<p>College admissions officers choose from a whole populations exceptional individuals with "isolated examples" of how they fit the colleges. you can draw plenty from isolated examples. the rationale behind the AA policy is because of girls like the one i described. it's a fact. it is easier for you and me to get good grades/high sat scores than it is for someone from that community.</p>
<p>I think colleges like MIT and Harvard are in the business of looking for isolated examples, from the type of student discussed to olympiad participants ,and so on. Ideally they would want a class full of so called isolated examples.</p>
<p>"it is easier for you and me to get good grades/high sat scores than it is for someone from that community."</p>
<p>don't you dare go talking about me like you know me.</p>
<p>sorry i assumed you were not from a disadvantaged community. if you are, i agree that you should reap the benefits of AA. im glad we've gotten race out of the issue :)</p>
<p>please enlighten us on the obstacles and hardships you have had to get where you are. i'll be a soldier on your side too.</p>
<p>no thanks, i don't need your pity party.</p>
<p>pity party? i want to laud you and give you the respect you deserve!</p>
<p>ohhh i see, you see AA as a pity party. that explains a lot.</p>
<p>yup, you have me all figured out.</p>
<p>sorry I hijacked your thread though, lets go back to flaming my soldier Another Asian Boy.</p>
<p>So guys, as long as you're all AWARE that you're being silly by throwing petty words at each other...I'm totally okay with it. =)</p>
<p>meh, I'm not the one that started the topic just to flame someone.</p>
<p>theleet, i don't think you are understanding what they are saying. It has nothing to do with race and gender, etc. It is about what you had, and what you did with it. </p>
<p>Look at the guy who won Siemmons: Did he go to RSI? No. Did he go to Olympiads? No. What did he do? He use spare parts in his garage, and built a tidal electricity genrator. If he had access to multimillion dollar labs, god know what he could have done. And that is exactly what MIT wants to find out.</p>
<p>I am asian indian. I live in a rich community. I am not reaping the benefits of AA. But know that before you trash what others treasure, you will walk over my dead body.
</p>
<p>i'm aware. that's what aab has been doing all along on matts blog</p>
<p>Heehee, Laura wins.</p>
<p>The admissions process as impleminted by ALL the top universities is discrimiinatory. It's a given because their goal is to construct a universe that is diverse. Follow along with me now...</p>
<p>So, if the 2000 highest rated applicants somehow were all Asian (or all black, or all white, or all Indian, all male, all female or all Italian), the admissions officer would toss out most of them to make spaces for other groups in order to create the perfect little balanced world they want to create. It doesn't mean that anybody admitted is unqualified, but there is little doubt that if you just go by the "numbers", some with better stats are denied, while some with lesser stats are in. Again, that does not mean that any of the admits are unqualified.</p>
<p>The real question: are there guideline %s for each group, and, if so, how are they determined?</p>
<p>theleet: since you're into generalizations and not "isolated cases", i'll do some asian stereotyping. asian males might have higher SAT scores and longer laundry lists of ECs, but that doesn't mean they're "better" applicants getting shafted. i know a lot of asian males at my school who look great on paper because their parents push them to do piano/violin, take loads of AP classes and scream at them if they don't break 1500 on their SAT. very few have real passions; most of them openly admit to doing ECs because of either college apps or parental pressure.
my school is 70% asian, so these are not just a few isolated cases. it's how asian people IN GENERAL act. the asian guys i know who have real passions are still getting into all the awesome schools because they differentiate themselves and offer the schools more than just: "piano/violin 8 years, [club name] president, 200 hrs volunteering, some local math contests"
so if asian males have it "tougher" in terms of SAT scores and quantity of extracurricular activities, maybe they're getting it "easier" in terms of passion/self-motivation. chinese parents push kids towards HYPSM... a lot of URM parents push kids away from it. can you really blame colleges for accepting someone who's swimming slightly slower upstream than you are downstream?</p>