<p>^ Thanks for the qualification. Yes, at some schools Asians are under-represented (indeed, mostly southern schools).</p>
<p>At schools like Vanderbilt who are trying to work on their diversity image and dispell the “rich, white, southerner’s school” stereotype – it’s actually an advantage, I believe, to be Asian. It’s a really good school and certainly worth consideration.</p>
<p>I figured the same thing, since Asians in California sometimes make up 30% of a school when they make up 5% of the population. </p>
<p>Hmm, so maybe I should apply there Early Decision instead of Cornell, since I’m Asian without a 4.0 GPA.</p>
<p>Wait, on your information sheet, like the ACT information sheet fill out before taking the test, it’s ILLEGAL to say you’re American Indian or Black when you’re Asian or White? I thought it was just for statistical analysis and could be played off as a joke.</p>
<p>Affirmative action is a great crime and insult against individual liberty and equality. Collective racism, which is what I interpret affirmative action as, can only augment inequality by judging on different levels, based on race. Regardless of what wrongs were dealt in the past to minorities, the minorities of today should not be at an advantage, or disadvantage in the case of Asians who apply to many universities, because of the simple great truth that each college or job applicant should be judged as an individual. Discrimination and unfairness will continue as long as people still believe reverse discrimination or classification and judging based on race will remedy past mistakes. What’s past is past; moving towards the future without repeating the inequalities of the past is the true solution.</p>
<p>I honestly believe that one day in the future, society will look back on this era and regard affirmative action as a pathetic, sorrowful, and hypocritical attempt to reverse the wrongs of the past that only resulted in the loss of opportunities for many qualified individuals, who were rejected solely or partly based on their race. I can’t wait until the day when equality of individuals will finally be realized.</p>
<p>^ A trend line of treating such questions as optional and treating our fellow human beings as our fellow human beings, period, would be helpful for the future of this country.</p>
<p>What if we replaced affirmative action for race with affirmative action for income and class? I don’t think anyone claims uber-rich URMs need equality anymore in our society. Yes, low-income URMs do need an advantage because of the opportunities they missed, but forking it out by race raises unneccesary controversy. If we did it by income and class, that would still provide the racial diversity without the reverse discrimination.</p>
<p>CollegeBound…If your suggestion were implemented, my D would REALLY be hosed in this process. She’s an upper-middle class, white female who’s worked her butt off trying to be the “super child” that colleges want. Because she’s in a very competitive private prep school, she typically has functioned on 4 hours of sleep each night in order to maintain her perfect GPA while taking all AP courses and doing tons of ECs. Females are already at a disadvantage in this process because statistically, there are more qualified females applying than males. Furthermore, she’s white so that’s strike #2. If you penalize her for having motivated, college educated parents who have had financial success due in large part to choices they’ve made NOT opportunities they’ve had, that’s strike #3. Does it make sense that a student(s) like this be forced out of many schools in order to accomodate lesser qualified applicants? NO!</p>
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<p>First of all, who says the other students are any less qualified?</p>
<p>Second of all, I can’t speak for CollegeBownd, but if he is proposing the system I’d prefer, race wouldn’t be an issue. Of course, unless federal law changes, colleges can consider race if they wish, in one way or another. As for women in college admissions, top colleges have no problem accepting high achieving male students. The unbalanced admissions rates come from lower privates and LACs, for the most part. In fact, at some top colleges, male applicants outnumber female applicants, and in some cases male students outnumber female students. (Remember that although IQ averages are about the same for each sex, women have a smaller standard deviation.) The very tippy top colleges are enjoying a trend of accepting students who have achieved great things despite their circumstances. Your daughter can and will attend many great schools; the top colleges just may choose not to accept her because although I’m sure she is quite bright, they may feel she has had few life challenges.</p>
<p>@jc40, listen to applicannot about the gender issue. And the system I’m thinking about would denature racial discrimination, so that’s 2/3 strikes gone. And think of the income thing this way: take two bodybuilders, they’re both benching 500 kilos (like two students maintaining “perfect GPA while taking all AP courses and doing tons of ECs”), but one’s on the moon, low gravity, and one’s on earth, high gravity. All my system is saying is that the one on earth is much more impressive, like a student in a run-down neighborhood where there is pressure against achievement rather than for it. Chances are the one on earth has a lot more muscles (his/her student counterpart is apparently more qualified) because his/her kilos are more like 700 instead of 500.</p>
<p>“The national test score average for minorities is lower, and thus standards tend to be a tad bit more lenient. For example, being a 3.0 minority applicant with AP Classes and a “regular” situation in comparison to a Caucasian or Asian applicant with similar conditions would tip the hat in your favor.”</p>
<p>I agree SAT score averages for URM’s are lower, and I have seen evidence that the threshold for SAT scores is lower at some schools, but I have NOT seen this with GPA’s. I believe the goal is sometimes to achieve a certain “community” and not to make up for past inequities. Of course, context of the applicant plays a role. I don’t have a problem with the “community” goal ( but then my hope is to have this option for my kids who are well off URM’s who have never experienced such a community before), and at times feel SAT thresholds might be arbitrary. Rather er than change “affirmation action” to something economic based, I’d rather see a limit to how much SAT scores count; for example, no additional “points” past 650, at least for schools that don’t have “I.T.” in their name. I think some schools say this explicitly, and it world eliminate the SAT score “arms race”.</p>
<p>“Public schools <em>have</em> to accept certain percentages to meet the state’s ethnic distribution. For example, if there are 12.5% African americans in Florida, the public schools try to at least reach that percentage in their school population. ( I pulled that number off the top of my head as an example, it is most likely not accurate)”</p>
<p>This is clearly not true in California publics.</p>
<p>Just to clarify…</p>
<p>“Rather than change “affirmation action” to something economic based,”</p>
<p>I think economic, 1st gen, and other “context” “affirmative action” exists, and I would not change that either.</p>
<p>I heard that at times, affirmative action regarding genders was used to make, as shrinkrap stated, a community; the article written by an admissions office from Kenyon University talks about this. While there are times when it can be beneficial (for example, you have a ton of history students at the college, you would like some more sciency people, so you choose some students that may have ACT or SAT scores that aren’t as high as those who want history majors), it does hurt those that actually have the talent. </p>
<p>I haven’t a clear position on Affirmative action yet, but I don’t understand why in the real world, employers would want to enact affirmative action. Just like in the NBA or NFL, they don’t care what you are, they want you because of how well you can do, as shown by the fact that the racial community in sports is not near representative of the racial community in the real world. But then again, I suppose athletes’ talents mean more to the organization than a worker does to a corporation.</p>
<p>"'I haven’t a clear position on Affirmative action yet, but I don’t understand why in the real world, employers would want to enact affirmative action. "</p>
<p>Perhaps it depends on the business. As a physician, I have known folks to travel a LONG way to get to an African American physician, or a female one. I have also heard that language differences can be perceived as a big deal. Both seem bigger to underrepresented folks than what school you went to, or your SAT scores</p>
<p>I’ll refer back to a [question</a> about what “underrepresented”](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1064853590-post14.html]question”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1064853590-post14.html) means to ask all the welcome new participants in the thread to explain how we would know who is underrepresented, if anyone, and who is not. </p>
<p>Some scholars suggest that by some definitions of underrepresented, the most underrepresented group in United States colleges today are high-ability young people from low-income families: </p>
<p>[BW</a> Online | July 7, 2003 | Needed: Affirmative Action for the Poor](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?) </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ffp0621.pdf[/url]”>Error; </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ff0615S.pdf[/url]”>Error; </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/carnrose.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/carnrose.pdf</a> </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/kahlenberg-affaction.pdf[/url]”>http://www.tcf.org/Publications/Education/kahlenberg-affaction.pdf</a> </p>
<p>[A</a> Thumb on the Scale | Harvard Magazine May-Jun 2005](<a href=“http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html]A”>http://harvardmagazine.com/2005/05/a-thumb-on-the-scale.html) </p>
<p>[The</a> Best Class Money Can Buy - Magazine - The Atlantic](<a href=“http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveraging/4]The”>http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200511/financial-aid-leveraging/4) </p>
<p>[Recruiting</a> a New Elite | The Harvard Crimson](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=510012]Recruiting”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=510012) </p>
<p>[Cost</a> Remains a Key Obstacle to College Access](<a href=“http://www.equaleducation.org/commentary.asp?opedid=1240]Cost”>http://www.equaleducation.org/commentary.asp?opedid=1240) </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.jkcf.org/assets/files/0000/0084/Achievement_Trap.pdf[/url]”>http://www.jkcf.org/assets/files/0000/0084/Achievement_Trap.pdf</a> </p>
<p>[Legacies</a> of Injustice - Reason Magazine](<a href=“http://www.reason.com/news/show/123910.html]Legacies”>Legacies of Injustice) </p>
<p>I haven’t individually checked all these figures, but that sounds plausible to me.</p>
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<p>Oh, I see. So, it’s more of a marketing thing. For example, people sometimes will watch a movie simply because of a certain actor (Jennifer’s Body), regardless of how good the film may be, hiring not the most qualified actor, but the most marketable one. Affirmative action is sort of the same thing, correct?</p>
<p>^I suppose it depends on what “qualified” means to the consumer. For some it will apparently mean the one with the highest SAT scores, but generally other values take precedence as you move away from high school.</p>
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<p>“Other values” are totally fine. In and of itself, there is nothing inherently wrong with considering subjective criteria. What I do not accept is the notion that racial classification alone is what determines whether a process is holistic (ie. if racial classification is not considered, then the process is not holistic).</p>
<p>Hi Fabrizio!</p>
<p>Another question:</p>
<p>What is to stop someone from claiming to be first generation attending college? As far as I know, no proof is ever asked for.</p>