@BSMDorBust Yeah, you did miss a part, The part that you missed is that the blacks and Hispanics who are admitted are qualified and valued in their own right. It is the part that you keep missing and frankly it is both patronizing and insulting to continuous assume or imply otherwise.
@gearmom You sarcastically said that a poor, black, Hispanic was the holy grail, which would mean that you thought it wasn’t really that big of a deal. Also, I don’t think anyone was saying that the Hispanic was UNdeserving but rather LESS deserving, considering that the Asian worked a lot harder by taking much harder classes and studying more. Should we be telling future applicants that as long as they get a high test score they can slack off a little more in other areas, especially if they are a URM? What if the stats were flipped? Would you still argue for the Asian who had a 35 but worse stats in other areas?
directed at post 39
@gearmom At post 41, it’s literally the 1st point under why URMs should get an advantage. Also, stop trying to denigrate me for stuff I’m not saying. Like I mentioned earlier, I’m just trying to provoke discussion, and in no way have I patronized URMs. Can you show me where I actually said that URMs don’t deserve their spots? You are letting your emotions become too involved in this instead of focusing on the arguments. I’m just making arguments for the other side since no one else is, which is the point you seem to be missing. For example, you still haven’t responded to the race-blind admission proposal that I brought up several times.
@BSMDorBust Oh really, the Hispanic was LESS deserving because Hellokitty SUPPOSEDLY worked harder. You have no idea if that is even true. You don’t even question it. Maybe the Hispanic kid has published ten novels and five volumes of Tibetan poetry and he is the perfect candidate for that major. Just because he may have a balanced life doesn’t mean he is undeserving but perhaps more desirable. The schools are not looking for studybots. They are looking for dynamic individuals. Hellokitty is wrong if he thinks he could just live his life checking off boxes. And if we are now measuring being deserving not on test scores but time at the books then we can throw out all the NMFs. I know several who slack off at school but get great scholarships because of one test.
@giraffeinatree don’t make generalizations. First of all, many Asians come from parents whose parents were not rich at all. “Decades of college?” You obviously have not met many Asians; I have (my school, for example, is 86% Asian; an unhealthy balance at times, but it’s important). Most Asian children in the US will be second-gen college students. They just have parents who have extremely narrow definitions of success. And some Asians came to the United States for asylum and aren’t necessarily rich–for example, Vietnamese refugees.
Second of all, affirmative action policies, while well-intentioned, end up hurting poor whites and Asians especially, which is why it’s important that top schools are moving towards trying to build a socioeconomically diverse class instead of basing it solely off of race. Rich black and Hispanic kids do not face the same hurdles as poor ones; the same goes for any other race. If it’s true that most of the Hispanic and black kids who get into colleges are poor, then having policies based on increasing socioeconomic diversity instead of racial diversity should not make a difference in the number of students of each race accepted.
Back to the original topic of this post, however–I believe that 1/4 should be as far as it goes; 1/8 is definitely stretching it (oh, your great-grandfather was Hispanic while the rest of your family is white? how tragic, you must face so much discrimination when most of your family isn’t a minority).
Post #43 You must be joking. Your completely patronizing point one is one which assumes a qualification hierarchy. One in which the blacks and Hispanics get to be “still strong” and above weaker candidates such as athletes and legacies. Is it impossible to believe that in an entire world of candidates that these kids are the best in their own right regardless of race. You can’t seem to do it. You can’t seem to conceptualize that.
@gearmom To post 44, please calm down and remember I’m here to just challenge what people are saying; it just so happens that no one is arguing for the other side. This doesn’t necessarily reflect my opinion. I don’t actually know if the Asian worked harder, but the significantly higher amount of APs makes me think it’s a POSSIBILITY. And it’s great and all if people can slack off and get high test scores, but are you now saying that people that work less but have higher scores deserve it more? Again, if the stats and ECs were flipped would you side with the Asian? As for your argument that the URM could have had incredible ECs, then why not make college admissions race-blind since he should get over the Asian anyway, right? Finally, you always seem to leave many of my arguments unanswered. It would help your side if you didn’t just pick and choose which parts you want to respond to.
@gearmom To post 46, point one isn’t even an argument I used. I collected arguments that were made by several users throughout this thread, and it certainly is in favor of giving URMs an advantage. It is meant to show that even if URMs have lower stats (although they can certainly have higher stats as well), they would still be strong and deserve to get in despite any advantage given by colleges. Also, once again, I’m just making arguments for the other side to provoke discussion. You can’t seem to conceptualize that.
@BSMDorBust It’s completely weird that you keep telling me to calm down. I’m not emotional any way. I don’t have a problem with admissions being race blind to create a selection pool. But I don’t think you want to create a class without any regard for diversity. I don’t think you want all girls. I don’t think you want all boys. I don’t think you want everyone to come from California. I don’t think you want only violin players. I don’t think you want everyone to be on crew. There many roles and many parts that need to be filled and in some way you want your class to represent everyone.
And we keep going back to Asian candidates. When kids post here they joke that they are fitting a stereotype. But they do seem to be choosing the same ECs and wanting to study the same majors. There are only so many spots for a particular major at these eight schools. By having similar profiles and competing for the same spots they create their own admissions bottleneck. Of course instead recognizing that we have kids that lash out at URMs who ( they think ) swan in and take their spot. That’s fine for a kid. They’re still young. But it is something entirely different for the adults on here who send the same message over and over and over again which is that certain races are inferior.
@gearmom Sorry, I guess I read your tone wrong. Several of your posts just seemed really snarky (like #21, 27, 41, 44, and 46), and you keep saying that I’m patronizing URMs, even though I’ve said that I’m only trying to provoke discussion many times. I only mention race-blind because it seems like a deciding factor in some cases. I posted a link earlier (http://tcf.org/work/education/detail/what-can-we-learn-from-states-that-ban-affirmative-action) saying it wouldn’t decrease racial diversity. Instead, you could still get your girls, boys, violin players, crew members, etc. but possibly increase the quality of the class. And frankly I agree that there can often times be too many Asians filling the same role, but if a URM had the same activities, the URM would likely get the nod even if he had lower stats, was richer, and came from the same school. Also, I hope no one claims that certain races are inferior. I think many Asians just feel that if they worked so hard to get to this point, they deserve some credit and feel discouraged once they see that people that didn’t work as hard (in their minds) get in.
^ O’k. I am being snaky. I am really horrified kids are that are reading these discussions with the very clear messages sent by adults. I’m trying not to use URM but rather specify the races so that the whole ugly truth is plain to see. No hiding.
I always find the topic hard to discuss as many people have their minds made up about this topic.
There are always many assumptions about the URMs and one of those is that they are all first generation.
There are lots of URM kids out there who grew up in middle class and upper middle class families as their parents were the first generation college students from the 70 and 80s like I was. So being a URM isn’t always enough to get into a more selective college.
Personally, I support the admittance of URM first generation students and first generation students who come from poorer area of the country to the more select colleges even if they have slightly lower scores. To score as well as they did without all the support the middle class and upper middle class advantages should be rewarded.
If you check the common data set for a college, the number of students admitted below the 25% scores isn’t large and about 50 students. This Ivy has found their diamonds in the rough and are trying to accomplish their goals for providing a well rounded group of students for their freshman class.
Why does it matter if the URM isn’t poor? It still makes the campus more diverse. I am a middle-class URM and I have to admit that it’d make me a bit uncomfortable if there was nobody else of my race at the university that I go to. Colleges just want to have a diverse class, and I’m not just talking about race. They also like to have geographical diversity, but nobody is complaining about that.
Poor white kids have more in common with poor black kids than they do with rich white kids, or even middle class white kids. Same no matter what race.
It just bothers me that somehow there are people who think that being poor and white is better than being poor and black or poor and Latino.
Think about it - if you, by result of your skin color and that of your parents and your parent’s parents, had ALL the benefits of being the “ORM” race, and your family is STILL uneducated and in poverty, don’t you need affirmative action moreso?
Kind of why I find AA based on race or ethnicity only bull. Elizabeth Warren has enough Cherokee to meet the criteria of being Native American according to several major news outlets, if she could prove her being 1/32nd Cherokee. Yet articles go on about her being “blond-haired blue-eyed” because THAT is what matters, not your race or ethnicity, but what you look like.
My sons have exactly the same background, one is like a white sheet of paper, the other is like a brown grocery bag. Dark eyes, blue eyes. Exactly the same multiracial background. Things like that prove that race is a construct, and that what you look like matters more than what you really are (see Elephant Man).
Literally there are articles about “one white twin, one black twin” when BOTH are multiracial with the same two parents. Again, because “race” is a construct based on color not background.
@dsi411 The reason is that URMs that are well off don’t have to face the same challenges that affirmative action is supposed to correct for in the first place since they have access to the same resources as ORMs. Why should an ORM that is poor not get the same boost as a URM that is poor? As for geographical diversity, it certainly isn’t as pronounced and they don’t get as much of a boost as URMs (at least that I know of). This article (www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-adv-asian-race-tutoring-20150222-story.html#page=1) shows that URMs get a significant SAT bump and Asians actually lose SAT points. In the end, racial diversity is still important, but shouldn’t the best and most hardworking students gain admission? What would you say about a race-blind admissions process, considering that it wouldn’t lower racial diversity but increase student quality as shown by this article (http://tcf.org/work/education/detail/what-can-we-learn-from-states-that-ban-affirmative-action)?
@BSMDorBust The poor white kid from Appalachia does get a boost. Admissions isn’t an awards ceremony, it’s a casting call and they want people from many different backgrounds who represent many different communities to be leaders and achievers. The college decides who is qualified and what THEY want from the class, The problem is that some people only recognize their own ambitions in this process and do not acknowledge the ambitions of the college. I’m sure Harvard is overjoyed that the first black president attended Harvard. Exactly what they want. It is also so sad that some people tie their self worth to their undergraduate college as if their personal value was married to college selection.
I think that some people are also angry because they cannot control the process. Let’s say that Barack Obama was 200 SAT points lower than an Asian candidate. I’m sure that Harvard could care less. Set, match, game.
@BSMDorBust Did you seriously say that gearmom was being “snarky”?
Yet, you wrote this (post #38) and I can’t tell if this is supposed to be snarky, ignorant, or just along the line of those ching-chong insults that Asians have to deal with. I’m going to go with the third one, but seriously, what the heck? Asians create tradition by conducting research and playing piano? What.
You also wrote this in the same post, which is definitely patronizing URMs.
Right, URMs certainly don’t suffer from racism! They never have and they never will! They have no hardships whatsoever!
Confession time: this is actually an experiment I was conducting for a class. My friend let me use his account to do this (hence the posts before 4/2). In real life, I am Hispanic, and my parents are very much financially secure. The goal of this was basically to argue for an opposite side and record how people responded. Thank you to everyone that participated and especially @gearmom for getting so riled up, haha. Please feel free to message me about any questions you have or comments about what you think of this. For example, does it change your perspective of me? Do you think this is a better way to get good arguments for the side you are actually for?
Oh and @kmaya13 the first thing was meant to be written from an Asian perspective, mentioning typical “Asian” activities, which many have viewed as good ECs to help them get into college. I wasn’t trying to say that all Asians do these things. The second thing was in regard to status in college admissions not in society. And even if I was being rude (unintentionally) doesn’t mean gearmom wasn’t rude either. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.
@BSMDorBust Let’s not overestimate the emotion of the responses. You be happy for the participation. Was it what you expected?