"Race" in College Admission FAQ & Discussion 9

Applying to College
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<p>"Fab, you’re testing some of us. I said, I don’t see preferences. Nothing that shows me the school prefers Blacks or Hispanics over others. That exclusionary practice would be self-defeating at an academically competitive college. Some Newtonian law applies to top colleges: they seek to maintain their reps and standing, their level of academics, their non-academic vitality, etc. "</p>

<p>With all these numbers out there, if one is still in denying about the race preference, it is more a honest issue to me. There is one top school (among the top 10 colleges in the U.S.) that probably does not use race preference in admission. The resulting race compositions are:
<1% American Indian or Alaska Native
42% Asian
2% Black or African American
5% Hispanic/Latino
33% White
5% Two or more races
10% Non-Resident Alien</p>

<p>Here are some more good readings from two Ivy professors using the eight Ivy college admission data:
[Racial</a> Preferences by the Numbers - Robert VerBruggen - National Review Online](<a href=“http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/228682/racial-preferences-numbers/robert-verbruggen?pg=2]Racial”>http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/228682/racial-preferences-numbers/robert-verbruggen?pg=2)</p>

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<p>Better readings might be the original research from which this article, and the book (“No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal”) was derived.</p>

<p>Is there anybody left who hasn’t seen it?
<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>This is the part I referred to a few posts ago (#199).</p>

<p>“The penalty for scoring less than 1200 on the SAT is
significantly greater for African-American and Hispanic students than the
penalty for white students who score less than 1200 (Model 2). Similarly,
the reward (i.e., increased likelihood of admission) that is produced by
scoring more than 1300 is significantly smaller for African-American and
especially for Hispanic students than the reward for white students who
score more than 1300. Thus, we find that the underrepresented minority advantage is greatest for African-American and Hispanic applicants with SAT scores in the 1200–1300 range and not for applicants with relatively low scores (cf. Dugan et. al., 1996).”</p>

<p>PS, that ^ would have been me (1200-1300), back when some of this data was collected (1983…ok, I applied to college in 1976)</p>

<p>Maybe that is me being “petty”.</p>

203

<p>Can we all shift to a debate on national health policy?</p>

<p>If you want a school that looks only at the top % kids or sets a minimum gpa, fine. The Grutter does a nice job of defending positives about diversity. The Princeton folks state: The Court’s decisions legitimated the use of an applicant’s self-described race or ethnicity as one among many factors that university officials may consider in a ‘‘highly individualized, holistic review’’ of each candidate’s qualifications.</p>

<p>Should a Black kid get an advantage since the country has a history of unfair treatment? I don’t know. Should applications be anonymous, strip out all identifying factors, including the high school? I don’t know. Are some identifiable groups in this country under-represented and should there be an effort to build up their numbers? Well, why not? That is, if you accept the Court’s affirmation of diversity.</p>

<p>Do I think there is a lot of confusion in this thread, and much emotion? That we are throwing in so many factors that it’s like trying to climb a greased pole? Yeah.</p>

204

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<p>Who wants this? You keep repeating this straw man, but I don’t see anyone advocating for “only top % kids” being admitted.</p>

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<p>I thought it did a horrible job. It basically said that a fixed number is a quota but a range (i.e. “critical mass”) isn’t. Outright racial balancing is patently un-Constitutional, but call it a “critical mass” and you’re good to go. What a joke!</p>

205

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<p>What kind of effort are we talking about here? Do you mean aggressive recruiting (i.e. encouraging applications from so-called “underrepresented” minority students) and outreach? Or do you mean racial preferences, or if you prefer your euphemism, “diversity considerations”?</p>

206

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<p>Some groups are underrepresented in the NBA. Should there be an effort to “build up their numbers”? Or are the underrepresented groups simply worse at what the NBA is looking for?</p>

207

<p>“You keep repeating this straw man, but I don’t see anyone advocating for “only top % kids” being admitted.”</p>

<p>Why not? Why should elite institutions accept anything but elite students? Why should a less qualified applicant be accepted in lieu of an elite one?</p>

208

<p>To me, it doesn’t seem that race matters much when going to college (whether prestigious or not). I think it’s based more on GPA and test scores that really ‘wow’ admissions. I guess a minority will really good test score and GPA might have a slight advantage since a lot of Ivy League or 1st tier don’t have much diversity.</p>

<p>As for me, (a black female) I don’t think I have a standing at any top tier school due to my average, non amazing GPA of a 3.0. I am trying to raise it but I only have until this winter/spring to raise it enough to start applying for colleges to transfer to.</p>

209

<p>Good luck Saraha, and think hard about making yourself vulnerable here.</p>

210

<p>Thanks Shrinkrap! Doing all this school work will be worth it in the end (hopefully!) lol.</p>

211

<p>Go saraha! I’m trying to get straight A’s this semester too :slight_smile: I wish you luck!</p>

<p>(Oh and for the topic’s sake, I agree with you :))</p>

212

<p>@Kudasai, Thanks! I need all of the luck I can get, lol. I wish you luck too!</p>

213

<p>@CCsniper, because high gpa doesn’t transfer -> elite.</p>

214

<p>[Interracial</a> marriage: Love of another color | StarTribune.com](<a href=“http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/relationship/133660158.html]Interracial”>http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/relationship/133660158.html)</p>

215

<p>I think that part of the reason a college might want to have a reasonable number of minorities on their campus is so that they don’t dissuade other minorities, who have a lot to add to their school, from coming.
I am black, and personally, I will not go to a school that does not have a reasonable portion of black students, say, at least 9%. I have no problem with people of different races, and, in fact, I have taken it for granted that my classes will be semi-diverse. However, I look at college as an opportunity to go somewhere I want, and that includes somewhere where I am not the only black person in all of my classes.
In my entire educational career (I am a high school senior now), I have had a total of one black teacher - and he taught PE. I am taking 5 AP classes this year, and took the same number last year, and, quite frankly, I am tired of it.
I am sick of having to make people realize that all black people do not make C’s and D’s. I am sick of having to explain to everybody that, yes, my hair is naturally curly, and that no, they cannot touch it. I do not want to have to explain to people that making straight A’s does not make me any less black that someone who is flunking out of school. I shouldn’t have to defend my ‘blackness’ every time I say something smart in class, or connect the assigned reading to Zizek. When I know things about current events that nobody else in my government class does, I do not want people to comment on how smart of a black I am. I am tired of my white and Asian classmates telling me how I am not black because I love calculus, because I don’t play basketball, or because I like the history channel. Similarly, I no longer want people to tell me that I look ‘ghetto’ whenever I wear braids, or to tell me to stop trying to act black.
I am sick and tired of people making their assessments of all black people based off of what I do. And I can’t stand it when my fellow students make racial ‘jokes’ around me and then tell me I am being too uptight when I tell them that I don’t like it when they toss around the n-word like it’s nothing.
I have put up with this crap since the fourth grade, when I got into the ‘gt’ program, and when, through middle school, whenever we studied jim crow or slavery in school, everybody’s heads would snap around to stare at me, like I was some kind of museum exibit.
My current school has a pitifully small portion of black students, it’s around 4%. And for college, I want a break. I want four years where I don’t have to blaze any trails or be any teachers’ first black student ever. I just want to study.
Many of my black friends deal with the same things and want to go to diverse schools as a result. I don’t care if the best school in the country wants me and is only 4% black. The next time someone calls me an oreo, I will bang my head against the wall in frustration. I want to go to college where I can learn without having to constantly defend my identity as a black woman.
Make of this what you will, but, if you were in my position, you would probably be sick of it, too. If a school wants me to come, they’re going to have to have a population where I at least won’t have people telling me that I’m the smartest black they’ve ever seen.
Unfortunately, I want to be an engineer, and the engineering statistics in terms of diversity are very depressing.</p>

216

<p>I think your negative experiences come about because the people around you view you as a member of a group and not a unique individual. Accordingly, I don’t believe racial preferences will make your experiences a thing of the past; to the contrary, I believe the policy will perpetuate them.</p>

<p>Racial preference programs define “diversity” solely in terms of visibility; if I can’t see “diversity” with my eyes, then it doesn’t exist. As such, how could you not experience such ignorant remarks in person? When people view you as a member of a group and not a person, sui generis, people will keep asking you, “how come you don’t act black?” as if all blacks act alike.</p>

<p>It is only when you are appropriately treated as the unique individual that you are that you will no longer experience such asinine questions and comments. And for that to happen, racial preferences and indeed the whole practice of categorizing people by arbitrary racial classifications has to go.</p>

217

<p>@kingkongisanape–</p>

<p>I’m going to go somewhat off the OP’s topic. But I really wanted to give you some advice.</p>

<p>It’s been years since my brother and I have been in school, but we can relate to you. We’re Hispanic and have done rather well in school and beyond in the technical and scientific fields. I have multiple degrees in the science and business fields. I’ve worked as a programmer for the aerospace industry and as an engineer for the software gaming industry. My brother has a Ph.D in molecular biology from Berkeley. And he’s discovered a treatment for a serious illness and has co-founded a biotech firm to commercialize the treatment. </p>

<p>My brother is soooo far above most others in terms of his thinking and spacial abilities that even his scientific colleagues with Ph.Ds call him “smart” and want his input for their own research. The folks that come to him are pretty much all White.</p>

<p>What I’m trying to say is that I consider myself smart. As for my brother, he’s got a genetic gift. He makes me look average. </p>

<p>Having said all this, we never considered the racial makeup of the school that we attended…AND neither should you. If the best school you can get into is 1% Black, so what? In my college courses, there weren’t many Hispanics or Blacks. In my jobs, there weren’t many Blacks and Hispanics either. That didn’t matter. I found that “intelligence” gets noticed. At some point, your classmates and co-workers won’t even be aware of your physical difference.</p>

<p>In my experience, minorities who gravitate towards schools like Howard university instead of the MAJOR powerhouse universities are making a big mistake. Since you’re interested in engineering, I would advise you to apply to the best engineering universities without regard to the racial makeup. </p>

<p>After college, when you’re ready to apply for a job, employers will only care if you went to a good university. The better the university, the better your chances for getting hired.</p>

<p>Don’t shortchange yourself. </p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

<p><btw i="" wasn’t="" saying="" you="" were="" thinking="" of="" howard="" u.="" was="" only="" using="" it="" as="" an="" example=""></btw></p>

218

<p>The OP posted that colleges “don’t make any particular inference about students who exercise their right not to self-report ethnicity.”</p>

<p>I can assert from a conversation with an admissions officer at Princeton University that this is not the case. When I asked him whether the admissions office could guess race from last name, he nodded and said that a person’s surname usually gave away their ethnicity. He also said that the other admissions officers and he consider race in their evaluation of a student’s application, but that, of course, it was not the most important factor.</p>

<p>In sharing this with everyone, I would like to question the validity of the OP’s assertion, whether it comes from good but misguided intentions, or an urge to make the college admissions process out to be more egalitarian than it really is.</p>

219

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<p>Admission officers have names, and their presence or absence from a college’s staff can be verified on the college’s website. The last time I followed up an assertion about what one college admission office (also in the Ivy League) was said to do with applicants who do not indicate their race or ethnicity on the admission form, I wrote to the admission office and asked. The anecdote related here on College Confidential was not verified when I actually wrote to the college admission office and received an email reply from a named admission officer, writing on behalf of her office. I invite anyone who cares about the issue to write to any college admission office you can reach by email and ask what the office’s official policy and practices are for dealing with students who leave unmarked the optional questions about race or ethnicity. </p>

<p>The statistics for Princeton </p>

<p>[U-CAN:&lt;/a&gt; Princeton University](<a href=“ucan-network.org”>ucan-network.org) </p>

<p>show that Princeton does admit and enroll students for whom it can only report to the federal government that the student’s race is unknown to Princeton. </p>

<p>Perhaps Princeton is an outlier among the other Ivy League colleges </p>

<p>[U-CAN:&lt;/a&gt; Harvard University](<a href=“ucan-network.org”>ucan-network.org) </p>

<p>[U-CAN:&lt;/a&gt; Cornell University](<a href=“ucan-network.org”>ucan-network.org) </p>

<p>[U-CAN:&lt;/a&gt; Brown University](<a href=“http://members.ucan-network.org/brown]U-CAN:”>http://members.ucan-network.org/brown) </p>

<p>[U-CAN:&lt;/a&gt; University of Pennsylvania](<a href=“ucan-network.org”>ucan-network.org) </p>

<p>[Common</a> Data Set (CDS) | Office of Institutional Research](<a href=“http://oir.yale.edu/common-data-set]Common”>Common Data Set | Office of Institutional Research) </p>

<p>[U-CAN:&lt;/a&gt; Dartmouth College](<a href=“ucan-network.org”>ucan-network.org) </p>

<p>[U-CAN:&lt;/a&gt; Columbia University](<a href=“ucan-network.org”>ucan-network.org) </p>

<p>in the percentage of students it reports as race unknown, because most report a higher percentage. The thing to check is whether a particular college goes out of its way, and beyond what is described in the federal regulations, in inquiring about student race or ethnicity. </p>

<p>[U.S&lt;/a&gt;. Department of Education; Office of the Secretary; Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the U.S. Department of Education [OS]](<a href=“http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html]U.S”>http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html) </p>

<p>If a college is not operating according to the law, there is a channel for making a complaint about the college’s practices </p>

<p>[How</a> to File a Discrimination Complaint with the Office for Civil Rights](<a href=“http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/howto.html]How”>File a Complaint: Discrimination Form | U.S. Department of Education) </p>

<p>with the federal Department of Education, which enforces the regulation and requires all colleges to refrain from racial discrimination.</p>

220

<p>Kingkongisanape, I read your post, and found myself nodding the entire time. The narrative is entirely too familiar—and depressing. I’m a 54 year old woman, and the things you experience on a daily basis scarcely differ from the ones I experienced at your age. I literally felt drained from day to day, dealing with all the crap I encountered, so I can totally understand your desire to attend a school that has a “critical mass” of others who are like you. It sounds like you haven’t lived inside any kind of socio-academic comfort zone in a long time (if ever). </p>

<p>I understand what nwcrazy is trying to say, but I completely agree with your decision to only consider schools that can offer a support group of peers who share your experiences. I’m sure there are a number of very fine, engineering-strong schools that fit that criterion. Good luck, and stay strong!</p>