What do these terms really mean to a high school student? are they just.concepts or already in force? If our kids have to work harder in order to get into their dream school, how harder could it be? Any input is highly appreciated.
Do you have a specific question?
Are “affirmative action” and “underrepresented groups” the concepts you are asking about? And how much harder could what be? And who are “our kids”? Maybe you could rewrite your question.
I was going to ask the questions ^^^ above, so do please come back and clarify.
My son’s dream school is MIT. I heard that MIT would favor Underrepresented groups over normal boys with sometimes better background. So my question is after they take the UPG, how many seats usually left for a normal boy to compete and how better the performance has to be?
@newHSmom Quotas are banned by colleges so there aren’t some fixed amount of seats allocated to underrepresented groups. However typically an Asian or White applicant has an SAT score 100-200 points higher than the average URM at elite colleges. Although test scores don’t mean everything, it’s an interesting data point.
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@ben69420 Thank you for your reply. URM = URG? Besides SAT, anything else might help with the opportunity? Maybe I should talk him down to some other schools…
@CheddarcheeseMN Sorry I missed your comments, do you mind to share with me one more time?
Well, first of all, we tend to discourage the idea of “dream” schools. A place like MIT is fiercely competitive for an admit and to get in you need to do more than dream. Dig into what the school looks for.
Second, it’s not all about stats. They matter, but admissions is holistic. It means, among all those top kids who apply, more matters.
Third, make sure you can afford it.
No, An Asian or White kid doesn’t have to score an extra 100-200 points. But you do have to be on your game. Dig into what MIT looks for. It’s all over their web site.
What is a “normal boy”? Are boys (or girls) in less represented groups abnormal in some way?
Until today, I had no idea that other people’s kids and Underrepresented groups were abnormal.
The schools are not admitting a background. They are trying to admit students with potential, and sometimes those students are not born into optimally privileged circumstances. So their scores are a little lower.
^^Be nice, English is not everyone’s first language.
^^^ Exactly!
@lookingforward Thank you for your reply. I’ll look into their website and we will be visiting the school in Boston this summer. We probably should also look at the engineering program in other schools like Purdue…
@intparent @GMTplus7 Sorry I didn’t mean to offend you by using word “normal”. I meant non-URM.
If I was conversing in a foreign language, I would appreciate being informed ASAP that I was using offensive terminology.
I had an associate from Brazil who deliberately used the “N word” because in Brazil it was acceptable usage, while using the word “black” was derogatory. I straightened her out really fast.
@mathyone Thank you for your reply. I do hope at least in the engineering area that all the kids can be treated the same way. I heard (may not be true) that a fair amount of MIT students switched majors after they got in because they could not keep up with certain courses…
@sylvan8798 and @Ballerina016 Thank you both for being nice to me. I always try to improve my english 
Like I just learned that I should have used “non-URM” or “Asian or White” instead of “normal” in my original question and “stats” is better than “background”…