somedumbnoob

What do you mean?

Bay

Look at the "pool" of URM high school graduates, and then tell me they "enjoy a much higher acceptance rate" to college. Isn't this the real problem that AA is seeking to address?

somedumbnoob

I didn't say "URM high school graduates." I said "URM applicants." And my statement was completely accurate given the kinds of colleges this now merged thread was talking about...at top universities, blacks and hispanics applicants are generally admitted at a higher rate than the overall applicant pool. Why don't you actually make an effort to understand things before laughing pretentiously?

Scroll down a bit on this page.

College Admission Officers

Bay

sdn,

Sorry, I did not mean for you to take my comment personally. I am very familiar with the analysis you are referencing, and yes, you are factually accurate. I guess I am just tired of hearing the same rant about how "easy" URMs have it when it comes to college admissions. People seem to forget what a long shot it really is for many of them to even make it to the application stage. Peace.

IsabelB

i refuse to put my race down on pure principle- not b/c I want to play some admissions strategy. First of all, when I was taking my apush exam last friday for example, the boxes you could check were like "African-American" "Pacific Islander" "Native American" etc...and then "white". Why "white"? Why not caucasian? It made me idignant, along wiht several other friends, including an Indian, an Asian, and an African-American. How totally degrading
......plus I don't want to encourage racial stereotypes....so and so got xxx on the sat and she's xxxx.....just goes to show all xxx's are like that...
so I've always, always, chosen not to bubble in my ethnicity
btw what are orms and urms?

tokenadult

Usually those abbreviations mean on College Confidential forums "over-represented minorities" and "under-represented minorities." I'm not sure how many college admission offices, if any, use either term in a formal way.

arachnophobia12

Tell that to the disappointed (and highly qualified) URMs at my school who weren't accepted to their "dream" colleges...

Degrading how? (ugh, PC crap)... My memory is probably failing me at the moment, but as I recall, the Collegeboard tests ask if you're "White/Caucasian, Black/African-American, etc." Cual es el problema?

swimg907

^^^la problema
lol

arachnophobia12

^^^ no, it's actually "el problema"... (el mapa, el alma/las almas, etc.).

JP_Omnipotence

The difficulty you speak of should be evaluated on a case by case basis. Plenty of URMs have no trouble at all getting to the application stage, and affirmative action gives them an undeserved boost at the expense of ORMs.

If an applicant has really faced overwhelming odds in their lives, they should be able to articulate such in their essay. If one had to undergo tremendous hardship because of their race, what better place to put it than in your essay? Assuming that every black/latino has had to overcome so much adversity is generalizing that need not be done. Additionally, there are plenty of Asian americans who have to deal with overt racism, and this would level the playing field for them as well.

While there are definitely qualified URMs who are rejected by their dream schools, their numbers pale in comparison to those of qualified ORMs who don't make it.

tokenadult

I have just updated the thread-opening post with a moderator's edit to update statistics and add more links to official websites.

Bay

JO-

I think you are confusing two distinct diversity goals. Elite u's want a racially diverse campus, and they want an economically diverse campus (as well as geographically diverse, EC diverse, etc.). Applicants having an under-represented socioeconomic background of any race get special consideration.
U's value racial diversity for its own sake, i.e., there is educational value in having their students learn, live and recreate with students of all races, because racial harmony is important to our country and our world.

afruff23

@arachnophobia

Actually, it asks for "white" not caucasian. I would know because I usually check caucasian instantly but not "white". My parents are Iranian. Iranians are caucasian, but I don't think "white" is any real designation.

vossron

I prefer the more descriptive "European American" as a parallel to other accepted labels.

JP_Omnipotence

While I do agree that a racially diverse student body is better than one that is weighted more towards one or two races, this is a case where I believe that the ends do not justify the means. Compromising equal opportunity in favor of racial diversity is in my opinion not at all worth it. Diversity can be found in a multitude of ways, and even a mono-racial student body can be incredibly diverse in thoughts, beliefs, and viewpoints.

My other complaint with affirmative action is the way it generalizes. After all, all of the racial classifications (white, black, asian, latino) are very broad, so even if a student body is say, 70% asian, this might be divided between malaysians, japanese, chinese, etc. What AA promotes is diversity based on skin color, nothing else.

Compromising equality and giving applicants undeserved advantages in order to ensure a very shallow skin color based diversity is not worth it.