<p>Not every school in the California system is selective. Some, like UCRiverside or CSU-East Bay, accept over 70% of their applicants. I’d expect these schools to have “metrics only” admissions. Others, like Berkeley and UCLA, accept less than 25%. Unsurprisingly, Berkeley and UCLA both have strong [holistic</a> admissions policies](<a href=“http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/080905_holistic-admissions_reed.aspx]holistic”>http://www.today.ucla.edu/portal/ut/080905_holistic-admissions_reed.aspx), even though they are forbidden from considering racial classification as a factor in their admissions process.</p>
<p>I’m unaware of any evidence linking the adoption of race-blind admissions with creating numbers-only admissions.</p>
<p>First, a state’s voters should decide on whether their state’s public universities can use racial classification as a factor in admissions. They can choose to be like Colorado and keep racial classification, or they can choose to be like California, Washington, Michigan, and Nebraska and dump it. This is the existing system, but concerned status quo stakeholders often resort to underhanded tactics to keep the initiatives from ever being placed on the ballot. See the dirty actions of Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan as an example.</p>
<p>Second, a private university should be allowed to use racial classification as a factor in admissions as long as it declines federal funding. This is my proposal.</p>
<p>That sounds fine to me, fabrizio, but I was asking in terms of the entire process, not just with respect to race.</p>
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<p>Me neither. The point is, race-blind admissions could easily lead that direction - and I don’t want that. If we put race-blind admissions on the ballot, do we also put gender and socioeconomic blind admissions on the ballot? That’s all I’m saying. Sure, I’d like to see the end of race-aware admissions. But I absolutely will not stand for the end of holistic admissions.</p>
<p>please allow me to clarify…I meant to say that all minorities have had to battle ignorance. I didn’t say that African Americans haven’t had their share. However, my intended comment was not about the general struggle of all minority groups, but specifically, the struggle of specific groups to specifically get in to the universities…such as the the struggle of the Jewish minority, especially with respect to the overt and specific discrimination they encountered at places like Harvard, and the law and medical schools of the mid 20th century.</p>
<p>I’m not so convinced that race-blind admissions will lead to numbers-only admissions. The experiences of California and Michigan suggest that it forces admissions officers to find other ways to maintain their desired level of racial diversity, and that these other ways seem to benefit poor students.</p>
<p>The civil rights initiatives championed by Ward Connerly in the aforementioned states end gender preferences, as well, but not socioeconomic preferences.</p>
<p>I would like to hear from you all the reasoning steps involved in reaching that conclusion. The reason I am doubtful about that conclusion is that as a historical matter there have been United States universities that haven’t considered student “race” and have still been able to admit diverse classes without a “metrics-only” admission process. It’s been done, and I think it can still be done. But please let me know why think the one policy proposal made by Fabrizio here would lead to the policy result that you disagree with. </p>
<p>P.S. Congratulations on your college admission news. Now your interesting screen name has a bit of built-in irony.</p>
<p>We thought about having it changed to appliCAN.</p>
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<p>Well, fabrizio pointed out the California/Berkeley example, which does make sense and certainly weakens my argument. But it goes something like this. There’s a - reasonable and valid - uproar about the use of race in the admissions process. I agree. So we put it on the ballot, and people vote it out of favor. Now, the same arguments that SOME people use to discount race-aware admissions are used to discount socioeconomic or gender aware admissions (i.e., “less qualified” low-income students could be accepted, therefore displacing middle and upper income students). Does that go to a ballot next? Does that mean socioeconomic status and gender should also be disqualified? I think it’s a hill that I don’t want to stand on the edge of. I think that colleges should be free to make their own decisions - not based on the ballot - if they are primarily private. Hopefully they will make the RIGHT decision. I don’t think it should be mandated by ballot, and honestly that is a poor choice of deciding right and wrong. Popular opinion isn’t always the best way to go (see: slavery).</p>
<p>So your argument is basically slippery slope. Well, slippery slope does happen, so I can’t say it’s a bad argument.</p>
<p>Ultimately, I speak for myself. I oppose racial and gender preferences but support socioeconomic preferences, and I believe many other opponents of racial preferences also support socioeconomic preferences - John McWhorter and Ward Connerly instantly come to mind. But, I don’t know how many opponents of racial preferences are also against socioeconomic preferences. I can only tell you that in the thirteen years since Proposition 209 has passed, there has been no initiative seeking the abolition of socioeconomic preferences.</p>
<p>To clarify, private universities are not bound by state civil rights initiatives. They are free to use racial classification if they like.</p>
<p>I think every college in the United States would be subject to the general jurisdiction of some state (district, or territorial) government and thus subject to whatever nondiscrimination law exists in that jurisdiction. In general, federal authority to require higher education institutions not to discriminate on the basis of race </p>
<p>is broad enough to cover all colleges most people on CC ever apply to. </p>
<p>The public opinion survey results I have read suggest that there is much more support for socioeconomic factors being considered in college admission than applicant ethnicity. </p>
<p>I happen to favor considering student economic background, and am on record in this thread agreeing with President Clinton’s former economic adviser </p>
<p>To me, applicanot’s “slippery slope” argument doesn’t ring true. He is worried that if we disallow preferential admissions by race we’ll disallow preferential admits by socioeconomic class, to paraphrase, because if we disallow admits by race, we’ll logically do the same to lower SES., ie. if we accept that certain races are less qualified , then we’ll also accept that lower ses are less qualified… but that is too obviously racist to hold water. </p>
<p>I would disallow admits by race , not because they are less qualified, but because there is nothing intrinsic about race that makes them more qualified…ie, let’s take the ex. of an athlete…and for arguments’ sake ,say they are more intrinsically aware of the need for teamwork, and thus we admit them preferentially, because we want to build a student body with that particular characteristic…but there is nothing intrinsic about race in this day and age that would be a desirable characteristic in the student body…is there a particular characteritic about afrcan americans?..that would go down the slippery slope of prejudice and bigotry, so by definition, we are bound to say that NO , there are NO particular racial characteristics about URMs that are particularly desirable in the student body we are trying to build. Therefore, jettison the old system.</p>
<p>What is wrong with “numbers”… I doubt that “mommy and Daddy” can prop up a student’s numbers that much…is Mommy holding Junior’s number 2 pencil …or maybe she’s texting junior with the right answers because non urms can afford blackberries and urms can’t… ? Are you saying that the non URMs have more money and are thus better at cheating than URMs, therefore, by your logic,we should let in URMs because they cheat less on objective testing, because mommy and daddy aren’t around to “prop them up …”?? Where then, ARE Mommy and Daddy???..be careful who you’re insulting…your expedient exaggeration will not stand you in good stead at Stanford. </p>
<p>You can "cheat "a lot less with numbers, than with ECs and those intangibles…that “book” that your hypothetical homeless kid wrote, does the adcom have a way of really checking to see if even one copy was bought? That “acting” experience, was it caught on video and written up in the NY Times??The vetting process for these intangibles is much less stringent and certainly less objective than with SATs and grades. Your abhorrence of objective testing infers a lack of comfort with this technique.</p>
<p>I completely agree, however fear it is unworkable given budgets.</p>
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<p>You pretty much missed my point all together. I said the prevailing thought, especially on CC, is that Affirmative Action allows for colleges to accept “less qualified” students because they are minorities. This thought translates into the gender and socioeconomic status debate as well. It is not MY opinion, but rather a popular opinion among Affirmative Action opponents.</p>
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<p>I agree. Like I said, I don’t support a system that admits by race.</p>
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<p>Woah… where are you getting this from? Resumes can be padded, GPAs can be inflated, the SAT can be extensively studied for via tutoring, etc. A bright kid with pressuring parents could certainly go further than a gifted kid with a lot of other circumstances to deal with, regardless of race. I wasn’t connecting race with socioeconomic status at all. I’m pretty sure who’s exaggerating here, and that person isn’t going to Stanford. I’m not sure where you drew those conclusions from my statements, but I suggest you read them again.</p>
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<p>As a high school student, I completely disagree that numbers are more difficult to fudge. The SAT IS difficult to fudge, which is why I wholeheartedly support it in the admissions process. But the GPA and class rank aren’t much more than a game. I would say that ECs of Ivy caliber - i.e., writing a novel - are easier to verify than a GPA. It’s easy to pull up a publisher’s website (now would a college do that? another issue altogether) but it isn’t easy to say that we didn’t cheat on our calculus exams. No one is going to lie about, say, acting on Broadway. I don’t abhor standardized testing for college admissions at all (not sure where you got that from), but I DO abhor a numbers-only admission process.</p>
<p>U.S. Colleges and Universities have missions that serve primarily residents of this country. And despite what international components end up in the student bodies, the philosophy of admissions, including minority representation and overall U.S. diversity, reflects long-held fundamentally American beliefs in opportunity and wide participation. Whether or not we “are lagging behind” is something that figures into the particular student strengths (relative to supposed U.S. weaknesses) that are presented at the time of admission. They’re not going to change their admissions policy to satisfy your preferences of what some theoretical international or foreign values system we “should” have, so that you will feel okay. </p>
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<p>…except that you have contributed about 15 complaints on this thread alone so far, in less than 48 hours.</p>
<p>What GBJ’s D’s admission once again demonstrates is that race is not, ultimately, a disqualifier in Elite U admissions. It demonstrates that Columbia is able to see excellence as the overriding factor, above racial categories per se. It demonstrates that race in itself is not the “death knell” it’s been exaggerated to be on this + more than 6 other mega-threads on the subject over 5 years and counting. It demonstrates that one can distinguish oneself regardless of demographics, socioeconomic status, racial category, and that distinction is where the rubber meets the road. Conversely, it affirms that those denied admission are most likely denied on justifiable application factors, as opposed to categorical qualities. Sometimes, btw, it is not that a particular applicant doesn’t have that distinction; it is for one reason or another a failure to communicate that distinction, to frame it in a way that makes the applicant more desirable than other competitors.</p>
<p>As to applicannot, I don’t think she was trying to compare Stanford in a superior way to Columbia or anything else. I think it was her way of identifying that she was not the poster “doing the exaggerating,” in her words.</p>
<p>That’s an implicit answer to some (but not all) of the questions raised in [post</a> #12](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063506871-post12.html]post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063506871-post12.html) in this thread, where I ask what comparison population defines who is “underrepresented” in college admission. And as an American-born American citizen and current American resident, I’m not ardently opposed to colleges in the United States implicitly or even explicitly favoring United States citizens and permanent residents in the admission process. That wouldn’t violate federal (or, as far as I know, state) civil rights law, by the way. </p>
<p>But within the broad ambit of colleges here mostly serving students from nearby, my experience as an undergraduate at a large research university was that the international students at my alma mater did more than their share of adding genuine diversity to the enrolled class and raising the intellectual level on campus. Different campuses attract different students from different countries, but it would be regrettable if colleges in the United States admitted NO international students, because the presence of international students on campus makes undergraduate education better for every enrolled student.</p>
<p>You know what the problem is, tokenadult?It’s because you asian american people are doing too well because you work hard. People are not happy. they want to get what you get without hard work. I’m NOT an asian btw, but I can still see things objectively. I have very good Asian friends, chinese, korean, indian… I compete with them while befriend with them. I like to compete with my asian american peers by hard work, because they are good, and it’s only fun to compete with good people. if I fail, I fail. that’s only fair. but if I work hard, I may win. most people don’t think that way. jealousy is an innate nature of human being. - I don’t mean to offend anybody, but don’t you think that’s true?
All these go together - AA, “no child left behind”, etc. etc. Haven’t we got enough? That’s not what U.S.A. is about. that is not how U.S.A. became U.S.A. as of today. If we abuse it, sooner or later we’re going to lose what we have now.</p>
<p>What the heck are you talking about? (“Your”) daughter? Wait, what – is this a ■■■■■? I was referring to the apparent (obvious) worth of GoBlueJay’s daughter, all in the positive (clearly). Who the heck are you?</p>
<p>I smell some duplicate identities here, including successive re-quoting.</p>
<p>Couldn’t agree more! (Makes some of the Ivies a lot more interesting than some publics, where the undergrad representation is minuscule compared to the local representation.) Re-read my post. I specifically excluded the student body representation, referring rather to the origin of policies, which are not foreign-derived but domestic.</p>
<p>Oh, my bad, epiphany, I was following another independent thread thread that was merged into this thread in which someone previously had mentioned my daughter too, so I’m sensitive, I’m new to this one, and didn’t read you had written “GBJ”. Please accept my apologies,I am not used to this merging thread business… On with the conversation.</p>