The "Clout" List

Applying to College
21

<p>The existance of preferencial treatment doesn’t mean that anyone is admitted with subpar academic records.</p>

<p>I am hesitant when I say this, but I believe it is accurate. It seems that one cannot claim that minority students at top schools are not qualified to succeed at those schools without being racist. </p>

<p>How can one argue that certain races are not inherently better than others yet claim that the minorities at the top schools are not qualified to succeed?</p>

<p>I don’t believe one can successfully argue that, and, being a being a non-racist, I resent the assertion.</p>

22

<p>Silverturtle, </p>

<p>Suggestions of racism are completely inappropriate. </p>

<p>Personally, I believe that - within reason - given the opportunity, anyone can be successful, anywhere. That doesn’t mean I’m correct. It’s an opinion. </p>

<p>But if you follow the link from the O.P., this is one of the articles. </p>

<p>[Read</a> the influential e-mails – chicagotribune.com](<a href=“http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-090529clout-htmlpage2,0,3733403.htmlpage]Read”>http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-090529clout-htmlpage2,0,3733403.htmlpage)</p>

<p>In it, someone is being admitted to the Law School and the University of Illinois administrator believes that they are setting the kid up to fail. So, some see a link between prep work to getting into a program with the ability to swim once you get there. Doesn’t mean they are right either - but the assertion can be made without bringing the word ‘racism’ into the discussion.</p>

23

<p>If my use of the word is against the forum rules, I hope it is deleted. But that is where my logic led me, and I wasn’t going to refrain in order to be politically correct.</p>

24

<p>I want to make it clear that I wasn’t accusing anyone of being racist. I was asking for a solution to the paradox I brought up.</p>

25

<p>Capt. Renault - “I’m shocked to hear that preferential treatment in college admissions is being given to the politically connected.”</p>

<p>Croupier - “Your admission letter, sir.”</p>

26

<p>I’m not sure where there’s anything racist, and as I tell my kids, you’d better have all your ducks in a row before you even imply something that serious.</p>

<p>I posted links in post #13 noting 1) the effect of eliminating affirmative action in the U of C system, and 2) an argument stating affirmative action may not be beneficial to those supposedly benefitting, and swissmiss3 referenced articles with similar conclusions. From this, as well as the Texas 10% rule, she stated that preferential treatment (the original reason for this thread) exists for a variety of reasons, not just patronage.</p>

<p>The “paradox” you stated was not claimed by anyone here. If URMs meet a school’s normal cutoff, but are lower on whatever selection basis a school uses (disregarding its merits), yet are admitted at a higher rate than would normally occur without URM status, that’s preferential treatment. No judgement given here whether that’s appropriate.</p>

<p>If URMs do NOT meet a school’s normal cutoff, yet are admitted because of URM status, that’s preferential treatment. Again, no judgement given here whether that’s appropriate.</p>

<p>If standards are put in place which increase URM enrollment (as in Texas), there’s a VERY blunt instrument being used to meet university goals which, in effect, promotes preferential treatment of URMs, but is not in and of itself preferential treatment. The policy creates winners and losers to circumvent judicial scrutiny of a more refined approach, with resultant resentment of its obvious shortcomings.</p>

<p>What I think I’m seeing here is a disconnect between posters as to whether URMs have the qualifications to attend a school or not. If they do, and they are given preferential treatment for admittance, I think everyone agrees that they’ll have essentially the same success rate down the road (though we can disagree as to whether it’s appropriate to give them a preference).</p>

<p>However, if they don’t, then there will probably be more heated disagreement as to whether they should receive preference. The disconnect I see is that some here feel underqualified URMs getting preference is more rampant than others. If one doesn’t think it happens much, yet sees others talk of underqualified admits, then racism could be an explanation they see for this behavior. On the other hand, if someone else sees articles about the higher failure rates of URMs from some law schools, they might conclude that this practice occurs at a higher frequency.</p>

<p>Bottom line is that your conclusions come from your assumptions, and I think we’re all starting from different points. None, though, are inherently racist. That’s my not-so-quick and dirty explanation for the “paradox”.</p>

27

<p>Silverturtle, I didn’t make these articles up; I mention them because professional writers (from the Wall Street Journal no less) have published articles about the higher numbers of black law students who drop out before graduation from prestigious law schools. Stating facts like those does not make a person racist. Actually, the admissions departments of those colleges are racist for admitting students into their law schools who must have been less prepared than their peers (of whatever race) since they dropped out in higher numbers than the others.</p>

<p>If you look online for scholarships that are available to high school seniors, you will find that there are those which ALL students can apply for, and there are others with certain characteristics which the sponsors require in their applicants. I printed several lists of these from various high school websites after my junior year and consulted them to find those which I could apply for. Yes, there are some for people of Iranian descent, of Italian descent, and some for homosexual kids or those whose parents are homosexual. There are some based on an intended major and some for children of employees of a business or for the employees themselves. These are but a few. There are also many scholarships for minorities ONLY. Hmmmmm, that seems racist. However, I could find not one scholarship for European-American or white students only. Looking at the qualifications for those scholarships, you will see that usually (not always, but in many cases) the GPA and standardized test scores that are required by applicants are on the low side, less than a 3.0 and sometimes less than 2.5. You don’t have to believe me; look into it yourself. </p>

<p>On USAToday less than a month ago, there was an article about how the state of California is considering changing its enrollment methods of their public universities because too many incoming students are of Asian descent. The state wants to revamp its criteria so that students who are Hispanic or black will have a better chance of getting admitted to the state colleges. Isn’t that racist too? They quoted a young Asian girl who said if kids get accepted because they’re Hispanic or black but aren’t as qualified, that wasn’t fair. Well, if they couldn’t be admitted now but after the law is tweeked they could, then that’s racist.</p>

<p>Compare the stats of accepted CCers for some of the top colleges on this site. You will find examples of accepted students with lower scores all over this site. If you dig around you will learn the ethnicity or race of them. Often posters will mention that race plays a huge factor in admissions and they say so in their “chance me” threads. If you want to find evidence of minority kids getting admitted to highly selective universities with lower scores, you can find it on this site.</p>

28

<p>The paradox I mentioned is mostly an internal struggle with coming to terms with the reasons that make affirmative action necessary for proportionally represented diversity. I didn’t mean to imply anything about anyone in a personal sense.</p>

<p>Let me summarize the paradox. Perhaps someone can further comment on what explains it.</p>

<p>It seems that affirmative action (preferencial treatment for under-represented minorities) is necessary to ensure an appropriately diverse student body. This is necessary even at the most selective schools, which means that there are not enough minority applicants applying with success levels on standardized tests equal to those of whites and Asians in order to fill their proportional population in the overall class size. </p>

<p>It is true that the differences in average achievement differ among the races because of the historically influenced differences in opportunities as well as persisting prejudices. But I find it hard to see how this explains the persistance of this imbalance in even the most successful minority applicants relative to the rest of those of that same race.</p>

29

<p>^Silverturtle, I agree with you! Like you, I find it hard to see how the differences in opportunities and persisting prejudices explain this imbalance in high-scoring students.</p>

<p>I come from a line of teachers, going back two generations with aunts and great-aunts who are teachers too, so I asked my mom and sister, who currently is teaching until her grad school starts in fall, about your comment. They immediately agreed with you! It is the family, however, that has the most impact on a student’s success or failure, from the beginning when values and behavior are founded to the older teen years when that continues to solidify…for good OR bad.</p>

<p>Lots of students, of ANY race, have parents who are: flat broke, single parents, drug or alcohol abusers, or in jail. Those failures of families enormously affect the students involved. Some fall into the same problems; others strive to overcome them and many succeed. Praise God!</p>

<p>What I don’t understand is how you can have a class of students of many races/ethnicities: black, white, Mexican, Saudi, Pakistani, Chinese (and who knows what else) in a classroom who hear the same lessons from the same teacher, get extra tutoring from two other teachers, classmates, and their own teacher too, and you see that students of every other race except black have progressed much more quickly, even children who are illegals, then you may wonder how much of the failure is from prejudices or differences in opportunities rather than a poor family unit. Three of the people in my family teach at Title 1 schools, so they spend their years working with exactly these kinds of kids. They see students of every color, and blend of color, you can imagine. Regardless of which school they teach at, and some are in different states too, they still see the same thing. My mom mentioned a black boy she taught a couple of years ago. He was the most precious child, had moved to America directly from Africa, and didn’t speak a word of English when he arrived. Before the year ended, this hard-working little boy had mastered English, scored very well on the state tests, and went on to be very successful in their school. So why was this boy able to progress so fast when the American-born black students didn’t?</p>

<p>I don’t pretend to know the answer to this problem. It goes way beyond persisting prejudices and different amounts of opportunities, though, and ends up with the families. Families of ANY color can be fantastic or horrendous.</p>

30

<p>Bahahaha!</p>

<p>I love how one poster turned this from a “clout” thread to an affirmative action thread. Most of you probably haven’t even read the original article. </p>

<p>Anyway, this situation is that politicians and other people with “clout” are sending little notes regarding their children and their FRIENDS saying that they would like to see so and so at the U of I this fall. This is occurring after the admissions committees have already rejected said students. Essentially, high level administrators are reversing admissions decisions to admit these students who have test scores in excess of 200-something points lower than the rest of the student body. This is especially significant at a public school where the mean test scores aren’t that high and are determined by a very large sample size- not even urms have that large a gap at this school. </p>

<p>There’s a thread on “Race in College Admissions Part 3”, if you want to discuss affirmative action, go there (or this thread will shortly be moved there anyway so you might as well listen). But right now in IL this has been a front page issue two days in a row.</p>

31

<p>The discussion seems relevant to me, given that both affirmative action and the article have to do with potentially unfair admissions. The discussion is probably better spent on something that actually has debatable value as opposed to the politician situation, which is by general agreement wrong.</p>