<p>It is really getting to me when people use their race as a reason to why they are getting in to Americas top colleges. </p>
<p>Growing up my situations is a lot different from everybody elses in that my mother immigrated to the United States here with me after I was born in Kenya and were left by my father. I was faced with having to learn my native language to help my mom with applications for government aid, employment, and school and I still had to learn English and I was only 7. Most of my life I stayed home studying my brains out because I knew that is was the only way I could get out of socioeconomic circumstance. I grew up in a very low income home and my step father was faced with working a minimum wage job to keep our family a float and together. My step sister broke are families heart when she dropped out of school my senior year and I was given the ultimate responsibility of being the first one to graduate. I grew up with none of the things many families had of having parents that could help me with homework, take me out to the movies or stuff. (To this very day I never do anything that is wasteful of money such as going to the movies, buying the latest clothes, or stuff like that because I am cognizant of the fact that my parents struggled with keeping up with the bills. I kept my head on straight and I was aware of the fact that school was my ticket out. Just recently I passed all three of my AP exams my junior year, have a WGPA of 4.43, scored 1950 on SAT, I have been a six year student of the A.V.I.D. program, I am involved with four clubs at my school, and I have been doing community service work at my church as a Head Deacon and through other org. I am the only deacon to be under 18 in the state California that is able to perform Liturgy Service every Saturday for the past 7 years. </p>
<p>And you know what that is only the tip of the ice berg in terms of what I have dealt with. </p>
<p>When people say I am a minority, they are absolutely right, but it sickens me that students in this world say I have an advantage because of my race. Folks, lets not forget I grew up with nothing and I was able to do this much. I can only imagine what I WOULD HAVE BEEN capable of if my circumstances were different. </p>
<p>TO EVERYONE OUT HERE I NOT GETTING INTO COLLEGE ON THE MERE FACT OF MY RACE, LIFE CIRCUMSTANCES, OR ANYTHING. I AM GETTING IN ON MERIT AND WHAT I HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DO WITH SO LITTLE I HAD. </p>
<p>PLEASE DONT LET STUFF LIKE RACE GET TO YOUR HEADS. IF AN INDIVIDUAL HERE, SAYS THAT I AM GETTING IN ON RACE YOURE AN IDIOT. </p>
<p>IF YOU WANT TO BE A COLLEGE STUDENT START ACTING LIKE IT. And to everybody out there that has a problem with what I said Id be more then glad to here your response.</p>
<p>I think you made some very good points. I'm Asian and in terms of college admissions our perspectives as minorities are very different, but I can relate to some of what you said. People sometimes expect me to have high grades, and be controlled by my parents, and play violin/piano, and have no life outside of school. The stereotypes are different, but the underlying cause of stereotype is similar. Anyway, I think it's great to have constructive, thoughtful debates about race, but I do agree that it's disgusting when people say "Oh, she only got in to (wherever) because she's a URM" or "If only I was a URM I know I could get in."</p>
<p>Yea, you're story it amazing and you've accomplished way more than anyone I know and have a ton to be proud of. You've managed to succeed in an extremely difficult situation and that is incredibly admirable. I don't think people who yell about affirmative action are complaining about people like you. I believe (as do many others) that affirmative action should be on a socio-economic basis. So, someone who has been in a situation like yours would WITHOUT A QUESTION be given a leg up, because you totally deserve it. The problem people have with affirmative action is when rich minority applicants are given the same leg up that you may get, but they have not faced any more hardships than a rich white applicant. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>I don't think many people say " you're getting into college just because your a certain race " It is more like people have said your minority race will help you if you want to get accepted into certain colleges.</p>
<p>Also the reason people get angry is that if a college had a choice between a white male with similar problems and stats you have or you, they would pick you just because you're black. I'm not trying to start anything, just stating some things so you could understand the other side of the road. </p>
<p>Another example is that a unversity would take a Native American who gets 4.0 gpa, blah blah over an Asian male who also has a 4.0. ( Both has similar stats )</p>
<p>Ok so I always have to be the devil's advocate here:</p>
<p>You title your post "Stop Making RACE an Issue" which is a good idea, and is exactly what those of us opposed to AA are trying to do. You on the other hand, throughout the post, are the one making race an issue.
Now I can tell you where these "stereotypes" about URMs only getting in because of their race come from. If I say that a black person only got into X elite college because of their race, then there is about a 67% chance that I am right, according to studies. Thus this stereotype is backed up in fact, and since it is verified, is rational, logical, and not in the least bit racist.
And since you (at least you belive so) are one of the 1/3 of URMs who actually earned their spot, you of all people should be railing against AA. It hurts people such as yourself the most, as the public at large, but most importantly you yourself, will never really know whether or not you would have gotten in had you been white or Asian. You can sit here and pretend that "o I know I got in on merit", but you will never know, there is always doubt, eating away at you, asking "what if?"
But you seem to have found a great loophole around this: you claim that your stats/app/overall situation would have been much better had you simply been white. This idea comes despite NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER that you ever recieved ANY form of racial discrimination. Your situation falls ENTIRELY in the categories of socio-economic discrimination/misfortune and the difficulties of being an immigrant, neither of which has anything to do with race.</p>
<p>"PLEASE DONT LET STUFF LIKE RACE GET TO YOUR HEADS."
All I have to say is that some people need to take their own advice!</p>
<p>I know many kids who came from an equally disadvantaged background as the OP yet they are white. You should have absolutely no leg up on them whatsoever for the pure fact that you are black. AA was started to give advantages to races that had been put down in the past because of pure racial issues. Now that the United States is more modernized, and social mobility reigns supreme there is no real need for AA. As drummer implied, we should start looking at incomes if we want to see real disadvantaged people, not race.</p>
<p>ok drummer, first of all, he never said "had I been white", he said "had my circumstances been different." Second of all, you are blind if you dont realize the racial disparity between whites and blacks in America. The average black person in the U.S. makes 60% of what the average white makes. This is why affirmative action is important. Yes, there will always be poor people in this country. However, when the proportion of blacks that are poor to blacks that are not is so much higher than the proportion of whites that are poor to whites that are not, there is work to be done. Affirmative Action should NOT go away, it should simply be revised. If a poor black student has the same stats as a white student, he should be given the advantage in that situation. If a black student who is deemed to not be underprivelaged in terms of socioeconomic status has the same stats as a white student, there should be no advantage given. When the economic hierarchy of blacks in America is equal to that of whites (that is, the average black salary is equal to the average white salary, and proportions below poverty are equal) then we will have no more need for affirmative action. Also, your argument about less qualified blacks getting in ahead of whites with more impressive statistics is also completely false. Look at affirmative action, it says if qualifications are EQUAL, the black student will be preferred. That means that the stats are deemed qualified to get into the school, however the spots are too few, the black student will be preferred. THE BLACK STUDENT STILL HAS TO HAVE EQUAL QUALIFICATIONS FOR AFFIRMATIVE ACTION TO APPLY. Opposition to affirmative action shows a complete disregard for the fact that the % of black people that are poor and underprivelaged as compared to their whole is unbelievably higher than that of white people as compared to their whole.</p>
<p>P.S., oftentimes anti-AA advocates like to pull out the seeming equality in percentages of poor that are each race. come on, we all know elementary math, such bases for argument are basically lies because what we should be looking at is not the percentages of poor that are each race, but the percentages of each race that are poor. let me explain: 40% of single mothers below the poverty line are black, 38% are white. sounds kinda equal? NO! NOT WHEN 12.4% of the population is black and 76% of the population is white! That means a group that makes up 12.4% of the population is making up for 40% of the pop of single mothers below poverty line, while a group that makes up 76% of the pop is making up only 38% of the pop of single mothers below poverty. Equality would be if 12.4% of the pop of single mothers below poverty were black, and 76% were white.</p>
<p>OK, why don't you not identify your race on the college app and see if you still get in. Are you confident enough to do that? If you get into a good college like that, people will shut up.</p>
<p>Guys your missing the point of AA. AA is not a policy to pity those URM and put them into college. It's a policy that works, and it does work, because if you have two identical people, one black (native american, latino etc.) and one white, the school will choose the minority. Okay, maybe schools still favor a black person who has 50 points less on thier SAT and one less "A" than an otherwise identical white person. Why? Because schools want what you can brinig to campus, what you can expose other students to. If you are a minority, your bringing a diffrent perspective and culture to the school. Its for everyone's benefit. Sorry, when you grow up and have a job, your not only going to talk to white people. You live in an increasingly biracial, diverse, globalized world. Colleges want to develop you a PERSON, and prepare you for the world. The only way to due this is to introduce thier students to several cultures, so you can learn to observe the world through a different sets of eyes. AA is a fantastic policy, we should all enjoy it, because it allows us to learn from an ecletic group.</p>
<p>Franti, I think you overestimate the value of AA. If what you said were true, colleges would admit more international students, not more Americans of different races. Race does not necessarily translate into culture - socioeconomic background has a bigger influence than race, I believe. Which is why some people on these boards advocate recentering AA so it helps more people who are economically underprivileged. As an American living overseas, I can tell you that learning about different cultures from people who live in their native country is worlds away from learning about a culture from a second or even first-generation minority in the States.</p>
<p>It may make us feel better to think that affirmative action only applies in situatiosn where two candidates are equal. I have no strong objection to this - diversity is good, right? However, there is great pressure colleges to appear diverse and inclusive - it is not hard to imagine admisson committes giving a boost to URM candidates, even if they may be less qualified, to make up the statistic that is so important in maintaing the image of the university in question. It may be impossible to prove, but it is my position that the latter happens much more often than the former.</p>
<p>I don't doubt that there are students who are black, poor and high-achieving, who deserve the boost of AA, but they are not the rule. More likely than not, AA is practised on black students who have rich parents, because even though they have had absolutely no disadvantage to speak of in their lives, they still make the statistics of the university look good. Such an act may appeal to socially conscious critics such as yourself who cry about the grossly unequal condition of blacks, but AA, in that circumstance, does little to nothing to improve the conditions of blacks.</p>
<p>It is time for colleges to stop equating black with poor, and URM with disenfranchised. Candidates should be given a more holistic look, in which case deserving candidates such as the OP will still be given full credit for the difficulties in their lives, but the average kid who just happens to be a minority will be judged equally, and rightfully so, with the white kids. Ignoring this factor and focusing only on the race of the candidate does disservice to students who truly deserve AA.</p>
<p>Everyone here that is arguing that AA only benefits identical applicants is just ignoring the facts. Sure, perhaps the "official" version of AA policy might be like that, but it is never empirically true. The URMs have a statistical advantage over the others. Look at the Michigan Supreme Court case. In their admission matrix, they didn't have a "tie-breaker" to admit equally qualified blacks over whites, they automatically gave the black people X amount of points. This means that underqualified URMs were admitted. Fortunately this was ruled illegal (as used as part of a matrix), but it is obvious that other colleges do the exact same thing, minus the official matrix. It's proven by study after study after study. URMs get in with significantly lower stats than their white and Asian counterparts. To deny this fact is sheer folly. Now someone will likely come here and try to tell me that somehow this is because the college looks at other aspects then just SAT scores and GPA. They are right in a sense, because obviously something that holds more weight to the college is what color your skin happens to be. But to suggest that all the admitted URMs have better ECs or better essays than the white people is also silly, and contradicts sheer common sense, though this happens to be the line you will here as an excuse from most colleges.</p>
<p>Ok blindman, the "other circumstances" obviously implied race, and if they didn't there was no point to the post.
Your argument about racial equality is silly, let me some it up:</p>
<p>My position=pro-socioeconomic AA= helps the poor and disadvantaged.</p>
<p>Your position=pro-racial AA= help only the BLACK poor and disadvantaged, and the rich millionaire socialite blacks at the same time.</p>
<p>Thank everybody for your kind feedback, even you drummerdude_07. It makes me smile to see how strong many of you feel on such a touchy subject. It is really heart warming to see the future successful people of the world be so mature the manner that they address an issue. Maybe this world isn't as bad as I thought it to be.</p>
<p>I started the apps with the full intention of not putting a race on there (er, Asian doesn't help me much, I know). But it was impossible! Once I started to "reflect" on myself for the essays, all the influence I trace from my current beliefs and views and who I am are linked and tangled and meshed with my being an immigrant. The most personal essay I have to-date is one that talks of my immigration experiences; the others seem more superficial and don't dig "deep" enough. It's impossible to separate your race from who you are, really...</p>
<p>As for AA, I could care less--it's nothing we teens can change anyway. So why the stress? kk I'm done =)</p>
<p>I dont understand why people get fussed up over race.</p>
<p>Colleges, like ive said a million times, want diversity. If you dont like it then shut up.</p>
<p>An asian applicant who is unstereotypically asian such as he plays sports and does other things instead of math team will be more desirable to the colleges eyes than the typical hundreds of asians that have math team as theyre only EC. Supply and demand dude.</p>
<p>Just as high-scoring blacks will always have a better chance just cause theyre are few of them. supply and demand again</p>
<p>If you want to be wanted by colleges, then set yourself apart and stop following what your parents, friends tell you that you "should" do. Do your own thing and shut up about this issue.</p>
<p>And its usually the kids who fit the stereotypical bill who get fussed up over this issue because they realize that many applicants are just like them so they automatically cry foul at anything that further lowers their chances.</p>