@Oberyn Agreed, the big hole in this whole process that I disagree with is that there are many poor white americans who did not have the advantages and have no hooks while there are african americans who do come from families with more money so they have both the hooks and the advantages that come with their families economic status. I’d be completely fine with the admissions process favoring people from a lower income family as they have had to deal with much more stuggles and a lot less help than those that come from more privledged families, I can’t get behind the whole giving people admissions boosts simply for being a different race. Girls score about 40 points lower on average than men on the SAT, so should we just give all girls a 40 point boost there too?
That’s not a question that’s possible to answer in a yes or no. The real answer to that question is “whoever took more initiative and worked harder coupled with whoever has more natural talent”. The huge problem with college admissions is that’s usually not discernible.
Are Asians considered PoC or minorities? In the real world, yes. In college apps, no.
In most realistic cases, id say the white student. But here’s what I’d be considering, in a perfect world.
Who received more help from their parents?
The black student may go to an elite prep school, but why? Is it because he wanted to, and asked his parents to send him there based on his own research, or did his parents just send him there because they have money? In my case, I go to an elite magnet school that you have to test into, (it’s a public school FYI) and I did the work to get in there myself. This may not be the case, and probably most of the time it isn’t.
Are the kids parents pushing him to succeed, and being an active element in his academic success, or is he relatively self-driven? Even some poor white families push their children to succeed academically. I can’t say the same for a lot of black families. And self-drive is a lot more deserving than parental guidance.
How hard was it for the person to succeed academically? This should include not only social factors, like my experiences I discussed above, but also circumstantial things, like maybe the white applicant needed to hold a job to support his family, and that took away time for him to study, whereas the black applicant didn’t need to.
These are SOME of the factors I’d need to consider to answer your question. The answer to that question is not all black and white, never 100% for either side. You can’t say “a poor white deserves it more than a rich black” or vice Versa because that’s too gross a generalization. It depends on the individual.
I can even think of some cases where a rich white applicant deserves it over a poor white.
That’s the REAL problem with affirmative action. You can’t always discern things like that in an application. @Oberyn
Girls do get a boost in certain schools for acceptance actually. That’s a fun fact. Don’t believe me? Check MIT’s common data set. The acceptance rate for girls is almost double that of men. That’s what people should REALLY be screaming about (even though I believe that it is a fair policy that women get affirmative action). @IN4655 also I don’t think you really read what I said, if you’re saying that. The point of that entire passage was to say that:
Race in and of itself is a factor equal to income that may affect ones level of academic success due to some social stigma. Income may not always be the prime factor affecting academic success. Poor whites and Asians often have an advantage in academics over middle class blacks because of how their families push their academic success, and how their friends perceive it. Often, families of poor whites and Asians spend more on and care about their children’s education more than blacks of perhaps higher income. And THATS the entire point: because of cultural and social stigma, race is often as big a factor as income
@sweatearl I think college apps are very important in the real world. To say that the Asian American experience should be invalidated during the college application process is quite frankly racist, and speaks to the generally accepted stereotype that Asians are the “model minority.”
In addition, the argument you make about families pushing their kids to succeed and cultural differences is valid. However, cultural differences and household environment are not the major obstacles to a student’s success. Research from Carnevale and Strohl in 2010 has shown that socioeconomic impediments are seven times as large as racial obstacles. It is much more difficult for people of all races to exceed academically if they are from a lower socioeconomic class. That is irrefutable.
@Oberyn you’re stretching my words. First of all, you said “are Asians considered a minority?” Not “do I consider Asians a minority”. Second there is a difference betwweb and underrepresented minority and a minority. In college applications, Asians are one and not the other. Especially for top schools Asians make up a significant amount of the applicant pool. It’s not about whether they are a culture or a minority, or whether their culture is any different than ours. I never said that. I just said in college apps, they are not URMs
And the thing about citing studies like that is that they are often trying to prove something. It’s like citing that study on mouse GMOs and cancer, or that study on “IQ by race”. I’m not gonna outright say the study is false, cuz I’ve never read it or heard of it. But I am skeptical. Think about it. Why do poor Asians consistently perform at the same academic level as rich whites, blacks, and hispanics, if that’s true. @Oberyn . I’m not saying income isn’t a bigger factor. I just don’t think it’s MUCH or SIGNIFICANTLY bigger, which is why I believe income AND race should be considered. And I also believe it varies from case to case. In some cases, race may even be the bigger factor.
@sweatearl I think it would do you well to read the paper. Read the methodology and see how the authors control the variables to maintain consistency, and use the authors’ methodology to critique it. Don’t disregard it simply because you are skeptical. The paper is published by the Century Foundation, which is a non-partisan public policy think tank based in NYC.
Also, do poor Asians consistently perform at the same academic level as rich whites, blacks, and hispanics? I would like to see a source. My gut feeling (if this is true) is that the academic disparity between the poor Asians and rich whites/blacks/hispanics grows much larger when controlling for parents who are immigrants.
Also, your statement that poor Asians perform at the same academic level as rich whites, blacks, and hispanics implies that rich whites, blacks, and hispanics all perform at the same academic level. This has been my point all along (that socioeconomic status carries bigger weight than race).
I think this past argument between @Oberyn and @sweatearl is futile. Most African Americans get in with competitive stats. After that, it’s really up to the college to see if they find you attractive or not. People think that ECs are the determining factor. The quality of the EC does not have anything to do with acceptance. It just reflects you as a personality. In the end, colleges have the full right to choose. If the admissions officer thinks there are too many Asian doctors graduating, for instance, they might prefer to admit a similarly qualified African American.
Besides, I don’t get why such educated people are arguing over some of the flaws of democracy and capitalism. There isn’t always a need for a fair justification. Sometimes it’s a personal preference. Are people going to argue now why a guy/girl loves someone with light skin when science has proven that they are more likely to develop skin cancer? It’s what people want. This is what people fought for, the freedom to choose. I’ve been advantaged and disadvantaged too. I’ve been disadvantaged when an Asian landlord chose a white tenant over us when we had clean records, full documentation, and proof for the ability to pay. It’s capitalism. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best we’ve got.
@koolguy654 You’ve missed the entire point.
So do boys. Schools like gender balance. At most LACs and many universities it is a lot easier to get in if you are male, because many more girls come out of high school with high grades and achievements than boys. The main exception is the one you cite - “tech” schools, where men otherwise vastly outnumber women. They don’t want to be 80/20 male/female because apps drop when balance is way off, from both genders.
I agree.
“Asian” is a very large and diverse category of people and includes some groups whose high achievers are very sought after by colleges - Hmong, Laotian, etc. and some who have a lot of high achieving students.
Once you stop thinking high ranked colleges are fair in their admission process and realize that they act in self interest, you will not complain as much. There are so many ways these colleges are unfair in their admission process: legacies, athletes, donations etc.
@websensation that’s what I’ve been trying to say.
This is a post to communicate my frustration with the U.S. college admissions system.
College consider the following, races of underrepresented students, thus given special consideration in college admissions:
African American, Latino/a, Native American, Alaskan Native, Pacific Islander, bi-racial, or multiracial.
I believe this is discriminating against anyone who is not from the American continent.
Although many European students and Asian students apply as international students, what about those who just moved to the U.S. for high school and have a green-card?
For instance, an english speaking Belorussian student who moved to the U.S. at the start of ninth grade should not be competing with a White American who has lived in New York all his life. What about a Hispanic, who has lived in the U.S. for his/her whole life? Why would they have special consideration over an Arab (also considered White) who moved to the U.S in 8th grade?
What about the National Hispanic Recognition Program?
Does it make sense to have a lower eligibility bar, including the prize of some full ride scholarships, to someone because their grandmother was from SPAIN!!
Is that such an handicap to overcome??
We know several students at our private high school who are far more privileged than others in the school, let alone neighborhood and have been given special scholarships.
We also know some affluent ethnic Germans who have been given this award because they were born in Brazil…
Could someone tell me why Middle Eastern/ Muslim people more braodly dont have affirmative action? How crazy is it to think someone who is as hated by Trump, had the NSA spy on them (instutitional bias, including spying against educators here in NJ), is now ‘banned’ from the country doesn’t have affirmative action?
But some racist descendant of a conquistador (cruz rubio) do?
I find that extremely disturbing. AA needs much more nuance than we allow it
Why should this result in AA over poor whites and Asians? Trump has been President for all of a week. Political rants belong elsewhere.
White Students’ Unfair Advantage in Admissions
There’s no reason that whites should have a leg up — in effect, affirmative action — on Asians at elite colleges.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/30/opinion/white-students-unfair-advantage-in-admissions.html
^It must be a slow day at the nytimes. The only evidence provided is the 2009 Espenshade study, which has already been debated exhaustively here.
"But allowing Asian enrollment to increase would serve to acknowledge that meritocracy, like racial diversity, is a goal worth striving for even if we know it will not be fully attained.
To actively prevent this from happening isn’t discrimination for the greater good, as affirmative action was originally intended to be. It’s just discrimination."
This is so true. We are trying to disguise hypocrisy under a cloak of diversity.
It always fascinates me there is such active dialogue about how unfair and discriminatory affirmative action is when the reality is it is no more or less unfair and discriminatory than legacy admissions. Or development admissions. Or athletic admissions. Yet there isn’t the same level of heated, active, public conversations about the three latter categories. Only affirmative action. When will we see efforts to legally dismantle legacy admissions? And development admissions? And athletic admissions?
Yes, there is a whole disguising of hypocrisy going on. Indeed there is.
Legacy admissions exists for one simple reason, and it is because legacy families skew towards higher income, and are therefore much more likely to be “full-pay”. This is an important part of what allow high-end colleges to advertise themselves as “need-blind”–the legacy students cross-subsidize the high-need students (which are often URMs). Development admits do the same thing, but even more so.