@NickFlynn: I want to again stress the concept of “equal opportunity” to you.
There’s a huge difference in thinking there’s an opportunity…and assuming it goes to unqualified kids.
If you don’t want to come off as brash or as stereotyping a whole group, then don’t. It’s not hard to self-edit.
You don’t know about the pool of applicants. You may know about a kid or two in your hs. Different perspectives in one limited environment versus from the college’s perspective. And if many CC kids are any indication, they do not view ECs the same way pro adcoms do. What you consider weak may be viewed as great. What you think of as padding and avoid, may be just what’s missing from your own resume.
@lookingforward: I will “self-edit” after every race gets an equal opportunity in college admissions. Need-blind and need-race admission…
I would like to stress the concept of “Perhaps the people who run these elite schools that everyone is so anxious to get into actually know more about what they are doing than you when it comes to admissions.”
@NickFlynn: I wonder how history would have turned out if people had just listened to the authorities in power. Oh yes…I would still be in shackles on some dingy ship arriving to America to work the plantations. I believe it is important to state one’s opinions. And even though changes may not be instituted in these schools, I am still able to voice my concerns.
No, don’t wait to learn to filter. Think and filter. You’ll need it on your apps.
You don’t seem to understand how great so many applicants are, no matter the SES or race, rural vs urban, top hs or under-resourced. You have no idea how their own words come across. In the same way, we;re suggesting you step back and consider your own words. Spitfire can move an argument, but it rarely wins, in the long run.
@lookingforward: I do understand how great so many applicants are; I just don’t want that definition of ‘great’ to extend to their racial background as well. Do you know what I mean?
Who told you not to state your opinions?
I thought you were the one who implied that just because I do not work in these ‘elite schools’ my opinions are less valid than someone who does work there?
But what makes you think “race” is one of the qualitative factors top adcoms look for? You can’t begin to defend that, no matter how you phrase it. Because you do…not…know. You have opinions.
@lookingforward: Wait…do college not use the concept of “URM” anymore? Maybe I’m outdated and it isn’t implemented, please enlighten me.
You, as a rising junior, do not know how admissions dept operate. Some of us say things like, each kid is reviewed as an individual…and get blowback from hs kids. Of course we scratch our heads.
Yeah, I certainly did mean to imply that maybe the professionals who are employed by these organizations have a better idea about how to evaluate candidates in terms of their institutions needs than you probably do. Do you honestly think that your simplistic solution to this issue hasn’t been considered and rejected by working professionals in this field countless times? Or do you think you came up with an idea so novel that it hasn’t been thought of before?
@lookingforward: But my problem is that “as an individual” seems to be a disguise to diversify the campus with unqualified individuals simplify on the basis of race.
@NickFlynn: I think my opinion still holds merit since I am one of the students who will be affected by their decisions.
RE:#79 - Is that why there are no non-Hispanic White or Asian students at our elite colleges, only African-American and Latino students, or is that simply how colleges are in BizarroWorld?
Your opinion holds merit to the degree it actually has merit - your status as a “affected party” doesn’t have anything to do with it.
The simple fact is that the opinion you offered here is one that has been offered and discussed and debated in this country for more than 50 years, and it pretty much has been rejected out of hand not only by colleges, but also by businesses and most other organizations that have to choose amongst candidates. By and large, the idea has been rejected by the vast majority of real world organizations. (Notable exception - the UC schools, and it that case it was mandated by popular politics.)
Re:#88 - @ RHS - The Ivy League is an athletic conference. That’s all. They have established certain criteria for admitting athletes, including something called the “Academic Index.” That sets a floor beneath which they cannot admit any athlete, regardless of prowess and promise. Some people have bestowed mythic status to the AI, which does not explicitly state that nobody can be admitted to any Ivy League member college with lower stats, but it does give a specific number as the minimal threshold that the best quarterback or point-guard in the country would have to cross. I have to say that most people whom I hear fulminating about affirmative action for URMs would never, ever have a prayer of admission to the colleges under discussion today. Some are older white men, who attended those colleges in a bygone era, but whose academic stats were probably much lower than any African-American on the football team now. They have always looked at non-quantifiable attributes. Dartmouth includes a provision for educating Native Americans within its charter. Harvard’s charter practically guaranteed admission to anyone bearing the surname of certain Boston Brahmin families. They always favored children of clergymen and educators, and practiced affirmative action based on geography. Most colleges felt obliged to relax their admission standards for rural applicants, whose formal education was not comparable to city kids. The most elite colleges have earned and cultivated their status by offering extraordinary learning opportunities and experiences through the years. Part of that includes offering white-bread suburban kids exposure to different perspectives. I also find it amusing when voices that might sound off about American Exceptionalism one moment turn around and argue that university admissions here should be modeled after other countries, based exclusively on entrance examinations.
Love MITChris.
But my problem is that “as an individual” seems to be a disguise to diversify the campus with unqualified individuals simplify on the basis of race.
By now, I hope you read Quad’s link.
Individual means you, you alone, you as one candidate among roughly 40,000 others. You rise or fall first by your own hand, your choices about researching a school, extensively matching yourself (not just on scores and a hs title or two,) your choice of what to write and how to present yourself and that match (show, not tell,) and on. Present yourself well…or go with assumptions, choice is yours. Yup, this is a big task. And the able kids dig in. It is far, far more than working on getting a great SAT or SAT2 score.
As someone said, when a colege says X% are “qualified,” it means they could do the work. It does not say this college is interested in you, based on how you presented yourself. To strategize, one needs an open mind. Needed for a college app, needed in life.
Actually, they may not be so exceptional. Lots of other schools are race/ethnicity-blind in admissions (e.g. Florida publics), or for a large percentage of admitted students (e.g. Texas publics). But most of them are moderately selective schools that admit most or all of their students on stats-only, or open admission community colleges and such. For the vast majority of applicants, race/ethnicity probably has minimal, if any, effect on college admission.
But then most posters on these forums focus on the super-selective schools with holistic admissions, where there is not enough information available to outsiders to really come to any conclusion one way or the other on how important or not any given criterion is (the way these schools want it). Even then, it is likely that race/ethnicity, and other ascribed (rather than achieved) aspects like legacy status, gets exaggerated in importance by both those who have it (“chance for HYP with 3.3 GPA and 1700 SAT score as legacy and/or URM”) and those who resent the existence of consideration of such.