<p>As far as athletics go, I can certainly agree with you. I was just discussing with some friends today in class that it is unfair for recruited athletes to get so much attention from colleges, and especially that they get acceptance letters so much earlier. How hypocritical is that when all we hear in high school is "academics are more important than sports"?</p>
<p>i think i'm going to stop replying here because</p>
<ol>
<li>i don't think i've done a good job of explaining myself. that kind of happens at 12 and 1 in the morning.</li>
<li>i think people are misconstruing what i say, though i can definitely see why.</li>
</ol>
<p>Josh_AK- in your situation, i can definitely see why colleges would want a person such as yourself. you're clearly driven and have dedicated yourself to the academic world and would bring an entirely different culture to a college campus and anywhere you go, really. i grew up in houston and i really miss the different and multiple cultures of a big city- i'm living in one about 25% of its size now and the only thing people have ever known is black and white. </p>
<p>i wasn't saying that the admissions board overlook that in any way, i just don't think that people should assume that just because you're a minority, it obviously means that you're poor, parents are uneducated, and whatever else AA is trying to fight i guess. applications show your financial status and your parents' education. essays allow you to express your different culture or what it's like being a black man in the south. and yes- if you fall into certain categories of those, then i think you should have special consideration in the college process. i just don't think there should be an official program that gives you an advantage just because of the color of your skin when you have no idea what kind of life the person lived. </p>
<p>that's all i was trying to say, and i'm sure there are still going to be people that don't feel the same way as i do. but i've said what i've said, even if it is jumbled and kind of confusing. i'm sure i haven't even fully explained myself with this, but i don't really think it matters that much anyway.</p>
<p>and hahaha, rhombus. this kid at my school would have been recruited for princeton football if he had made a 27 on the ACT. but he didnt, and so now he's going to brown, i think. some people have such a hard life...</p>
<p>Let's see.</p>
<p>Grand dad came from Europe in the 1890s with the clothes on his back. He did not speak English. The family story is that a young boy taught him and Grand dad gave him candy in return.</p>
<p>Dad born in a small house in upstate Wisconsin. No indoor plumbing. No electicity. He moved with his parents to rural Alabama. Again, no indoor plumbing. Did get electicity in... 1940. In 1941, they finally bought a radio (powered by a "wet cell" battery that had to be taken into town for charging every week) till 1941. Something about Pearl Harbor....</p>
<p>After service in WWII (and the Hurtgen Forest), dad moved to Wisconsin. Carpenter, then a foreman. Moved to the suburbs, built a house, made it two the middle class. I was born. Then two contruction accidents and a lot of time in VA hospitals - and economic decline for us. We moved 3 times in about 5 years. Back to rural Alabama.</p>
<p>Have you ever had to catch your dad and help lower him to the ground as he has an epileptic-type seizure? I have. Have you every lived in a shot-gun house with no AC and no heat? I have. Ever worked in a saw mill? (built in the 1930s). I have. (OHSA would have had hissy fit.) Or loaded pulp wood? (It is possible to breath dirt & dust and be in ankle deep mud at the same time.) I have.</p>
<p>First male in my family ever to go to college (what US News terms a "4th tier" school".) </p>
<p>But...my family is white, so I should be happy for all the things showered upon us because of that.</p>
<p>In Taiwan the kids from poor families do the best in school - more motivated.</p>
<p>I'm kind of ambivalent to AA also, but I just wanted to say this.</p>
<p>Life sucks sometimes for everyone. Just because I'm white doesn't mean I spend my weekends on the country club sipping champagne or close the night by kissing a beautiful model in the back of my mercedes. People always focus on the most rich of the white people, and the most challenged minorities. </p>
<p>Racism does go both ways. Every day I get physically assaulted at school because I stood up to kids of a minority because they were sexually harassing my girlfriend. I didn't do anything too physical because I didn't want to get suspended. But every day, I get racial white comments, but I'm strong and it doesn't phase me much.</p>
<p>I don't think it's right to hold me or any other white kid in this generation accountable, or possibly prevent them from being accepted to a college, because of the racial inequities of our relatives generations ago.</p>
<p>But anyway... I just think that every race has its yuppies and those who live in poverty. </p>
<p>Ehh, sorry if this wasn't very coherent.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But...my family is white, so I should be happy for all the things showered upon us because of that.
[/quote]
Amazingly, randomdad, I think that is exactly what you are expected to think. If you were wearing some other color, they would have been beating down your door to give you that special hand up! I just don't see the fairness in the system as it exists.</p>