<p>I didn’t use the phrase ‘socioeconomic preferences’ (nor do the colleges) when referring to opportunity in the context of race; you did. I realize that you wish to interpret opportunity strictly in the economic sense, but that is not in fact how AA has ever been presented or litigated. Opportunity is much broader than merely economic: it is educational, parental, one’s neighborhood, societal, much more. You wish to put a narrow spin on opportunity that is not the philosophical underpinning of AA. </p>
<p>Again, you’re mixing AA philosophy/policy on the one hand with overall racial/regional/income/e.c./academic diversity on the other. They are two different dynamics that both come into play when shaping a class out of qualified applicants.</p>
<p>URM is a hook.
Poverty is a tip.
They can exist (and come into play) separately or together.</p>
<p>That is not how the committee would tend to frame the question of representation. They don’t tend to look at representation within representation. Race is not national origin. They would look at how blacks overall were potentially represented on campus, given applications received. They will draw from outside the U.S. population (and/or those not U.S. born) to achieve better representation of that particular racial category. Blacks are not overrepresented, collectively, on elite campuses.</p>
<p>Are you aware of how badly you straw manned me? It’s not almost comic; it is comic. You quoted, “Socioeconomic arguments…” but then proceeded to reply as if I wrote “Economic arguments…,” which I did not.</p>
<p>What did this refer to? As I understood you, this referred to “…a different standard [being] allowed for URM’s than either for majority…or ORM’s…” So, you’re invoking a socioeconomic argument (“lack of opportunity”) to support “AA” (ie. racial preferences). To me, that doesn’t make sense, and as the New York Times article I linked to describes, it doesn’t play out in the real world.</p>
<p>Neither chaosakita nor The Times said that. Both said that West Indian and African immigrants or their children are “overrepresented.”</p>
<p>Edit</p>
<p>I’ll even give you the quote from The Times:</p>
<p>Douglas S. Massey, a Princeton sociology professor who was one of the researchers, said the black students from immigrant families and the mixed-race students represented a larger proportion of the black students than that in the black population in the United States generally.</p>
<p>I did not misquote chaosakita in post 319. chaosakita said that certain subsets of the black set are overrepresented on elite campuses (relative to the whole black set). That’s immaterial. Representation is not calculated in that manner. </p>
<p>chaosakita, the question you asked subsequently is a little complex, inasmuch as the question of ‘historical injustices’ is only one part of the reason for URM representation.</p>
<p>…and further, Douglas Massey’s quote is irrelevant to the effort of URM admission. It’s not about getting elites to represent exactly, or nearly, the proportions in the U.S. population (whether by race or by national origin, or both). (Which I also pointed out earlier.) It’s getting racial groups previously underrepresented at the institutions thmselves to be a visible factor of any kind, in any consistency whatsoever, at those same institutions. Apparently Douglas Massey does not understand, and it would not be the first time an outside researcher does not understand, the factors operative in college admissions. Has nothing to do with proportions “in the United States generally.”</p>
<p>^I don’t quite understand your attack on Massey’s comments. Whether relative to the US population, the US black population, the black enrollment at US elite colleges, or by any other yardstick, the recent West African and (at least some) Caribbean immigrant blacks are enormously better represented than US non-immigrant blacks. This is because they have a far more favorable distribution of credentials than multigenerationally US resident blacks, but apparently are admissible under the same affirmative action standard. </p>
<p>This is considered an unintended and to some tastes undesirable outcome by admissions offices as well as “interested parties” such as black student associations, Black Studies professors, etc. There have been some complaints that it distorts the original intent of the racial preferences but it is delicate for the pro-AA crowd to attack this angle too strongly, because those disfavored are not US blacks so much as the non-blacks displaced under the inexorable zero sum arithmetic.</p>
<p>It’s an unconstitutional reason, and no trained public relations representative should ever cite that as a reason for their policies. Justice Powell proscribed the “historical injustices” rationale in Bakke:</p>
<p>Hence, the purpose of helping certain groups whom the faculty of the Davis Medical School perceived as victims of “societal discrimination” does not justify a classification that imposes disadvantages upon persons like respondent, who bear no responsibility for whatever harm the beneficiaries of the special admissions program are thought to have suffered. To hold otherwise would be to convert a remedy heretofore reserved for violations of legal rights into a privilege that all institutions throughout the Nation could grant at their pleasure to whatever groups are perceived as victims of societal discrimination. That is a step we have never approved.</p>
<p>If not historical injustice or current injustice, what is the reason for AA? Diversity? Even that is failed to be achieved when the current system is only seeking people with black skin and not the wide variety of experiences that come with being black.</p>
<p>I’d like to bring up tokenadult’s well-posed question on what “underrepresented” means. Both “underrepresented” and “overrepresented” are relative terms; logically, there must be some level that is neither too much nor too little (ie. a benchmark).</p>
<p>You speak of the “racial groups previously underrepresented…” (emphasis added). They were “underrepresented” relative to what benchmark? If the overall proportions in our country are not the standard, that’s OK, but what is the standard, then?</p>
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<p>If every researcher were forced to conduct research on racial preferences according to the true “factors operative in college admissions,” I’d wager that no paper would ever be published, not even by defenders of the policy.</p>
<p>As you yourself implied, subjective criteria such as extracurricular activities are not evaluated quantitatively. Consequently, it’d be kind of difficult to use them as independent variables in an admissions-probability model. But, if models are limited to only those variables that can be measured quantitatively, then you’d dismiss the model as fatally flawed. So, researchers like Drs. Massey and Espenshade are screwed either way if you were in charge.</p>
<p>When applying to HYPS, which would better for chances of admission? Mark “I do not wish to answer” or mark one’s ethnicity as “Asian”?</p>
<p>I only ask because I had made a chance thread in the pass and apparently it’s a big deal applying to said schools as an Asian (over represented minority) in California (over represented state). </p>
<p>Ughhh that’s not always the case though… I know this Asian guy who’s named Miguel and his last name is a fairly “hispanic sounding name” as well (obviously I’m not going to say it to protect his privacy). If he marked “Hispanic” he would sooo get away with it ):</p>
<p>^ College admission officers are discouraged from predicting ethnicity by last name (you can find this info and other info in the thread I’ve linked to below). Leave the ethnicity box blank, so that even in a situation where an adcom might judge you as being Asian (however unlikely), it’s not as if you’re any more disadvantaged than you would be if you selected Asian. They aren’t going to feel more inclined to reject you for doing so.</p>
<p>Oh, sorry. I did take a look in the thread, but I just saw how he was emphasizing that it’s optional with a bunch of data/evidence from college websites, so I wasn’t sure if he was planning on answering a similar question.</p>