<p>Here’s the reason behind AA being based on race, according to wikipedia:</p>
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<p>It increases diversity is the main reason I believe why it is and should be used. The honest answer is that not all African Americans have been able to move pass such discrimination. The majority of African Americans are still underprivileged and are not represented in top schools. By using AA, they can be represented and add to the class. Without AA top schools would be filled with Asians and whites. Schools want to eliminate this issue. I understand that AA has flaws, but the pros of the system outweigh the cons. As long as the admission committees of all the schools see the pros they will continue to use AA.</p>
<p>Asians who feel like you are victimized and are upset because people tell you to “get over it,” well, guess what? You have no other choice, but to get over it. Your rejection is not going to be overturned. Move on with your life. I am sure you got into many other amazing colleges. Assuming that you are entitled to a Harvard acceptance is, not only ridiculous, but also conceited. Listen, I’m Asian also. I know about the effects of affirmative action. I just want to make this clear: You did not measure up to the other Asian applicants. End of story. You still have a large opportunity to be accepted to Harvard. Asians are a large percentage of acceptances, but you were rejected. You did not have that special something they were looking for. Arguing this will do nothing for you. Accept it, move on, and get into Harvard grad school.</p>
<p>Since poor backgrounds can be linked to slavery and oppression and slavery and oppression are linked to African Americans, AA has been linked to assisting African Americans. A flaw, but filled with many pros.</p>
<p>This is why so many people oppose AA. Using this wording gives the impression that Asians are being discriminated against and should just deal with it. The only truth is that AA allows for students to compete against other people within their race. If you are the most qualified Asian you will get the spot. If you are the least qualified Asian you won’t. If you are the most qualified African American you will get the spot. If you are the least qualified African American you won’t. The same applies to Hispanics and Caucasians. If you are more qualified you won’t get in regardless of AA. I’m African American and was rejected from 6 Ivy’s. Was I more qualified? Not at all. So the system doesn’t get in African Americans if they are not qualified. Does an African American have a better chance of getting in with lower scores than an Asian person? Yes, but only if they are qualified. When you get to certain test score ranges they really don’t matter. Getting a 30 compared to a 36 really doesn’t matter because they both will most likely be successful in college. That is why admission processes are holistic. Once you get such high stats the admissions committee needs to find better means for picking the incoming class. I actually read a thread on CC (I’m not going to try finding it) about an Asian person with about a 1600 SAT (out of 2400) get accepted to Stanford because of his diverse background. AA doesn’t only help URMs, but can sometimes help ORMs if they can show the adcoms they have something valuable to offer their institution. They want rare people in their schools. If their are 100 Asians with 4.0s and 2400 SAT they aren’t really adding anything of value unless certain EC’s can display diversity. High achieving African Americans are rare, regardless of their parents incomes. They want a rare and diverse class.</p>
<p>I think I have a pretty good idea of what makes a top student. My elder son graduated high school at age 14. The younger one is currently finishing off high school in 3 years, with a 1-in-400 class rank, perfect stats (36.0 ACT, 240 PSAT, etc.) and “best student of my career” letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>Until you get to the AP level, a lot of high school classes are teacher lectures, students sit and listen. If you’re the kind of kid who gets a math or science concept in the first 5 minutes it’s taught and the teacher is still doing sample problems on that same topic a week and a half later, what else can you do but daydream? In the higher level classes, my son will often raise his hand and explain how the current problem can be solved with less steps and less effort than using the textbook method. This amuses his higher level teachers but used to really annoy the lower-level ones.</p>
<p>AP history and literature classes have a lot more opportunity for discussion. My son considers it show-offish to always have your hand in the air; the teachers know darn well he knows the answer and can call on him anytime they like. He’ll raise his hand when everyone else is stuck or when he has an unusual and amusing tidbit related to the topic being discussed (examples: the Vatican has the highest crime rate per capita in the world; Churchill had a plan – Operation Unthinkable – to invade the Soviet Union using Nazi troops; Bhutan has a gross domestic happiness index).</p>
<p>My son loves to learn. He taught himself 4 extra AP subjects in his spare time. He finishes his assigned classics weeks early. And it takes him forever to finish a major paper because he’s constantly hyperlink-jumping from something he needs to know to something tangental that looks interesting to something even more tangental. Yet he’s not particularly motivated by grades, and sometimes damages his averages by completing minor homework assignments, then forgetting to turn them in or misplacing them in his bottomless backpack. There IS a game component to maintaining straight A’s that has nothing to do with actually learning the material.</p>
<p>This very same kid had a lot of trouble in grade school, where conformity and the diligent turning in of homework assignments on time was more important than acing the tests. Without some rapid acceleration and some guidance on how to play the grade game, he could have found himself as one of those kids with great SAT/ACT scores and a lousy GPA, hating school and maybe considering dropping out.</p>
<p>Well, if he is being rejected from a school because he can’t turn in homework that he already has completed then shame on him. I’m sorry I sound blunt, but turning in assignments is a part of life. If he can’t do it he needs to fix that. There is no one to blame for his low GPA, but himself. Now back to the point his perfection means nothing if the rest of his package isn’t up to par with the rest of the people in his race. Test scores aren’t everything.</p>
<p>Why is this a good thing? They don’t give out Olympic medals for the best black or Hispanic or Asian or white competitors, just for being the best. Should the NBA have most valuable white/Asian player awards?</p>
<p>Maybe African-Americans (even wealthy ones) don’t try their hardest to get top standardized test scores (which could involve retakes) because they don’t feel they need to, given their URM preferences. To what extent are the very best African-Americans being held back by lowered expectations? And to what extent is their later success held back because they lack the confidence gained by knowing that what they accomplished was due totally to their own hard efforts and not to some special preferences?</p>
<p>I never said it was a good thing because it really isn’t but its better than “black people over asians”. Also, I, as an African American, have never thought “I only need this score because I’m black” because I’m sure there has been African Americans with high scores still rejected from top schools. Also, AA doesn’t cause African Americans to have lower expectations, AA causes them to have higher expectations because they know they can actually reach such great milestones. Also, the last statement is just inaccurate. Would you be disappointed if your college professor arranged for you to have some sort of internship despite other students being more qualified? No! Connections exist in the world. AA doesn’t try to hide the fact that they do.</p>
<p>Read it again, Harvard. He’s ranked #1 in both his junior and senior class (as a 3-year graduate, he’s been in both this year), and almost 0.2 points ahead of the second-ranked student. Clearly, misplacing the occasional piece of homework didn’t totally destroy his chances of getting into an Ivy League school.</p>
<p>Oh, I must’ve missed that lol Well you can’t blame me its 3 o’clock in the morning. Also, when I read that I assumed it was more than a few pieces of homework. I figured it was enough too drop his GPA significantly.</p>
<p>Whether you look at AA from the diversity angle or the social justice angle, it doesn’t work. If anyone would like to refute these, be my guest, but be sure to provide actual facts/studies instead of personal anecdotes.</p>
<p>And no, we are not all angry Asians nor are we angry whites arguing because we got rejected from Harvard. If you think that, then you’re missing the bigger picture, which is that AA is not an effective policy.</p>
<p>@ harvard521: LoremIpsum raises a good point. Sowell also covers it in his book. </p>
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<p>This attitude has also been observed in Malaysia, where Malays are given preferential treatment. Not to mention decreased incentives for ORMs to perform well (“I won’t get into a good college anyways, so why bother?”) as well as a mass exodus from the country due to their status as the “disadvantaged”, so to speak.</p>
<p>Most people who post on these sort of threads don’t want facts getting in the way of a good debate. ;)</p>
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<p>The ones most hurt by the policy are poor whites, who get accepted to top colleges at 1/10th the rate of poor blacks, who in turn don’t fare nearly as well as their wealthier counterparts.</p>
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<p>My youngest wasn’t even interested in applying to Harvard. He got into Brown and 3 other top-20 schools. We have no personal interest in this matter anymore.</p>
<p>However, I believe that affirmative action policies could spark some serious interracial tensions over the coming years as it gets harder and harder to get into top schools and also gets harder and harder to find a job. The majority will tolerate special preferences as long as opportunities are expanding, but as it becomes more obvious that opportunities are shrinking and will continue to do so for many years, those with special preferences could quickly become scapegoats.</p>
<p>i’m chinese male and i have been affected by AA, but i’m not complaining. its here to stay, but an interesting proposal:</p>
<p>make 2 common app accounts: fill in the same stats or about the same. different names. similar essays. same recommendations (need the faculties help in doing this) lol. different races
see what happens :)</p>
<p>I don’t know what’s more obnnoxious. THe incessant whining about AA or the assorted over-the-top bragging about stats which, while vastly superior to the typical high school graduate, are frankly not all that unique or impressive given the overall quality of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>And as people keep pointing out, like it or not, these schools do not select on a numerical basis from standardized test scores. Unless a person has read an applicant’s entire appication, including essays, details of ECs, and recommendations, they cannot compare themselves to that applicant. </p>
<p>Out of an enrollment of around 5000 less than 900 are URM. Even assuming all of those students had “inferior stats” - whatever that means - there remain over 4000 other students who apparently got in unfailrly ahead of little precious.</p>
<p>AA is pretty fair. I mean they are still alot of Asians and white kids at campus and the colleges they want diversity. I go to a school where most of the kids are Asian, and it’s pretty annoying and not diverse, because alot of the Asians are the same, straight A, perfect SAT robots as one another. This AA adds diversity to the mix.</p>
<p>As I’ve said before, it’s the colleges decision.
Although the courts only agree with the diversity argument, think about it in a social justice point of view (this applies only to whites). From the country’s inception, rich white men dominated the country. Only in the 1960s did women, minorities, and the poor get real rights. Isn’t it fair to give the others a helping hand? The earlier cartoon showed it well.
^That’s been tried before numerous times, with different results each time. Sometimes, both got rejected/accepted. Other times, only the Asian/white kid got it. The viceversa also happened.
AA will cause interracial tension? Well, African Americans and Latinos are the two poorest races. They also make up most of the minority population. If we keep them out of success, chances are there will be civil revolt in the next 50 years. No matter what our pols say, this country still has a long way to go to achieve some amount of racial harmony.
AA rarely helps rich black kids. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. My brother even says that out of all the black/latino kids at his college, most of them come from poorer families. Why should we penalize someone for their parents status?
It’s like this. Take two kids who play basketball. One’s very good, and the other is just good. But the first one has great form, and the latter has terrible form. Who do you take?
You take the kid with the bad form. Teach him good form, and he’ll crush the other kid.
This thread is pointless, we should keep our AA arguments to PMs. If anyone wants to message me, please do so.</p>
<p>“…a lot of the Asians are the same, straight A, perfect SAT ROBOTS as one another.”</p>
<p>Yes, we Asians have nothing to show for other than numbers.</p>
<p>@beatles
“Well, African Americans and Latinos are the two poorest races. They also make up most of the minority population. If WE keep them out of success ….”</p>
<p>What do you mean by “WE keep them out of success…”?</p>
<p>If we don’t let colleges pick the students they want, we are holding them back.
And 20more, I’m partially Asian. I have many Asian relatives. All my Asian relatives either support AA or don’t care. In fact, my Chinese uncle enjoys AA. The Asians I know generally have those views because they want their kids to be the best of the best.
We can look at stats all we want, but the top colleges emphasize essays. That’s why many top students get rejected. Their essays may be great, but it may turn a college off. Many URMs that get admitted (from experience) have great essays.
The Asians I know think it’s hilarious that they are ORMs. They’re fine with AA. I know a lot of Asians aren’t, but from what I’ve seen on here, a lot of Asians seem to think all Asians hate AA. That’s not true.</p>
<p>Let’s assume your kid was the single top applicant stats-wise to any school last year. Let’s assume that the 20% of URMs fill out the bottom 20% stat-wise (this I know is not true, but I’m making a point). If your kid did not gain admission, that leaves 80% of the applicants who had lower stats and were not URM, yet got in despite their lesser performance. If your kid was firmly in the top 75%-ile, that means there were 55% of the admitted students were non-URM applcants with lesser stats. Wheres all the outrage about that?</p>
<p>I am about as lily white as they come. My kid is not affected by any of this. I applied to school 35 years ago (pre-Bakke) and was denied at my own top choice (where I later found out my SATs M+V were at the 75% level), and forced to attend my safety (UCSD) where my test scores were easily 500 points or more above the median at that time. I don’t know why I was rejected. I am well aware of the arguments for and against AA. I am acquainted with Dr. Sowell. I come from the state which spawned Ward Connerly. </p>
<p>The whole point I am trying to make has nothing to do with the reasons for, or the fairness of AA. Obviously, from an objective point of view, AA may not be entirely fair. But as people keep pointing out, nothing about elite college admissions is promised to be objective or even fair. There isn’t even a universally accepted definition for objective. By “holistic”, I infer “subjective,” and I don’t think that’s an unfair inference. A college can decide to give a boost to somebody because they can do 24 one-armed pullups, play “El Condor Pasa” on the pan flute, or touch their elbows behind their back. It’s up to them.</p>
<p>I am equally annoyed by people who benefit from an AA boost and go on to lord their acceptances over other people, and completely deny that they may have gotten an advantage from their ethnicity. But those people are extremely rare.</p>
<p>And I really wish they could get rid of these preferences, mainly because no matter what a student accomplishes people will always bring this up. There are still nutcases worried about the President’s SAT or LAST score, and how he got into Columbia or Harvard Law. As if those decisions were a mistake, no matter what his standardized test scores were (and I am not a fan of the President).</p>