@BunnyBlue I agree to a certain extent, but IQ can’t be altered whereas your SAT scores can. And I still have a hard time understanding how a student’s performance on a test consisting of middle school math and pretty basic reading comprehension/grammar can predict your success in, say, a rigorous organic chemistry class. I think something like the A level exams in the UK would do a better job of that. Even AP chem and SAT chemistry do a better job. And ask any person who scored well on the SAT. They will no doubt attribute a large portion of their success to luck, and not just because they want to seem humble.
@LindsayHarvard I agree with you, and believe strongly that affirmative action should be limited to the consideration of socio-economic status, not race. Please don’t take this the wrong way, but you are a hispanic female with a 2200+ SAT and great EC’s. Colleges are basically scrambling to accept you. I can’t say the same for an Asian male with your same stats and activities. And this is definitely not your fault, but I just wanted to illustrated the unfairness of AA as it is now. I have seen students in my school of minority heritage who are more well-off than I am, but get a boost in admissions. They have more resources than me, more guidance, etc., so it doesn’t make sense for them to get any sort of boost in the admissions process.
Yes, I have to admit that I am biased because admissions are going completely opposite for me. In fact, every single thing about college admissions has been negative for me. Deferral after deferral, and now missed opportunities for what seem like wonderful programs. And the people that are getting these opportunities just don’t seem all that different from the kids who are also on the same boat as me. The admissions process is becoming so random, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were rolling a dice to decide our fates.
@yuccatree Very true. I myself only used the official College Board blue book and some online tests to prep for the SAT. Unfortunately I became too obsessed with my score and dedicated a good 6 months to it. My grades fell, and my score only went up a little over a 100 points. I have a sister who took a prep class, and she said it didn’t help at all. But she was given exclusive resources that someone of lower income (like you), may not have access to.
The problem is that most poor students have a perceived notion of unfairness, and thus don’t do as well/try as hard because they believe that their odds are already stacked against them. I know a lot of people who believe the SAT was made for “the white male”, which is why CollegeBoard started including more reading comprehension passages about women and minorities.
You are very rare in that you still worked hard. And I must applaud you for that.
@JuicyMango Firstly, thank you for the kind words.
Also, that’s a good point, the mindset of unfairness is a huge hurdle for low-income students. I definitely entered high school with an attitude of “I don’t want to go to college,” but on my end it was a lack of knowledge on financial aid. For instance, when you hear that a UC costs 30,000+/year for in-state students, it is incredibly discouraging especially if you aren’t aware about need based aid. However, I was lucky to have a family that encouraged my success (which was a big part of it). So, my response was short-sighted because it didn’t account for the sociological aspect to it, and it definitely does pose a danger to lower income students. But on the bright side, with the SAT increasing the diversity of their tests and schools making clear that diversity in race, socio-economic status, and gender is important, that sense of unfairness could eventually diminish.
@JuicyMango I won’t take it the wrong way, and part of me really wishes that race-based affirmative action didn’t exist exactly for that reason. It happens to kids from my school all the time “you got this because you’re a poor Mexican” It’s offensive but it’s also kind of true and that makes it worse. Personally I have to admit that if I was in a different situation (say high income and white) then my current stats wouldn’t make me as sucessful as I’ve been so far, but at the same time I feel that if that were my situation then my stats and achievements would be a whole lot higher. There’s a lot of opportunities I’ve missed because of lack of money or language barrier and just straight up racism. I can bet money that’s the thought process of a lot of kids who benefit from affirmative action because they’ve told me directly.
Heads up, my son says that on Reddit it was said by an admissions officer that those decisions that came out already weren’t supposed to yet. Do your own research but wanted to let y’all know to ease the anxiety if you haven’t heard anything yet.
@ZHB1999 That’s definitly interesting and would explain why the email what sent out nearly a day after the portals got updated, and why there was a line “if you checked your portal in the last 24 hours you already saw the update”
@UCLAstan probably because CSULB isn’t as big of a school as UCI, so they can’t accept as many people as UCI can. They would be spreading resources too thin, which would negatively affect the quality of education there.
@uclahopefull haha don’t worry I just found out about it too! :)) it’s basically a huge groupchat full of people that were admitted into a certain university; someone creates the group and then people join in.