<p>Oh, and my stance on reporting your ethnicity: just because you hate the system and the attitudes that it has spawned doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use it to your advantage. Whether you check African-American or leave it blank, other people will judge you anyways; they will probably assume you “gamed” the system. It really comes down to a question of your personal ethics: are you trying to prove your own capabilities by not using the substantial affirmative action boost? The fact is, even though I am not black myself, if I had the opportunity to use affirmative action as a great advantage, I would use it, despite my disagreements with affirmative action. </p>
<p>If you select “African-American,” are you getting perhaps an undeserved advantage? Yes, but don’t let that deter you. If you hesitate, someone else will gladly take your spot. And there are few things more valuable than your college education.</p>
<p>^^ I agree. I figure, either way you’re screwed. And to be honest, I don’t care why people think I got into a school b/c 9 times out of 10, I won’t see them at the school anyway or be talking to them much.</p>
<p>And @crimson…lol that’s what I was saying. Just in my own special way. I’m just saying colleges don’t SOLELY look at grades, and the kids at my school think that it’s all about grades and NOTHING else (oh and except some random leadership positions they conjure up…they’re all running for prez of random clubs).</p>
<p>LOL, great post monstor, it’s true. everyone should use everything at their disposal. it’s very competitive at most of the schools i want to go to so why not? grades are important no doubt, but anyone who’s ever looked at admissions criteria knows that there are about 20 factors whether they are VERY IMPORTANT or CONSIDERED.</p>
<p>i think leadership positions are hilarious. now i may be a hypocrit because i have several of them, but the kids who run for everything are usually tools. president of StuCo, president of NHS, etc… i also find some of the “ec’s” that you just get picked for are bs like peer leader, NHS, boys state. it’s all bs imo. the kids who got chosen for that stuff usually just kiss teacher behind and get chosen. it’s funny how we’ve been taught team work is important for so many years, and now they wanna see “leaders” what they seem to forget is that only so many can “lead” because if everyone’s a leader they will be in charge of nothing. for more on the race topic please comment on my thread “questions about race” i hate when i see like 30 views but no posts.</p>
<p>@crimsonchin68
I agree with you about the EC’s thing. I have quite a few myself, but I don’t kiss teacher’s behinds for them. I know a few kids that do. One in particular is starting to get a little arrogant about his positions, which is really annoying. There is one leadership position (an apprenticeship) I want in one of my EC’s that I’ve been trying to get for like 3 years, and for some reason the director won’t give it to me. She says she wants to see leadership and everything, and I show leadership all the time, yet a bunch of my friend who haven’t tried nearly as hard as I have get the positions because they are one of her favorites. It’s so annoying. I tell myself I don’t care anymore, but then I keep trying because deep down it bothers me because I want it really badly. It’s really great opportunity and I just don’t understand how I’m not qualified for it. And there’s no limit to the number of apprentices they can have anyway. ugh.</p>
<p>Yes, I realize this is completely off topic from the thread.</p>
<p>one thing that upsets me the most about this whole argument is that when people think of affirmative action and things like that, the vision that immediately comes to mind is of a non-hardworking black person “taking” their spot. however, many studies have shown that the biggest beneficiaries of AA, are NOT black people, but are actually white women (thats why when i see white women on a rampage against AA i get so upset, they’re fighting against something that they benefit from so much and dont even know it!)</p>
<p>"many studies have shown that the biggest beneficiaries of AA, are NOT black people, but are actually white women "
That is VERY interesting. Would you mind just providing a reference to ONE study so that I can have it handy the next time I see white women on a rampage?</p>
<p>Thank you for the articles, although I must have misunderstood the original point. I assumed we were talking about how women have been the biggest beneficiaries of AA in regards to education (enrollment). I doubt there are many white rampaging women who will disagree about their progress in the work force.</p>
<p>ok lol good sarcasm there, obviously when i said “rampage” i was exaggerating, but clearly you might not have understood the point i was trying to make nonetheless.</p>
<p>plus, you dont have to read articles and blogs to know this, we see it everyday. ok so lets take college campuses all over the nation for example, before the initial affirmative action debates in the 60’s, colleges campuses (obviously with the exclusion of the seven sisters and hbcu’s) were pretty much all white and male. now lets look at these campuses today, where women are roughly half the population, with most of those women being white. even with affirmative action, on most campuses blacks are still for the most part only less than 10% of the campus, which i suppose is still better than before, but i just dont believe that affirmative action has impacted blacks more than it has impacted white women.</p>
<p>@ohboi,
yea i know not all of the kids who do ec’s are bs’ers and tools, but the ones who have an officer loaded resume of StuCo pres, nhs pres., did research at princeton, waksman pres., are a super cocky super tools (based on a real kid btw). in fact he’s such a huge tool i commonly refer to him as “home depot”. some kids really care about what they do like anyone in MUN or the new leaders of FBLA and others are bs like NHS and boystate. now MUN and FBLA elect their leaders while NHS and boystate are chosen by a “faculty committee” which ec’s, in your opinion, would be more susceptible to infiltration by butt kissing? that’s what i thought.the sad part is that these kids get credit for being part of those of organizations and because they vary from school to school it’s impossible for colleges to know who’s legit and who’s bs.</p>
<p>@ bellanaija,
i think around 10% is an adequate percentage of black people on college campuses. it’s an accurate representation of the overall american population. it would be ridiculous if they let every black who applied in because then it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else. blacks, asians, indians, etc… make up a certain portion of the overall population, and once the representation on college campuses of each significantly varies from the national percentiles then you have a problem. for example the uc schools do not practice AA, so they have something like 40% asians in their student body. i think usc has 42% asians and like 5% blacks or something like that. i think i ended up rambling and not being very clear, but bottom line; AA shouldn’t mean everyone gets in, just the portion of the population they represent, and ec’s are bs.</p>
<p>“…before the initial affirmative action debates in the 60’s, colleges campuses (obviously with the exclusion of the seven sisters and hbcu’s) were pretty much all white and male. now lets look at these campuses today, where women are roughly half the population…”
^^^^
I think reasonable people might argue that the strides white women have made since the early 60s has more to do with reproductive freedom and women’s rights awareness (ERA) as it does with AA college admissions policies. BTW - I have yet to read a “study” that says white women have received any benefit in college admissions due to an AA college policy.</p>
<p>@bella that was funny lol. I mean, if I hear “You’re so lucky you’re black!” one more time, I’m gonna go off. It’s like don’t sit here and think I will get in JUST because I’m black. Just discredit all the hard work. They act like AA gets EVERY black person into frickin Harvard. AA is just I guess the best word is a push. I don’t wanna use words that imply something I’m not trying to say, but it’s not what gets kids into schools. Then, people start to assume that ANY black person, regardless of merit, can get into good schools. That’s just ridiculous.</p>
<p>@ BeautifulNerd
i agree totally. trust me, im not one to sit here and act like AA wont help me get into college, it will. but to hear from classmates that it will be the ONLY reason i get into college is so ridiculously offensive. it totally undermines all the hard work i’ve put in since freshman year, all efforts to be as active and engaging in the clubs that interest me in school as possible, all the late nights i’ve spend studying for science (which again, i hate so much lol), etc… plus, even with AA, its still extremely difficult to get into the schools that most people on this board wanna go to. if AA was the only thing that gets blacks into college, then a forum like this, that clearly has lots of smart and ambitious black people, would cease to exist, we’d all be complacent instead of hardworking in high school since you know, AA’s surely gonna come in and save the day lol</p>
<p>@aplages
hmmm, i dont really think its fair to imply that im unreasonable just because our views on this are different( which is totally ok, i honestly did not expect every person on this board to agree with me on the point i was trying to make just because most of us are black). yes, the movement for the expansion of women’s rights was extremely important, im not denying that. however, i just think that a lot of the rights that they have today and that they fought for during these movements actually came to fruition because of AA. i don’t feel a lot of colleges really wanted women and minorities on their campuses, but eventually they had to, and i dont believe that it was the women’s rights leaders who directly changed their mind on this, but moreso the fact that AA actually became law and they were forced to.</p>
<p>@ crimsonchin68
you make a great point about it being fair for the admissions process to stay in accordance with the general population, i’ve actually always had that view too lol. but that’s why i think the admissions officers should be doing a little bit better. the census bureau determined in 2007 that blacks made up 13.5% of the national population. right now most colleges are doing 10% or a little less than that.</p>
<p>P.S-you know, reading back at the things i said, i realize that i might have came off as a “white women hater”. ■■■■■ couldn’t be farther from the truth. and to be totally honest, i was initially inclined to try and prove that by saying that my best friend is a white REALLY conservative female(which is true), but then i realized the equivalent of that would be like the white person who when accused of racism emphatically says “no,i can’t be a racist, i have black friends!” so im not sure how to really prove that to you guys lmao…</p>
<p>“i dont really think its fair to imply that im unreasonable”
^^^
Which part of my post made this implication?
BTW - I have yet to read a “study” that says white women have received any benefit in college admissions due to an AA college policy…do you have a link to ONE?</p>
<p>@bella- I am SO happy I’m done with science. I took my IB chem test last year, said thank you, and went on my merry way. Ever since 4th grade, science and I never got along. I was always the one with the questions. When we learned about the Earth revolving around the sun, and the Moon revolving or w/e around Earth, I was like “So there’s something revolving around something that’s revolving around something else? Does the Moon still revolve as the Earth does? How come I can’t see the Moon revolving or feel the Earth moving???”</p>
<p>From there, it got bad lol (not my grades just me trying to piece it all together). I’m really religious, and I’m like “This wasn’t in my Bible. God never said He made revolving planets…” Keep in mind, I’m in 4th grade, I questioned everything that went against what I had already been taught. Ha. I still do. I don’t believe just anything, I need some solid proof, a study, a theorem, SOME kind of logistical/statistical/predisposed proof. But really, that’s only with science. Everything else is kind of just go with the flow. Math- easy. English- easy. Any other language- easy. There’s no confusion with it except maybe math. But still. You get my point. </p>
<p>I know I went off on a tangent. I had to lighten up the air. I sensed some hostility. Look at the sibilance in that. Lol. I’m done.</p>
<p>wow, “not in the bible” the bible is such a noncredible source for everything. i’m not an atheist religion hater or anything, but some things are just undeniable. teh bible isn’t really good proof against anything.</p>
<p>congrats on being done with science, that must be a great feeling lol. I was supposed to be done with science too but my guidance counselor didn’t want me to have a study hall since apparently colleges look at that stuff as “fluff” and encouraged me to take forensics, which is an elective in our school. If it wasn’t for that I would not have had any science classes this year. its ok though b/c forensics is actually a great class, even though school just started for us i’ve already learned a wealth of information, we’ve had to plot and act out our own crime scenes (that confirmed the fact that i have NO acting abilities whatsoever lol) and throughout the year the teacher plans on setting up crime scenes throughout the school and having different teachers be actors and us students play investigators, so for the first time in high school, i can actually say that i don’t mind being in a science class lol. oh yeah and thanks for trying to lighten up the air haha that hostility you sensed is probably there, but it isn’t coming from this corner lmao…</p>
<p>@decanela and aglages</p>
<p>ok when i made that statement a while back i was actually referring to primarily the workplace. however, i do still strongly feel that what i said does also apply to education, hence my example of college campuses. hmmm ok i thought i gave a couple of studies up there already but i guess not. are these better??</p>
<p>[2</a>. AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: HISTORY AND RATIONALE<a href=“scroll%20down%20to%20the%20part%20on%20education”>/url</a></p>
<p>You’re kidding right? A Doctorial thesis conclusion is the study that proves your point about rampaging white women? Maybe you should consider giving this particular point a rest and focus on how AA can help you.</p>
<p>“I think reasonable people might argue that the strides white women have made since the early 60s has more to do with reproductive freedom and women’s rights awareness (ERA) as it does with AA college admissions policies.”</p>