Any statistics to show that minorities due worse in college?

Applying to College
21

<p>Oh god.</p>

<p>Did anyone stop to think that MAYBE black/latino students leave the Ivies and other prestigious schools that are historically white and only recently started admitting students of color in large numbers (large being about 7% per minority) BECAUSE of this sort of attitude.</p>

<p>No one wants to go to school at an institution where a large part of the student body thinks they got in ‘because they were black.’</p>

<p>In addition, I don’t think that anyone has brought up the economic disparity between the races. It has been shown that money increases average academic performance. And if a college does not have programs that support minorities or underprivileged groups (such as the one that Amherst touts) then that group will be less likely to remain.</p>

<p>This topic also changes considerably outside the UC system, where, to be honest, most of the minorities entering elite colleges are upper middle class. And, odds are, have the same GPAs, test scores, and graduation rates as their fellows.</p>

<p>Implying otherwise in this day and age is sickening and entirely unnecessary.</p>

22

<p>molliebatmit,</p>

<p>Thank you for the explanation.</p>

23

<p>Tyler,</p>

<p>It’s very convenient to ignore the following: So, make your own, knowing that I emphasized percentage because in terms of numbers, the number of “over-represented” students is greater than the sum of all three “under-represented” groups.</p>

<p>Isn’t it?</p>

<p>If you took a mere five seconds to do some simple calculations, you would know that according to the College Board, there are over 1,400 Black students enrolled at both UCB and UCLA. That’s over seven times your made up 200 figure. Did you just decide that 200 sounded good, or are you disrespecting the other 1,200+ students currently enrolled?</p>

<p>You ask me what evidence I have that Black students admitted to Berkeley and UCLA were struggling under the old system. Unlike UCSD, I have no numbers regarding honor graduates at either campus. The only number I have is that the graduation rate for Black students at Berkeley rose 6.5%.</p>

<p>Your statement that “just because their [sic] weren’t black students graduating with honors from those campuses doesn’t mean they were struggling” is only true if you assume that those students are not trying to do the best they can. Are you?</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>6.5% increase in graduation rate = good. Or, do you think it’s bad?</p>

24

<p>ses,</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Thank you, those are my thoughts exactly. The way affirmative action is practiced, though, exacerbates this stigmatization. Remove it, and such a thought will be meaningless.</p>

<p>If you want do economic disparity, let’s rock. In terms of magnitude, there are more poor Whites than poor Blacks. In 1995, average SAT scores of Black students with family incomes greater than or equal to $70,000 were lower than average SAT scores of both White and Asian students with family incomes less than or equal to $10,000. Of course, you could say that SAT scores are but one part of academic performance, and I would agree.</p>

<p>After Proposition 209 passed, UC realized that if they wanted to continue their outreach, they had to uphold the spirit of the word “inclusion.” They redefined programs to include all disadvantaged students. What happened? Forty percent of all students at UCLA and UCB receive Pell Grants. The same number for Michigan before Proposal 2 passed last November was thirteen percent, less than a third.</p>

<p>You are indeed correct that outreach to the disadvantaged is important.</p>

<p>So you say that most of the minorities entering elite colleges are upper middle class and have stats and graduation rates comparable to their peers. It seems like affirmative action is out of date. If we remove it, these students will still be admitted, yes?</p>

<p>But, let’s not bring down the hammer of political correctness, or as another user eloquently puts it, the hammer of “truth.”</p>

25

<p>Yes, its impossible. The graduation rate rose because:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Less black students</p></li>
<li><p>Those few black students left were only the strongest minority so of course if you slice out the bottom 3/4ths of african americans at a university, or any group, the graduation rates are going to rise. And the fact that it only rose 6.5 SHOWS that the african americans admitted before were able to do well.</p></li>
</ol>

26

<p>“Your statement that “just because their [sic] weren’t black students graduating with honors from those campuses doesn’t mean they were struggling” is only true if you assume that those students are not trying to do the best they can. Are you?”</p>

<p>-no you don’t have to assume they weren’t trying their best any more than other groups. It just means that you’re still a fit at a university even if you don’t graduate with honors.</p>

<p>""No one wants to go to school at an institution where a large part of the student body thinks they got in ‘because they were black.’</p>

<p>Thank you, those are my thoughts exactly. The way affirmative action is practiced, though, exacerbates this stigmatization. Remove it, and such a thought will be meaningless.“”</p>

<p>-Why would we change a beneficial system because some covert racists have trouble with it. And you have to admit that to disrespect the black population at a school because you stereotype them as “only getting in because they’re black” IS a racist idea. Let the students admitted prove to them once they get there that they didn’t get in just because they’re black. </p>

<p>-that’s like saying that because a lot of white people thought “our schools are going down hill wit all dem naggers bein bussed in” we should have ended the desegregation of schools to end that sentiment. Do you see how stupid and illogical that is?</p>

<p>It made no sense to end a program because of those racist thoughts then and it holds true today. That entire argument is just bull. </p>

<p>AA has evolved beyond the reparations program it was 40 years ago. It’s now a diversity promotion. And like it or not, AA is ALWAYS going to be around in the private elites because those campuses are ALWAYS going to seek racial diversity. and until all groups have the resources and perform equally AA will stick around. Because the value of racial diversity isn’t outdated, neither is AA. </p>

<p>The only reasons someone could be so zealously opposed to AA would be because they either don’t understand the importance of racial diversity, are racist and opposed to that diversity, or, as i suspect is your case, are jealous that someone receives a tip that they don’t because they have an inflated sense of entitlement. </p>

<p>IF it really bugs you so much, why don’t you push just as hard for change in the K-12 school system to accelerate the process of equalizing the academic performance of all groups. That has to happen FIRST before AA can be done away with.</p>

27

<p>Tyler,</p>

<p>Let’s assume for half a second that a majority of the White Californians who voted in favor of Proposition 209 did so for racist reasons (i.e. they wanted more Whites enrolled in the U.C. system.)</p>

<p>You should know that after 1996, White admissions actually dropped at several of the U.C. campuses, namely Berkeley and LA. But, I don’t see too many of these alleged racists pushing for the reinstation of racial preferences. Maybe it’s because most of the White Californians who voted for Proposition 209 weren’t racists; they were for the advancement of the race-neutral ideal.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>It is both stupid and illogical to end busing simply to end that racist sentiment. I do not advocate the abolition of racial preferences just to reduce a thought process. I advocate it because its end betters all. California shows that empirically.</p>

<p>I’m going to assume that either you’re the son of cheers and you refuse to acknowledge that I have consistently denied having such a “sense of entitlement” or you’re the son of two former members of Weather Underground and you’ll be one of the 42 people who vote for socialist candidates in future elections.</p>

<p>And, I do “push [very hard] for change in the K-12 school system to accelerate the process of equalizing the academic performance of all groups.” However, doing this while supporting racial preferences is counterproductive. It is like giving a heroin addict anti-addiction medication while still allowing him to shoot the same amount of dope.</p>

28

<p>no it’s like saying you’re going to send someone with a broken leg into surgery but not letting them have a cast in the mean time…</p>

<p>And if you read what i quoted before, you DID say that you agreed that AA should be abolished because it was making racists more racist.</p>

29

<p>Only if they spell “do” wrong.</p>

<p>Just a little joke.</p>

30

<p>

</p>

<p>You’re such a typical CC’er…going out of you way to make people feel stupid because of a typo, real nice.</p>

31

<p>This week’s Chronicle of Higher Education has a long story on the subject.</p>

32

<p>Tyler,</p>

<p>To my knowledge, a cast prevents unnecessary movement in the area where bones are broken. It helps. Surgery fixes the problem. It also helps.</p>

<p>Preferential treatment the way you support it does not help. You’re saying that it’s OK for some students to be academically weaker than others because they’re “unique” or they have “spark” or they contribute to “diversity.” Are you really encouraging them to be better, or are you condoning mediocrity?</p>

<p>Pushing for change at the K-12 level helps and has no resultant stigmatization. We again have seen this post-Proposition 209 in California, where the numbers clearly show that high school and university graduation rates have increased as a result of an inflow of quality teachers and aggressive inclusive outreach. California is a truly a model for other states to follow in terms of race neutrality in public institutions. They are also one of the most open in terms of offering statistics.</p>

<p>By the way, are you going to acknowledge that it is you, rather than I, who has claimed that I have a “sense of entitlement?”</p>

33

<p>who are you to call those students mediocre??? No student admitted to any top university is simple mediocre and it is statements like that that evince your ignorance. </p>

<p>And, once again, the california public school system DOESN"T WANT anyone to follow there race-neutral policy. They hate it. All the people did was impose their scared, prejudiced, self-entitled ignorance on a school system that would have improved with aggressive recruitment race-neutral or not. The studies with increased graduation rates are so incomplete and wrong when you read between the lines that they aren’t even worth consideration. </p>

<p>The fact of the matter is no university wants a race-neutral policy until they don’t need one, and it is a sense of entitlement that leads you to think that you have any right to impose that on them.</p>

<p>It is completely ignorant to believe that because somebody has a 100pt higher test scores, .3 higher gpa, or spent their entire high school career doing w/e they THOUGHT would get them into the university they wanted is more deserving of a spot. That’s why colleges tell you not to try and do what you THINK they’ll like, so they wouldn’t have people with your mindset freaking out when people who are “inferior” to you get into “your” college. </p>

<p>The schools pick who they want. bottom line. if they didn’t pick you, you just weren’t what they wanted. deal.</p>

34

<p>Tyler,</p>

<p>I certainly hope you aren’t applying your socialism to imply that I do not have a right to freely express my opinion.</p>

<p>No student admitted to a top university is simply mediocre. I agree. When you use “simple,” I assume you’re referring to the student on an absolute level. The very fact that he is attending a university, much less an elite one, indicates that he is not “simple [sic] mediocre.” The question is whether or not he’s mediocre compared to his immediate peers for the next four years. Race-neutral admissions reduce the likelihood of mismatches. We see this with the California data.</p>

<p>Under the previous system, the graduation rate for Black students at UCSD was 26%. After Proposition 209 passed, the graduation rate kept rising and hit 52%, double the old number. In addition, as I have stated numerous times, the number of Black honor graduates at UCSD also doubled. The graduation rate for Blacks at Berkeley increased 6.5% after racial preferences were abolished. The number of students receiving Pell Grants at Berkeley and LA is 40%, which is over triple the equivalent figure at U-Michigan. The results do not corroborate your claims of negativity. Increased graduation rates and increased outreach to the poor are positive consequences of race-neutral admissions. As usual, you ignore these.</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>OK, I can accept that. I always thought that by “sense of entitlement,” you were erroneously attributing a false sense of “I deserve admission” to me, but it looks like that is not the case. Yes, I do have a sense of entitlement – I believe I am entitled to equal treatment as an American in the United States without regard to where my grandparents were born, my skin color, my race, my ethnic group, my gender, and any other factor that is irrelevant to the participation of either university programs or the workforce.</p>

<p>I agree with your second-to-last paragraph. The keyword in that block was “THOUGHT.” What if the student truly liked the activities he did? Do you have any right to dismiss him as a person who only did what he “thought” others would like? I don’t think so.</p>

<p>Regarding your last paragraph, I had a 100% acceptance rate in my college search.</p>

35

<p>that last sentence wasn’t a direct statement to you.</p>

<p>and if the student truly liked the activities they did, they wouldn’t be getting upset over something like this because they wouldn’t feel like they had “better” activities and deserved a spot more, or that they were getting “screwed” because they didn’t choose to do what they did for the sake of college admissions. They just did their best and hoped that great colleges would see that. </p>

<p>The best way to end this whole anti-AA sentiment is to have kids stop focusing all their energy on being admitted to college, and on trying their best at what they are PASSIONATE about. Then we wouldn’t have all the bitterness.</p>

36

<p>Tyler,</p>

<p>I disagree that what you suggest will end anti-racial preference sentiments. I do believe that it will make students happier, though.</p>

<p>What’s your response to the paragraph I wrote in #34?</p>

<p>

</p>

37

<p>Typos can get you demoted, belittled, ignored or worse in the real, i.e. professional, world. That includes college.</p>

38

<p>Is graduation rate the right thing to look at?</p>

<p>What if a black guy went to Cornell, was doing really well, and transfered to a higher ranked school such as Harvard? It would hurt the minority retention rate at Cornell, but it definitely wouldn’t show that “minorities do worse it college”. In fact, it would serve to prove the opposite thesis.</p>

39

<p>mj93,</p>

<p>I acknowledge that graduation rates don’t show the whole picture.</p>

<p>They only show who earns a degree.</p>

<p>California has shown that its students do very well when they are not babied.</p>

40

<p>average GPA could be a more useful statistic for this discussion</p>

<p>(i don’t know if that’s available)</p>