Hunt

Further back in the thread, somebody asked what would be the benefit if everybody marked "race unknown" on college applications. I think most of us look forward to a day in which it would seem an odd question to even ask. However, an honest answer to the question now, it seems to me, is that if everyone right now started declining to identify race, very little would change. Colleges would use other clues in the application to achieve an ethnic balance in the entering class. Because if they didn't, at many schools admissions of certain minority groups would drop precipitously. You may think that there is nothing wrong with that, but it is a political impossibility.

blucheese

I agree with Hunt. They will either find out through the interview or your essay.

tokenadult

The fact is that colleges, which are all mandated by the federal government to report ethnic composition of their classes, report large numbers of students as "race/ethnicity unknown."

(22 percent at Case Western)

College Search - Case Western Reserve University - Case - At a Glance

(21 percent at Cornell)

College Search - Cornell University - At a Glance

(21 percent at William and Mary)

College Search - College of William and Mary - CWM - At a Glance

(21 percent at Brandeis)

College Search - Brandeis University - At a Glance

(20 percent at Amherst College)

College Search - Amherst College - At a Glance

(18 percent at Princeton)

College Search - Princeton University - At a Glance

(18 percent at Reed College)

College Search - Reed College - At a Glance

(16 percent at Chicago)

College Search - University of Chicago - Chicago - At a Glance

(15 percent at Penn)

College Search - University of Pennsylvania - Penn - At a Glance

(14 percent at Pomona)

College Search - Pomona College - At a Glance

(13 percent at Harvard)

College Search - Harvard College - At a Glance

(13 percent at Brown)

College Search - Brown University - Brown - At a Glance

(13 percent at Vanderbilt)

College Search - Vanderbilt University - Vandy - At a Glance

(12 percent at Carnegie Mellon)

College Search - Carnegie Mellon University - At a Glance

(11 percent at Yale)

College Search - Yale University - At a Glance

(11 percent at Columbia)

College Search - Columbia University - Columbia - At a Glance

(10 percent at NYU)

College Search - New York University - NYU - At a Glance

(10 percent at Agnes Scott)

College Search - Agnes Scott College - ASC - At a Glance

(9 percent at Whitman)

College Search - Whitman College - At a Glance

(8 percent at Washington U in St. Louis)

College Search - Washington University in St. Louis - Washington U. - At a Glance

(7 percent at Berkeley)

College Search - University of California: Berkeley - Cal - At a Glance

(6 percent at MIT)

College Search - Massachusetts Institute of Technology - MIT - At a Glance

(6 percent at Virginia)

College Search - University of Virginia - UVA - At a Glance

Hunt

I understand that, but do you really think it would be tolerable if a college simply stopped asking the question, and the numbers of black and Hispanic students dropped the following year? The backlash would be huge--so no school is going to let this happen. Thus, they will consider race whether they do so explicitly or through "holistic" admissions.

tokenadult

Inasmuch as I am a mathematics coach, I will ask people here to show their steps. Why is it necessarily the case (as I believe it is not) that if a college stops asking applicants about their ethnicity on an application form, or if applicants cease reporting their ethnicities on an application form, that anything will change about the ethnic composition of the enrolled class? Please show the work to explain why this would be so, preferably with reference to real-world examples.

tinuviel

My last name definitely screams caucasian hoera nederlands! I wish I could count 'dutch' as a minority, it's tiny little country.... XD

Hunt

tokenadult, are you disputing that black and Hispanic admittees to selective colleges have, on the average, significantly lower grades and standardized scores than non-URM admittees? If you accept that as a fact, if the school stops considering ethnicity in admissions, there will be fewer black and Hispanic admittees. QED. But they certainly could continue to maintain the status quo by using "holistic" admissions criteria that yield the same result as an overtly race-conscious method. I guess I just don't understand why that would be better.

tokenadult

I am disputing the frequently hinted assertion that that is an all-time reality. (I am not saying that you are hinting that.) I think that if colleges make clear what academic or personal criteria maximize chances for admission irrespective of ethnicity, it will be found that persons of every which ethnicity will step up to the plate and develop those criteria. As I recall, my thread-opening post indicated that people of every which kind of ethnicity can qualify to enter every which echelon of college. Every noteworthy college these days receives a variety of applications, and every noteworthy college, by current reports as made to the federal government, has students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. It took active, ethnic-conscious efforts to keep students OUT in the old days to make most colleges all-white and Jewish-sparse. (As far as I know, my alma mater, a state university, has had alumni of a great variety of ethnic groups for at least a century, even though it is located in a state with rather meager ethnic diversity until recently.) I disagree with the idea that "ethnic differences" are static and not subject to change under changed social conditions.

tokenadult

I knew a "black" man (he was so classified by our school) as a classmate in one of my postsecondary schools who had a characteristically Dutch family name. I have heard on the TV news another example (besides the one I gave earlier) of a white (and presumably Scandinavian) man with the family name Wang. He is a dogsled racer.

eIditarod 2005 - Student Musher Selections

Hunt

I'm not sure I disagree with what you are saying, longterm, but I'm not sure about what steps colleges should be taking, shortterm, to help bring it about. As things stand currently, people who are poor have difficulty developing the criteria colleges are looking for, and URMs are disproportionately poor. I continue to think that if a college abruptly ceased considering race (and really didn't consider it, even in the guise of holistic admissions), the results, shortterm, would be unacceptable. I suppose one advantage of doing it in the guise of holistic admissions is that maybe we'll eventually begin to think in terms of factors other than race alone, such as socio-economic status.

tokenadult

Hi, Hunt, maybe you and I can both invest a fair amount of hope that colleges will develop a more nuanced form of holistic admission in which socioeconomic factors loom larger than rough ethnic categorizations. I definitely support the idea of students continuing to be free to explain their individual contexts, as happens, for example, when a Hmong student from St. Paul, Minnesota tells about growing up in a refugee camp in Thailand before coming to the United States at high school age. It would be a perversion of the current federally mandated ethnic reporting system to say, "Yet another Asian applicant," and not give a person like that a second look.

eaglet

Ya, well I'd like to have a second look for growing up white euro-heritage,
1st generation upper middle class whose parents kill themselves to afford a ridiculously priced house in a NY suburb "for the schools" at which I busted my 135 IQ on 6-7 hours of "rigorous" homework every flippin' night for 4 years, studied for my SAT's, did hideous amounts of extracurriculars and sports and community service, believed that hard work would get me where I wanted to go, got my 2200 and my 4.6 and my 5's on AP's and had my A-- KICKED by kids with 500's who checked the right box or had a hardship better than mine (and we all have them). My parents can't save for retirement b/c my sibling is already in college and I'm next yet we don't qualify for aid. (Ever hear of Alternative Minimum Tax???) These schools are obligated to develop ME TOO but they choose to screw me and my peers. Do you know how ridiculously extraordinary you have to be if you are a white male? GO READ THE ACCEPT THREADS ON THE IVIES THIS YEAR. All I can say is that all you people who are getting put ahead of me darned well better contribute as big as MY Euro immigrant ancesters did cuz YOU OWE ME.

Bay

Not as extraordinary as you need to be if you are a white female. Quit crying.

fabrizio

I know this was addressed to tokenadult, but I'd like to respond.

Your assertion that there will be fewer black and Hispanic admits if schools stop considering ethnicity in admissions is true if and only if numbers are the only thing that counts. But, we all know that many other things count, even if ethnicity isn't considered (e.g. the essay, extracurriculars, recommendations.)

Hmm, "holistic" admissions criteria that yield the same result as an overtly race-conscious method. I assume from reading this that you refer to a type of "holistic" admissions that is not race-conscious? If so, then this type has been employed by the UC system for over a decade. While "URM" levels have increased since their initial drop, they have never went back to the pre-1996 levels. As far as I know, this "holistic" admissions you refer to cannot replicate the effects of overtly race-conscious methods.

harryhorcux

how much does being a urm really help, i mean is affirmative action just a myth? how much does it actually help, does anyone know of urms with low gpas (3.5 and below) that got into good schools?