<p>I'm at an Ivy right now and I can guarantee you that students you would call "The Advantaged" outnumber the "Disadvantaged" at least 4 or 5 to 1. I've met too many kids who went to prep schools in New Jersey, or magnets in California. They're like drones.</p>
<p>I'm part of the "Disadvantaged" - I'm a white poverty-line inner-city first-generation student. But I can guarantee you, we work harder than the other students, because we know that we don't have a fallback. I have friends whose parents will always give them a job if they fail here.</p>
<p>Those lucky ducks!!! They got to grow up surrounded by gang violence and crime. I wish I had an awful life because all that really matters is being desirable to colleges and that makes up for all the awful things that happened in my childhood.</p>
<p>radicalolita, it IS possible to have lived in two different situation that apparently you think is impossible for a person to experience. There are many people who have lived poor, disadvantaged (read: difficult) lives before setting out into the world and becoming successful (and in a very real sense) becoming advantaged. My father is someone who has gone through that. Now which part of his life do you think he preferred? His childhood when he had to live next to the cows because his house burnt down and his family couldn't afford to buy another house for the next 6 months? Or now where he has a roof over his head and does not ever have to worry about becoming homeless?</p>
<p>Tell me AGAIN that you think getting straight As in school is harder than many of the difficulties faced by people like my father! You think your life is horrible because you have the privilege of worrying about your grades? Oh PLEASE, you are the personification of what "spoiled" means. Honestly, SCREAM TO THE WORLD that you think getting As are SO MUCH HARDER than overcoming your family's financial barrier! Of overcoming the fact that you, as a student, still needs to send money home during college because both of your parents are too poor and too old. TELL ME how getting a B- is in any way more significant to your health than knowing that violence often occurs in your school and your community?</p>
<p>YOU have the FOUNDATION to be successful. To worry about grades, to worry about Ivy League and how they look at UW GPA and which essay topics they might like... Many, many people simply do not have that. </p>
<p>Getting straight A's in school is in no way harder than facing a threat to your basic human needs, no matter how crucial you may believe getting an Ivy acceptance is to your wellbeing. </p>
<p>And by the way, you need diversity in universities so people like you can get a wake-up call.</p>
<p>The world seems to work on the principle that people are jealous of what they don't have, but never know when they have something that others are jealous of.</p>
<p>radicaloita (whose posts make me want to vomit a little) seems to be an excellent example of this. She doesn't understand that "the advantaged" are called advantaged for a reason. That there isn't a single person in the world who would rather live a life surrounded by gang violence than an upper-middle class lifestyle.</p>
But I don't think that they have as much pressure as we do to get a perfect transcript, to win state or national awards (local competitions are useless for the privileged at my school), to score perfects on the SAT.
</p>
<p>that's because they have other, more difficult and much more real problems to deal with. I'm not saying those things you mentioned are easy by any means, but you continually compare academic struggles to those of the impoverished who fight to survive. Your logic my friend, is very, very flawed.</p>
<p>Interesting point. However, you logic is a bit flawed. Yes, the advantageed didn't choose to be born into the situation (and neither did the disadvantaged), but, as others have said before, you can make your own challenges. Set a near impossible goal and achieve it. Don't merely accomplish; exceed.</p>
<p>I think that it's really unfair. I'm white and am from a middle class family, but that doesn't mean I haven't came across obsticles! When your brother is absolutely perfect and doesn't work for anything and you are always last place but work for everything, that shows determination. My brother would swim for the first time and get under a minute on his 100 yard freestyle while I would get a lot higher. He always got straight As and just crams it in his head the night before while I work so hard for my grades (even though I'm lacking some study skills). Who says white people don't go through obsticles??? I had a surgery missed so much school my grandpa died my mom got diagnosed with addison's disease my dad had a heart attach my grandma got diagnosed with west nile encephilitis and my friend died all within 2 months and ended up getting 4As and 3Bs!! I think colleges need to rethink their admissions process.</p>
<p>something about swim2daend's post bothers me.</p>
<p>maybe it's the fact that you're using the death of your family members and friends to justify your grades. shouldn't you be in mourning or taking care of your family members instead of signing onto college confidential boasting about the number of your family members that died?</p>
<p>Just as a counterpoint to the idea that URM's are overcoming all sorts of insane diversity, I challenge you to find the statistics proving this. Certainly thats the stated purpose for affirmative action, but those who actually tend to benefit are those from minority groups from the upper socioeconomic brackets. Most "challenege youths" don't even bother applying (granted those that do are probably truly extraordinary). Affirmative action, in short, is another privilege for the privileged, and actually merely whitewashes the issue, hiding the greater social inequity behind the shield of political correctness and contrition for past racial discrimination. How many poor white kids from trailer parks who's parent's are abusive drug addicts do you hear about getting in to top schools? Is their success heralded? Now how about a the kid from Hell's Kitchen who went to Stuyvesant- sure, he went to the best school, but he lived in a terrible area and is a minority, so he must be disadvantaged, right?</p>
<p>arbiter213, I have to admit, that is a very very good point. I wish there was greater effort on the part of "top" (and other) universites to actively do drives for slum and trailerpark kids willing to pick their game up.</p>
<p>swim2daend: The thing is, all of those experience are legitimate challenges - and if you mention them on your application (through essays or the "additional information" section) the admissions people will recognize that. </p>
<p>No one ever said just because you're white you can't have had challenges - it's just assumed that many URMs have a baseline set of challenges in their own lives that's larger than most middle class white kids'. Obviously there are always exceptions to this - like your case.</p>
<p>The ironic thing is, I'm one of the most vehemently anti-affirmative action policies that are based solely on race or gender. I just think there's better reasons than "omg I'm rich and white and that's unfair". :P</p>
<p>You really don't want to live in the slums. I'm serious. You don't want to know that the kid that sits behind you in chemistry class had his entire block shot up in a drive by shooting case when he was five or something. You don't really don't want to go to a school that has a 10% 4 year college going rate. If you really want to pad up your resume like you said, and want real "challenge" in a underfunded LA public school, you can come to my school.
At least I won't have to take my independent studied APs by myself in the auditorium in May, I'll have you for company! :).</p>