<p>Ok, well I'd like to see Eve Drucker's statistics first. One Harvard student does not determine if poor/lower middle class students apply to the 8 ivies and top 50 nationally ranked colleges/universities.</p>
<p>Btw, I never claimed to have any statistics, I simply indicated that more underpriveleged URMS than you would believe apply to top schools every year.</p>
<p>AA is not simply a type of compensation for centuries of racism [remember Asians don't fit in as URM's even though they have been discriminated against in the past] but more importantly an attempt to diversify the campus and a generalization of certain minorities as inherently disadvantaged members of society. Even though someone's skin color doesn't directly relate to anything, the environment certainly does affect her/his success. If surrounding people discriminate against person X, limiting her/his chances at thriving, then person X should make that very clear in essays or in a note to the admission officers, but colleges should not assume that person X has been greatly affected by her/his skin color. If colleges could spend more time on figuring who the individual really is and how much they had to overcome instead of drawing assumptions, then admissions would be much more justified. </p>
<p>Ideally, universities shouldn't bring any form of racism to the table unless the applicant first does so (by indicating its importance in her/his particular life). Unfortunately, a new generation might be needed to implement such principles. When we grow up, maybe our society will realize that, as someone mentioned earlier, adequate social welfare not AA is the solution to stratified education.</p>
<p>Note: College can really be a wonderful experience in that you meet new people and learn interesting things, but it's merely an expedient for accomplishing life goals. So don't get too emotional in these arguments.</p>
<p>Also, maintaining a stance on issues such as AA is fine but clamoring and squabbling for two days seems silly when you actually put it in perspective. Worldwide, 20000 die everyday of treatable diseases and here, the future intelligentsia of America argues about the relatively harmless form of racism in the admission process. Priorities people priorities...</p>
<p>"If colleges could spend more time on figuring who the individual really is and how much they had to overcome instead of drawing assumptions, then admissions would be much more justified. "</p>
<p>Exactly... That's one of the best lines I've read on CC. It should all be about what the student had to overcome and how much self-motivation he/she had to have.</p>
<p>New York Times, June 24, 2004
Top Colleges Take More Blacks, but Which Ones?
By SARA RIMER and KAREN W. ARENSON</p>
<p>CAMBRIDGE, Mass. At the most recent reunion of Harvard University's black alumni, there was lots of pleased talk about the increase in the number of black students at Harvard.</p>
<p>But the celebratory mood was broken in one forum, when some speakers brought up the thorny issue of exactly who those black students were. </p>
<p>While about 8 percent, or about 530, of Harvard's undergraduates were black, Lani Guinier, a Harvard law professor, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of Harvard's African and African-American studies department, pointed out that the majority of them perhaps as many as two-thirds were West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples....</p>
<p>Douglas S. Massey, a Princeton sociology professor who was one of the researchers, said the black students from immigrant families and the mixed-race students represented a larger proportion of the black students than that in the black population in the United States generally. Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College, says that among 18- to 25-year-old blacks nationwide, about 9 percent describe themselves as of
African or West Indian ancestry...."</p>
<p>Incidentally, Lani Guinier's mom was white and Jewish and her dad, one of Harvard's first black professors, was born in Jamaica.</p>
<p>Good Old Harvard, Brown and UVA benefited tremendously from slave trade money. Consequently, therefore, they should morally continue to promote AA.</p>
<p>Likewise, across the pond in the UK-- Oxford should start taking in more Blacks and East Indians. Oxford had great benefactors including Cecil Rhodes that robbed African wealth. Blacks and Indians make up around 1% of the student population at Oxford, although minorities make up around 10% of the UK population. May be Oxford needs AA.</p>
<p>Well by that logic we should have special taxes on states that had slavery. Also, it doesn't follow that the school listed should have AA. Wouldn't it make more sense to just pay back teh money in reparations? Especially at Harvard, where AA benefits a lot of Caribbean and immigrant blacks, not those effected by American slavery, AA doesn't reward just those with slave ancestors. You know also that since there were thousands of black slave owners, should we trace down which current blacks are descendents of slave owners, and make them pay reparations? And what about reparations and AA for the millions and millions of white slaves in history?. And after all, it was mostly fellow Africans and Arabs that actually took the slaves, the Americans just bought the slaves. Should we go to Africa and trace the ruling lineage to punish them too? When you think about it, basically the whole world benefitted from slavery, not just 3 schools. And you think that since someone who donated to Oxford did wrong to blacks, that Oxford is responsible? That's crazy. Does that mean if I give money to Princeton and then I commit a murder, that Princeton is responsible? I can't comprehend how a reasonable person could reach those conclusions.</p>
<p>I don't think that AA is an effort to pay retribution for slavery. Certainly both sides of my family were totally in West Virginia back to the Revolutionary War period, and so I don't have much to personally atone for on behalf of my ancestors. (At least not for American slavery, although I don't know what they were doing 10,000 years ago.) The idea of atoning for your ancestors strikes me comically anyway. If we have to give everything back to the Native Americans, .....</p>
<p>I do think that AA is an effort to try to fix a problem in society without regard to why we have that problem.</p>
<p>What if a URM Hispanic is ranking like in the top 15% of a medical magnet school, full AP courseload (9 AP exams by graduation), and gets a SAT score of 2100/2400? Chances at the Ivies for them?</p>
<p>Glucose, that conadidate is probably in ANYWHERE.</p>
<p>not in the top ten percent: not in the top ten percent</p>
<p>Don't worry glucose ;) I understand your concern about 'his' rank. Nonetheless, as long as that 'candidate' has excellent stats, 'he' has a good chance. 'He' just gets what 'he' gets. Just keep working hard, and colleges will reward for that.</p>
<p>alright all, here was the situation in my graduating class. I remember it all because I was absolutely ... disgusted.</p>
<p>Black female: 1350 SAT, 50/400 rank, nothing special about her. Mom went to wellesley, dad to georgetown. Well off family, lots of $$
Accepted: Dartmouth, Wellesley, U Michigan (full ride, ha), Tulane (partial scholarship), U. Virginia (rightfully so), and safeties
Rejected: None</p>
<p>Black Male: 1350 SAT 20/400 Rank, few AP/honors classes. Fairly wealthy family. Excellent musician
Accepted: Harvard, others similar to UVA
Rejected: Yale</p>
<p>Black Female: 1280 SAT 21/400 rank. good musician / actor. very wealthy family. two large vacation homes ect.
accepted: Elon (full ride), William and Mary, Williams College
Rejected: dont remember</p>
<p>White male: 1550SAT 1/400 rank, middle class family with 4 kids. varsity athlete, jazz band member, pres of clubs
Accepted: Rice, Georgetown, UVA
Waitlisted: DARTMOUTH (same place 2 black females were accepted), princeton, cornell, WILLIAMS (black female accepted), Duke</p>
<p>White Male: 1470 SAT, 4/400 Rank, Eagle Scout, 2 varsity athlete, 800, 800, 780 SAT IIs. other ECs. father passed away during his 9th grade year (he maintained a 4.0)
Rejected: Princeton, Columbia, Brown
Accepted: Tufts, UVA</p>
<p>the three black students were not disadvantaged at all. one's parents went to elite colleges and one has two million dollar vacation homes on the beach. the white students came from a middle class family and a broken family. the whites still managed to out perform the blacks in every aspect of school -- SAT, GPA, Rank and were rejected by schools that the blacks got into.</p>
<p>Results: racial slurs and divisions in our school. How was I supposed to look at one of the black girls in a dartmouth shirt knowing that the white male was waitlisted???</p>
<p>I dont think anyone can deny the fact that AA is flawed. sure the blacks got into those schools based on merit, they werent terrible students. but they just werent better applicants than the white students.</p>
<p>AA is flawed, totally agree. fix the educational system. and/or provide more economic assistance, but dont let "race" play a role in admissions.</p>
<p>Let it go. This debate has been going nowhere since CC started. Stop already!</p>
<p>this is what happens when liberals rule the country</p>
<p>read up on the "affirmative action bake sales"</p>
<p>what we really need is an "academic" debate on the issue -- this is just the typical news mudslinging type debate.</p>
<p>man, i really feel for those white dudes at your school. having to pick from tufts, georgetown, uva, and rice, which are only four of the most elite of the elite colleges in the country. really sucks for them; i'm sure their lives are over. is it just me, or are we splitting hairs here? the difference between those four schools and the ivies is pretty negligible, if you ask me (which you didn't, i realize). </p>
<p>and if you're going to ***** about the injustice of the rich (regardless of race) getting richer, where's the indignation over all the (white) legacy coneheads who get into ivies just because their parents are big donors?</p>