Civil War? That’s never been my argument. Never.
And holistic has freaking evolved. No rubber stamps, yea or nay. (Maybe that’s what bugs people, that they can’t take their little hs microcosms and settle for what works there. -that there is no predictability.)
THIS:
Really. Posters need to move on already. Those battles have died and are not being resurrected in any form today, nor will they be in the future.
Agree with the rest of your post as well. The elites are not admitting loser students with subpar ability. Columbia is one of over 60 institutions that participates in this:
https://www.cc-seas.columbia.edu/asp/programs
It is not a race-based selection process. However, the majority of such eligible students will in fact be URM’s due to the way economic distributions tend to fall most heavily. Note the heavy level of support for such students, listed on that page.
As to graduation rates:
I read somewhere that the HEOP graduation rate for Columbia College was 90%.
@lookingforward, yes, holistic has evolved, and holistic will likely evolve more. The Ivy administrators of 70 years ago were sure that they were doing the right thing at that time. We’ll see 50 years hence whether the folks of that time will judge current elite college adcoms to be on the right side of history or not.
Nor does that worry me, PT.
You have to grasp that Affirmative Action has had many goals and many modalities to get there. People focus primarily on two perceived tender spots: hiring/promotion and college admissions. They see AA as a personal threat and adore anecdotes that show suffering, as a result. I keep wondering what that says.
Would you go backwards with equality for women and the disabled? Or is it just URMs that drive people nuts? Yo.
@lookingforward, look at your assumptions. Implicitly, you assume that AA is going forwards. Why do you believe that treating people unequally because of gender is “going backwards” but treating people unequally because of race is “going forwards”?
Personally, I’m inclined towards the same standard and opportunities for all, regardless of race, gender, religion, or other attributes (which, BTW, is how many of the heavily socialist European educational systems do it). It seems obvious that you disagree.
That said, I understand that different institutions have different wants (for American privates, pleasing alums is a pretty big concern; and it actually is a source of strength for them). That’s why I really favor a diversity of different educational systems, admissions schemes, etc.
AA has been going forward, for a few decades. We now have parents and grandparents now influencing the present and next generations (all of us.) (Same for women, the disabled, those of minority religions, gays, etc. One might say, progress begets progress.)
You have to try this out: that holistic for URMs is not all about race. Nor is it all about gender for women,eg, in STEM, or the simple fact of low SES. Each college (and my primary familiarity is the elites) has its standards and expectations.
It does expect accomplishment, does consider SES, the climate of opportunity around a student, parental education and college experience and more. No rubber stamps for “race.”
Nor is this about pleasing alums. It does matter, however, to build strong sets of alums, as a measure of success (and success is fluid.)
Here’s what UC considers:
The 14 Factors the UC system weighs
- Grade-point average
- Test scores
- Performance in and number of courses beyond minimum a-g requirements
- UC-approved honors courses and advanced courses
- Eligibility in the Local Context (ELC) – CA residents only
- Quality of senior-year program of study
- Academic opportunities in California high schools
- Outstanding performance in one or more academic subject areas
- Achievements in special projects
- Improvement in academic performance
- Special talents, achievements and awards
- Participation in educational preparation programs
- Academic accomplishment in light of life experiences
- Geographic location
Note: No single factor determines admissio
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Personally, I'm inclined towards the same standard and opportunities for all, regardless of race, gender, religion, or other attributes (which, BTW, is how many of the heavily socialist European educational systems do it). It seems obvious that you disagree.<<<
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Okidoki. What happens if you add attributes such as wealth and geo location to your little list? Should schools not look at the scions of Donald Trump differently from a kid who commutes 2 hours to escape a drug infested high school and returns home to a slum? Is the son of a shrimp farmer in Louisiana who works 30 hours a week and earns a 1400 SAT needs an adjustment to Malia O who scores the same?
The results of holistic admissions are very often obscured by isolating a single element to satisfy an agenda or by mere ignorance. This thread is simply a clear representation of that!
People focus on the black and white issue and ignore the “how” the URM overcame plenty of handicaps. Fwiw, White AND Asians are not excluded from such evaluations if they present a compelling story. And this even happen at systems which some applaud for being race neutral. Years ago, Davis published its list of review elements and it included such elements.
People who push for the abolition of racial criteria should be careful about what they wish for. Schools that would NOT be scrutinized for racial selections might very well find ways to increase diversity by rewarding a set of elements that predominaly favor the old URM classes. To keep it simple, HYPS could increase its URM by 20 percent and reduce its White and Asian by 10 percent WITHOUT looking at the race LABEL but at the attributes and contents of applications.
The saddest part of AA in education is that it remains so hopelessly NEEDED. And that so few schools have the courage to realize it and fight for a just system.
xiggi I absolutely agree with you. And the fact of the matter is that a kid who grew up milking the cows on a family farm in Iowa is JUST as advantaged over your run-of-the-mill high achieving kid from private boarding school or Scarsdale public school, as this theoretical URM. And that kid is almost certainly white. How boring it would be if we filled HYPMS with kids who all scored 2350+ with 4.0+ GPAs.
@xiggi wrote
The son of a shrimp farmer in Louisiana who works 30 hours a week and earns a 1400 SAT is likely to be Cambodian, and likely to be dinged for being asian.
UT, OTOH, argued that it needed to use race in the holistic round to admit high SES URMs to have “diversity within diversity”. Where’s the social justice in that?
Here we go again.
@gmtplus7 I believe Cambodians are actually URM under moist AA policies.
*most
@xiggi, under holistic admissions as currently practiced by American elites, Trump’s children would certainly be treated differently; right now, they would have a massive advantage over the son of a poor (most likely Vietnamese descent) shrimp farmer from Louisiana.
Forgive me if I don’t express full-throated support for such an admissions philosophy.
The AA list seems to include Cambodian, Vietnamese, Hmong, Laotian and Philipino. I doubt it’s a trump size bump but it’s a URM size bump.
BTW, @lookingforward, I find your characterization of equality for women as being a step forward as ironic. Ironic because, as you and I both know, under current holistic admissions, outside of the tech institutes and maybe some STEM fields, it is tougher for a female student to get in to private American elites these days than an equally accomplished male student who has the same characteristics (race, geography, whatever). So would you say that holistic admissions as practiced by the elites currently is a step backwards?
@OHMomof2, where are you getting your AA list from? I’ve heard of Pacific Islanders (who some group Filipinos under) being considered URM, but I haven’t heard of any mainland Asian race being categorized as URM for many years now.
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@xiggi, under holistic admissions as currently practiced by American elites, Trump's children would certainly be treated differently; right now, they would have a massive advantage over the son of a poor (most likely Vietnamese descent) shrimp farmer from Louisiana.
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Forgive me if I don’t express full-throated support for such an admissions philosophy. <<<
Well, then you should understand the spirit of my post to its fullest. Reducing holistic reviews or eliminating race is not a proxy for a more equitable system.
PT, you’re misreading my comments.
I guess if one insists “race” can be a sole determining factor for admissions, much of the rest of what these college look for is simply missed.
And yes, “Asians” who are under-represented within the broad category may be considered URM. Not so automatically Filipino. Cambodian, Hmong or Laotian,would be examples…
Not at all, @lookingforward. I’m applying logical consistency to them.
I notice that you didn’t answer my question.
If you define equality for women as going forward (as you did) and the private American elites do not treat female applicants equally (as they currently do not), then what conclusion would you draw?
Is there a point I made that you want to quibble with, @lookingforward?
@xiggi, if you want people to understand the spirit of your posts, then maybe you should provide examples that bolster your claim rather than ones that weaken them.
As for whether a system is equitable, that would depend on your definition. I hope it wouldn’t surpise you to learn that different people will have different ones. To some folks, reducing the holistic aspect of current elite college admissions would indeed be more equitable. It seems fairly clear to me that you and others do not believe so. Yet it’s hard for me to imagine how anyone can make the argument that any system where people like Trump’s children get a big advantage (as is currently the case now) is a very equitable system.