<p>To me legacies and development applicants ( read: rich) are more of a problem than Affirmative Action. Why does no one address this unfairness. Legacies recieve an advantage for no other reason than the fact that their parents went to that school. That’s stupid. Development applicants( correct name?) are rich and colleges accept these people b/c they can make a large donation to the school. No offense, nicsagenuis but these people probably “stole” your spot from you. Not the african Americans. For centuries, the upper class has existed with undue benefits and the lower classes are too busy fighting amongst themselves to realize that the upper class opresses all the other classes. Look at bush, a C student in Yale. No minority could pull that off. Why aren’t we ANGRY about that. We should be.</p>
<p>^ At top schools, the legacy pool tends to have significantly higher stats than the general pool(unlike the URM pool). Developmental admits probably do have low stats, but they are a tiny minority like celebrity applicants.</p>
<p>applicantcannot-</p>
<p>Ok, well I guess I just have 2 points in response to your post. Firstly, I believe that stereotyping races is definately a deteriment to the admission process. Is it true that a black kid has a greater chance of being born into an academically apathetic family than a white/asian kid? Probably, however race should not be the determining factor in deciding if the student has truly had to overcome challenges. </p>
<p>Just a quick anecdote. A good friend of mine had the boon of being born into a wealthy family. He is intelligent and has good grades/test scores and his ECs are adequate. However, I do not believe he has had any major challenges in his life (other than fixing his windows after golfballs that come from the affluent golf course his house backs to hits them). However, despite his exuberant family wealth, he also is 25 percent latino. He hates the fact that he has latino blood in his family (which I think is sad…but to each their own). Yet, he did not hesitate to write that he was a proud latino on his app to Wharton. Well, see if he gets in. </p>
<p>Its this kind of AA that I am dead set against. Most stereotypes have NUMBEROUS exceptions and racial generalizations obveriously are no exception. Wouldn’t a form of socioeconomic AA b better. I mean ppl would still complain, but at least that kind of AA would b based on reason and less anachronistic (thats an SAT word!).</p>
<p>My second point is probably somewhat redundant. However, of course the college admission process is holistic. And what I am saying is that this holistic process should be “blind racially” and try to observe persons external circumstances on an individual basis rather than trying to squeeze them into a racial stereotype. Additionally, “the numbers” are an important part of the college app. After all, they are what can be most effectively used to compare applicants. </p>
<p>Lets look at two students:
Student A has a 4.0 UW, val, 2400 on the SAT. Additionally, he/she has a presidency and 3 other officer positons. Additonally, they have quite a few state and regional awards</p>
<p>Student B has a 3.5 UW, top 20 percent of class, and 2100 on the SAT. Then, he/she has 1 officer position and has just a few regional awards.</p>
<p>Assuming everything else is equal (both app have same family background, no hooks, and equally good essays and interviews)…student A should trump student B everytime. However, I think that if student A was Asian and Student B was a Native American, then the choice would not be clear cut at all.</p>
<p>I am Asian, so I get your point, but in all honesty, would you really want to go to an elite school full of all Asians who do nothing but study? Its true that we score better, but there are a lot of things that we lack because we over study. Colleges want diversity its as simple as that. When you get out into the real world and attempt to search for jobs, you will see the same exact thing. Each person has certain skills that will help in college that are not academically related (i know huh shocking).</p>
<p>I bet theres a whole lot about your “friend” that you don’t know about, especially extracurriculars. TBH I have the same story as you as I also have an African American friend who has about the same stats who got accepted into almost every college, a majoriy of those that were Ivy (Columbia Upenn Cornell) and JHU.</p>
<p>Its hard to accept, but i guess you have to move on. If you are really that good, a bump in the road like this shouldn’t affect you as much as a few words on your resume under education.</p>
<p>"I think what bovertine meant was that the majority of young people in the country right now support Obama, and people who would support Obama (progressives, democrats, etc.) are likely to support AA. At least I hope that’s what he meant. "</p>
<p>Yes, of course this is what I mean. And I am truly mystified how this “Obstinate” person came up with their interpretation of my post. That was about the most ridiculous non-sequitur I’ve ever read anywhere.</p>
<p>I could have made the exact same post about Hillary Clinton or John Edwards. Good grief.</p>
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<p>I agree. I’m all for socioeconomically based Affirmative Action, as I said. But you can justify something without agreeing with it, as I was doing.</p>
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<p>There are people who abuse EVERY system. Does this mean those systems should not be in place? Many people abuse the current financial aid system by “hiding” money in grandparents’ accounts or through other means. Many, many people explore the social welfare systems. A lot of people exploit the laws of the highway by slowing down when the cops are around! I don’t like it, either. But if you punish the innocent because of the guilty, what have you got left?</p>
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<p>I think with a good socioeconomic Affirmative Action plan in place, admissions could be racially blind. But if Affirmative Action was completely obliterated, college - even public universities - would be a very different place. For example, many low-income students (full disclosure: I am first gen, low-income, African American) have to hold jobs after school. These students, like many Asian and white students and other African American students, cannot devote eight hours to studying every day. Maybe they can’t complete every project. Maybe they have a 3.8 instead of a 4.0 and a 2100 instead of a 2400. Should they not be considered? Absolutely not. So, while the current Affirmative Action system is broken (I think almost all of us agree there), it does begin to address this concern. Affirmative Action is the wrong answer to the right problem: the underrepresentation of certain groups of students in colleges and universities.</p>
<p>At many public universities, where numbers are almost solely used in the admissions process, students with lower academic numbers will not get in. So at schools that don’t choose their applicant pools for the purpose of crafting a freshman class, there will be far fewer minorities (and far fewer low-income and lower-middle-class students). And since public institutions are cheaper, they are more important for minority students (who are more likely to be low-income or lower-middle-class) and low-income and lower-middle-class students. But without any form of Affirmative Action, they’d be a lot less likely to get in. Not because they aren’t intelligent enough, but because they may or may not have the “strength” of application of another student. The same goes for white students in low-income or lower-middle-class situations. You have to remember we aren’t just talking about the elite institutions.</p>
<p>Applicannot made some important points. Also, if AA was a thing of the past- all the spots for lower income students woul;d be taken by wealthy legacies. If legacies have such good stats as a previous post said- why do they need another helping hand. I say legacies and development applicants and all types of favoritism are ejected from the system in favor of socioeconomic based favoritism</p>
<p>^Most applicants to the very top schools have high stats and are academically qualified. But, only a small percentage of these get in, whether due to very strong ECs, powerful essays, national awards, etc. Most normal (unhooked) applicants with just strong stats will not be admitted. But, once you bring the hook into play (legacy, URM, etc.) these applicants get admitted, even if they don’t have something special in the rest of their app. </p>
<p>Almost everyone with strong stats needs help to get into top colleges, whether that is something they don’t have control of (legacy, URM, first-gen) or something they do (awards, top ECs, etc.).</p>
<p>A problem with AA is that it admits URMs whose stats aren’t that strong in the 1st place.</p>
<p>wow, there is a lot of hubub about AA. I said this before, I dont think its right and Im tri-racial ( brazilian,black(african),white (euro)). I believe that if you’re going to be admitted it should be based off of character and merit, and yes, even socioeconomic status, not simply a luck of the draw that gave you a certain skin pigment.</p>
<p>^^^monstor is right, and he brings up a good point that could affect the socio-economic AA. Would admins not be curious to why a student with much lower stats would even apply when he is not near the 25% ratio? They could definitely see that it was a minority, especially by the ECs like “African club”(example)</p>
<p>MODERATOR’S NOTE: </p>
<p>This thread is off-topic for the What Are My Chances? Forum. (Usually it’s the other way around, with off-topic chances threads filling up lots of other forums.) For civil, factual discussion of this contentious issue, there is a different thread, </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/858679-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-7-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/858679-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-7-a.html</a> </p>
<p>so this thread here will be closed.</p>