@ChangeTheGame Merry Christmas to you too and thanks for your great and insightful posts! I think you are right in saying many of us have the same end goal in mind…we might just disagree on the best way to get there. But the debate is a good one and having people see each other’s point of view is certainly a step in the right direction.
@ChangeTheGame yes, totally agree. I have seen top African American students disadvantaged in admissions even though they were in a top school with top grades and perfect SAT scores. They maybe get in but no money comes to them. Demanding grit is maybe part of the problem although it solves other problems of equity. But demanding a hard-luck narrative from students who are URMs is also a product of biased thinking on the part of admissions. It is possible to control for factors like grading being harsher in schools with predominately URM student bodies, etc. I think often not a lot of thought is given to that, though, once they get their advantaged kids from private schools in. My kids are white but have often been in the absolute minority at their schools and in community programs so I see the disparities pretty acutely. Brilliant kids get pushed aside every day because they lack social markers.
I’m not following you. Students with non-elite academic performance deserve to be admitted to intellectually elite institutions? “Being celebrated” is not synonymous with admission to colleges where the average admitted score among non-hooked students far exceeds a 26.
Indeed. I agree with you that diversity is a word with many meanings and applications in college admissions and campus life. But again, in the Regular Round colleges generally don’t admit merely for the sake of “all kinds of diversity” (paraphrasing myself) unless that is a Value Added feature of a student, and the campus is happy to increase its population anyway. (Just as they may be happy to admit a white student with a less-than-elite academic background in the Regular Round who is an all-around athlete likely to contribute to the intramural life of campus athletics.)
Because, again, the top 50 universities don’t often admit merely for the sake of vantage points unless the student has also shown academic promise so that he or she can be predicted to be on a par with students at those universities.
(Maybe I’ve missed a step in your reasoning, and if so, I apologize.)
@epiphany I know several Black students in USNWR top 50 schools who have made much lower than a 26 ACT or SAT equivalent (including 1 with a 21 ACT) and they are not athletes. But those students chosen with “holistic” admissions are not coming from inner-cites but come from the suburbs. The SAT still puts out percentile data by race and the ACT use to put out data showing African American and Hispanic American scores and percentiles from 1-36. An ACT score of 26 for African Americans in 2013 (last full year of Data kept on African Americans reported) was in the 98th percentile (out of almost 240,000 test takers). Just by sheer numbers, once you get past the tippy top schools, the depth goes down quickly. By the time you get to school #50, there is no way to avoid not taking black students with lower test scores (unless test optional) if a school is shooting for diversity. When you factor in high scoring black students like my daughter who end up choosing HBCUs or lower ranked schools, those numbers drop even further. Top 50 schools admit students every year with lower ACT scores, but very few of those students seem to come from those areas where students with the least have made the most out of their opportunities is my own observation.
Test scores have an opportunity component built into them from my perspective. My son got a 35 on the ACT, but if he went to my old neighborhood high school, that just would not have been possible. Those scores don’t show potential, they just show where you are at in a moment in time (and in a lot of cases one’s resources). Standardized Test scores may show that you are behind (and starting from my old neighborhood you are definitely behind), but you can catch up with the right work ethic, perseverance, and in my case, some good luck.
I think colleges try some outreach there but those schools don’t/can’t do a good job educating the majority of their students so they can succeed in college - they often have sub-50% HS graduation rates. They lack the necessary prep in many cases. That’s not a college issue, that’s a K-12 issue and it’s a terrible one that really is the crux of the problem.
Colleges can do more, I think, and many are trying.
@OHMomof2 Everything you pointed out is absolutely true. It is why a TM Landry type scandal/fraud occurred (inequality in k-12), and why HBCUs still have a place even in today’s society (they still educate the most vulnerable amongst African Americans). Those students with the 26 ACT scores will find large merit based scholarships at HBCUs. They will get nurtured and shaped into future leaders and in some cases become the 1st to graduate college and escape poverty. I sometimes can not even believe that I am in America when driving through parts of my hometown and those feelings sometimes boil over into my CC posts on race, class, and educational inequality. Elite college institutions have many other things on there plate, and that’s why it is important for everyday people to look for ways to close the k-12 educational opportunity gaps that exist in America.
Then, I would look at why the pipeline is empty. Do universities discriminate against conservatives in graduate admissions? Are they less likely to award a PhD to students who do a thesis with a conservative viewpoint? Do conservatives not want to teach at universities because universities discriminate against conservatives in promotions and awarding tenure?
@roethisburger I have always been of the belief (and I believe data may point to this) that more college professors are liberal because young people tend to be generally more liberal and grow to be more conservative as they get older. Since most college professors begin as “professional students” and are always around young people after becoming professors, they end up keeping a more liberal bent. But it should not matter. One of my favorite professors in college (US Government class) was most likely politically liberal, but he wanted his students to think from both sides of the aisle and made sure to make us debate varying views of thought and would always take the opposing viewpoint when our class began to trend towards “groupthink”. That professor would sometimes thoroughly ‘whoop’ us with his debating skills arguing conservative points of view (especially around government spending) without being a conservative. He wanted us to see all sides of an issue and that should happen in academia regardless of a professor’s political affiliation. The question is does it? Diversity of thought in the classroom is as important to me as any other form of diversity mentioned on this thread, but it is not something that the average incoming freshman ever thinks about.
@changethegame you are completely right that a good professor will encourage debate, regardless of their personal views.
To that point, my daughter at Georgetown has a good friend who is very much a conservative and he is a Government major. He just had a class with the former DNC chair and they obviously have different political views. HOWEVER, they developed a very close relationship and really respected each other’s views. She made him feel completely comfortable with her and in class sharing his opinions and he absolutely loved her. So there is one example of that working out.
I agree that some younger people may start off more liberal and become more conservative over time (although to what degree, I don’t know), but I’m not sure that is why so many professors/universities lean left. I think it has more to do with self-selection (and not discrimination). I just think the world of Academia (just like other industries) might naturally attract more people from the left than the right, but that is a different debate.
I also agree with the points that have been raised about our biggest problem being the quality of education and unequal educational opportunities at the K-12 level that you have raised before. As a society, we definitely need to try to “fix” that blatant inequality, but that is a monster of a job and may take years and years. Until we “fix” that, I think we need to continue to look to colleges for some help with this, even though it is so far after the fact. I understand that often the spots for URMs go to the wrong, less/not at all needy URM’s, but that doesn’t mean we stop trying to create more opportunities for URMs in higher education. I agree with @OHMomof2 that “Colleges can do more” and that many are trying. And having more role models that are people of color can also only help, IMO.
@collegemomjam I have watched a lot of high stats African American students where I live and I have started to see a trend among those students and their families. Besides some of the obvious things (Both parents, access to resources, and real good area schools) the one thing that without fail that I have seen in these high achieving black students was an expectation and a belief to be at the same level or higher than the top students in their schools. The thing that I hate the most about racial preferences in college admissions is that lots of African American students KNOW they can get away with lower achievement because they are held to a different standard (They just have to be better than other black students). I have tutored some black students who have very similar gifts to my own children, but they know what society expects of them and they are all too happy to oblige. I prefer to tackle the achievement gap at the students because I believe we can compete. The courts and lawmakers can decide the fate of racial preferences in college admissions.
(independent of race/ethnicity or college consideration or not of such)
Note that most of the highly selective private colleges and universities that are the focus of these forums are financial-aid-unfriendly to applicants with divorced parents, since they require both parents’ finances. If the divorced parents are uncooperative (common), then those colleges and universities are not affordable unless one of the parents is able and willing to pay the full price for the kid to attend such a college.
I tell all high stats Asian American students to at least apply to one or two Honors Colleges with merits, so that if they don’t get into any high ranked colleges due to the uncertainties in the holistic admissions, they can at least get good undergraduate education for nearly free. At least, that will help their parents who may end up saving a lot of money.
I also tell them to apply to one liberal arts college where they will be considered to be contributing to diversity on the campus.
I also tell Asian American students with so so stats to go to CCs and transfer. I have seen a relative who wasn’t even a good student go to a CC or two year college and transfer to UCLA for a non-STEM major with 3.4 gpa. No reason to feel all stressed to try to make it to a UC right out of high school when you can do that via CC to UC route.
I tried to persuade my kid to go to Honors College because their Honors dorm had Starbucks inside or the Honors students got a free pizza. Lol
It is interesting to compare visual “observations” of student groups with the hard data in the Common Data Set. The most remarkable difference at Williams at least is that there seem to be more Asians than the CDS would suggest. Even my sister-in-law, who is Asian and was raised in an Asian country and currently lives in New York City, remarked after visiting that there are a lot of Asians at Williams. My best guess would be that “mixed race” and “no answer” categories account for some Asians as well, and maybe some mixed-race part-Asians/part-Caucasians self-identified as “white” this year because of the Harvard lawsuit.
Self-identification may affect the Common Data Set in many ways. Although the number of Jews my son has met at college actually is pretty small for a top college and similar to the 10% he has seen listed, that number does not include him- an atheist who is 75% Jewish by ethnicity and self-identifies as Jewish, but listed “none” for religion on all official application and registration forms, because the question asked about religion, not ethnicity, and he is an atheist.
Did high achieving URMs really get rejected for selective colleges often? Data and anecdata suggest that high achieving URMs get automatic acceptances at many selective colleges. The acceptance rate for high achieving URMs is much higher than for high achieving non-URMs.
That doesn’t sound very ‘disadvantaged’. Non-URM kids with top grades and perfect SAT scores don’t even get into the top colleges very often. And if those AA students don’t get sufficient grants, they’re probably upper middle class.
It’s usually the opposite actually. Schools need to pass kids or else it looks bad, so low performing URM schools tend to boost grades up to make up for the achievement deficit.
Good advice for any high stats kid, not just Asian ones.
“Did high achieving URMs really get rejected for selective colleges often? Data and anecdata suggest that high achieving URMs get automatic acceptances at many selective colleges. The acceptance rate for high achieving URMs is much higher than for high achieving non-URMs.”
Back in the Stone Age, I applied to Cornell, RPI and Stony Brook (in that order). I was accepted by all three.
Stony Brook gave me a full ride with a stipend while Big Red gave me full tuition plus work study and loans to cover the rest. RPI passed along the bare min federal aid with not a drop out of their pocket. I picked Cornell because they had and still have a dynamite ChemE program.
I was in NY last month and drove past Troy, home of RPI. I’m still pissed that RPI was so damn cheap but seeing that RPI still lacks diversity decades later is telling. As a African American and Cherokee Indian high stats 0 EFC kid from one of the top public schools in NYC, I saw RPIs lack of funding as a slap in the face since they are need aware. Yes they accepted me but it was meaningless because they knew I couldn’t afford it. That’s how it works.
@PossePops If it makes you feel any better, back in the Stone Age, I was not a URM and got into several great schools among them Dartmouth, Syracuse, Williams, Wesleyan and a couple of others. Not all gave me the same amount of money at all. I attended the one not mentioned that did. It’s not just about race, it’s about access. At that time, I could sooner raise 5K over the Summer than I could invent a cure for cancer. It just wasn’t possible. Still happens today-for kids who don’t have means. It’s not personal. It’s just that some schools want a kid more than others or have more means to give that kid $.
I think your anger is misplaced.
Cornell has an endowment that is 10x that of RPI, and I suspect a similar ratio in the past. Returns from the endowment are one of the primary sources of financial aid.
No anger. As I said, Cornell was my first choice. And it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.
Since, from what I can tell, there are so few AAs on CC, I felt the need to provide some perspective on what I quoted above and this comment below. I apologize if it came off the wrong way.
“One thing that has irked me a lot especially back when I was working in college access was seeing high-achieving but not wealthy URM’s being turned down for selective or elite schools or not given merit aid even when the grades, test scores and outside achievements were right there.”
It may not be “just about race” but I can guarantee that it is a factor as is SES. Also Cornell’s philosophy is what makes it such a great and diverse university. Sure the endowment helps. But to my point, decades later, RPI still isn’t very diverse and their endowment isn’t peanuts.
“The thing that I hate the most about racial preferences in college admissions is that lots of African American students KNOW they can get away with lower achievement because they are held to a different standard (They just have to be better than other black students).”
Interesting, Asians in the bay area also feel that they’re being compared to other Asians, which given your experience about blacks being compared to other blacks, would suggest that if applicants are being compared within a group, it’s pretty much a quota (illegal of course), or more likely a soft quota, legal and gets the diversity the university wants.