<p>I’m really grateful to xiggi for bringing up Casper’s speech on affirmative action from 1995. Though I disagree with its conclusion, it is a well-written piece and while it falls prey to the standard fallacy, it is nevertheless remarkably balanced in its accommodation of opposing viewpoints.</p>
<p>I’d like to ask everyone a question. Casper argued that it would be a sad day if Stanford had to abandon the consideration of “intellectual vitality, talent, character, and promise.” Does anyone here believe that racial classification has anything to do with those criteria?</p>
Sure. Because of the history of racial oppression in this country, black kids in particular have a harder time showing “promise” by typical measures. If “intellectual vitality” is shown by academic achievement, the same is true. That’s why, as you recognize, black kids are far behind white and Asian kids in terms of scores and other objective measures of achievement. I assume you don’t think this gap is because of racial intellectual inferiority?</p>
<p>As for why I feel comfortable supporting affirmative action despite declining to move to a slum, perhaps it’s just noblesse oblige.</p>
<p>Hunt, do you realize what you did? Casper listed “intellectual vitality, talent, character, and promise” as examples of things that aren’t “quantitative, scaleable measures.” Your post tried to make them “quantitative, scaleable measures” by referring to “objective measures.”</p>
<p>Are you saying that racial classification HAS something to do with those subjective measures?</p>
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<p>Am I the one arguing that without racial preferences, "URM"s are “shut out” of universities? No. Are you? Yes.</p>
Don’t play games, fabrizio. You know their numbers would be greatly diminished, and would be far below their representation in the population (they are already below their representation in the population at most elite schools). Why do you think that is? Bad luck?</p>
<p>What standard fallacy, Fabrizio? Is this simply a standard fallacy because you fail to understand the objective and scope of current AA policies? </p>
<p>The last discussions about using low-income support policies to call AA policies dysfunctional is a perfect axample of how easily you mix apples and oranges to keep the waters murky. </p>
<p>In the end, all you present is a keen interest in debating through smoke and mirrors, and an incredible penchant for arguing for the sake of arguing, as well as trying to provoke reactions of others by casting aspersions. Fwiw, trying to impugn Hunt’s positions by bringing up his residence or SES status is quite low. You also questioned what people have done to help the less fortunate. Amd , perhaps, time has come for YOU to share what you have done,except for rehashing the same arguments on this forum? </p>
<p>So, Fabrizio, what is it that you have DONE to help your fellow Asians, and perhaps help other students from other races? And, fwiw, should we compare what the both of us have done for … Asians in the past eight years?</p>
<p>I am quite happy to see this. For me it is a confirmation that we are indeed tribal, and that self-interest is and always will be our primary concern. To understand elite admission, we must also see it from that perspective, or we will leave too much out of the picture.</p>
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<p>I have been out of the loop for a while so I am not sure if what I say is totally accurate. Theoretically, AA exists in law, but when it comes to implementation, I have seen little sign of it.</p>
<p>At the undergrad level, admission in Ontario (some Canadian provinces such as BC and Alberta have province-wide finals) is very much by the book. By simply knowing the college and the major, I can pretty well tell how strong academically a certain candidate is. Since almost all schools are public, and we dont do the SAT, admission is based mostly on academic courses taken during the senior year, and admission is not that terribly competitive in most cases. </p>
<p>Competition during the college years can be brutal, however, as most classes only give A to 20%-25% of the class. In order to separate students in strong programs, exams start to look like an IQ test, covering materials far beyond what was covered in class. As a result, I see the same students getting A, class after class, and no amount of studying by their less talented classmates seem to make much difference. </p>
<p>Many of the programs with limited enrollment usually accept students after two years of college, and by making those pre-requisite courses viciously hard, they can get the superfluous students to leave on their own, without having to reject them outright. (I always find it amusing to see them ease off on the exams once they have just the right number of students remaining in the class.) </p>
<p>They have been talking about making some schools and some courses more diverse. I cannot see how they can do it in those restricted enrollment programs without seriously inflating the grades, which they have refused to do thus far. In order to graduate from these programs, you need to do so with an overall B average (honours). But if D is a passing grade (it is in Toronto) and they give out C freely, these weaker students would have to find a way to get an A to neutralize every C they get-an almost impossible task.</p>
<p>In short, you can compare students within the same program in a given university, but dont try to compare students between faculties, or compare students between the same faculty in different universities. The gap can be enormous.</p>
<p>Where racial quota comes in more is in professional school admission, especially medicine and law. A friend of mine, whose sister-in-law was the registrar of a major university, told me once that if caps were not in place, 60% of the students accepted to medical school would have been Chinese. This was about 20 years ago. I am also aware of special admission programs in law for native students, particularly in Western Canada.</p>
<p>Casper made the standard fallacy of assuming that people who are opposed to racial preferences must be for “quantitative, scaleable admissions criteria.”</p>
<p>As for your second question, let’s whip out that direct quote once more: Affirmative action is based on the judgment that a policy of true equal opportunity needs to create opportunities for members of historically underrepresented groups to be drawn into various walks of life from which they might otherwise be shut out.</p>
<p>You’ve argued that Casper wasn’t referring to poor "URM"s; he was referring to ALL "URM"s. Then, both you and Casper necessarily have extremely low opinions of the talent and capabilities of our nation’s “URM” youth. Both of you are arguing that without racial preferences, Stanford would have NO "URM"s.</p>
<p>That’s absurd. Of course Stanford would have "URM"s. It just might not have “enough.” But not having “enough” doesn’t mean being “shut out,” now does it?</p>
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<p>It’s not low at all. It’s the “sensitive” issue the Washington Post described weeks ago in an article describing why an elementary school principal was leaving his job.</p>
<p>I prodded Hunt with that “sensitive” issue because he is the one who is arguing that everyone has to pay a “diversity” tax. I am not, so we are not under the same obligations.</p>
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<p>Why you bother to help people you think are trophy-hunting cheaters is beyond me.</p>
<p>In this interesting debate, does anyone have views on the following questions: </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Suppose there are two applicants who are carbon copies, except that one checks the Caucasian box and one checks the Asian box. Would it be within the purview of the Supreme Court AA ruling allowing race to be considered in admissions, to admit the Caucasian over the Asian? It seems to me it needs to go back to the Supremes on this question. The key issue is whether minorities in the population can be passed over in favor of majorities. </p></li>
<li><p>And does all of this extend to Colin Powell from the Caribbean or children of Nigerian parentsl? Should they get preferential treatment? They are from regions that were colonized just like Hong Kong and India. Any reason why they were more oppressed, if at all?</p></li>
<li><p>And why would admitting too many people who just LOOK different (slant eyes, brown skin, etc) detract from the Eurocentric aspect of universities? Many offspring of immigrants are as Eurocentric as they come. Are we saying blue eyes are prettier than yellow skin? Sorry to try and penetrate Bay’s and xiggi’s thick skin but that is the logical extension.</p></li>
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<p>Oh my. Uh. This tone and rhetoric is not going to win hearts and minds to your viewpoint. </p>
<p>Woeishe apparently received a bit of a slap down last evening after revealing that s/he is black and does not fully support the whole AA educational complex. That is interesting to me; my BIL is an hispanic, an MD and he is ardently opposed to AA and especially opposed to how he believes it erodes his kids’ conception of their abilities and their drive to succeed. He is largely responsible for my questioning of AA. Not every URM is for it. Not every liberal is for it.</p>
<p>The repetitive and at this point ludicrous explanations about how URM kids can’t possibly compete on a level playing field because of historic injustices to their race in this country just isn’t resonating in a society that has morphed of late into a highly multi-cultrual place where race is rapidly becoming one long continuum with increasingly blurred categorizations. Then there are all the problems with advantaging kids with a certain level of pigment in their skins to satisfy the AA paradigm – even when those kids are middle class or above, privileged or immigrants from different continents where their forebears never experienced any sort of US racial oppression.</p>
<p>Also, I’d just like to let those arguing the AA perspective here understand that references to this or that education administrator testifying to the importance of AA is next to meaningless for most of us who have worked within education and have a very good grasp of the politics of that world.</p>
<p>And finally, what exactly is the sad decline of the UC system that Bay keeps referencing? I did a cursory internet investigation and the rankings look excellent, the student profiles look superb. My sense is that the big challenge at the UCs is the overall calamitous budgetary woes affecting the entire state of CA. I’d really like some sort of tangible evidence that eschewing racial preferences has hurt the UC system – beyond just the usual posturing from bureaucrats within the systems. Clearly, the UC schools get far more applicants than they can accept. That seems to be Bay’s measuring stick with whether or not an admissions policy is “working.”</p>
<p>Have you considered that the people who need the most help are not exactly the same who produce an application list that contains nothing else than the 10 to 15 highest USNews ranked schools? Have you considered that there are plenty of Asians who need a LOT of help to match their 700-750 Math score with something more than a 450 to 550 verbal score? Have you considered that there are plenty of Asians who do not understand that there is more than being a serial club joiner and doing well on … assignments? </p>
<p>Have you considered that actually helping someone understand that an imbalanced list of schools can be counter-productive? Have you considered that telling someone to redefine a list based on a better fit might help alleviate future disappointments? </p>
<p>Have you considered that when asked for help I do not look nor care if the email or PM comes from someone named Lee, Wong, Xi, Wu, Perez, or Washington? Have you considered that it so happens that 80 to 90 percent of all cries for help came from Asian students. </p>
<p>You always come here and pretend to know all the answers, but I have to openly wonder how well you know your own “community.” There are indeed trophy hunters who succumb to misguided parental pressures. But there are also plenty of students who need the help and guidance that their parents cannot provide. </p>
<p>I am afraid that your last callous comment showed your true colors, and forces me to realize that it would best for me to stop honoring you with future replies. But not before telling you --once more-- that you should learn to read documents a lot more critically and less creatively, and that this does not mean to find elements to criticize or spin hopelessly --as you just did in your analysis of Casper’s statement. </p>
<p>“Woeishe apparently received a bit of a slap down last evening after revealing that s/he is black and does not fully support the whole AA educational complex.”</p>
<p>Wow. Did read the “slap down”? Do you know Woishe (“woe is he”)? You might want to get to “know” him. I’m not saying we “know” each other, but this is hardly the first time he “reavealed” he was black, or shared his evolving views on affirmative action, nor is it the first thread we’ve shared. </p>
<p>Thanks for clarifying about the BIL. I hope you can believe me when I say I am truly curious, and value the web, and this type of thread for giving me other perspectives. I don’t think I have a “side”. </p>
<p>"he believes it erodes his kids’ conception of their abilities and their drive to succeed. "</p>
<p>I would still like to hear more. I would like to know if he is saying his kids are aware of affirmative action, and if so, how and at what age? </p>
<p>Is he saying his kids think they can’t ,or don’t try because of some direct knowledge of affirmative action, or something more indirect? Also, someone’s argument on another thread said that black kids are raised, I beleive from early childhood, being told that they don’t need to try because of affirmative action. Everyone i know says “you have to be twice as good because your black”, that and to their sons “don’t run!”. Even my sons rainbow of friends know that one. Is it so different elswhere? Where?</p>
<p>So xiggi is an admissions consultant? Epiphany appears very much to also be in that field. Bay? </p>
<p>I really think those who earn money counseling kids in their applications are not really objective on the topic under discussion here. Why? Because they are economic stakeholders in the status quo. That is, they understand how the system works right now, probably don’t want it to change as that will erode their “expertise.” Also, the admissions committees, college deans, administrators, et al, are pretty much uniformly in lock step on AA, they are for it, By Golly! It is the politically correct posture and to adopt a different stance would be really, really risky to their careers. </p>
<p>Oh, and Asian kids, by and large, have no need of their college counseling services.</p>
<p>So if some of the self-professed “expert” posters on here are admissions consultants, I’m really not terribly interested in what they have to say on this topic. They are hardly disinterested parties.</p>
<p>Sewhappy, while I cannot speak for Epiphany, I can tell you that your speculation about me is as correct as your evaluation of Woeishe was. And that means that you could not be more wrong and that you picked the wrong bone to chew on! </p>
<p>Fwiw, it is interesting that there has been an effort to discredit people from races who benefit from AA since their positions are expected to be biased --albeit accepting the positions of Asians who claim to be victimized. Is the next step to also discredit people who happen to have a professional or volunteering occupation that allows them to go a bit beyond the idle speculation via direct experience or simply via access to unpublished data? </p>
<p>And, if it makes you feel better to deride “expertise” through punctuation, so be it!</p>
<p>BIL is SIL’s second husband and they live in CA. He is pretty distinguished in his field, a specialist. He just says that he constantly feels as if his accomplishments are seen thru the AA lens; he has to demonstrate that he really is as good as his pedigree says he should be, over and over. Regarding his kids, they are affluent and smart and assuredly very aware that being half-Hispanic is a great big hook for them. BIL is very annoyed by this, wants his kids to gain access to schools through their performance alone. It’s really strange but listening to him on this topic sounds as if he views AA as just another flavor of racial oppression – as if it works to hold him down more than anything else. </p>
<p>Interestingly, BIL’s kids are significantly more affluent than ours and certainly quite privileged in terms of expensive private education. They do not, however, appear to be excelling academically, at least according to their frustrated parents. They are younger than my own kids and I wonder if it’s more a cohort effect than anything else.</p>
<p>But xiggi, who is it you’re helping? And this is all just pro bono? I’m honestly curious. How does one go about establishing oneself as some sort of internet college admissions guru? And how does one earn a living irl?</p>
<p>Honestly curious. </p>
<p>So you are not employed in anyway in education? I’m not trying to out you. I’m trying to understand the background.</p>
<p>FWIW, I’m from a technical field but gradually eased out of the workforce as my DH’s work became more consuming and our need for my income decreased. So I’m just a mom with time on my hands. Don’t work in education, although have worked as a researcher at universities but never with students in any fashion. I’ve just raised some.</p>
<p>Oh, and exactly what is off about my take on Woeishe – all I surmised is that the poster is black and not fully supportive of AA. Please let me know where I’ve erred in this assessment, xiggi.</p>
<p>Oh, and weren’t you the poster a few years back who was obsessing over the SAT and came up with the a big system for acing it? I seem to recall seeing a lot of posts to that effect several years ago when my first one was applying. I did not delve into your system because my kid didn’t really need a system for the SATs but I remember thinking “Wow - this Xiggi person is really obsessed with the SAT!”</p>
<p>it would seem that you’e evolved quite a bit.</p>
<p>Xiggi has helped a lot of people prep for the SAT, using methods that they didn’t have to pay for, and has given lots of other advice here. fabrizio’s shot at xiggi was another low blow. But I guess fighters start to flail when they are punch-drunk.</p>
<p>As I keep mentioning, there are two different issues in this thread. The first is whether URMs should get preferences. Some of us think they should, and others think they shouldn’t. It’s a bit peculiar, to me, to impugn the motives of a white person who supports affirmative action, while claiming pure motives for an Asian who opposes it, but whatever.</p>
<p>The second issue is whether elite colleges are discriminating against Asians in favor of whites. There is some evidence that leads one to suspect that this could be happening, but really no evidence that it is, in fact, happening. Reference to evidence makes believers in the discriminaiton upset, and they lash out.</p>