<p>As an asian, I guess I'm one of the over represented races. But why do colleges choose to admit applicants that are from a rare/under represented race with bad scores/grades/activities? I really don't see a reason for that. </p>
<p>Also, what is so important about legacies? I heard that 40% of Harvard is chosen through legacy, and 20~25% at Notre Dame...isn't that a ridiculous number?</p>
<p>Colleges want their undergraduates to have the experience of meeting many people from diverse backgrounds--including people of different ethnicities and races. Therefore, they do whatever they have to do (lower their standards for underrepresented groups, court underrepresented groups more aggressively) so that they can maintain this diversity. </p>
<p>As for legacy, I doubt that 40% of Harvard students are legacies...but legacy plays a factor because parents may stop giving money to their alma mater if their child is rejected, and may give more if their child is accepted.</p>
<p>I don't know where you got those numbers, but they're nowhere near true. Think about how many kids of Harvard grads would have to go to Harvard in order for legacies to account for 40% of admissions each year -- it doesn't make any sense.</p>
<p>In most selective schools, like Harvard, legacy only counts a very small amount unless your parent is already a big donor.</p>
<p>Here's the real fact: Harvard accepts 40% of legacy applicants.</p>
<p>Thanks suze. That seems much more likely. Where did you get that number?</p>
<p>You're asking about more than diversity, I think. </p>
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But why do colleges choose to admit applicants that are from a rare/under represented race with bad scores/grades/activities?
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<p>When you're talking about people being admitted with bad scores or bad grades, that's more an access question.</p>
<p>Some colleges see this kind of access as an important part of their mission. A place like St. Paul's, for example, might admit a black student with bad scores or grades if they see potential. They state that they care more about what a student looks like leaving their college than they do entering it. But at St Paul's they're not really looking for diversity in the way we tend to think of it on these boards.</p>
<p>When selective colleges are seeking increased diversity, they may admit underrepresented minorities whose test scores or grades are lower than that of the average admit, but I am not sure they'd take someone with bad scores or bad grades. At any rate, they're trying to improve the educational experience for everyone, because they believe a multicultural environment is better for learning. I suppose access (of a different sort) plays a role here, too--not the kind of access that allows a student to go to college when they couldn't otherwise, but access to an elite kind of education that traditionally has not been available or welcoming to certain groups.</p>
<p>The scores in fact are lower by a HUGE amount and would (under any plain meaning definition) constitute "bad scores" for an elite university. Consider the news on Univ of Michigan today and their apparent defiance of recent Sup Ct decisions - limiting race based admissions</p>
<p>Tuesday, October 17, 2006</p>
<p>Study: Race still key at U-M</p>
<p>Mark Hicks / The Detroit News</p>
<p>Despite a mixed 2003 Supreme Court ruling on the use of racial preferences in University of Michigan admissions, race and ethnicity still factored heavily for students admitted to the school over four years, according to studies released today by a national research group.</p>
<p>The studies were compiled based on data on undergraduate, medical school and law school admissions that the university provided to the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Sterling, Va.-based nonprofit research and educational organization, through freedom of information requests.</p>
<p>The data, which cover incoming freshmen in 1999, 2003, 2004 and 2005, reveals that last year, African-American and Hispanic applicants who scored 1240 on SAT and earned a 3.2 grade point average had a 9 out of 10 chance of being admitted to U-M. Whites and Asians with similar scores and grades had a 1 out of 10 chance.</p>
<p>The studies suggest a "dramatic difference" in which students are admitted, said Roger Clegg, president of CEO.</p>
<p>""The studies found race is not (a) small factor, but an overwhelming factor for who does or doesn't get in," he said.</p>
<p>But U-M spokeswoman Julie Peterson said that while the university does consider racial makeup of its campus, the study does not take into account academic essays, teacher recommendations or extracurricular activities.</p>
<p>"No top university admits students solely on the basis of grades and test scores," Peterson said. "We consider many factors in order to admit a group of students who have diverse talents "</p>
<p>Anyone willing to compare SAT scores for legacies at Harvard with those of affrimative action admittees? How about GPA or Class rank? Harvard in fact won't release these numbers, and for good reason - because its the best argument the affirmative action proponent havd, even though probably 80% of the argument would collapse - if these objective differences were revealed </p>
<p>As for URM's and diversity, why is Harvard accepting large numbers of upper middle class black students from cities like Chicago and Atlanta and labeling them as UNDERrepresented minorities - when for example a 1st generation Tibetan once raised by Tibetan monks would be considered just another OVERrepresented Asian?</p>
<p>Brown, this came from my high school counselor. The number is right around there for all of the ivies. The college with the most enrolled legacies that I know of is ND, at 25%. The top college taking the smallest % of legacies I know of is Stanford at below 25%.</p>
<p>While colleges don't release legacy stats, some ivy presidents have gone on record saying that their stats are average for overall admits and that legacies are a highly qualified group. Think about it. They probably have smart parents, chances of affluence is high and affluence usually leads to great private schools through life. The HS I went to, which was very hard to get into, was filled with ivy and top LAC legacies. The unqualified ones did not get in. Really.</p>
<p>Umm hoedown, isn't St. Paul's one of the best high schools, not colleges?</p>
<p>The diversity issue has been done over and over on this board. Does anyone want to go to college with a homogeneous group? The top colleges are betting they will provide a better education for all if there is an interesting mix. I for one agree. It's interesting that Michigan is still bending. California isn't. Blacks are overwhelming underrepresented at UCs and some are 50% Asian. I think State schools have every right to have clear cut rules for admission and I think privates have every right to determine the balance they want.</p>
<p>And even if some students are admitted w/ lesser scores and grades (not just URMs, legacies or athletes, but BOYS!), is this really a problem if they are graduating? Lots of kids could do the work at top schs; seats at those schs are scarce - - so schs can "demand" higher grades/scores - - but that doesn't mean students w/ lower numbers can't do the work.</p>
<p>Citation - I suspect that you're wrong; the Tibetan prob would be considered URM. Likewise middle-class black students are still uderreped - - unless you consider the 3-5% at most top schs to be OVERrepresentation(and class is a funny thing, black families describes as middle-class are often living in circumstances that would be described as working-class for white families).</p>
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But why do colleges choose to admit applicants that are from a rare/under represented race with bad scores/grades/activities?
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They don't. Private colleges are allowed to admit whom they will. In 2003, there were 2071 Caltech applicants and 520 students accepted. 59 black students applied, 9 were accepted, and none chose to go. According to The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, on two other occasions in the last 10 years Caltech has had no blacks in its freshman class (the highest number of black freshman has been 8). Race is a tipping point at selective colleges- nothing more and nothing less.</p>
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Black Students Are Beginning to Seize the Early Admission Advantage
The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. New york: Spring 2004., Iss. 43; pg. 81 </p>
<p>Of the 33,706 early applicants to these 15 universities, 12,094 students of all races were admitted. Thus, 35.9 percent of all early applicants were admitted to these universities. The highest admittance rate for early applicants was at Wake Forest University, where 53.2 percent of all early applicants were accepted for admission. At the low end of the scale, only 15.5 percent of all early applicants to MIT were admitted.</p>
<p>At six of the 15 leading universities in our study, the acceptance rate for white early applicants was higher than the rate for black early applicants. Again, there were major discrepancies. For example, 59 percent of all early applicants at Emory University were accepted for admission. But only 21.9 percent of all black early applicants gained admission. At Rice, 30 percent of all early applicants, but only 18 percent of all black early applicants, were accepted. At universities with a large early admittance rate but a low level of black early admissions, we may assume that a great many of the white students admitted early were legacies. The legacy admission advantage carries almost no value for blacks.</p>
<p>In conclusion, we note that blacks are slowly coming to see the advantages of applying early. The trend shows that black students are now more likely to apply early than was the case five years ago. In a 1999 JBHE survey, blacks made up only 2.9 percent of all early applicants to the nation's highest-ranked colleges and universities. This year, blacks were 4.7 percent of all early applicants at the nation's highest-ranked universities and 3.6 percent of all early applicants to the nation's highest-ranked liberal arts colleges.
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Blacks Who Applied for Early Admission in 2004</p>
<p>JBHE has surveyed the nation's highest-ranked colleges and universities to determine how the controversial issue of early admissions actually affects black access to higher education, particularly admissions to our most selective institutions. JBHE asked each of the nation's 25 highest-ranked universities and the 25 highest-ranked liberal arts colleges for this year's early admissions data. Some of the nation's highest-ranked institutions such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst, Williams, Stanford, Dartmouth, Duke, and Columbia declined to participate in our survey.</p>
<p>We believe that the reason for this reluctance has to do with the fact that at most highly ranked colleges and universities there is only a very small trickle of black early decision applicants. Publication of this shortfall tends to hurt a school's reputation for its commitment to racial diversity. It is likely, although by no means certain, that universities and colleges missing from our statistics have a low percentage of black early applicants.</p>
<p>JBHE obtained comprehensive data on early admissions from 15 high-ranking universities and 18 high-ranking liberal arts colleges. All told, 33,706 students applied early to the 15 highly ranked universities. Some 1,584 blacks applied for early decision to these universities. Thus, blacks made up 4.7 percent of the total early applicant pool at these schools. This is considerably less than the black percentage of the total applicant pool at these universities. For the class that entered in the fall of 2003, blacks, according to our count, were 6.6 percent of all applicants to these 15 universities.</p>
<p>Of the 33,706 early applicants to these 15 universities, 12,094 students of all races were admitted. Thus, 35.9 percent of all early applicants were admitted to these universities. The highest admittance rate for early applicants was at Wake Forest University, where 53.2 percent of all early applicants were accepted for admission. At the low end of the scale, only 15.5 percent of all early applicants to MIT were admitted.</p>
<p>In early application acceptance rates, blacks performed about five percentage points better than applicants of all races. Some 646 black students of the 1,584 who applied early to these institutions were admitted. Therefore, 40.8 percent of all black early applicants were accepted.</p>
<p>At Johns Hopkins University nearly 78 percent of all black early applicants were admitted. At the other end of the scale only 18.5 percent of black early applicants to Rice were accepted for admission. Remember here that Rice University's early acceptance rate for black students is low despite the fact that it is now using race as a factor in its admissions decisions. For the past eight years Rice had not practiced race-sensitive admissions following the 1996 Hopwood decision by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals. That decision was overturned by the June 2003 Supreme Court ruling in the Grutter case.</p>
<p>At nine of the 15 universities in our survey the black student early admission acceptance rate was higher than the rate for whites. In some cases the differences were huge. For example, 31.2 percent of all black early applicants to MIT were accepted compared to 15.5 percent of all early applicants. At the University of Virginia, close to two thirds of all early applicants were accepted while only 38 percent of early applicants overall were accepted.</p>
<p>At six of the 15 leading universities in our study, the acceptance rate for white early applicants was higher than the rate for black early applicants. Again, there were major discrepancies. For example, 59 percent of all early applicants at Emory University were accepted for admission. But only 21.9 percent of all black early applicants gained admission. At Rice, 30 percent of all early applicants, but only 18 percent of all black early applicants, were accepted. At universities with a large early admittance rate but a low level of black early admissions, we may assume that a great many of the white students admitted early were legacies. The legacy admission advantage carries almost no value for blacks.</p>
<p>Early Admissions at the High-Ranking Liberal Arts Colleges</p>
<p>At the 18 highest-ranked liberal arts colleges responding to the JBHE survey 6,766 students applied early. Some 259 blacks applied for early decision to these 18 highest-ranked liberal arts colleges. Thus, blacks made up 3.8 percent of the total early applicant pool at these institutions. As was the case with the highest-ranked universities, this is considerably less than the black percentage of the total applicant pool at these colleges. For the class that entered in the fall of 2003, blacks were slightly more than 5 percent of all applicants to these 18 colleges.</p>
<p>Of the 6,766 early applicants to these 18 liberal arts colleges 3,087 students were admitted. Thus, 45.6 percent of all early applicants were admitted to these colleges. The highest admission rate for early applicants was at Grinnell College where 69.4 percent of all early applicants were accepted. At the low end of the scale only 30.8 percent of all early applicants to Pomona College were admitted.</p>
<p>Some 114 black students of the 259 who applied early to these institutions were admitted. Therefore, 44.0 percent of all black early applicants were accepted, slightly lower than the rate for students as a whole. Again, there were wide disparities among the colleges. At Hamilton College 72.7 percent of all black early applicants were accepted. At Trinity College 70.6 percent of all black early applicants gained admission. Only 28.6 percent of black early applicants to Colgate were accepted. At Harvey Mudd College in California, a school that specializes in engineering, computer science, and other natural sciences, 88 students applied for early decision. Not one was black. Harvey Mudd College is heavily oriented toward the sciences and it too has had a history of low black enrollments.</p>
<p>At nine of the 18 colleges in our survey the black student early admission acceptance rate was higher than the rate for all student early applicants. In some cases the differences were huge. For example, 50 percent of the black early applicants at Pomona College were accepted compared to 30.8 percent of all early applicants. At Hamilton College 72.7 percent of all black early applicants were accepted while only 46.6 percent of all early applicants gained admission.
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<p>Contrary to the 2005 study that said Asian-American students were the biggest losers in AA, Asians had only minor gains at law schools when it was banned in three states.</p>