<p>The UCs practice AA, just in their own way. The way they look at standardized test scores, extra-curriculars, and applications in general is set up in a way that gives a rather hefty advantage to Asian students over White students.</p>
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<p>*** is this?</p>
<p>Perhaps the admissions benefit Asians, but that is hardly “affirmative action.”</p>
<p>It has the same end-result as an institutional feature of the admissions process that rewards certain applicants based on their ethnic backgrounds. Though in all honesty, the UC system is actually working to try to rectify this. They’re removing the SAT II Subject Tests as an admissions requirement because of the fact that almost every Asian student can waltz in with an 800 in the Chinese, Korean, or whatever moonspeak test.</p>
<p>I just realized I never actually said how I feel about AA on this thread. I hate it.</p>
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<p>It’s … not.</p>
<p>woops there it goes again…</p>
<p>LogicWarrior’s quote was offensively long.</p>
<p>That’s actually a really good point about the SAT Subject Tests. If Asians do good at Math, Physics, and Literature, they should be rewarded. But since the UC system has arbitrary score cutoffs, knowing a foreign language from birth is an enormous advantage for someone who is on the border of UC eligibility.</p>
<p>well ya know some asians don’t know an asian language…</p>
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<p>Most of the Asians I know speak Chinese at home and they were still too scared to take the Chinese Subject test. Of course I have no numbers but a lot of the people I know can speak their native language fluently but they don’t write in it at a high level, esp. </p>
<p>Even if my point is totally off, I don’t think it’s really an unfair advantage or one we can get rid of. If I were my Bosnian friend I’d be upset that I had to learn a third language to get some recognition though.</p>
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<p>Not all UC’s have point systems, and I’m not sure that all Asians use that loophole.</p>
<p>I know someone that is a native speaker of both Korean and Spanish, and I don’t think he took those tests.</p>
<p>well sadly i’m an asian who can’t speak an asian language</p>
<p>yayay bumpinnn up this thread
goooood memories huh?</p>
<p>Let’s be honest, affirmative action is just another way of manipulating numbers to look impressive. There are far too many inconsistencies for it to really be an issue of historical disadvantages, or of modern disadvantages (the greatest advantage in the admissions game would be a black, Native American, or Hispanic student who can pay their way). Silly? Yes. Yet, at the same time, I could hardly imagine applying to a school with little diversity. I know diversity is far, far more expansive than the color of your skin–heck, in a group of people as Aryan as they come, you could find people all over the geographic and socioeconomic scales with vastly different life experiences. But my groups of friends have always been racially diverse, and I feel like I’d be somewhat uncomfortable in a (racially) homogeneous setting, as silly as it seems.</p>
<p>Being Hispanic and applying to college now seems to give me an advantage at some schools. But I am perfectly fine with schools such as Caltech or the UC’s who don’t do it.</p>
<p>I’ve never met black people like the ones in that essay. My old school was about 12 percent black. Most of them weren’t crazy dedicated to academics (although there were some) but even the ones that weren’t were still pretty smart. But the people I’m talking about are completely different than the ones in the guys article thing. The blacks who went to my school were the types that tried to be “gangsta” and were sagging in four hundred dollar jeans.</p>
<p>I’m divided on AA. I just feel that it’s unfair in many ways that I work my butt off to keep my grades up and get my test scores high to be competitive for a top college, but someone else with lower grades and scores also is considered for or admitted to the same college because of their race. (I’m of course not referring to those with other qualifiers such as great EC’s or something similar.) I hate the double standard. </p>
<p>On the other hand, though, I do realize there are bright kids who are just victims of circumstance and have the potential but not the resources to do well. AA is necessary for these kids and they deserve to have an environment where they can succeed and thrive. I’m personally really invested in the issue of educational disparity and so despite my own concerns, I support AA. A good book about this whole debate is “A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League”. It shines some light on the whole thing and I really enjoyed it.</p>
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<p>The above sums up the emotions very well. </p>
<p>It is human nature to look for something to blame if we can’t get what we want. Is it fair if a man with only one arm is matched in a weight lifting contest against a healthy man with both arms intact? You may say it is fair as long as the one arm man enters the contest willingly. What if winning this contest is his only means to put food on the table for his family, whereas the healthy man can do just fine without the win? In the pursuit of fairness, we cannot lose compassion. Compassion enriches everyone involved. Love can be trampled in the name of fairness just as easily as justice can be trampled in the name of religion. </p>
<p>The idea of Affirmation Action that is based on socioeconomics criteria rather than ethnicity alone is an interesting and an obvious alternative (probably already being practiced in many places), but the danger here is the focus on economics at the exclusion of socio. </p>
<p>Due to historic cultural differences, certain ethnic groups put more emphasis on academic excellence than other aspects of development and social life. Jews and Asians easily come to mind. The emphasis is cultural. This means that you’ll find the emphasis alive and thriving even in the economically disadvantaged sectors of these ethnic groups. They learned since childhood that the path to success is to do well in school as opposed to “pursue your passion”. Their proud ancestral history serves as a well of strength for them. This difference in cultural emphasis is evident in the credentials of applicants. It also gave rise to stereotypes.</p>
<p>Even in well to do URM families, the “environment” may not place much weight on academic excellence. The “environment” is largely shaped by social interactions. One sector of the population may emphasize early financial independence and another sector may be focused more on gaining graduate level degrees. From my own observation, a higher than average percentage of high school kids from middle to upper-middle class Asian families are without real paid job experience outside of family businesses. Similarly, more Asian and Jewish parents are willing to pay almost the entire cost of college for their kids than I find in parents of many other ethnic groups. I know exceptions abound, but this is my general observation.</p>
<p>In an environment not supportive of or conducive to academic pursuit, a kid, even a rich one, will have difficult time telling his peers and his adult relatives why he would rather study English than trying out for the JV. It is not hard to see why some adcoms would give this kid a chance. You could have been that kid. Most of us just won’t know who we might have become without the environment that nurtured us to become more focused on academics.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the system should also account for the sharp environmental focus on academic excellence placed on kids of certain ethnic groups and not unduly penalize them for lacking in other aspects of the admissions metrics.</p>
<p>So, if we are true to having affirmation action based on socioeconomic metrics then let’s do it right and not forget about the “socio” part of the socioeconomic.</p>
<p>Affirmative action is racism. We should be judging people based on their ability, not on the color of their skin.</p>
<p>Okay, why is this thread back? Its a really stupid thread…
If you spent less time whining about AA and more time working on your appliactions you’d probably get in to better colleges.
I know I’m being harsh annd i understand that this issue is complex. Buts its been done to death and I really feel that no more can be saiod about this topic plus people tend to become more and more racist when talking about the subject. So I will derail this thread from now on.</p>
<p>I like cookies.</p>