@preppedparent, how do you define the most compelling and qualified students, the best talent? You have made it clear that testing is a factor. Anything else?
@Cotton Tales…I can tell you what it isn’t…it isn’t race or skin color.
@preppedparent there are quotas for athletes.Very firm ones, with levels. At Amherst, for instance, there are 67 slots per year for athletes who do not meet the normal academic standards for admission (14 for football alone). Then there are those who are just as qualified as any other applicant they might accept, but will get in over everyone else. There are 60-90 of those per year. And those numbers DO NOT include applicants who might have a different hook such as URM or legacy or development or first gen - these are just for athletes who do not check one of those boxes.
Amherst only has about 475 students in any class. So 127-157 slots a year just for white athletes, with almost half of those for athletes who wouldn’t get in otherwise because their academic achievements don’t make the cut.
Everyone cool with that?
https://www.amherst.edu/system/files/media/PlaceOfAthleticsAtAmherst_Secure_1.pdf - page 11
You didn’t answer the question @preppedparent. Please tell me defining qualities of the most compelling and qualified students, NOT what isn’t.
Round and round we go… I still think this back and forth about athletes, legacies, development cases, etc. whenever AA is brought up is tu quoque (“you also” in latin):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
Can we please agree that if slots/quotas/bumps for athletes, legacies, development cases, etc. were to be eliminated, that AA should be abandoned too? It’s not that hard of a question.
^^By saying what isn’t, I have answered your question what is. It is all else. Identifying what is based on race, only promotes sterotypical thinking, like racial profiling for example. hope this helps
Maybe. Should they be eliminated though? Sports go away or go rec-only, alumni get mad when their kids don’t get in, significant development money is lost, schools lose some of the small # of URM they have now, women outnumber men at most colleges by a lot.
Does that improve the college experience?
What if some schools did all that and some didn’t? Which ones would be more desirable?
@preppedparent, I will give you a scenario. Say a URM gets into med school with a MCAT score in the bottom 25% of the class. Are you pissed because there are others that are more “compelling and qualified?” Let’s then fast forward to med school graduation, and that same URM was #1 academically in the graduating class, above the 75% that entered with a higher MCAT score. Did the admissions committee give that student a nod because of the color of their skin, or can you concede that other factors were important to admissions and factored into their decision? Did that student still not deserve an admissions because they may have received a slight URM bump?
^At the very least, colleges should be compliant with the constitution and civil rights act. Of course, the courts make their rulings, but we can all decide independently some of those decisions(Plessy, Fisher) were erroneous.
Personally, I think the system works quite well as it is.
Schools have priorities and personalities which set them apart from the competition.
Many people forget that WE-the students and parents- are the customers and the market responds.
My kids from CA like Southern and Midwestern schools.
They like school spirit and don’t want too much political disruption in general.
They target top schools and have been happy with their choices. Other families look for much different things and have a different idea of the kind of college experience they are looking for. They seek out different schools.
It’s brilliant, really.
Yes, all of these factors relate more to the college’s own marketability (to future students and donors) than student merit. Racial/ethnic composition is probably more important to college marketability than many colleges will admit (because such targets for marketability probably sound too much like racial/ethnic quotas), since many students (including white students as well as non-white students) have preferences with respect to the racial/ethnic composition of the college in terms of desirability.
In a theoretical highly selective college where admissions is based purely on student merit considerations (without the college marketability considerations that result in big “hooks” for development and some recruited athletes, and smaller ones for legacy and/or URM), one can argue that athletic ability (considered as an EC achievement, not to the magnitude of a “hook” or special admission override) is an aspect of student merit. The same goes for individual consideration of whether an applicant has a disadvantaged starting line (first-generation-to-college, low SES, and (yes) race/ethnicity are some such factors, but based on individual evaluation than check-box or automatic “hook”), so that his/her achievement is more meritous than the same achievement from an advantaged starting line.
On the other hand, legacy and development give no indication of the student’s own merit, and tend to indicate an advantaged starting line (although there are presumably a few legacies who are low SES and/or had issues with being held back by racism and could be individually evaluated as such in a pure student merit admissions process at a theoretical highly selective college).
Many people seem to underestimate the attraction of going to schools with those very legacy and development students that everyone seems to disparage. Isn’t that part of what makes the “Ivy League” so appealing? If we are honest about it?
If students just wanted to be with good professors and smart classmates they could find that at most top 50 schools and public flagships.
Just my opinion.
If that is the case, then it would be in the category of the college’s own marketability as mentioned in reply #1034.
@dragonmom3 - I think so.
Part of the attraction of an elite education is rubbing shoulders with the “rich and powerful”, not necessarily “the smartest”. I think that’s part of the reason affirmative action makes an easy target while preferences that benefit whiter, wealthier students just makes people want to change the subject.
In regard to things are fine the way they are. Sure, for most. It’s only the ORMs who are discriminated against in college admissions that have a problem. Because none of us like to be stereotyped or discriminated against.
It will always be that way. Only those who aren’t given a fair shake have a problem with it.
But that’s just it @OHMomof2 (re 1037). Respectfully, I don’t hear you making arguments FOR affirmative action, I hear you wanting to “change the subject” to other admission preferences.
Here’s a better tu quoque reference:
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoque
"You avoided having to engage with criticism by turning it back on the accuser - you answered criticism with criticism.
It is commonly employed as an effective red herring because it takes the heat off someone having to defend their argument, and instead shifts the focus back on to the person making the criticism."
@preppedparent, you didn’t respond to post #1031. Don’t be shy and back track now. Would you be okay with that URM student getting admission or not.
Never shy, but don’t like being bullied. I have no issue with URMs and their compelling stories. I have a problem with ORMs getting shut out in favor of whites because of fictitious assertions that Asians are too focused on scores, and are one dimensional as seen through a stereotypic lens.
If there is any such conscious effort to keep white enrollment up at the expense of Asian enrollment, it is probably due to college marketability concerns that the college will be less marketable to white applicants if white students are not the majority, or at least the plurality group. http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18416978/#Comment_18416978 hints at this type of thing.
@preppedparent, how can you now say you have no issues with URMs, but with white students. Please look back on your posts #988, #989, #997 and #1000. That’s as far back as I needed to show you are not being consistent in your comments.