<p>ANN ARBOR!!! is a good school. it is excellent in engineering and business. go there if you can.</p>
<p>MICHIGAN SUCKS. GO BUCKS!!!</p>
<p>OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU OSU</p>
<p>I do have to hand it to the Wolverines, they avenged their loss to Appalachian state with a New Years win over my beloved Gators this year! :)</p>
<p>^ Seniors trying to please coach for his last game…;)</p>
<p>I understand your frustration ExplorerCY. Except for football, nobody really talks about tosu here on CC.</p>
<p>tomslawsky, if you’re talking about that study done by CEO, U-M had to redact tons of data in the dataset they gave them (for privacy reasons), so their conclusions are really problematic. CEO was not working with data anywhere near as complete or representative as they may imply they are. </p>
<p>I’d hardly call a 3.4 equivalent to a “free ride into Michigan.”</p>
<p>Also, those comparisons before and after January 07 are also not comparable. U-M pushed very hard to make as many admits as possible before the system changed. So they really front-loaded a lot of admits-and from ALL groups, not just URMs (although URMs were a great group for the U to focus efforts on, because they typically didn’t apply as early as their peers). They really pushed for people to apply early, get their various application pieced in early, and be admitted before the New Year. It was an atypical year in terms of admit over time patterns. It’s true that URM admissions will likely drop under prop 2, but using last year is not a good way to measure that.</p>
<p>Hoedown…I call THIS a relative free ride into UM…</p>
<p>“In terms of probability of admissions in 2005, black and Hispanic students with a 1240 SAT and a 3.2 high school GPA, for instance, had a 9 out of 10 chance of admissions, while whites and Asians in this group had only a 1 out of 10 chance.”</p>
<p>“76 Percent of underrepresented minority applicants accepted before the University stopped using affirmative action in early January”</p>
<p>Sugar coat it all you want…facts are facts.</p>
<p>There are facts and there are facts. The fact is that the Center for Equal Opportunity analysis was conducted on a very incomplete sample. And the fact is that U-M frontloaded application recruitment, completion, and processing before December 22nd, 2006. This is not “sugarcoating.”</p>
<p>Yes, affirmative action made it relatively easier for some minority candidates to get in than their peers with a similar profile. However, the numbers you’re sharing come with pretty big caveats, and I know what those caveats are and am sharing them with the readers here.</p>
<p>I’m having trouble getting to both those links. I am correct that it’s the CEO analysis the first is based upon? That’s the only group I know that has done that particular analysis with those conclusions.</p>
<p>“In terms of probability of admissions in 2005, black and Hispanic students with a 1240 SAT and a 3.2 high school GPA, for instance, had a 9 out of 10 chance of admissions, while whites and Asians in this group had only a 1 out of 10 chance.”</p>
<p>Hoedown- "Yes, affirmative action made it relatively easier for some minority candidates to get in than their peers with a similar profile. </p>
<p>Wow, I guess we just have a fundamental difference with the meaning of the word “some”…I would use the words “Most” or “almost all” where chose the word “some” to quantify a 90% admission rate versus a 10% rate.</p>
<p>It’s appropriate and accurate for me to say “some.” </p>
<p>It’s just math.</p>
<p>The 90-10% difference doesn’t support your claim that MOST or ALL URMs benefit. That figure only holds (with the caveat about methodology cited before) for the specific number of applicants in 2005 who applied with exactly a 1250 SAT and 3.2 GPA. Do you know what number that is? Relative to the overall pool of applicants? I don’t have that information with me, but I am certain that it has to be small given the profile of applicants to U-M and the relatively small number of URMs in the pool. It would be spurious to say that the 90-10% split applied to ALL URM applicants. I also think it would be very questionable to claim that the 90-10 split applied to MOST URM applicants.</p>
<p>The basic point is this: the advantage that a minority candidate got from the former SI varies depending on his or her overall profile. For the most qualified candidates, it mattered not at all. For some number of marginal candidates (I mean marginal for admits thresholds at the U), it mattered enormously. And for very poor students, it also didn’t matter. 20 points isn’t going to help a bottom-basement SI. </p>
<p>Put another way: It ONLY matters for that number of candidates whose SI without the 20 points would have fallen below the admit threshold. That is, if U-M was admitting at SI of 125 or above, it mattered for all the URMs with a 144-125 SI. Because without the 20 points they would not have gotten in. Above 144, it didn’t matter. Below 125, it didn’t matter. What portion of the URM applicant pool fell between 144 and 125? All? Most? I don’t know, so I’m saying “some.” I think this is justified.</p>
<p>“76 Percent of underrepresented minority applicants accepted before the University stopped using affirmative action in early January”</p>
<p>OK, it’s appropriate to say “some” still in light of this, huh??? Look, AGAIN…you can dodge and weave and purse what I write, but in the end of the day, you look ridiculous for using words like “some” when the fact is “most”. The difference in 2005 between Asian acceptance and black acceptance was 1400 SAT to 1120 SAT, or 280 points.</p>
<p>The overall acceptance rate was 63%. The average admitted SAT of th school was 1375, the Average black admitted SAT was 1120 with an acceptance rate of 80%+. In pother words, blacks (and other URM’s) with lower scores and grades were admitted at a statistically significant MUCH higher rate than the college in general. When compared to whites and Asians, this chasm becomes so pronounced that a logical thinker is forced to conclude racism is at play. If you can’t look at the data and see the HUGE advantage checking the minority box is in admissions then I can’t do anything for you. You are either incapable of making logical interpretations from a data set or you are being intellectually dishonest. you don’t need EVERY data point to look at summaries and make accurate and logical conclusions.</p>
<p>tomslawsky, I am willing to bet such significant differences are common at most elite universities. Do you honestly believe the average URM at Harvard or MIT have average SAT/ACt scores of 1480/32?</p>
<p>Aleandre…I agree 100%. Because a phenomena is wide spread and systemic doesn’t make it ethical though, nor in my opinion, legal. Look, anyone that follows my posts knows I share much of the same passion for U-Florida that you do for Michigan, but iI suspect UF had the same racial practice and am willing to call them out in it too. Here are some quites I find interesting.</p>
<p>[Race</a> Preference in College Admissions](<a href=“http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/HL611.cfm]Race”>http://www.heritage.org/Research/Education/HL611.cfm)</p>
<p>In his Brief in the case of Brown v. Board of Education, Thurgood Marshall, then executive director of the Legal Defense Fund of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, wrote in 1954:</p>
<p>“Distinctions by race are so evil, so arbitrary and invidious that a state, bound to defend the equal protection of the laws must not invoke them in any public sphere.”</p>
<p>“Justice Marshall long ago made it clear that the plain words of federal law proscribe racial discrimination…against whites on the same terms as racial discrimination against non-whites.”</p>
<p>And race preferences fly in the face of the Equal Protection Clause. Justice Powell, in Bakke, put this eloquently:</p>
<pre><code>“The guarantee of equal protection cannot mean one thing when applied to one individual and something else when applied to a person of another color. If both are not accorded the same protection, then it is not equal.”
</code></pre>
<p>Justice Powell, in Bakke, very specifically addressed this “racial balance” defense of admissions preference; he wrote that such a purpose is “facially invalid,” invalid on its face! He concludes:</p>
<pre><code>“Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake. This the Constitution forbids.”
</code></pre>
<p>Don’t get me wrong Tom, I was opposed to Michigan’s use of race in undergraudate admissions and I was pleased when the University was forced to cease using race in the way it did. I just think that URMs are given special allowances at most universities.</p>
<p>I am a California resident as well and I turned down NYU and USC for Michigan.</p>
<p>And it was one of the best decisions I ever made. :)</p>
<p>Ok Tom. You’ve turned another thread into an “I hate AA” thread. I’m happy for you. I’m sure the OP will thank you for your opinions.</p>
<p>I am offering solid, knowledgable information, Tom, directly related to what U-M used to do. If you want to suggest that doing math and laying out useful factual information about the SI is “dodging and weaving,” so be it. Slipping in insults about my intellect isn’t really the thing I like to see on a board dedicated to college admissions and college information, but we all choose our own words.</p>
<p>My information is consistent from post to post in this thread.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not sure what your point is, but I basically disagree. I would say this: A logical thinker might conclude affirmative action is at play. A logical thinker might note that 20 points is obviously big help for some students. And what of it? We’re not disputing that affirmative action happened during the time period discussed. No one is. That was national news. Therefore, I am not sure what your beef is with the factual information I’ve provided, or what you mean by suggesting I’m not logical if I cannot “see” something.</p>
<p>The one screwup in my posts is this–not making clear the distinction between pre-2003, when the SI was in effect, and the period before Prop 2, when UM no longer used a formula but was legally allowed to use holistic admissions to impart an advantage to some candidates, including URMs. </p>
<p>The SI example I gave is factual for pre-2003, and still useful because it demonstrates how affirmative action helps some URM candidates but not all. But it isn’t directly applicable to 2005. In 2005 there were not SI points, but the same principles remained, with the same effects: very strong URM candidates weren’t helped by affirmative action (it wasn’t necessary) and very weak candidates weren’t either (extra consideration was not enough). </p>
<p>It helped those in the middle. How MANY that involved, and how MUCH it helped, or whether this is a good idea at all, may be worth wondering about or disputing. But the facts that (a) affirmative action was practiced here at the University and (b) it helped some but not all URMs? Those are facts.</p>
<p>“I’m not sure what your point is, but I basically disagree. I would say this: A logical thinker might conclude affirmative action is at play”</p>
<p>A logical thinker MUST conclude AA is a racist policy. You can paint it anyway you want, but it is what is. </p>
<p>Oh and please tell us all how, logically, this leads to a “slight” help in admissions:</p>
<p>“In the most recent year (2005), the median black admittee’s SAT score was 1160, versus 1260 for Hispanics, 1350 for whites, and 1400 for Asians. High school GPAs were 3.4 for the median black, 3.6 for Hispanics, 3.8 for Asians, and 3.9 for whites.”</p>