<p>Like I’ve stated before on this thread, affirmative action is not limited to African American and Hispanic students, it simply aids in the recruitment of minorities in the work place and in institutions of academia. Minority status can be gender based, sexuality based, race based, socioeconomically based, etc. Contrary to popular belief, there are schools where Asians and Caucasians are considered to be minorities. Most students on here grubbing about the " unfair advantages" that come with affirmative action have simply failed to explore all of their options.</p>
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<p>If this is a reference to historically black colleges and universities, you can just say that instead of exaggerating your point.</p>
<p>@fabrizio I’m not exaggerating my point at all. There are many liberal arts colleges where Asians are a minority. The fact that you are unaware of this simply shows that you may be looking at my point from a narrow perspective</p>
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<p>No, I think you are unaware of the percentage of Asian Americans enrolled at top liberal arts colleges. Go take a look at the common data sets of Amherst, Swarthmore, and Williams. Feel free to check women’s colleges like Smith and Wellesley too. And I’m willing to set aside Harvey Mudd and Cooper Union if those schools too obviously disprove your assertion that Asians don’t consider liberal arts (or small) colleges.</p>
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<p>doesn’t mean</p>
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<p>+1 OHMomof2</p>
<p>That was my first thought.</p>
<p>Re: previous two comments</p>
<p>If you want to talk about potentially nonselective liberal arts colleges, then racial preferences aren’t even germane to the discussion as these schools largely admit by “numbers only.”</p>
<p>@dkdreamers, The type of Asian students being discussed in this thread do not need AA protection to get in the colleges that you had in mind, so you are comparing orange and apple.</p>
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<p>"Colorado College, where Cederberg now works, has an Asian population under 10 percent – a figure that is quite typical for liberal arts colleges. Asian students are considered to add to diversity to the college and she has the full support of the college in recruiting them, she said</p>
<p>Read more: [Too</a> Asian? | Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/10/asian#ixzz2rBUGpNsi]Too”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2006/10/10/asian#ixzz2rBUGpNsi)
Inside Higher Ed
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<p>Interesting that you bring that anecdote up (while possibly ignoring the bigger point of the story). At ten percent, Asians are actually already “overrepresented” at Colorado College relative to the nation’s demographics. And according to an article of your own choosing, that’s “quite typical.” So, your own source is in favor of my position that the view “Asians don’t consider LACs” is simply untrue.</p>
<p>This gets us back to a basic question that is surprisingly difficult to answer: what is the benchmark to determine “overrepresentation”? If Asians are not “overrepresented” at 10%, at what point do they become “overrepresented” and why?</p>
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<p>I’m not sure what tangent you are going on, but this is what I responded to and it is still true.</p>
<p>It’s “quite typical” for LACs not to have a very large % of Asian students, while it is “quite typical” for Us, especially well known ones, to have a much higher percentage. The article I linked supports that.</p>
<p>Are you trying to say that isn’t so?</p>
<p>Pointing out that you are talking about irrelevant things is not a tangent. As I said, what kind of LACs are we talking about? Selective ones or nonselective ones? If you take a look at top LACs, which are selective, you’d be hard pressed to say that Asians don’t consider them, seeing as how Swarthmore, Williams, and Amherst are all > 10% Asian. And Harvey Mudd and Wellesley are > 20% Asian. Of course not all top LACs are > 10% Asian, but even setting the bar at 10% already tells you that you are wrong: Asians do consider LACs to the point where a supposedly low benchmark indicates “overrepresentation.”</p>
<p>Now, if you want to talk about nonselective LACs, how are they relevant to this thread? Nonselective schools admit mostly by “numbers only.” Do you really think the “narrow minded” Asian jkdreamers is straw manning needs racial preferences to get into a nonselective school?</p>
<p>You might have had a point if the typical figure was < 2%. But that isn’t the case.</p>
<p>Those for affirmative action, in pursuit of ideological purity, must by necessity rationalize the oppression of Asians in college admissions. Otherwise, their whole premise is undermined. However, trying to argue that Asians should be kept to 15% at Ivy League schools is a tough position to defend. I’ll outline the various arguments I’ve heard over the years:</p>
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<li>Diversity is necessary to educational quality in colleges</li>
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<p>Get off your academic high horse. Since the 50s or so, college has become a place to acquire good professional placement. When you ask kids why they want to do well in school, they will answer, “Because I want to get into a good college and get a good job.” It’s not about education any more; it’s about getting the reward at the end of the tunnel. If it’s about rewards and not education, then it follows that only those that have the merit should get the reward (good college and good job). Stop your academic arrogance and see the light; not many go to class to learn. Kids want to be doctors, lawyers, and investment bankers, not the next Plato or Socrates.</p>
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<li>Asians just get high test scores by default and so it should not be rewarded (or even, some even think that Asian have “cracked the test” and cheat…)</li>
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<p>High test scores and GPA do not correlate with intelligence as much as hard work. This is an established fact. Therefore, Asians have higher test scores and GPAs because they work harder. If Asians work harder then they have more merit and therefore deserve the seat at the top colleges. The cheating part…well…that’s hilarious. In my experience my father just bought me a test prep book and I worked on improving my score hard. Nothing more to it. I suspect most Asians are like this as well.</p>
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<li>Asians are too advantaged as a result of culture; this must be counterbalanced</li>
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<p>This is ridiculous. Because of the “well-rounded” schtick that American universities have, it’s not just about GPAs and test scores. It’s about being good at sports and being involved. In this arena, Asians are actually disadvantaged. You haven’t felt this brand of discrimination until you step on a pickup basketball court and watch no one pick you up even though the black kid they took over you lost to you in one-on-one. You haven’t felt Asianness until you are the last picked on the playground for a game. We face discrimination too.</p>
<p>In addition, culture may encourage you to work hard, but you still have to work hard. A parent can tell a kid to play piano, but the kid still has to play the piano. In addition, you still have to achieve. To dismiss this hard work as just culture is oversimplifying too much. </p>
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<li>Asians haven’t felt historical oppression</li>
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<p>This is hilarious. You guys come up with the funniest stuff. Chinese Exclusion Act and Japanese internment. Nuff said.</p>
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<li>Too much Asian is bad</li>
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<p>That’s racist. How is this worse than the Ivies that have 70% white? In addition, Asians include a variety of different races like Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese, Filipino…etc. If you grouped them by actual ethnicity it wouldn’t appear so frightening.</p>
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<li>Asians aren’t actually qualified; they just have GPAs and test scores and that’s why they are rejected.</li>
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<p>UC-Berkeley is 40% Asian. Obviously Asian resumes as a whole are stronger.</p>
<p>It’s difficult to defend affirmative action, but it’s even more difficult to defend holding down a minority on the basis of its skin color. The arguments listed above of affirmative action proponents are weak and that is a product of a weak position.</p>
<p>@jkdreamers
Shouldn’t you be able to be what you want to be if you qualify? Exploring second options is inherently undesirable. Saying that those who did enough to qualify for first options yet were pushed out by inferior applicants should look around for a second option is insulting. In addition, any affirmative action you find for Asians is very minimal as a result of a strong applicant pool. As a whole, affirmative action runs counter to Asians. We just want the application process to be 100% merit, just like at the UCs and at UMich. We Asians do not want a leg up and would be happy to do away with any last bastion of affirmative action left in the system in our favor in exchange for doing away with the affirmative action against us.</p>
<p>@OHMomof2
Your line of reasoning is thus:
Asians may be discriminated against at a large scale, but at least at non-selective LACs they are selected for. Now, I doubt even that statement. Asians are still probably even selected against there.</p>
<p>You’re saying to the spurned Ivy league applicant whose spot was taken by a less qualified URM that he just didn’t “look around”. How insulting. The affirmative action you say that exists (which it doesn’t, but nevertheless) could never hope to balance out the numerous instances where affirmative action hurts Asians.</p>
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<p>It depends what you consider “non-selective”. So far you have named 5 that are arguably the most selective of all, and I have quoted an ad-rep from a selective one who says she intentionally recruits Asians. She feels they are under-represented there, not over-represented.</p>
<p>I suspect she is not alone. My brother, who is most definitely Asian in the most “O” of the “ORM” category, went to a selective LAC in the midwest where there were very few other Asians. </p>
<p>I’m not interested in arguing about your other stuff with you.</p>
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<p>OK, I see your point. It’s not a very good one because you’re conflating the issues. That some LACs, including selective ones like Colorado College, want more Asians doesn’t mean Asians are receiving racial preferences. These schools aren’t admitting Asians that are academically weaker than their “average student.”</p>
<p>By contrast, the whole point of racial preferences for blacks and Hispanics is that without the policy, there would not be “enough” blacks and Hispanics. It’s really dishonest to dispute this because doing so implies that racial preferences aren’t needed.</p>
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<p>Has it been that long since you started being consumed by this issue? Did you start your analysis as a teenager? Or even later in life? </p>
<p>It is great to see such maturity, eloquence, and capacity to analyze a complex context in such a young person. It will pay dividends later, especially when you will appreciate to separate facts from fiction and opinions. The alternative, of course, is to turn into the poster who singlehandedly keeps this garbage of a thread alive.</p>
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<p>Gee, xiggi, didn’t you start commenting on this issue over ten years ago when you were still in high school? At what point in the last decade did you transform from being a helpful, friendly person into a blathering prejudiced hack?</p>
<p>It’s also hilarious to see you patronize Kerkolus that way, especially given your beliefs toward Asians.</p>
<p>I appreciate the condescension, xiggi, but I am afraid the issue is not that “complex”. There are very few issue sthat are cut-and-dry right and wrong, but this is one of them. That link that fab brought up is hilarious. Reading through it, I find things like “selfish drones” used to describe Asians. You say that colleges have “seen through” Asian applicants, but once California banned AA, apparently UC-Berkeley apparently cannot any more. Could it be that Asians ARE actually better, more well-rounded applicants? No, it cannot be. Because you see, all Asians must be horrible people that, like the most grotesque villains out there, want to climb the social ladder. And social class fluidity is such a revolting concept that I am ashamed of thinking of it.</p>
<p>Apparently we are also horrible people that don’t contribute to schools. Well, it is a darned shame that most of us are still discriminated against in the workplace. Asians are passed up for promotions to high positions today. How many Asian-American CEOs have you seen around? They are astonishingly scarce considering the quality of the Asian population. So we don’t make enough money to donate to schools. But this is obviously easily explained by the fact that Asian Americans are ambitious fiends that dare work for social advancement. Those darned villains.</p>
<p>I cannot see how I am any more eloquent than fabrizio; he, unlike me, is actually willing to accept the frames of the arguments that his opponents propose and then is able to tear them apart. All I can do is repeat the same old valid talking points because that is all I know.</p>