<p>“Just asking a question, didn’t mean to touch a raw nerve. Apologies.”</p>
<p>No need for apologies, it takes a lot more to irritate a raw nerve than asking a question.</p>
<p>"Nope, but make that the last 3477 posts. And the thousands before that! "</p>
<p>This thread is very entertaining though (although Xiggi has seen too much on CC and just tired of it!).</p>
<p>I think this counts as my daily Soap. Can’t wait to see what someone says next!</p>
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<p>Can’t understand why.</p>
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<p>Did the share of Asians similarly increase gradually over the 13 years?</p>
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<p>Hold the fort!</p>
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<p>I’m pretty sure that was the trend, but why don’t you look it up? It is on this thread somewhere.</p>
<p>Of course, there are newcomers, some of whom DO read entire threads, etc.
Do not think that “silence” is always “agreement.”</p>
<p>The points may have been “made”, but not always so convincingly, given lack of full info and data, and very few comps that are absolutely parallel.</p>
<p>And some of the lengthy and complex and convoluted debates have included tangents on semantics, validity of data, etc. etc. , so are not always easy to follow.</p>
<p>What is clear to me is that the stance for allowing AA is confusing enough to allow lots of people to believe different things. Qualitatively, the logic is a bit muddy.</p>
<p>To allow racial identification for the purpose of full representation by races that need a boost by virtue of weaker applications (holistically) and/or fewer applications is the stated purpose and is accepted as legal. while setting and admitting to fill racial quotas is NOT legal.</p>
<p>The difference between the two practices is quite subtle.</p>
<p>And one might not even agree with the basic goal (full and balanced representation of races), the goal of diversity, the measures for diversity, and the METHODS used. "“holistic” style admissions is by its very nature designed to be muddy. That is why there will always be questions. Asking questions is the American way- a healthy part of the process to check any possible unfair or illegal practices. </p>
<p>To me, in my reading of how all this threads have gone, I still believe racial boxes are UNnecessary. If a boost is applied, give it those with SocioEconomic disadvantages, and the racial representation will be taken care of. </p>
<p>Holistic (vs pure stats- based admissions) can work with without relying on racial identification of applicants. </p>
<p>I am sorry, but the cases and the legal analysis are not 100% water-tight, but subject to some interpretation.</p>
<p>But I REALLY respect and appreciate the effort of those to analyze with actual data and actual legal info to look carefully for racial discrimination, even indirect and unconscious, in college admissions. It is extremely helpful to all here.</p>
<p>dare I day… Bring it on!</p>
<p>here’s to a day when racial or ANY boxes or boosts are deemed UNnecessary by ALL!</p>
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<p>Prestige is overrated. As long as placement after college remains unchanged, the network and diploma value will remain unchanged.</p>
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<p>Ha ha, yes. Sometimes I forget why I even care about this issue. But like texaspg, I find the debate very entertaining.</p>
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<p>Okay, so let me ask a different question.</p>
<p>Has anyone’s mind been changed?</p>
<p>^That question has gotten asked before on this thread too!</p>
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I think prestige is overrated too, but it grows out of the old boy network. I think the student bodies will change over time (they already have in fact). I think there is probably some fear on the part of admissions committees of having the student body change too fast. That was certainly a big worry when the male schools started admitting women. But I think it’s pretty inevitable that as American becomes more diverse we won’t even be having these discussions.</p>
<p>Just because my mind has not been “changed”, I have become much more informed and sympathetic to the other points of view. I feel that I have learned a lot, and have cleaned up a bunch of misconceptions, heard several versions of the various stances, gotten clearer on the history and the various practices out there.
And I do look forward to any NEW angles that may come up about this.
An educated opinion is better than an uneducated opinion!</p>
<p>Okay, you caught me out - I haven’t read the whole thread! My bad!!!</p>
<p>You may or may not be joking! I was not accusing.</p>
<p>This is not the kind of thread where one can look for the ANSWER at the end!!! LOL</p>
<p>Time for a study-guide…
A crib sheet for each side of the debate!</p>
<p>"I think there is probably some fear on the part of admissions committees of having the student body change too fast. "</p>
<p>Hmm, what does THIS imply about adhering to the law of the land about discrimination, though??</p>
<p>Anyway, thoughts like this are good to hear.</p>
<p>It is human to fear change. And to fear outsiders. And to group things into categories.</p>
<p>Interesting article which was linked on the “critical thinking” thread today (op cit) that sheds light on why and how it is impossible make a water-tight argument without ALL the FACTS of ALL the CASES (here maybe all the pieces of all the applications at a given school, at all the schools, the applicant pool data ,the admitted pool data, the yield data, the demographics of each applicant, the decisions made, in what order, etc, etc):</p>
<p>[The</a> Budget Debate: Arguing from the Facts - NYTimes.com](<a href=“The Budget Debate: Arguing from the Facts - The New York Times”>The Budget Debate: Arguing from the Facts - The New York Times)</p>
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<p>But it is illegal to act on these fears in a way that violates the Constitutional rights of equal protection for all citizens. That’s the part I have never been able to explain to people. Fear and hate is natural. But you just can’t act on it! I feel like I am talking to my 11 year old sometimes when these kind of topics come up. </p>
<p>Anyway, I always get a chuckle when I see people writing things like AdComs are worrying about changing the composition too quickly, but AdComs are still not racist.</p>
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<p>Frankly, my mind has been changed a tad bit. I still believe that keeping Asians out by virtue of race is just plain old wrong. However, I am starting to think whether my philosophy that works so well for specialized schools works that well for multi-disciplinary schools. Perhaps it is after all important to get lower performing people over higher performing people to fill out all the disciplines as otherwise the cost structure of the colleges fall apart. The solution, of course, would be to split the colleges into specialized schools. But for a kid who doesn’t know at 17 what (s)he wants to do with his/her life (I still don’t and I am about a decade away for retirement), it helps to have multi-disciplinary schools. This is a conundrum and I am not sure how to solve it yet. In the mean time, I am going to advice all the Asian kids to say that they are going to study goatherding and not STEM. They can switch after getting in.</p>
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<p>So let’s try out a real life experiment, shall we? Let the chips fall where they may.</p>
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<p>Look, I just disagree with you on all of these, OK? I don’t think Asians care about HYPSM because of prestige (despite all the Asian parent jokes you must have read). They care because of career prospects post graduation. If the career prospects from University of Phoenix were better than that from HYPSM, trust me, there would be a huge rush towards that from Asians. </p>
<p>Also, there is no such mystique in the corporate world about HYPSM. People know that what they get out of a 4.0 GPA student at HYPSM is a world-class “athlete” who can be trained very easily and is damn smart. No one cares about goatherding interests in the corporate world. They think about whether this kid can cut it as a banker, lawyer, what have you. Chances are, the kid can, as the kid has got the 4.0 from HYPSM.</p>