even been lawsuits against universities over this nonsense, almost all of which have been unsuccessful due to lack of any credible evidence.
Discrimination: “Discrimination is treatment or consideration of, or making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing is perceived to belong to rather than on individual merit.”
Affirmative action is literally discrimination
So is literally ever other aspect of college admissions.
@OHMomof2 Incorrect, college admission should be (such as in the UC/UT system) on “INDIVIDUAL MERIT” (as stated in the definition, which I guess you ignored). Affirmative action is not individual merit.
ClassOf2017 these boards can be confusing be here is what you should take away. The short answer to your question is no. The key to elite competitive admissions in 2015 is to find a hook. The best hook is being a recruited athlete or the child of a major donor or powerful family. There are many other hooks 1)national academic award 2) making the olympics 3) major accomplishment in anything and there are many others. For the sake of admissions at almost all elite colleges(except Cal Tech) simply being URM(black, hispanic, of native american) is a hook. Now at HPYS simply being a URM is by no means a guarantee of admission. At these schools there is a significant difference in the size of the hook between a poor URM who is first to college and the child of two doctors. None of the elite schools considers a lower income white/Asian to have a hook whereas all of them consider being native american to be a hook even if the child comes from a wealthy background. As for the other posters please keep in mind that Ali is a HS student like yourself while OHMom has a child in a good LAC. Do not be misled by her post. The Asian category is a very large diverse group of people. However in general what most people refer to as Asians in regards to elite admissions consist of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. Neither Amherst or any other elite college considers lower income students from this group to have a hook. On the other hand there are students from these groups who will have overcome such large obstacles that the schools will give them a boost in admissions(hook). In my previous job I hired and managed hundreds of PhD/MD’s. On multiple occasions I hired employees who had come to the US as Vietnamese Boat people with nothing but the shirts on their backs. Somehow they learned enough English to get to college and get advanced degrees despite extreme hardships. So yes there a small select group of Asians that would get preferred admissions at elite schools. Today there are many excellent books on this topic available on Amazon.
You are entitled to your opinion of what is SHOULD be, however admissions IS largely based on “the group, class, or category to which that person or thing is perceived to belong to”. National merit scholars, students at Deerfield, top 5% ACT scorers, legacies, athletes, non-US-citizens, residents of Montana, etc etc.
Further, the admissions process is a process of discrimination in its most-used sense - that of telling one from another, differentiating one applicant from another.
IDK why you skipped over the main definition of the word:
You’re entitled to your opinion as well but I just don’t understand how affirmative action is benefiting society…
I understand athlete boost, $$$/ boost of student interest for colleges. I understand residents of unique geographical locations, they actually suffer from REAL disadvantages. I understand national merit scholars (c’mon, merit is in the name).
I don’t understand legacies. They should not benefit.
But how is helping blacks/Hispanics going to benefit anyone? Not only is it directly admitting that blacks are not held at the same standard (which I would find offensive if i was black), but it’s also hurting Asians. Additionally, people who benefit from AA may not even need it. Many disregard minority success, saying that they only did well because of affirmative action (I call this the Clarence Thomas Theory because he’s a huge advocate of this issue.)
@deeznuts Define “Merit” and how URMs don’t fall into this category? Also you basically want an admissions process that favors one group(Asians and whites) over all other applicants than a fair admissions process. Also when affirmative action is incorporated with a merit system and is only a minor factor doesn’t this contradict your discrimination theory. Isn’t all types of admission a form of discrimination I mean those URMs can’t help having low IQs right? Isn’t the SAT a discrimination based system used to filter students by percentile for colleges?