<p>NO, I AM NOT SUGGESTING DESCRIMINATION AGAINST MINORITES AS YOU IMPLY IN 192! What I am saying is that standardized testing (the original point of this thread) is not the problem. And eliminating or reduciing the role of standardized testing, as suggested by the authors cited by the OP, will not solve the problem. The problem is how to improve the academic performance of URM's so we can stop having these debates and honor the language of our constitution and the Civil Rights Act.</p>
<p>My statement re: Asian-Americans being overrepresented was in response to an earlier poster who seemed to feel that if the percentage of African-Americans attending Ivies was similar to the general population, then there was no need for AA as they would not be under-represented. I was merely putting that point of view into context for all races.</p>
<p>Fab,</p>
<p>My stated rationale for supporting racial diversity was in response to simba, who implied that Whites support it only because of feelings of guilt about slavery.</p>
<p>(I guess I need to be more careful to indicate to whom I am responding!)</p>
<p>NO, I AM NOT SUGGESTING DESCRIMINATION AGAINST MINORITES AS YOU IMPLY IN 192!
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<p>Actually, what I implied is that your argument about SAT "overpredicting" blacks' performance, cannot invalidate the quantitative prediction that whites are getting an artificial advantage in college admission under the current system, because the alternate system that the current one is being compared to, is race-blind by definition, and thus cannot compensate for "overprediction" by noticing that a test-taker is black. </p>
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What I am saying is that standardized testing (the original point of this thread) is not the problem. [etc]
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<p>That's all very nice, but the point you contested was a quantitative one: that whites gain admissions seats under the current system (including AA) as compared to a hypothetical race-equalized America where the profiles of the white and URM populations are indistinguishable. According to the Espenshade and Chung model (the famous one with 220 free SAT points for blacks), the only escape from the conclusion that whites' admissions probability would drop in an AA-free but racially equal world, is to assume that a huge (50 percent or more) performance deficit for the minorities MUST arise when all other factors are equalized. Speculation that such a gap might survive absolute racial equality is not enough, as it puts white AA-haters in the position of saying that they might well be benefiting overall, but still somehow find the system to be "unfair".</p>
<p>Do you agree simba? Asian Americans fight discrimination on these boards--and when they complain about AA they are merely helping AFAm's fight discrimination? That wasn't my impression. My impression is that the frequent Asian American stduent posters loathe the fact that someone with lower stats and supposedly lower 'merit' gained advantages they feel were their due as hardworking students. Entitlement grievances basically.</p>
<p>I'm not sure why they focus on AfAms--thus my question about culture and history. Athletes and legacies get similar AAs so you'd think that there would be similar attacks on their advantages. But no.</p>
<p>Is there an alternative to AA for AfAms in 2007? My gut tells me that there is still so much institutionalized racism that 'merit' cannot be equally attained. </p>
<p>Maybe that's guilt. Maybe it's the simple desire to see a change for the better for an amazing segment of our population.</p>
<p>What do you mean by and aritficial advantage? If you and I are in a foot race and I choose not to run very fast do you have an artifical advantage? Race blind systems don't guarantee equal outcomes, free will plays a role.</p>
<p>What do you mean by and aritficial advantage? If you and I are in a foot race and I choose not to run very fast do you have an artifical advantage? Race blind systems don't guarantee equal outcomes, free will plays a role.</p>
<p>Sorry about the double post I was trying to edit response to Cheers.</p>
<p>Cheers,</p>
<p>There are many attacks on preferences for recruited athletes and legacies on this board. I know I have been envolved in many of them. If anything the counter attacks from those groups are even more intense. Entrenched self interests fight back!. If anything this thread is quite civilized by comparison.</p>
<p>The way AA actually works at elite is the applications are siloed. The racial breakdown, number od legacy/development admits, atheletic admits etc are predtermined. The class is going to X% this group and X% that group and only people within the group actually compete against each other.</p>
<p>An idea that emerged from the OP article is that colleges might implement admissions models without (or deemphasizing) the SAT that were close to color-blind at the level of the individual, yet still allowed them to achieve racial diversity at the institutional level. The Texas "10% solution" is similar in this respect. I'm all for the color-aware (read: preferential) treatment of URMs in the admissions process, but the article seemed to focus on policies that I've heard described as color-blind, but not color-neutral; if there is preference in such practices, it's of a rather different sort than the kind that's occupied much of the current thread.</p>
<p>Hmmm...terrible crimes against Asians have been committed in this century. The worst of those by fellow Asians.</p>
<p>The biggest American crimes against Asians would have to be the attack on the Vietnamese. OTOH, I'm not sure whether or not Americans should make up for the far greater atrocities of Mao or Pol Pot or the Japanese Army--but your post did make me think that the roots of the victimization feelings I sense from young Asian Americans are well-founded. Asians have lived through the most horrific century. It is very difficult to grasp the reality of that horror--partly because, unlike Jews, Asians don't have a "never again" campaign??</p>
<p>I have friends who escaped from brutal regimes--and broke into tears when they saw the abundance in the West. Partly, the tears stemmed from joy but partly the tears also stemmed from hurt. If we were so rich, why didn't we rescue them?</p>
<p>Since simba is a parent, I’ll assume that this mysterious “frequent Asian American stduent [sic] posters” group includes me.</p>
<p>Your impression is wrong, but I won’t hold that against you for the obvious reason which has already been stated in #175. To clarify, I am against the act of granting preferential treatment to students based on their race, but I do not loath the students themselves. I was admitted to every university I applied to. I enjoyed my college admissions process. I don’t have any bitterness, and I don’t believe that I’m entitled to anything beyond life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, based on what you’ve revealed to me in private and to others in public, I get the feeling that you’d be happy to strip away my rights from me in order to satisfy your vision of an America where equal opportunity means nothing and equal result is everything. Don’t worry, as I mentioned, I’m not holding that against you because I know where you stand on white guilt-ridden liberal vs. American of Asian descent relations.</p>
<p>I’m against racial preferences period. I’m against treating Asians preferentially based on their race. It’s not fair to non-Asian students, thus I don’t support it.</p>
<p>Your gut is serially out-of-date. This is 2007. This is not 1954. Heck, I doubt you were even born at that time. You have absolutely no memory of any governor standing in front of a door and preventing a student from entering the school. All you can do is think, “OMG! My great-great-great-grandfather had a chance to speak up when a racist white man forced a poor old black man to sit in the back of the train, but my great-great-great-grandfather didn’t do anything! I’m so ashamed of my being white! From now on, when I see a white beggar asking for change, I’ll give him the finger, but when I see a black beggar asking for change, I’ll give him a $100 and buy him a cup of coffee!”</p>
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Hmmm...terrible crimes against Asians have been committed in this century. The worst of those by fellow Asians.
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<p>Unlike you, these “Asians” you speak of are aware of the truly diverse continent that is Asia. Japanese people and Chinese people don’t speak the same language. Indians and Pakistanis speak virtually the same language but use two different alphabets to express it. This kind of stuff causes conflict, which you find surprising because you enjoy nullifying these differences and grouping all Asians into one group. So much for your beloved “diversity.” Seems rather black and white to me, no pun intended.</p>
<p>Just a note on the occasional mention of athletic admits as being advantaged white kids who participate elite sports.<br>
These are very small sports that don't have a big following, are not televised and don't make big bucks for the schools. In fact, I don't think these are the most common sports at the college level. If you talk about athletic admits, how about the truly well compensated athletes in football and basketball? Some of these kids are given an obscene amount of perks to bring their talents to a big time college team, and guess what? They are mostly black, not white. And I've not seen any Asian students playing the big money sports either. (Maybe they need AAA -Athletic Affirmative Action? Just kidding!!!) It doesn't seem like lack of access to "elite" sports like squash or crew have hurt these high-profile athletic admits at all! ;) </p>
<p>I can believe the legacy hook argument, but lets get a grip on reality in athletics!</p>
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..., which you find surprising because you enjoy nullifying these differences and grouping all Asians into one group.
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<p>(Not sure pursuing this line of argument has a point, however...) "Whites" also have very diverse backgrounds: Different languages, different countries, even different continents. Yet, they are also lumped into one group.</p>
<p>Wrote it for clarity of thought--not 'enjoyment'. Again, your bitterness is apparent.</p>
<p>The Chinese have had a horrific century of terror. The worst by far.
The Vietnamese have had a horrific century of terror.
The Koreans have had a horrific century of terror.
The Cambodians have had a horrific century of terror.
The Japanese inflicted a quarter century of terror on the Chinese and the Koreans.</p>
<p>The Thai have made it through relatively unscathed.</p>
<p>lkf, AdOfficer has also stated (on other threads, much previous to this one), that the bar has been considerably raised for the bulk (no pun intended!) of athletic admits. She/he has stated that students with that as their hook (recruited specifically for that) have a remarkably better achievement record as entering freshmen than was once true. I do know that the "big sports" (football, basketball) have more minorities than "smaller" sports. When AdOfficer made her remarks, she did not single out only white or mainly white athletes as having competitive academic profiles. Based on AdOfficer's information, then, that would tend to support that many URM's are not getting in with signficantly lower stats at all (versus whites & Asians). But what it really sounds like is that you & AdOfficer have a difference of opinion as to who is recruited more for athletics: blacks or whites?</p>
<p>Some time ago I weighed in on the issue of preferences for recruited athletes on another thread. Aside from learning that the proponents of these preferences are if anything more dug in than the proponents of racial preferences, I also learned that unlike racial or legacy preferences, preferences for recruited athletes are much more of a matter of degree. Athletes in sports like crew or tennis or lacrosse do get significant help in the admissions process but the lions share of the benefit goes to athletes in the "revenue raising" sports such as football and basketball. Because of this it is very hard to guess the racial impact of athletic preferences without some really good inside data.</p>
<p>AdOfficer did say that "most students who have athletic... hooks are overwhemingly white." The fact that he/she has never seen a black or latino recruited for squash or crew doesn't mean that they are not heavily recruited for football and basketball, which are much more commonly played.</p>
<p>Regarding athletes:
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URM's are not getting in with signficantly lower stats at all (versus whites & Asians).
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If you find a black crew member at Harvard, that might be true. But I think you will find a very different story if you check the big money sports at the major NCAA universities. In fact, many see their college career as a stepping stone to professional sports and the academics is just something to be tolerated. Sadly, the colleges often don't really care about their academics either, as long as they produce as athletes. </p>
<p>I am not even trying to debate the academic statistics of athletes of any sport or any race (but I think the tennis team has a higher gpa than the football team - they need to because their sport is not as highly valued by colleges). <strong>Rather, I am only commenting that the sports previously mentioned as being a big bonus for wealthy white students are far less significant in terms of both numbers of athletes and scholarship money available than the sports of football and basketball, which do have a great number of black players.</strong></p>