<p>The same flaw of viewing admission to a university as a reward. Asian immigrant students are not being punished. They still end up at a top school. Statistics show they receive no long term benefit in income regardless of what school they ultimately attend. And one could even argue they benefit by ending up closer to the top of their class, attaining a higher gpa, being more likely to remain in difficult math/science fields, and attending a more diverse school. </p>
<p>I still do not support “negatve action”. But i am arguing that students who are “displaced” by urms through affirmative action are not being “punished”.</p>
<p>Tyler, I asked you the following question earlier, but you didn’t respond. The reward/opportunity distinction is an interesting one, but what does it have to do with whether civil rights violations are taking place? </p>
<p>I find the argument that Asians still end up at a top school a cop out. Let’s say that I apply to Georgetown, Harvard, and several other schools, with Georgetown as my top choice. I get into Harvard, but Georgetown rejects me based on race. I’ve been discriminated against. It doesn’t matter that I can still attend one of the best universities in the country.</p>
<p>^i prefaced my comment by saying i do not support “rejecting based on race”. </p>
<p>The reward/opportunity plays a huge role here because legally, Harvard is not better than Arizona State. There is no law that says Harvard must accept better students than those at Arizona state. But, by affirmative action, both schools are held accountable for making education available to all students. </p>
<p>In addition, ethnic and cultural diversity have been universally hailed by educators as a necessity in a student body and by lawmakers as a “compelling societal interest” for various reasons. So the argument entirely comes down to the question of whether a civil rights violation is occurring? </p>
<p>If a non urm applicant applies to Georgetown and gets rejected while a urm applicant with “lesser stats” gets accepted is that a civil rights violation. You say yes because you believe they were rejected based on race, and in the case where checking the box as opposed to leaving it unchecked is a detriment I agree with you. </p>
<p>But when that is not the case it is not a violation because the school can/should take racial diversity into account when accepting students, they are specific and narrow in their use of race and aren’t looking to engineer with quotas, and the student was not rejected based on race because “if he was black” he would be an entirely different person. Additionally neither of the schools is obligated to take a student with greater “stats” over someone with lesser. The entire notion of more and less qualified for the opportunity of college is nothing but a social construct.</p>
<p>Michigan’s old system, on the other hand, was an injustice borne from practicality of such a large school.</p>
<p>And what horrible experiences Japanese, Chinese, and Italian (amongst many other homogeneous societies) students/people must endure?!?!?</p>
<p>(Note: I’m not really against diversity though. But, creating an ethnic cornucopia is not the real means to “diversity.” I’d rather go to a college with all Asians who happen to have various moral, religious, and political concerns than a college of suburban and liberal blacks, whites, and Asians.)</p>
<p>Your last sentence seems to express support for Dr. Richard Sander’s mismatch hypothesis. As I understand it, Sander argues that absent racial preferences, black students will be more appropriately matched at law schools. That is, they will end up closer to the top of their class, attain higher GPAs, and be more likely to remain in the program. Sander shows that at top law schools, 52% of all black students are in the bottom decile compared to only 6% of all whites. There’s not much value in a prestigious law degree when you can’t earn it in the first place.</p>
<p>None of these things benefit Asians more than any other race. Why not just say that minorities would benefit by getting rid of AA because they would end up at lesser schools?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Just like blacks still had access to good water fountains in the 50’s.</p>
<p>Two horrible straw man arguments. Attending a lesser school is not a benefit. To your second sarcastic point, the civil rights movement was much larger than being able to share water fountains. No need to revisit that. </p>
<p>Fab, I notice that some of your studies supporting your position on AA stem from post graduate scenarios, i.e. Gratz, E&C if I’m not mistaken, and now Sander. At many elite schools and flagship universities, I’m sure you know that many undergrad minorities graduate at a much higher rate than the national avg. In a few scenarios even higher than the majority. As I understand Tyler was alluding to, minorities make some of the greatest gains during their undergrad experience, earn more than their other minority contemporaries and make significant contributions post graduate. There is compelling evidence that those who are fortunate to benefit from AA do more than get by at these elite institutions, and because of the opportunity, have a greater potential to make more of an impact later in life. To me it must be obvious that there is some tangible benefit to having such opportunities where minorities are underepresented. Otherwise, there would be no fussing about it from whites. Minorities certainly are in the minority in complaining about the detriments of AA.</p>
<p>I think what you see is that for many of those minority students fortunate enough to have the opportunity, they make the most of it. Similar to immigrant students compared to the status quo.</p>
<p>Gratz and Espenshade and Chung were about undergraduates. Sander and Kidder studied law schools.</p>
<p>Yes, I am aware that as of 2007, there are twenty-seven colleges that have a black graduation rate of at least 86% ([Source](<a href=“http://www.jbhe.com/latest/index010308.html]Source[/url]”>JBHE: Latest News for 1/3/08)</a>). Of those twenty-seven, all but one are private. (The lone public university is UVa.) It seems to me, however, that there are many other excellent colleges who aren’t doing as well as these twenty-seven. I don’t know for sure because JBHE decided 86% was the cutoff and didn’t report any further. It does appear, though, that public universities are largely trailing privates when it comes to black graduation rates.</p>
<p>Tyler09 referenced The Shape of the River a few pages back. The book actually says that at the schools in the data set, the overall graduation rate was 79% for blacks, versus 94% for whites. The authors acknowledged that the GPA difference was quite large between black and white students. The only conclusion I can draw that we can both agree on is that some schools are doing a better job than others regarding black graduation rates.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if you’re criticizing me or Tyler, but I don’t know how you can say I beat down a straw man since I directly quoted Tyler. He’s the one who said attending a lesser school could be beneficial.</p>
<p>^I’m not saying that I believe it is beneficial. I said that I could see how someone could argue that point, whether or not it is true, in order to disprove that it has some kind of detrimental impact on academic attainment. </p>
<p>The bottom line is: Blacks benefit the most of any other group, including the poor, from attending an elite university. Non-urm groups do not suffer any economic detriment from not attending one for undergrad. So in other words, when urms attend more elite institutions and non-urms are “displaced” (if viewing from an anti-AA lens) than there is a net gain in income among all students because the urms face and income gain while non-urm income remains stagnate. </p>
<p>I don’t base the argument for AA on this rationale, but it is a rationale none the less.</p>
<p>I have a side question (sorry about it) - since I’m asian, should I report it? I heard that it’s a BIG disadvantage if they know you’re asian. But then again, my last name is quite obviously asian soooo…</p>
<p>Though, if you believe that colleges look negatively upon asian status, you would also think they would think even more negatively upon an asian who is obviously trying to hide his asian status because he believes the readers have racial bias… no?</p>
<p>Hiding your ethnicity because you think it gives you an advantage is a bit shameful.</p>
<p>It doesn’t make a difference, and no one on here has the information to prove or convincingly argue otherwise. All you can really go by is what admissions officer tell you, and that is that it doesn’t matter.</p>
<p>What does matter is how you put together your application and present yourself in your essays and simply being lucky enough to get accepted. However, many people on this forum are reluctant to admit this and instead seek comfort in blaming other people or other things for why they were not accepted.</p>
<p>I strongly disagree with Newjack’s first point. If you believe that colleges practice negative action (which is different from AA), then there is an incentive for you to not self-identify. Even if you support AA, your choice not to self-identify in no way reflects an attempt to game the system nor does it prevent colleges from practicing AA. You have the legal right not to self-identify. There are studies out there which say Asians are at a disadvantage relative to whites. I know of no studies which argue the reverse. So it seems like a pretty easy call to me. Don’t check the box.</p>
<p>EDIT: tokenadult has provided extensive data demonstrating that “race unknown” applicants are admitted in healthy numbers at top colleges across the country.</p>
<p>So people should only embrace their cultural heritage and disown it when it supposedly benefits them?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s mostly because there are fewer Asian legacies and athletes.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But that’s not the point. The point is that many people on here would try to argue that it is easier for an Asian to get into an elite school if he or she hides the fact he or she is Asian.</p>
<p>But those two certainly aren’t the only factors (btw, Harvard, a couple of years ago had over 30 Asian-Americans on its athletic teams, including the best hockey player on both its mens and womens squad) - for instance, the % of Asian-Ams at Stanford rose significantly once it did away w/ certain admissions practices which were biased against AA applicants.</p>
<p>And let’s look at legacies. Why do Jews make a HUGELY disproportinate % of the white student body at the Ivies - when overall, there are way more non-Jewish white alums?</p>
<p>Or what about the disproportinate % of black immigrant students at the Ivies? They certainly weren’t helped by being a legacy.</p>
<p>um, as I have an extremely obvious Asian last name, it would be really weird if i didn’t check off “asian”. <em>sigh</em> </p>
<p>however, as an immigrant, i don’t think i qualify as “asian american” either… i wasn’s brought up in the US, and i don’t even have citizenship yet.</p>
<p>You make fair points and I don’t necessarily disagree with you. However, I am merely speaking objectively and basing my claims off of a discrimination case against Harvard that occurred during the 1990s (I believe).</p>
<p>Just so you know where I stand on this issue, I have similar views to Barack Obama on this issue. I think schools should stop using race as a proxy for socio-economic class, give more consideration to disadvantaged kids regardless of their race, gender, geography, etc., but still allow things like race, gender, geography, etc. to be used to promote diversity.</p>
<p>so is it safe to leave the “race” part on commonapp blank?heard ppl saying that its better for ppl to leave it blank than to fill in a race that might get looked down on??is this method recommended?i need someone who’s sure to answer..thanks in advance</p>