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<p>The admittance of an African American applicant with a 2000 would probably be attributable to affirmative action.</p>
<p>But how can you say that if you don’t know the other more important parts of their app?</p>
<p>I can say that because that’s decidedly how the system works- pure and simple. Affirmative action exists whether people like it or not. It is employed in order to ensure the equality of ostensibly underprivileged racial groups.</p>
<p>@jumpshooter: California has banned Affirmative Action since 1997 in Prop 209 so your whole “example” is flawed.
@MrMeursault: People would still assume minorities are “unqualified” regardless of whether or not AA was still in existence. Besides, not all AA programs are the same for each institution or even state. There are quite a few states that have banned AA, i.e. California.
@Lobzz: You missed my whole point. If that candidate was white with a 2000 what would be so different about him? Is he automatically considered “less qualified” without you looking at the other factors of his application? Also, studies have shown that test scores are not a 100% indicator of someone’s performance in college nor is it the deciding factor in admissions. Dean Eric Furda said that Penn only looks at it briefly when evaluating an applicant. [How</a> Admissions Directors at Penn and Michigan Think About Test Scores - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://thechoice.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/knowledge/]How”>How Admissions Directors at Penn and Michigan Think About Test Scores - The New York Times)
At the end of the day, it is not whether or not you believe a student is “qualified”. It is the decision of the school.</p>
<p>The point is, why should we promote over-diversity…?
In theory, the ideal is that in terms of diversity, colleges should be exactly distributed as if we took people from a bag and picked them randomly, imo… and since african americans constitute only like 15% of the country, why should they constitute more than 50% of the campus???</p>
<p>@Candygyrl0811: No, I believe I’ve addressed your point adequately; A URM with a 2000 would, in some cases, get into schools like Penn as a beneficiary of the affirmative action initiative, while a non-URM who is admitted with a 2000 would have other “hooks” to his or her name. Now, there are definitely many exceptions, but I’m just trying to make sure you know what affirmative action entails exactly. Furthermore, I never said URMs are less qualified; that would be both ignorant and racist of me. I just meant that a URM with a 2000 and no other “hooks” would have to acknowledge that his or her admittance is attributable to affirmative action.</p>
<p>And for the record, I am in no way against affirmative action; in fact, I condone it in many cases.</p>
<p>@Euroazn</p>
<p>Since when did urm’s make up more than 50% of the campus?</p>
<p>@Lobzz</p>
<p>What if that non-urm with a 2000 did not have those hooks you mentioned and still got in? Then what would their admittance be attributed to?</p>
<p>Haha. Like these affirmative action threads always go, the whites and Asians are all-out against it, while everybody else is for it. Doesn’t surprise me one bit…</p>
<p>Candy, if you feel that URMs are as capable as every other applicant for these top colleges, then why would we need affirmative action in the first place? I am neither for or against affirmative action, I am simply stating that there is no doubt that the % of URMs at top colleges would be lower if affirmative action did not exist. No one is saying that URMs are inferior compared to everyone else, we are simply saying that the URM status DOES, in fact, help when it comes to admission.</p>
<p>@jb, no it’s not above 50%, but someone on this thread said they wanted it to be that way…</p>
<p>@candy: On an average day, a non-URM, non-hooked candidate with a 2000 would not get in. Again, there are exceptions. For example, a white male from Massachusetts with a 2000 SAT 3.7ish-3.9ish GPA from an average high school would almost always lose his spot to some other white male from THE SAME HIGH SCHOOL with a 2150-2400. Exceptions may include, say, internationals from obscure countries (even more so if the international is paying in full).</p>
<p>And yes, there’s always going to be that 2000 or sub-2000 non-hooked, non-urm who managed to get in. However, said applicant probably had outstanding essays, recs, and ECs to help his case. Remember, admissions is a demand-driven market, which means that even though a 2000 indicates sufficient aptitude, kids with higher scores exist in abundance. Top colleges have so many excellent applicants at their disposal that they enjoy nitpicking using seemingly stupid measures of ability such as the SAT. </p>
<p>Bottomline: Yes, you can, as a non-hooked, non-urm, get into schools like HYP with 2000s or even less, but you’ll have to present something (in your essays, ecs, recs) that no one else can.</p>
<p>Of course. It happens.
We’re just saying affirmative action happens too.</p>
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<p>The most succinct and accurate summary of what I’ve been trying to explain to jb5555 for the past couple of days</p>
<p>^It happens? That’s the argument??? So what? Preferences are given for a spectrum of reasons, and every race sees those benefits. </p>
<p>The realization that you haters need to make is that being a URM is a not big advantage in college admissions. It’s a myth. It’s an advantage, and so is being from North Dakota or Wyoming. And so is being a one of 16 children. And so is working as a fisherman in Alaska during the summers. Etc. Schools want great students, but there are literally hundreds of thousands of great student in the nation, and a school like Penn receives 50,000 resumes, the majority of which are from great students. Like any supply and demand situation, the school has the luxury of deciding the makeup of each entering class. The school wants an interesting class made up of different kinds of people from different backgrounds. So the kid from North Dakota gets a boost because we have so few. And the kid who spends his summers fishing in Alaska gets a boost because we have so few. And the kid who’s Hispanic gets a boost because we have so few. And so it goes. But “a boost” is not equivilent to “accepting people who are not qualified.” It would be nice to have a kid from North Dakota, but if the top SAT from that state is a 1850, then it’s not happening. Ditto for the fisherman or the Hispanic student. I’ve yet to meet a URM at Penn who wasn’t extremely bright or accomplished. </p>
<p>If you want to be angry about unfair admissions, turn your attention to legacy admits or admits for famous people. That’s where the argument should be focused, not on URMs.</p>
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<p>Are you bipolar? Anyway, I’ve stated time and again that affirmative action does, in fact, exist. I never said I was opposed to it.</p>
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<p>Private schools need to solicit funds; these funds are most often given to them by alumni who are more likely to do so if their offspring are being educated by their respective institutions. It’s business.</p>
<p>Quite frankly, I think my beliefs are appropriately in line with what ought to be: affirmative action should only benefit people who are actually disadvantaged, as opposed to both those who are disadvantaged AND those whose ancestors were disadvantaged (i.e. there are affluent minorities).</p>
<p>^Were the solution as simple as your mind. </p>
<p>How does an adcom tell if someone is disadvantaged? Look at their parents’ tax return? Anyone who runs a business can verify that it’s very easy to look financially poor when you are not. My uncle is one of the richest men I know but his children qualify for full financial aid because he deducts his home, car, and virtually all other expenses from his business income. I have a friend whose father is very wealthy. In his junior year, he started living with his much less wealthy mother so that her tax information would be the one used to determine financial aid. And what about the student of a farmer who happens to own 1500 acres of land. They may struggle finding enough money for basic necessities but on paper they are millionaires. Lastly, what about the family whose income is based on the ups and downs of the market, such as real estate sales? One year may be very bad but the next year may be great. An adcom I know told me about an applicant whose parents made sure that they bulk of their income was booked on January 1st so that the previous year look terrible for purposes of financial aid. Given all of the above, how does an adcom determine if an applicant is truly disadvantaged? Remember, they have precious little time to evaluate each candidate. </p>
<p>And since when was affirmative action designed solely for one’s financial situation? Does society’s prejudice stop when one’s parents have money? Does one’s culture cease having an influence when one’s parents are wealthy? URMs bring value to a campus regardless of their financial backgrounds.</p>
<p>You boldly conclude that “Quite frankly, I think my beliefs are appropriately in line with what ought to be” which apparently is that colleges are perfectly justified in accepting lower qualified legacies since “it’s a business” but they should be castigated for giving a boost to someone based on race. With all due respect, “what ought to be” in your world makes me ill.</p>
<p>U mad???</p>
<p>@Takedown: There are way too many logical fallacies in your deeply ignorant statement for me to count. But I’m going to address a few anyway:</p>
<p>First of all, yes, financial aid offices tend to scrutinize every single mundane detail in your financial aid application. They happen to be experts. It takes a fraud to manipulate the information given to FA offices.</p>
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<p>You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about. Since when were family cars and private homes included in “business income”? What do you mean by expenses? You’re not making sense. But to cut your nonsense short, you’d need to be a tax fraud/evader to falsify your business income. You just incriminated your uncle, but then again, I think you just don’t know what you’re talking about.</p>
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<p>Most, if not every, schools expect both the custodial and non-custodial parent to contribute to the student’s education. One would have to go through a lot of paperwork to exclude one’s non-custodial parent. It’s not as easy as you think.</p>
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<p>I’m not even going to address this. Think before you type.</p>
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<p>How does a wealthy Hispanic-or African-AMERICAN from New York differ from a wealthy Caucasian-AMERICAN from the same state in any way that warrants a substantial advantage in admission?</p>
<p>I would think that AA exists to add “cultural” diversity…but what cultural diversity would, say, a 3rd-generation Hispanic American applicant bring to the school? Will this applicant really be familiar enough with his/her Hispanic heritage to somehow culturally diversify the school when all his/her relatives and great/grand/parents have been in America since three generations ago?</p>