"Race" in College Applications FAQ & Discussion

Applying to College
481

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<p>That’s not a correct paraphrase of my claim, but thanks for asking. I think the bolder–and surely incorrect–claim is the contrary claim that URM differences in test score distributions and course selection patterns will last for all time, and thus necessitate treating “race” as a selection factor in college admission for generations into the future. You do see what was said in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education bulletin cited by Tyler09, </p>

<p>[JBHE:</a> Latest News for 9/4/08](<a href=“http://www.jbhe.com/latest/index.html]JBHE:”>http://www.jbhe.com/latest/index.html) </p>

<p>don’t you? I think those score gaps are transitory. They will diminish if </p>

<p>a) K-12 education brings about more school choice for parents in low-income families, as advocated by John McCain in his nomination acceptance speech, </p>

<p>b) previous generations of college-educated URMs serve as mentors and role models to young URM students, as many do, </p>

<p>c) first-generation immigrant Americans assimilate to English-speaking mainstream culture (this applies more to some URM groups than to others), </p>

<p>and </p>

<p>d) better quality education becomes more pervasive at the K-12 level as international comparative education research reveals what practices work the best. </p>

<p>It will take different incentives, especially the incentives placed on schools by school choice, to bring about a lot of improvement in K-12 education, but as that happens, ethnic gaps in educational preparation for college study will tend to diminish. </p>

<p>See </p>

<p>[Harvard</a> Summer Institute on College Admissions, June 22-27, 2008, Suggested Reading](<a href=“http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sica/reading.htm]Harvard”>http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~sica/reading.htm) </p>

<p>for an extensive reading list that includes several contrary opinions.</p>

482

<p>Okay sorry for mischaracterizing your statement. So are you saying that if race becomes less of a factor in admissions, the entire educational system will have more of an incentive to improve opportunities for URMs, leading to better performance?</p>

483

<h1>482 - Unfortunately, 10 years post-Prop 209, I don’t think CA has seen this happening.</h1>

<p>tokenadult - I have trouble with your position on race, because on the one hand you repeatedly argue in favor of ignoring all categorization based on race, (I guess because of a lack of biological differentiation), while at the same time in #481 you propose an action plan that acknowledges differences by race and targets URMs (specifically b and c). If we are truly all the same, why the need to address the needs of URMs at all?</p>

484

<p>Re: 483</p>

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<p>[url=<a href=“http://www.reason.org/commentaries/dalmia_20061107.shtml]Source[/url”>http://www.reason.org/commentaries/dalmia_20061107.shtml]Source[/url</a>]</p>

485

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<p>Yes, that is a better characterization of my position. That’s why I used the phrase “stand and deliver” to make a reference to the movie </p>

<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Stand and Deliver: Edward James Olmos, Mark Eliot, Estelle Harris, Mark Phelan, Virginia Paris, Adelaida Álvarez, Will Gotay, Patrick Baca, Ingrid Oliu, Carmen Argenziano, Richard Martinez (IV), Mark Everett, Tyde Kierney, Rosanna DeSoto,](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Deliver-Edward-James-Olmos/dp/6305161917/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Stand-Deliver-Edward-James-Olmos/dp/6305161917/) </p>

<p>based on a book </p>

<p>[Amazon.com:</a> Escalante: The Best Teacher in America (An Owl Book): Jay Mathews: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Escalante-Best-Teacher-America-Book/dp/0805011951/]Amazon.com:”>http://www.amazon.com/Escalante-Best-Teacher-America-Book/dp/0805011951/)</p>

<p>about the teaching career of Jaime Escalante. </p>

<p>To answer Bay’s question as part of expanding on this, there is a real danger in supposing that “race” is a permanent construct and that the current federal categories of “race” (which have changed several times in my lifetime) have any lasting social meaning. The categories are social fictions and changeable. I appreciate the suggestion that point b) as I wrote it in [post</a> #481](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060958113-post481.html]post”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060958113-post481.html) sounds too race-conscious, because I think that is a fair criticism of how I wrote that as I was writing hurriedly earlier today. Here’s my rewrite: </p>

<p>The score gaps will diminish if </p>

<p>b) college-educated professionals serve as mentors and role models to young URM students, as many do, </p>

<p>I should make the point that I didn’t make clear earlier that I think a mentor of any “race” can help a learner of any “race.” I’ve seen that done. </p>

<p>Point c) was race-neutral as a I first wrote it, referring rather to personal exposure to one or another spoken or written language. </p>

<p>It is a sociological fact–which means it is a transitory fact subject to becoming a falsehood–that young people in some “race” groups have historically had less access to mentors in some college academic subjects than others. There is steady effort in many places to level the playing field in that respect. My son has had teachers who would be identified with several different “race” categories in his favorite subject, while he participates in programs (in which students are selected by interest in that subject, without regard to “race”) that didn’t exist back when I was a kid.</p>

486

<p>It’s interesting to see a report </p>

<p>[Reason</a> Foundation Commentary: Education After Affirmative Action](<a href=“http://www.reason.org/commentaries/dalmia_20061107.shtml]Reason”>http://www.reason.org/commentaries/dalmia_20061107.shtml) </p>

<p>suggesting that California’s Proposition 209 may be helping the educational outcomes of all ethnic groups in California while building a possibility of a future in which all Californians can regard one another as fellow Californians.</p>

487

<p>Tokenadult:</p>

<p>As a moderator I have serious problems with your constantly bringing up race as an issue. Your behavior is ■■■■■-like. You have being doing this for several years. I find it very off-putting since there are few minorities on this board, and because I spent many years as a non-discrimination investigator, and have a fairly good feeling for what actually going on out there as opposed to your theorizing.,</p>

<p>You really need to stop this.</p>

488

<p>I’ll reply to tsdad. Please follow up with me about this in a private message if you’d like. </p>

<p>When I came here as just a regular member of College Confidential (after you, I think, but more than four years ago), I used to see threads about “race” or “affirmative action” or various related topics in a lot of different forums on College Confidential. There was a lot of effort on the part of the various volunteer moderators to try to cut the flame wars that tended to erupt in those threads, but usually as soon as one thread ended, another began, and the flames reignited. </p>

<p>Once I saw a thread on the Harvard Forum where a particular CC member (who hasn’t posted since early 2007) wrote in reply to Northstarmom and some other participants in that thread that he was offended that Harvard “forced” applicants to identify their race and ethnicity in the admission process. Then a light bulb went off over my head, because I realized he had a factual misunderstanding about the student self-reporting of ethnicity requested by colleges. He hadn’t actually looked at Harvard’s application form (which is the Common Application), and he didn’t know that the self-reporting is optional. I found by lurking in other threads that this misconception is commonplace. </p>

<p>Some time in 2007, I saw a thread in which another participant posted links to the Census Bureau definitions of racial and ethnic categories, which in turn are based (as you, tsdad, have pointed out before) on Office of Management and Budget regulations about federal data gathering. I realized that those links would be useful for students asking the frequently asked questions such as “I’m Iranian. What race should I mark?” or "I’m from Egypt. Can’t I mark “African-American?” and so on. A lot of students just want to know what checkbox to check off when they apply for college. </p>

<p>As I gathered links, I began putting together a FAQ post on these frequently asked questions. (The FAQ appears in this thread as posts [#1[/url</a>], [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060810849-post2.html]#2[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060810849-post2.html]#2[/url</a>], [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060810876-post3.html]#3[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060810876-post3.html]#3[/url</a>], and [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060810896-post4.html]#4[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060810896-post4.html]#4](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060810810-post1.html]#1[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1060810810-post1.html)</a>.) Somewhere around the time when I had prepared the first draft of the FAQ, I was privileged with the opportunity to join the volunteer moderator team here, and I became aware that there are flame wars about affirmative action on forums that I never visit on College Confidential. Those threads and the reports of problem posts they generate have been popping up for a long time. </p>

<p>I wondered if it would help discussion of this contentious issue if people were at least aware of facts such as those mentioned in the FAQ post I prepared, the first few posts of this thread. On a later occasion, another moderator expressed the opinion in discussion among the moderators that ALL threads about affirmative action are tedious and not worthy of being posted on CC. Several of the other moderators thought that although this issue is contentious, it is an issue of legitimate concern to college applicants, at least insofar as they want to know how to fill out application forms. I believe that to date my understanding of the site owner’s position is correct that race self-identification on a college application and other aspects of college affirmative action policies are fair game for discussion here, as long as the discussion follows the College Confidential Terms of Service. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>I suggested to other moderators and management that perhaps if there were a general FAQ thread on the subject, with close moderator supervision, that there would be fewer flame wars on the subject and fewer overall threads on the same subject in fewer forums as well, which might be considered an improvement by most participants on CC. This thread here is now the second instance of a one-stop-shopping general FAQ and discussion thread (with a more clear title than the previous one). This is still an ongoing experiment. Anyone who has an opinion on the administrative issue of how affirmative action threads should be handled on CC is invited to express that opinion where it is on-topic, in the Community and Forum Issues Forum thread devoted to that issue. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/community-forum-issues/533638-what-s-policy-about-affirmative-action-threads.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/community-forum-issues/533638-what-s-policy-about-affirmative-action-threads.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

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<p>I think that statement is factually incorrect, and can be shown to be incorrect. I have a bajillion previous posts on lots of different subjects, but I absolutely, positively have not been opening threads like this one before about a year ago. </p>

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<p>I was aware of that background of yours from reading previous posts, and was hoping you would contribute early and often with your observations and conclusions about these issues. I’d love to learn from you. It is certainly not my intention to restrict anyone’s participation in this thread or any other if they have a willingness to follow the Terms of Service (as I know you do) and something to share that is informative and interesting (as I also know you do). Some people post to vent, and this thread was an attempt–perhaps not fully successful, but I think partially successful–to get some people who had vented and flamed in previous threads to actually listen to one another and be sure about what the facts are and why people have differing points of view on this ever-contentious issue. (I have received some private messages thanking me for the attempt.) I would love to hear more from you about what you have personally experienced in your work and what implications you think that has for college admission policies, the general topic of this forum.</p>

489

<p>Here’s a report by the Education Trust </p>

<p><a href=“http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/F755E80E-9431-45AF-B28E-653C612D503D/0/EnginesofInequality.pdf[/url]”>http://www2.edtrust.org/NR/rdonlyres/F755E80E-9431-45AF-B28E-653C612D503D/0/EnginesofInequality.pdf&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>about some of the issues we have been discussing here. I learned about the report from an online posting by Peter Schmidt, the author of a recent book on college admission policy.</p>

490

<p>affirmative action is just a way for colleges to make themselves more diverse. It’s not because of any “discrimination” or anything. Indians don’t get affirmative action at all, and im pretty sure we get as much, if not more in some cases, discrimination as blacks. Asians face discrimination too. And it’s definitely not because of economic status, because there are thousands of poor white/ORM people out there. And I would imagine that your average black/hispanic harvard acceptee would be fairly well off…</p>

491

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<p>I think it’s unfair to say tokenadult has a ■■■■■-like behavior. I learned many good things form his posts in different threads. His posts on this thread are also worth reading. I strongly object to this comment.</p>

492

<p>^^To the above “sources” saying Prop 209 has been effective</p>

<p>this is a classic case of manipulating “statistics” to say whatever you want. The graduation rates double because you cut out the bottom half to 2/3 of all urm students. Of course those students were the least prepared often with the lowest income making them far more likely to drop out. If anything I could argue that Prop 209 decreased urm graduation rates because after losing more than half of urm students the graduation rate only doubled. </p>

<p>But, once again revealing the trouble with statistics, that could also be caused by the UC’s now extreme difficulty with attracting the top urm students because they don’t want to attend schools that lack ethnic/cultural diversity. </p>

<p>And fabrizio’s article presents no evidence that performance at the high school level has increased, he simply states a current situation and assumes that it must have increased high school performance. And if high school performance of urms HAS increased, which the article i posted both refutes and supports (score gap larger, more urms going to college), then there is no evidence that this could not occur while keeping AA policies. </p>

<p>^Token, I do not think your a ■■■■■ and I find you posts the most helpful for advancing the discussion. So thank you. BUT, on school vouchers you have it all wrong!</p>

<p>School vouchers would only help those already with an advantage, and not those who need it. The only people who can truly take advantage of a voucher system are people with the resources to transport their kids to further schools (as bussing has been ruled unconstitutional) as well as ECs, practices, ect. Those people are on the whole wealthy white students and Asian students with their cultural emphasis on education (not lambasting this just pointing out the circumstances). </p>

<p>As the worst schools are already where urm and low income students are concentrated, this simply means that those students who need better schooling the most with be stuck at the worst schools while all of the best students leave them. This results in the school deteriorating further as it loses money from vouchers yet still can maintain itself because of the students trapped with it. </p>

<p>School vouchers are a HUGE pander and serve simply as a catalyst for “white flight”. The real solution is to change how we fund our schools so that the already disadvantaged aren’t stuck with dramatically worse opportunities than the well off. Unfortunately, most voters are self-interested and don’t want to pay for “Billy Burnout” or “Jamal’s Baby Mama’s” education.</p>

493

<p>I should say here that I generally appreciate the contributions of many different participants, not all of whom agree, to this thread. One aspect of the College Confidential Terms of Service </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/faq.php?faq=vb_faq#faq_new_faq_item&lt;/a&gt; </p>

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<p>is not to comment on moderation (pro or con) in public posts. So, please, yes, discuss your feelings about how College Confidential policies are administered by the volunteer moderators by either using the “report problem post” link that occurs in every post, which will make the report visible to all the moderation team, or send a private message to any moderator for whom you know a private message address (the moderator’s screen name) or to the site’s owner. </p>

<p>On the general issue of how to disagree with someone constructively, I’ll cite an essay </p>

<p>[How</a> to Disagree](<a href=“http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html]How”>How to Disagree) </p>

<p>that includes some really neat examples of better or worse online behavior. The same author gives a very succinct example in the terms of service for a site he manages.</p>

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<p>What is always most helpful in disagreement is specificity. I can well believe I still have a lot to learn about the main issue of this thread and about every other issue I will encounter in my lifetime. Please let me know what I still have to learn if you know something that I don’t know. That’s a courtesy to other participants and a help to this whole online community.</p>

494

<p>Hi, Tyler09, I see you and I posted our last two posts simultaneously. I may have more questions about your reply on the California Proposition 209 report in a while, but first let me ask a question. Is there a neutral principle that distinguishes a person of a “majority” group who mostly wants to hang around with other people of his group from a person of a “minority” group who has the same desire? In other words, if a college applicant, or a parent deciding where to enroll minor children in school, decides that there needs to be a lot of the “same kind” of people in the school, is that basis for decision distinguishable when it groups many minority students together from when it groups many majority students together?</p>

495

<p>An interesting document from 1997 I found via a Web search: </p>

<p>[Archived:</a> Diversity, Affirmative Action and Higher Education: Coordination, C](<a href=“http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/PLLI/June30_web_version.html]Archived:”>http://www.ed.gov/offices/OERI/PLLI/June30_web_version.html)</p>

496

<p>Tyler,</p>

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<p>I don’t see any manipulation of statistics. In fact, by recognizing that the “bottom half” was the least prepared, what you say corroborates the point my source: “…black and Hispanic students didn’t give up on a higher education - they simply entered colleges for which they were more qualified.” A student who flat-out can’t survive at UCLA might survive and even succeed at a “lesser” university.</p>

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<p>No, you could not argue this. You yourself recognize that the rate doubled. That “more than half of urm students” were lost is irrelevant. The rate increased; it did not decrease. You can’t say that something that doesn’t exist exists.</p>

<p>Regarding your last paragraph, it’s helpful to consider the context in which I gave my source. Weasel8488 asked tokenadult, “if race becomes less of a factor in admissions, the entire educational system will have more of an incentive to improve opportunities for URMs, leading to better performance?” Bay replied, “Unfortunately, 10 years post-Prop 209, I don’t think CA has seen this happening.” I then gave an article suggesting that Bay is mistaken.</p>

497

<p>Regarding tokenadult’s recent link, I found the following comment interesting:</p>

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<p>More than ten years later, they have still failed to define exactly what diversity is and why a school like UCLA or Berkeley is often considered not to be diverse despite being majority minority students and having much socioeconomic variation.</p>

498

<p>^token</p>

<p>There is a difference between a black student wanting to attend a school where black students are represented and a white student wanting to attend a school where non-whites are not represented. If a white student didn’t want to attend a Historically Black college because there were very few white students, as is the case with many white students, that isn’t racist it is just one of the rare circumstances where white people have to worry about representation and fitting in. </p>

<p>But if a white student didn’t want to attend the Historically Black college because they thought there were too many black people, that is a racist line of thinking that shouldn’t be supported. </p>

<p>Black students not wanting to apply to UCLA don’t do so because there are too many whites or too many Asians (most of the time) but because there are too few black students. That is perfectly reasonable as there are tangible benefits from feeling like you fit in to your community, in addition to the general diversity it adds to the school.</p>

499

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<p>Fabrizio, You said that this study proves that graduation rates improved. They did overall, but not for any individual black student. Each Black student had the same chance of graduating, but the ones that were less like to graduate were simply denied admission. While this gave the appearance of increased graduation rates, it is meaningless. </p>

<p>If I score 10, 20, 30,…,100 on 10 tests an have an average 50. And then decide I’m only going to use my top 3 (80,90,100), my average apparently improved dramatically, yet I didn’t do any better on tests. </p>

<p>In fact, if each test is 100 questions, by only taking my top 3 I answered much less questions correctly than if I kept all 10. </p>

<p>Applying this back to black students (and all urms but I’ll just say black because the most research is available), because black students make significantly more money from attending an elite university, which I attribute to them learning more, added to the fact that LESS black students graduated from UCLA after prop 209, I’m arguing that as a result of prop 209 black students on the whole learned less, made less money, graduated from college in general less (better universities tend to have better support networks and better financial aid), and in the end matriculated less at UCLA because of the lack of black students.</p>

500

<p>Your refute to this argument is that the reason these students had lower graduation rates is because they were “mismatched” and would have graduated at a lower level university. First of all, “mismatch” is irrelevant if only UCs eliminated AA because those students would simply matriculate at UC’s peer schools. Second, it’s unverifiable and, in fact, refuted by the fact that similarly qualified black students earn far more money if they attend an elite school then if they attend a lower level school.</p>