If you read through some of the threads on legacy status, a lot of posters seem to think there’s two types of legacies Group A: active alumni with a history of making $10k++/year donations consistently over many years and group B: normal legacies from middle class families. The group A legacies get admitted, which accounts for the legacy average, and the group B legacies get very little advantage in the admissions process.
@IN4655 Socioeconomics are also taken into consideration. The hard thing is that most of the lower income people do not have access to the activities and educational enrichments that lead them to even think about applying to anything other than their local community college or state school, if they even go on beyond high school. I volunteer with a group that works with low income or first generation high school students and gets them ready for college.
My privileged URM kids had super high ACT scores. How do you know that wasn’t the biggest factor in their admissions to college? In fact we found when we visited 2 of her acceptances, that she had not been considered in the URM pile and was not invited to URM specific events. Or perhaps they were admitted because they were from a rural area of a rural state aka geographical diversity.
I won’t touch your comment about racism. It makes my heart ache.
@dragonmom3 Even if one person has potentially found a loop hole, it is no reason to throw out the concept of making opportunities available to a larger swath of our country’s population. . And of course you do not know the ins and outs of his application. Both my kids had extensive involvement in ECs that were not at all related to school and that few people, even friends knew about. Why does this bother you so much?
Somebody’s quite touchy (overly defensive) on this subject.
It just seems to me that a lower bar based on grandparent’s country of origin -all things equal- is silly and antiquated.
@roethlisburger From my perspective, it doesn’t matter. An advantage is an advantage is an advantage. Some advantages bigger, some smaller, but one is always able to be a member of an advantage group in a particular year at a particular school. Meritocracy on it’s own does not and can not exist in college admissions (@zinhead I held Andrew Gelman’s position prior to reading his blog) so best to try to help guide our children to a host of schools to enjoy their collegiate experience and move along.
Look in full disclosure, I happen to have a child who falls in the athlete category who will be given a recruited spot at a much sought after college. Would she still get in without athletics? Not sure she would. Lots of fantastic over 4.3 GPA students do not. Would her checking the African-American box with that GPA get her in over a white or Asian student with an over 4.5 GPA under the AA category? Maybe. Is that fair? I’m sure it can be argued all sorts of ways. Selfishly, I’m going to argue on behalf of my kid.
The other assumption you’re making is legacy = white, non-Hispanic. Even 16 years ago, based on some CDS data, some elite colleges classes didn’t have many more non-Hispanic whites than the college age population at the time. Fast forward another 15 -20 years, after those cohorts have college age kids of their own, and I doubt the legacy applicant pool will skew noticeably more white, non-Hispanic than the general applicant pool.
For Asian and female students who are frustrated with the increased difficulty of admissions at good colleges, I believe that Lehigh is one university that is working to increase their percentage of both. Last year 8% of Lehigh students were Asian and about 45% were female.
I am all for affirmative action policy for students from families who come from “poor” background, but I am not in favor of any affirmative action policy for URM. This is like asking NBA or NHL to diversify its players more. Because there always will be other factors than meritocracy at play, colleges should try to be as merit-based as they can.
Hi, I know affirmative action is prevalent among undergraduate institutions, but is it common practice in a masters or phd program? I know being an Asian male is usually detrimental to admission to undergraduate engineering programs, but is there this same effect in grad schools? And if it is present, is affirmative action as detrimental to admission chances as in undergrad?
Thanks
Hi, I was just wondering if grad school adcoms follow similar Affirmative actions as undergrad schools do. Do asian males in STEM get hit as hard if they are applying to a grad school compared to applying for undergrad (they get hit hard during undergrad admissions). Or is there no concept of race taken into account and grad school admissions is solely credential based?
Thanks
@kjake2000 Take a look at these tables and you can figure out who your competition really is. (Hint- it is not African-American or Latino students)
https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d15/tables/dt15_318.45.asp?current=yes
Apologies if this double posts. My phone is being goofy
Grad school is not purely a credentials based admissions. Your statement of intent really matters, your interviews are super important, and there needs to be mentor or department whose research topics mesh with yours.
The graduate school sub forum has some very knowledgeable posters who can help you.
The top US universities (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford, MIT) all have published stats that the number of white students that they admit is less than 50%. My Alma Mater, Stanford, recently published stats that the most recent incoming class was less than 40% white. My recollection is that the number of white non-hispanic people in the US is about 63%. Clearly some of these are being squeezed out of our top universities. I suspect that this is one of many factors in why there is so much stress and stress-related illness in suburban US high schools.
My younger daughter is a straight A student who was potentially interested in a highly ranked very small liberal arts college in the northeast. Looking at those little charts that you see on-line she saw that none of the other GPA 4.0 students from her school had been accepted, only one student was accepted with a GPA of 3.4. She didn’t bother to apply, but instead will be leaving the country in September to study abroad (with a GPA of 4.0, two languages, and a very successful semester abroad in a non-English high school, she was accepted to every university that she applied to that was outside of the USA).
I think that some affirmative action is a very good thing for two reasons: (i) It is important that every American citizen believe that they have a chance, if they work hard enough and do well enough in school, to get into an appropriate and well regarded university; (ii) There really is some value in studying and living next to people from a wide variety of backgrounds. However, it is possible to go too far.
We are overdoing it. The US is NOT better off when white students (or any other students) with a GPA of 4.0 need to leave the country in order to go to a top or appropriate university. There is a very real risk that they won’t return. Also, this is going to piss off enough people that it is likely to have other unfortunate affect, such as on elections. You can’t tell 63% of the population that you would prefer if they would please leave and never come back, and expect to avoid some unfortunate reaction.
“You can’t tell 63% of the population that you would prefer if they would please leave and never come back”
Huh? Who is saying that?
“My younger daughter is a straight A student who was potentially interested in a highly ranked very small liberal arts college in the northeast. Looking at those little charts that you see on-line she saw that none of the other GPA 4.0 students from her school had been accepted”
Probably because those 4.0 students are getting into other colleges and going to other schools. Perhaps the small LAC is protecting its yield because those 4.0 students from your daughter’s HS never wound up matriculating but the kids a little lower do. Could be all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with race/affirmative action.
" leave the country in order to go to a top or appropriate university."
Did she not apply to any schools in the USA after looking at what I assume was Naviance?
I find it hard to believe that a 4.0 student has to leave the United States to go to a top or appropriate university. Poppycock.
What was your definition of a top or appropriate school for your daughter @DadTwoGirls?
I’ve heard of go big or go home, but not go big or leave the country.
Those who don’t apply have a 100% rejection rate. You can’t blame that on AA.
@DadTwoGirls To counter your anecdote, the two highly ranked colleges nearest my home are 78% and 80% white. Anecdotes are not data.
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Ivy543 You’re questioning the US system even though you are not a citizen. All US colleges and universities can make their own prerequisites and are not beholden to international students. It is a privilege to attend a university particularly in a country that is not your own. So please don’t accuse US colleges of not meeting the needs of international students.
Okay you’re looking at schools that are highly selective and have a large Asian draw. Most of these schools still have close to a 50% white population. Some of the super selective schools have less but have you looked at the percentages of A.A. Or hispanics at these schools? I’m sure it’s far lower.
There is no reason to go abroad when there are hundreds of quality schools her in the US. GPA is not everything and means nothing if the quality is not there.
From another thread, http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1971287-perspectives-from-an-admissions-office-at-a-selective-school-part-1.html#latest
It’s unfortunate Asians and whites appear to be victims of racial discrimination at some colleges.