<p>Just curious.</p>
<p>Because racial diversity is a bragging point for schools. Plus, race is obvious, whereas religion is not (and is not easily described with a drop-down menu, as people within religions are vastly different).</p>
<p>Religion is chosen and isn’t used as a statistic for colleges to promote their diversity</p>
<p>Some colleges do consider religion. I believe Catholic schools give points for being Catholic, and I expect that evangelical schools prefer evangelicals.</p>
<p>People are born with a permanant race. On the other hand, religion is a preference. I’m atheist and I didn’t put anything down on the religion section. I feel like me being atheist could have been discriminated against.</p>
<p>I’m not sure what religion I am. :v</p>
<p>Plus, for the most part there aren’t religious groups vastly under represented in colleges. For example, the percentage of african americans who go to college is low compared to other races, you don’t see, say, a low percentage of Baptists in colleges.</p>
<p>^Actually, I imagine you’d find a smaller percentage of Baptists and Evangelical Christians in top colleges and a much higher percentage of other Protestants and Jews. Yes, technically religion is a preference, but some religions, like Judaism, are associated with ethnicity as well, and others (Baptists, evangelicals) I imagine can be linked to class. </p>
<p>I think the question is probably not whether groups are under/overrepresented but whether religion plays that big of a role in people’s identity.</p>
<p>I always figured it was due to the fact that religion was a choice, and there are very few people today who identify wholly with one single religion and its entire definition who are interested in colleges. If anything, religions like Christianity, which are associated with having a lower IQ, would be discriminated against as well, which would suck!</p>
<p>But yeah, with race, it’s pretty clearly identified. You’re this, this, this, or multiracial, like yours truly. Religions are too numerous and difficult to define. And something you can choose, or your parents can choose for you, not something you’re naturally born with.</p>
<p>“If anything, religions like Christianity, which are associated with having a lower IQ,” Excuse me?</p>
<p>You might find it interesting to read Jerome Krabel’s book “The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Princeton and Yale.” Krabel’s point is that the modern emphasis on subjective qualities like leadership originated in religious bigotry.</p>
<p>You’re a shoo-in if you put Richard Dawkins as your religion, you know.</p>
<p>I’m happy with religion not being considered. Used to be many colleges discriminated against non-Protestants (particularly Catholics and Jews). Thus, the Catholics created their own schools, like Georgetown, Notre Dame, Fordham, Boston College, and the whole list. Contrary to a previous post, Catholic schools do not consider religion, as the majority of their applicants tend to be Catholic anyway, and they like having diversity, too.</p>
<p>
This is an unnecessary anti-Christian comment, coupled with the fact that intelligence in the modern encompassing sense of the word is unquantifiable. I wouldn’t be surprised if your comment was made up, though the nature of IQ tests make it matter little either way.</p>
<p>There is no advantage to a have equal representation of religious groups, whereas appropriate race representation is a serious political and social issue.</p>
<p>This would be like considering your favorite fruit in the admission process. There’s no reason to promote adequate representation of each fruit preference…</p>
<p>My take on race-- Could be wrong here, but it’s what I’ve gathered:
Considering race is less about promoting diversity and more about equal opportunity. Race is really only considered because people of certain races tend to be disadvantaged in the admission process (maybe based in language barriers?), and if nothing was done, they would be underrepresented in elite schools and the school would face political/social criticism. People of a particular religion, meanwhile, are not disadvantaged in any way. If a religion is underrepresented, it’s essentially by random chance, not because that religion tends to have a tougher time in the US college admission process.</p>
<p>Side note, if they included religion, you’d be able to “pick” a different religion just to boost your admission chances. You can’t pick your race.</p>
<p>^
Racial disadvantage is less language barriers and more lack of access to the money and schools that are ever more necessary to get ahead in the world. People of certain races tend to have a lot working against them in their childhood - bad schools, difficult home lives, need to work to support their families, proximity to crime, etc., so admissions tries to compensate to provide equal opportunity.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I always wondered, why don’t they just do it by income? If this is the case, wouldn’t income-based affirmative action yield a similar class composition?</p>
<p>
While that’s a good idea, people (especially wealthy alumni) would freak out about their kids being disadvantaged because they “succeeded” in life, not caring that middle- and upper-class applicants already have many advantages over the poor.</p>
<p>That does sound like a much better idea in theory. As it stands, the URM advantage is often extended to URM students who were not disadvantaged in any way. They obviously don’t need the URM boost to put them on a level playing field, but get it because a significant portion of their race is considered disadvantaged. </p>
<p>I would suggest that being disadvantaged is somehow more linked to race than it is to economic status… But I don’t see why that would be true… I guess Billy’s point about the wealthy is important.</p>
<p>The two methods might result in a similar racial composition… but would it result in a similar financial outcome for the college? Basing on income would surely force colleges to accept far more lower-income students, given the distribution of wealth in this nation. In fact, it would make wealthy students the minority in colleges, whereas currently the wealthy are vastly overrepresented in the elite schools.</p>
<p>It would make far more sense from a standpoint of evening the playing field to go by income, because the disadvantages of race are often actually the disadvantages of low income (that just happen to be common amongst a racial group).</p>
<p>Economic status has massive effects on one’s life, but - as noted in both of the above posts - consideration of economic status leads to many further problems.</p>
<p>To really level society’s playing field and provide equal opportunity for all (if we wanted to do that, which is an entirely different issue), we would have to provide equal education regardless of economic status, which is something that simply isn’t happening right now and may not even be possible without putting everyone on equal economic status. However, trying to compensate for racial disadvantages (which are highly correlated with economic disadvantages) helps us level the playing field a bit without rocking the boat too much.</p>
<p>The most important difference is that compensating based on race does not threaten to pull those with a higher economic status down towards an equal economic status, but perfect compensation for economic status would most likely pull those with a higher economic status down (or at least provide them with less of an advantage), which is an ethical dilemma.</p>
<p>Because racism is a much bigger obstacle to social justice in America than religious discrimination. (But I do agree that the problem seems to be about class as much as it is about race.)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you implying that people of the same race cannot be vastly different as well? Interesting.</p>