are colleges racist?

sewhappy · July 12, 2011, 2:25pm

I’m sure xiggi has helped kids. I remember telling my own to go check out his stuff on the SAT but mine generally does the opposite of what I advise.

I’m just trying to figure out where the tone of expertise comes from in some posters on here. It’s as if some “speak with the voice of one who knows” but I can’t figure out what that expertise is based upon.

Hunt, I understand your perspective. Some days I share it. But I also think rigidly adhering to a policy like AA in the face of a rapidly changing society is not perhaps in the best interest of anyone. It’s like the constitutionalists who think it should be an untouched document that never is altered. I don’t agree with those folks, either, although on some points probably yes.

texaspg · July 12, 2011, 2:39pm

sewhappy - without sharing too much, I can say xiggi is very involved in education field and not necessarily making money off of the individual kids here or outside. He is just one riled up dude when people bad mouth HYPS admission process though!

greyhaired · July 12, 2011, 2:48pm

Late to the game, but what the heck! I am in favor of AA. Only 47 years ago we were living separate but equal. 100 years ago some places it was a crime to have learned how to read. Do you really think that the whole tenor of suporting the value of education can be changed in a generation (the civil rights act)? Or two to three generations going back to Jim Crow?

There are some zip codes where a baby born today has a greater chance of going to jail than to college. Those zip codes are disproportionately URM. Until the playing field has some semblance of fairness then AA is necessary. Until we address and want to get rid of the AA of the privledged, coddled, tutored legacy white male, AA for URM is necessary. An example that is well on the well to a meritocracy is the armed forces.

Bay · July 12, 2011, 2:58pm

sewhappy,
I am not involved in education on a professional basis and I do NOT profess to have expertise in college admissions or counseling, and I don’t think I have ever made that claim on this site. I am the parent of two kids at HYPS, a conservative and a lawyer, and as such I am interested in this debate from a personal standpoint and take the side of HYPS because 1) as private businesses, I support their choice to pick whomever they want to attend their colleges, so long as it is done in a lawful manner (and labeling anyone “racist” with no significant evidence offends me); 2) I actually DO believe racial diversity is beneficial to the college learning environment, because people who do not have exposure to different races tend to remain ignorant about them, and rely on inaccurate stereotypes; and 3) I think O’Connor’s opinion was ingenious and does work unless someone can come up with evidence that there is no benefit to racial diversity. So far no one has done it, not even on this thread, and I think that is remarkable.

I do not really care all that much whether using race in admissions survives another court challenge, partially because my kids already benefited from it, except I think we will lose something if there are fewer URMs who have political and economic clout in this country.

Bay · July 12, 2011, 3:02pm

sewhappy,
I must add that I find your position on this subject rather puzzling considering you paid full-price to send your son to H and your D is looking at Columbia. How do your square your offense to the practice of AA while sending your kids to these colleges and to private K-12 schools that probably do the same thing?

Shrinkrap · July 12, 2011, 3:36pm

"… they live in CA. "

Me too!

“He is pretty distinguished in his field, a specialist”

I’m a specialist too, but not “distinguised”.

“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.”

I believe i have a very good reputation, think it helps that I am a woman and a “URM”, and have never felt anyone has questioned my “goodness” or pedigree ( well, I went to howard University, but I don’t think most people know or care)

“Regarding his kids, they are affluent and smart and assuredly very aware that being half-Hispanic is a great big hook for them.”

HOW do they know? How old are they,? When do kids there start talking about “hooks” and college? Do they mostly go to privates where “hooks” matter? Most here go to a CCC or a CSU. The “bigshots” go to UC’s.

“They do not, however, appear to be excelling academically, at least according to their frustrated parents.”

Hmm. I THOUGHT my D was excelling, so did the whole community…and then I came to CC. In fact, I came to CC after we learned about “National Achievemnt Scholarships” from my D’s principla…she stopped us in the parking lot, and blushed as she tried to tell us about “that one for black people”. My husband wnated her to take a class for the SAT…and maybe take it twice!!! I had never heard of such a thing. Searched google, and found CC.

She did NOT take it twice, BTW.

soomoo · July 12, 2011, 3:53pm

Sewhappy,

My husband is also a “wealthy Latino”, but one that benefited enormously from AA. He grew up in the inner city and through the urging of some teachers went to a magnet school and on to Princeton (full financial aid). He/We support AA because we see what a huge difference it can make in the life promising kids who grow up with very many obstacles to overcome. Yes…AA benefits some with money. I am convinced it does more good for society than harm.

My children are 1/2 Hispanic. They do NOT work less hard because they think they have it made. They actually don’t think about it much at all. My oldest is a freshman at Princeton. He wasn’t sure if people would think less of him because he is a legacy or because he is a URM. Turns out people don’t think less of him at all. Seems students dwell on these things a lot less than we on CC do. :)

Hunt · July 12, 2011, 4:02pm

I will reiterate that the URM kids I have known who went to Ivies were amazing kids. They just didn’t all have amazing SATs.

The bigger challenge is to give opportunities to those kids who might be amazing if they had the chance.

epiphany · July 12, 2011, 4:07pm

Just one more of the many indications you’ve shown that you have no clue either what my full position is on AA only, or what my position, background, and experience are in education, which I can probably conclude is far longer and more varied in role, on a professional level, than yours. Nor am I required to reveal my identity as a condition of posting.

It may in fact be contrary to forum rules to continue demanding identities of particular posters – or information so revealing as to be equivalent to identity disclosure.

Shrinkrap · July 12, 2011, 4:07pm

I went to lunch, and wasn’t sure I had made clear my point: While I have no strong feelings either way about AA, I disagree with the notions that

1) If you are not underpriveldeged, your perspective is the same as everyone else.

and

2) Affirmative action does a great deal of harm to the African American community in general, because it colors (LOL) the way people think of African Americans.

I get that some communities are different, but I am curious about whether my experience is unique or typical.

One more URM whose reputation was not sullied by AA; My husband, and he DID go to an Ivy.( our kids love to push our buttons about Ivy’s and HBCU’s). I had a doctor who was seeing me as a patient ask me something like …“so is he (husband) as perfect at home as he is at work?”

Thats a good reputation, right?

epiphany · July 12, 2011, 4:14pm

from Terms of Service.

sewhappy · July 12, 2011, 4:57pm

That’s a good rule and I certainly don’t want to break it. I just sense a lot of expertise on here and I don’t quite understand where it derives from. Have no wish to know anyone’s identity IRL.

Bay,

I think we agree on a lot. First, I agree that private businesses should be able to hire whomever they wish. Would you call HYPS fully private, though? Actually, that doesn’t even matter for me in this discussion. I actually have no wish to see a law enacted preventing HYPS from instituting any admission policy they wish. In general, I’m for fewer laws, not more laws.

And I do agree with many on here that is pretty preposterous to beat one’s chest over unfairness over really smart kids getting rejected by these schools. Of course it’s insanely competitive and it really is ridiculous to imagine anyone is a shoe-in.

I think O’Connor’s opinion was inspired and exactly right for that awkward moment as we were struggling to articulate our desire for diversity without resorting to quotas. It was graceful and quite perfect. I have often thought of her through this long thread with fondness and thinking it would be awfully good to have her back on the court. I’d actually like to have her sense on this issue 25 years or so since she issued her opinion.

I can’t get comfortable using skin color in selections. Yes, I think HYPS can do whatever they want and I would defend their freedom on that vigorously. I guess I just question the wisdom of it and of course the symbolism to the nation.

You’re right. We paid full freight to send a kid to H. We are grateful he had that opportunity and we are quite aware that he had a multitude of advantages going for him – affluent family that always sacrificed to give him the best possible education, stable family, . . … that’s about it. No legacy. No hook or big time EC. The rest he did on his own power. I guess I’m grateful H accepted him but in all honesty, I think they were lucky to get him. I’ve never been as enthralled by the elite schools as many seem to be on CC. I think every human institution has it’s flaws, HYPS no exception.

And that leads me to observe that there is a tendency on here to defend race preferences in admissions as right because HYPS say they are right and . . . . HYPS are so unassailably wonderful. I’m just not reverent enough to go there.

fabrizio · July 12, 2011, 4:57pm

Low blow nothing. Direct quotes follow:

Other posters have called out xiggi for his remarks. xiggi’s response? [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1155321-colleges-racist-100.html#post12802564]Defiance[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1155321-colleges-racist-100.html#post12802564]Defiance[/url</a>].

fabrizio · July 12, 2011, 5:06pm

What are you talking about? I posted a paper all the way back to post [#268[/url</a>]! I presented quotes from the paper and commented on them in a series of posts.

Did you respond to them? You [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1155321-colleges-racist-20.html#post12749082]surely”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1155321-colleges-racist-20.html#post12749082]surely</a> did](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1155321-colleges-racist-18.html#post12748685]#268[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1155321-colleges-racist-18.html#post12748685). What did you say?

I didn’t have the fortitude to comb through the study that you quoted in numerous posts, above, and I assume that in some way it concludes that diversity doesn’t benefit everyone, but I don’t think you answered my question.

So, no, Bay, there is evidence that there is no benefit to racial diversity.

fabrizio · July 12, 2011, 5:16pm

So what if they didn’t have amazing SATs? There is no one here arguing that the SAT is or should be everything.

“If they had the chance…” who are we describing here? All “underrepresented” minorities? Or only those who are poor?

Again, we’re going back to former Stanford President Casper’s statement: 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.

Which “group” was he referring to? xiggi insists that Casper was referring to ALL “underrepresented minorities.” But if that’s true, then contrary to xiggi’s protests, it logically follows that Casper believes that without racial preferences, Stanford would have no "URM"s.

You may protest that I have it wrong; Stanford would have "URM"s, just not “enough,” whatever that is, which of course is not a quota. Well, so what if they don’t have “enough”? If you’re a “URM” and you didn’t get into Stanford, are you “shut out” of higher education, period?

OF COURSE NOT. You just have to suffer the “indignity” of studying electrical engineering at Georgia Tech instead of at Stanford. Oh, the horror! Instead of going to the #2 ranked EE program by USNWR, you have to attend the…#6 ranked program :rolleyes:

Thousands of highly qualified applicants of all racial classifications may not be able to get in to their first-choice school because of scarcity. Why is it a travesty only for the "URM"s?

Bay · July 12, 2011, 5:17pm

fab,
I’m fairly certain I read that same article in an earlier iteration of this thread, which is why I did not want to read it again. If you think that article disproves that there is a benefit to racial diversity on college campuses, please point me to it.

sewhappy · July 12, 2011, 5:22pm

Surely, no one in our country wants to attend a school where everyone is one color. I don’t think that is a big goal of very many out there! If so, they are at the margins of our society. That said, I don’t think we need explicit racial preferences interjected into selecting students. Son had a urm roommate freshman year who was pretty much agreed to be the smartest of the four boys, a mathematics concentrator, on a different plane. That’s part of where I’m coming from. I know the SAT is the great arbiter of admissions but I also know a lot of urm kids who are just so exceptional that they’d get in wherever they want regardless of policies designed to advantage them.

Also, I will just get this off my chest today, as well. I really think a lot of the posts on the admissions decisions threads are bogus. The ones claiming admission to HYPS with a URM status and 1950 SAT and a 3.5 gpa. I just don’t even read those posts. I know my own kid didn’t participate in those. I doubt that many actual kids getting accepted do participate and post their stats and their race. I feel as if a lot of posters are posing as kids from URM categories and purposely posting low stats + Admitted decisions. That fuels anger, of course, and it’s very unfortunate.

I will say this – my kid who went to H just never met a single student there that he didn’t consider extremely smart of any race. He did think the Asians and unhooked whites had to do more fireworks to get in, though.

soomoo · July 12, 2011, 5:28pm

I honestly agree there are tons of “exceptional” URMs out there. I don’t think though that without AA they would get in “regardless of policies designed to advantage them” . Certainly this is not true for exceptional Asians and Whites who seem to get turned down all the time from elites. Why would URMs be any different?

sewhappy · July 12, 2011, 5:44pm

Well, soomoo, those exceptional urm kids will certainly end up at exceptional colleges. They will not be going to community college and probably not the public U. That is the whole consolation given to all exceptional kids in this brutal competition. Do exceptional urm kids honestly want to be treated differently? I’m not so sure. I think to strive that hard to be exceptional points to a lot of individuality and I find it hard to believe that typically that personality wants to be handicapped in any way. These are kids that compete hard to begin with. There is just a huge element of patronizing in this mindset.

And lets take it a step further. Going to Harvard is a very nice thing. So is going to Berkeley or Duke or Northwestern. These are all institutions far more prestigious than my spouse and I attended and I can tell you that we have done far better than we ever envisioned.

It’s this whole notion that urm’s need help and need advantaging and need a leg up. I’m not buying that. I’m really not.

Hunt · July 12, 2011, 5:52pm

But it’s not about the individual URM–it’s about the the needs of the university and (in my opinion) social engineering. The point of AA is not to give goodies to some individual people–but rather to make sure that Harvard has “enough” or some “critical mass” of URMs in order to meet their institutional goals, which may include diversity (also known as social engineering). But this attitude does explain some of the boohooing by people like Jian Li–they take it personally when they are rejected, as if the colleges somehow think those dastardly URMs are “better” than they are as individuals. (We read the same thing in other threads where lower scoring kids with better ECs get in; or vice versa.) 
And fabrizio–with respect to the personal attacks on xiggi (and me, incidentally)–you should think about the maxim “when you’re in a hole, stop digging.”

The individuals may not need help to be successes in life. But *Harvard *needs to help them if it wants to have more than a couple percent black kids in its class. That’s the point I was making above. As an analogy, the same thing is true for the “scholar-athletes” who wouldn’t get into Harvard if they were judged on scores alone–Harvard relaxes the score requirements for them not to help them, but to help Harvard. Its the same for AA.

are colleges racist?

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