<p>nobodies students are being babied. you can’t baby somebody in the admissions process because they’ve already performed through their application.</p>
<p>To graduate, all you need is 2.0. But getting 2.0 is NOT “competing well”. After all, the Tulane students didn’t fail at higher ranked schools like Northwestern and Harvard. I’d use average GPA as the proof if such data is available but it’d be very politically incorrect to even have such data tracked!</p>
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<p>Tyler,</p>
<p>Yes, you can baby a student. Many of the methods you suggest and support do so. For example, you advocate different standards for different students depending on how they answer the question, “Where were your grandparents born?” If the student answers that they were born here and the student is “under-represented,” you believe that this student should be granted preferential treatment. If the student answers that they were born elsewhere, you believe that this student should be treated under a different, stricter standard. You babied one student and discriminated against the other because of historic national origin.</p>
<p>Besides, if they’ve “already performed through their application,” then why do you need to look at irrelevant factors? Because it magically promotes “diversity?”</p>
<p>even if URMs are doing decently, it still doesn’t justify AA. a caucasian kid with slight lower stats could potentially do well too.</p>
<p>Research states that people that confuse “do” and “due” are far more likely to doo worse in college.</p>
<p>Usually lower-income students tend to perform worse than upper-income students. The minorities (except for Asians) in the USA on average tend to make less money than non-minorities. Therefore, minorities on average perform worse than non-minorities. The performance gap is much greater in high school than in college because many poor performing students end up not graduating or getting into college, and because many lower-income students are unable to afford college.</p>
<p>phonyreal98 : what the hell are you talking about.</p>
<p>“Usually lower-income students tend to perform worse than upper-income students. The minorities (except for Asians) in the USA on average tend to make less money than non-minorities. Therefore, minorities on average perform worse than non-minorities. The performance gap is much greater in high school than in college because many poor performing students end up not graduating or getting into college, and because many lower-income students are unable to afford college.”</p>
<p>What the hell does any of this mean as it relates to minorities at Ivy League schools??</p>
<p>Thats B.S…anyone can do well or perform badly in college…guess what a asian kid or a caucasian can spend all of daddys money on drugs nd screw up in school…yes some minorities take the easy route(welfare when theyre are tons of jobs available) but not all minorities are lazy idiots…</p>
<p>Look, of course, minorities are going to perform worse in general. At any given college, kids with 1500 SAT scores are going to outperform kids with 1350 SAT scores on average. It just so happens (due to affirmative action), that most of the kids with 1350 SAT scores at Harvard are minorities while kids with 1500 SAT scores are Asian/Whites. </p>
<p>Why do these minorities perform worse on the SAT? Maybe it’s because they aren’t as intelligent or driven (yes, some rich blacks who’ve had all of the advantages of any ORM do get in under AA) and/or maybe they’ve had subpar elementary and high school education. Either way, these minorities are going to require remedial classes and are going to perform worse GPA-wise than ORMs.</p>
<p>"At any given college, kids with 1500 SAT scores are going to outperform kids with 1350 SAT scores on average’</p>
<p>Do you have a source for that? I was under the impression Spa was a better predictor then SAT’s with regard to performance in college.</p>
<p>There is obviously some correlation between SAT scores and HS GPA and college GPA. That is why college use them as the main admissions factors. Whether you want to consider GPA or SAT score, minorities are going to be lower on average (due to AA).</p>
<p>I thought that was why SOME schools use them, and because it’s easy. I thought some pretty good schools no longer use them because it’s not as helpful as originally thought. I thought the UC’s almost stopped using them as well.</p>
<p>there has been plenty of higher education research out there indicating that a student’s course selection in high school and their subsequent gpa in their high school program are the best predictors of college performance. in fact, there has also been research which suggests that sat scores - if they help predict anything - only go so far as to predict <em>possible</em> first-year performace. the sat is severely limited in its ability to indicate anything other than a testtaker’s analytical skills, which can be taught. if you aren’t taught these particular skills well - for whatever social, economic, cultural, or psychological reason - you are not going to do well on the sat. </p>
<p>many of you on here are making gross assumptions about the sat and college performance - not only of underrepresented minorities, but of whites and asian american students as well. the majority of the most selective institutions, you will notice, not only have the highest graduation rates for black and latino students, but for all students in general. this says more about the level of support students are given at these schools than anything else. these schools can 1) afford to provide their students with small classes, tutors, resource centers, and other support programs and 2) are also extremely vested in graduation rates because they have more at stake (namely, their reputations) than lesser-respected schools if they are not graduating all students in high numbers.</p>
<p>if you are interested in learning more about this, pm me.</p>
<p>SAT scores? To my knowledge, all of the top schools still use SAT scores.</p>
<p>^^^Which is why I said to look at college GPAs as indicators of minority performance, not graduation rates. Grade inflation tends to obscure distinctions between students. It’s practically impossible to flunk out of Harvard. You would have to score two std. dev below the mean in a class to fail it. Just because you managed not to score in the bottom 3% doesn’t mean you actually learned anything.</p>
<p>^^^^^
you’re right, most schools still use sat scores…no one denied that norcalguy. however, there are many of us working in admissions who recognize the limitations of it. you asserted that “There is obviously some correlation between SAT scores and HS GPA and college GPA. That is why college use them as the main admissions factors. Whether you want to consider GPA or SAT score, minorities are going to be lower on average (due to AA).” this is not entirely true…that’s my point. in addition, minorities do not have lower gpa and sat scores on average due to affirmative action…affirmative action policies do not cause the academic achievement gaps that we see in education.</p>
<p>Sorry adofficer, the initial SAT score comment was actually directed at shrinkrap. He was asking whether top schools had dropped the SAT score as an admissions consideration, which, they obviously have not.</p>
<p>“in addition, minorities do not have lower gpa and sat scores on average due to affirmative action”</p>
<p>I just reread what I wrote and apologize for not being more articulate. I meant that affirmative action is why URMs at a particular college have lower SAT scores and HS GPAs than ORMs at the same college, not why URMs have lower SAT scores overall. </p>
<p>The academic achievement gap is caused by a variety of socioeconomic factors that affirmative action does nothing to address.</p>
<p>Here is the profile of the typical URM that AA helps most: upper middle class, 1350 SAT score. The kind of URM who gets into Harvard or Yale is NOT from Compton or Harlem. They may not be as rich as the ORMs who get into Harvard or Yale, but they are richer than the typical American. They come from educated families already. They will go to college whether they get into an Ivy or not. AA helps these kinds of kids but that doesn’t address the discrepancy in college attendance (which I see as the most pressing issue).</p>
<p>Who are the kinds of kids we SHOULD be helping? The black and latino kids who actually did have to work 30 hours a week through high schoo. Who actually did grow up with one parent. Who worked hard but only achieved a 1000 SAT score. Those who are on the cusp of going to college (any college) but doesn’t know very much about the daunting application process. I volunteered this past semester with an organization called Let’s Get Ready! (<a href=“http://www.letsgetready.org%5B/url%5D”>www.letsgetready.org</a>) as a college mentor to precisely address this issue. The kids I tutored/mentored were not your typical CC students. They had average SAT scores and were in general driven but average students. We did not profile colleges like Harvard or Yale. Instead, we covered colleges like Arizona St. and Colgate. These are the kids we should be helping, not the upper middle class blacks who are getting into Yale with lower SAT scores (on average 150 pts lower). AA only matters for selective colleges. Therefore, it only helps those who are privileged enough to get a 1300 SAT score in the first place.</p>
<p>The problem with AA is that it makes minorities and minority-advocates think that progress is made. I read post after post after post after post by URMs on this site defending affirmative action and yet I seem to be the only one calling for more programs like LGR. These kinds of programs rely directly on college volunteers and cost almost nothing to institute. Most importantly, they help borderline minorities get into college which is the best way to ameliorate the educational/income disparity between different races.</p>
<p>Not all minorities perform worse than non-minorities. But the average minority student generally performs worse than an average non-minority.</p>
<p>Yes. of course.</p>
<p>hmmmm, so I’m definitely a little late to this conversation, but I’ll toss in my two cents…</p>
<p>I’m an African-American female and a rising sophomore at Harvard. During my freshman year, I had the pleasure of interacting with students of all races and I must say that I never observed minorities performing worse than non-minorities. If anything, I observed it as the other way around. I don’t have any statistical data to back this up, but based on study habits and work ethics I have observed, I would say that minorities tend to work harder than some non-minorities (not all) and they also tend to perform at, if not above the same level as non-minorities. </p>
<p>For example, I saw numerous non-minority students take for granted their Harvard education and party their grades away. Many of my white friends were put on academic probation for failing classes. However, none of the black kids I know were ever put on academic probation (and the black community at Harvard is pretty tight-knit, so if someone were put on academic probation, it would be known).</p>
<p>I think the reason behind all of this is motivation. As a minority at a top school, I (and my minority friends) feel that we HAVE to succeed and failure is not an option. This driving determination comes from society telling us that we “stole a more qualified white kid’s spot” or that we “only got in because of Affirmative Action.” </p>
<p>Also, I know from personal experience, and from those I have discussed this with, that there is also intense family pressure to succeed at college. At Harvard, most of the black students are of Caribbean or African descent and these ethnicities (and immigrants in general) are notorious for putting special emphasis on education. So there is no doubt that these kids are doing everything in their power to succeed to at least please their parents.</p>
<p>For all the non-immigrant minorities (such as myself) going to Harvard is a really big deal. My whole family (from my college-educated parents, to my non-educated grandmother, to my high school graduate uncles) is looking to me to succeed at Harvard. So, I have to perform at at least the same level as my white classmates if I want to be at the top of the grading curve.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that these pressures and drive do not exist for all non-minority students. But for the monied legacies (which there are actually quite a few of) or the recruited athletes, there is not nearly as much pressure. Which is why you can find many of them partying in final clubs the on a Tuesday night, or neglecting to do their 15 page paper until hours before it is due… (all of this I witnessed on many an occasion)</p>
<p>I guess what I am saying is that minorities in general (by virtue of being a minority) have more pressure to succeed in top colleges and therefore do; which is why the graduation rate for black kids at Harvard is so high. Even if some minorities are not as “naturally smart” as some of their white counterparts, they make up for this through sheer hard work. </p>
<p>So, to answer the question, I do not believe that minorities perform any worse than non-minorities in college.</p>
<p>Also to address another question: Someone asked what the majors of these minorities are (implying that if minorities do indeed perform at the same level, it is only because they are choosing easier majors). I know that at Harvard most of the black kids are either pre-med (meaning that they are a science major) or economics (the biggest major at Harvard- so most non-minority students are also economics major). So, minorities at Harvard do not choose easier majors than all the other students.</p>