<p>It’s easy for anyone to say because it makes sense. You don’t have to be the President.</p>
<p>When one poster referred to “practical success” I think it means much further down the line than just after 4 years in college. College cannot level the playing field right away. </p>
<p>This is all about socioeconomics. Many of those who benefit from affirmative action aren’t suddenly another person when they come to college. They aren’t suddenly in a higher tax bracket. They’re probably working their butts off to somehow balance working a part time job or two to make ends meet and getting the stuff they need to get done n college. Some people are better at it than others, sure, and it definitely can be done, but as someone who has a good number of friends who are completely subsidized by their parents (including clothing, entertainment, drinks), I can tell you that the way many of us are putting ourselves through college is no cakewalk. There are many reasons to drop out of law school, and being unqualified is probably at the bottom of the list for many. Jobs and law school do not go well together. Neither do kids. I’d be curious to see the drop out rates and LSAT scores for poor whites. I’d be willing to bet the rates are similar to URMs who are in the same socioeconomic situation. The numbers are off because there are way more affluent whites to balance it out.</p>
<p>BUBailey, I don’t have LSAT scores for poor whites, but I do have SAT scores (which correlate very strongly with LSAT scores).</p>
<p>You may be surprised to know that whites from the poorest income bracket ($0-$10,000/yr) score higher than blacks from the highest income bracket (over $70,000/yr). The poor white students average about 875, and the rich black students average about 850 (out of 1600). </p>
<p>The whole theory of “blacks do poorly on the SAT because they are poor and lack opportunities” needs to be thrown out the window. Why do whites from the poorest income bracket score higher than blacks from the highest income bracket?</p>
<p>When it comes to elite college admissions, African Americans with multi-generational roots in the U.S. are not benefitting because the majority of blacks. According to the Harvard magazne article Roots and Race in elite colleges are either the first gerneration children of or themselves are recent immigrants from Africa and the Carribean.</p>
<p>I also think there is a bit of a double standard when one talks about their oppostition to AA, while at the same time they want to know </p>
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<p>Sounds like someone is trying to get a URM boost to me…</p>
<p>Sybbie719, I was just wondering whether Colombians received affirmative action benefits. </p>
<p>I am totally opposed to affirmative action. In fact, many of my high school classmates were shocked when they found out that I opposed it, even though I was Hispanic.</p>
<p>It’s no longer possible to determine this because two of the best law schools–Yale and Harvard–have eliminated grades and adopted an honors/pass/fail system.</p>
<p>It is virtually impossible to fail unless one does absolutely no work or is mentally deficient.</p>
<p>Hey there housecat! How is compensating for your intellectual shortcomings and personal insecurities by touting your skin color and genitalia going? </p>
<p>Anyways, I read how unsurprising you think it is that us silly women do so much worse than you big, strong men on the math section of the SAT. I mean, we are so obviously just meant by nature to have babies and go grocery shopping. And clearly, that whole writing and verbal sections thing is a vast left-wing conspiracy to get us to burn our bras. DUH.</p>
<p>But you know, it’s funny. You got a 1450 on the verbal and math SAT, right? Well, somehow, with only a couple hours of studying and my second shot at the whole test, I beat you… Hmm… And why didn’t you include your writing score in that? It couldn’t have been because you didn’t do well, could it? I mean, you’re a white male and therefore clearly superior to us lowly Y-chromosome-challenged. If I never got lower than the 700’s on any SAT section or test I ever took, you MUST have done better than me. </p>
<p>And you know what else? Forgive me, but somehow I got it into my hormone-addled brain that I might want to be a lawyer. So I decided to take a practice LSAT, never seeing a single sample question before, not even knowing if they were going to ask me math, literature or logical questions. And I got a 174. Cold. </p>
<p>My little female bird brain just can’t work this conundrum out! </p>
<p>PS. I’ll send you a postcard from Columbia Law School in a few years. Where my (male) advisor told me I’m a shoe-in.</p>
<p>While I haven’t done much research into this issue myself the final question posed by Housecat is certainly worthy of consideration if indeed black students of the same socioeconomic on average score lower than their white counter parts.</p>
<p>Most people seem offended by merely asking the question, but if the question is valid, we should attempt to find an answer. I’d wager most people dislike the question because an implied possible hypothesis is that blacks are on average less intelligent, that is if we consider standardized tests a reasonable measure of general intelligence. Socially that answer is unacceptable. There are of course dozens of possible and reasonable explanations worth considering.</p>
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<p>Summerskter: Your post amused me most of all. If my memory is correct, at no time did gender become the issue of contention in this discussion. Race and gender are of course two completely distinct categories. More so the issue at hand is a statistical phenomenon, even if gender was the issue you’d merely represent a single data point. You’d be included in the expected distribution of outcomes for females, albeit likely on the far right tale. Additionally you responded to the issue raised by Housecat with an ad hominem attack. No where in your post is there a single relevant and intelligible answer or argument. Your post is nothing more than reactionary narcissistic moral indignation and outrage. Lastly I hope you realize your poor attempt at sarcasm is lost to the incredible irony of your post, hopefully your “hormone-addled brain” can figure out what I mean. I hope you learn how to construct relevant and coherent arguments before attending Columbia, you’ll find law school quite challenging otherwise.</p>
<p>This is correct, unless CLS sees this post and infers your identity. If they coordinated this post with a specific person, they would surely reject you on the spot.</p>
<p>“How is compensating for your intellectual shortcomings and personal insecurities by touting your skin color and genitalia going?”</p>
<p>We can draw the conclusion that this pervasive and perverse system is making him feel inadequate and insecure.
And, it’s not hard to imagine why affirmative action makes hard-working and talented minorities feel that way, since they have to go through life constantly being doubted by their peers, colleagues, and employers.</p>
<p>“Well, somehow, with only a couple hours of studying and my second shot at the whole test, I beat you… Hmm… And why didn’t you include your writing score in that? It couldn’t have been because you didn’t do well, could it…So I decided to take a practice LSAT, never seeing a single sample question before…? And I got a 174. Cold.”</p>
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<p>Well, looks like this misogynistic tool Mr. Kohn is right.</p>
<p>“PS. I’ll send you a postcard from Columbia Law School in a few years. Where my (male) advisor told me I’m a shoe-in.”</p>
<p>That’s wonderful to hear: you belong there.</p>
<p>Housecat, let’s study your logic. You say that AA admits unqualified URMS that will do poorly in law school, AND that Barack Obama benefited from AA.</p>
<p>Here we have a URM student admitted to Harvard Law who become not only the editor of the law review (as one of the top students in the class) but also became president of the United States. At one time, he was just a student, just an applicant, a URM who was admitted over others. And you know what? The Ad Com made the right decision, as we can see in retrospect.</p>
<p>I’ve met some outstanding individuals – people who have changed the world and our knowledge for the better – who were beneficiaries of AA. I hate to think about the possible absence of their contributions if they had not been given a chance.</p>
<p>Jaw, ignore the digression of this thread. Apply to the top 20, but, just to make sure, go a little below as well. You’ve done a great job pulling up your GPA since freshman year. Make sure you line up some good recommendations – and then hope that you’ll have some excellent choices.</p>
<p>"Housecat, let’s study your logic. You say that AA admits unqualified URMS that will do poorly in law school, AND that Barack Obama benefited from AA.</p>
<p>Here we have a URM student admitted to Harvard Law who become not only the editor of the law review (as one of the top students in the class) but also became president of the United States. At one time, he was just a student, just an applicant, a URM who was admitted over others. And you know what? The Ad Com made the right decision, as we can see in retrospect.</p>
<p>I’ve met some outstanding individuals – people who have changed the world and our knowledge for the better – who were beneficiaries of AA. I hate to think about the possible absence of their contributions if they had not been given a chance."</p>
<p>Give anyone a Harvard Law degree, and he’ll go on to do great things.</p>
<p>But the reality is that Obama benefited from affirmative action even after he was admitted to Harvard Law School. Affirmative action won him the presidency of the Harvard Law Review (he admits this), and it effectively won him the presidency of the United States. It’s pretty clear that if he hadn’t won an overwhelming majority of the black vote in the Democratic primary, he would not be president. </p>
<p>Also, the fact that some people have benefited substantially from affirmative action doesn’t mean that it works. How do you know that the white or Asian student who lost his spot would not have gone on to do even better things? Saying that affirmative action works because Obama is president is like saying that all Asians are tall because Yao Ming is 7’6’'.</p>
<p>summerskter, I don’t know if you are just ■■■■■■■■ (my guess is that you are), but I want to ask you these questions: Why are you so hostile toward me because I believe that races and genders might differ in intelligence? I looked at the data, noticed a very strong trend, and posted about it. What have I done wrong? Why can’t you attack my argument instead of attacking me? Do you have any data that show that blacks and whites and men and women do not differ in intelligence?</p>
<p>I think you will have a good shot at any of the top 14 with your qualifications and bio. </p>
<p>Housecat, what you are saying is inherently offensive. Intelligence cannot be quantified. Standardized tests show certain intellectual abilities but not all. There are many forms of intelligence. Also, a lot of standardized tests are skewed by cultural and environmental differences.</p>
<p>I will admit though that affirmative action play a role. If Jaw was caucasian I would have said he had little shot. One of the problems with AA, though, is that some people who see african americans that are successful assume they are where they are exclusively because of AA. It helps minorities but discredits their accomplishments at the same time.</p>
<p>This is a thread that will go nowhere. I don’t think some of you people even know what Affirmative Action really IS. The data does not mean that it is due to simply race or any other single factor. It is not even implying a direct relationship. </p>
<p>In conclusion, thank you for giving us the data. Fine, it exists. It does not mean it is causal.</p>
<p>"It helps minorities but discredits their accomplishments at the same time. "</p>
<p>As it should.</p>
<p>If minorities don’t want their accomplishments questioned, then they shouldn’t support affirmative action. This is exactly the argument that Clarence Thomas and Thomas Sowell make.</p>
<p>Five seconds looking at that post reveals an awful lot of information, and browsing through her past threads reveals even more. Just looking at this ONE post reveals her hometown, her undergraduate school, a hint at a hobby, and an LSAT ballpark. It’s a long post, but it has an extremely distinctive writing style. In other posts, she tells her SAT score, a class schedule from her first semester, and how old she is. And that’s just the most recent few posts out of 184; I’m sure the others will have more information as well. If an admissions officer had the files in front of him/her, it would be extremely easy to match a file to the poster. </p>
<p>If housecat wanted to sabotage the OP, a simple screencap mailed to the T14 law schools at the appropriate time would be extremely damaging and would virtually guarantee a rejection. Of course, it would damage him as well.</p>
<p>Now, not everybody makes it as easy as summersktr does. But it’s good to be mindful regardless.</p>
![http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1995-SAT-Income2.png]File:1995-SAT-Income2.png](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1995-SAT-Income2.png%5DFile:1995-SAT-Income2.png){kind=link}
