<p>
I don’t agree. IP is one of the best debaters in this thread from a debating point of view.
If you don’t believe me, try to debate with him and you’ll lose. The guy has a pretty sharp and logic mind.</p>
<p>If your kid got in, he or she deserved it.</p>
<p>As an
Asian male from
middle class family with
college-educated parents without legacy and
not from underrepresented area.</p>
<p>I doubt it!</p>
<p>“If your kid got in, he or she deserved it”</p>
<p>As the mother of a white male
from an upper middle class family with
college educated parents, without a legacy
and not from an under represented area</p>
<p>I don’t doubt it at all.</p>
<p>However, the one student from our public h.s. graduating class who DID get into Harvard this year, was no more and no less qualified than any of the other 18 kids who graduated with a 4.0. Virtually the same background, with equivalent stats, equivalent EC’s, living in the same, upper middle class neighborhood, went to the same public schools, took about the same number of AP classes, blah, blah, blah. </p>
<p>But (said the man behind the curtain) she had one thing the others didn’t have. An Hispanic last name. I don’t begrudge her the Harvard admission, but there wasn’t a doubt in the world that if anyone from our racially diverse, highly competitive public high school was going to gain admission to an Ivy it would be this fine young woman. She was accepted every place she applied. And she deserved to be accepted at every one of them. But she didn’t deserve it more than the 10 others in her graduating class who didn’t gain admission to an Ivy. That’s just life. The others who were denied will be just fine. </p>
<p>As we said to our son, you are intelligent, highly qualified, well rounded, and don’t have a chance in hell of admission to an ivy. Please apply, but don’t expect anything…and oh, by the way, we are so sorry about that Irish name. </p>
<p>And he’ll be fine at the non Ivy college he’ll be attending in the fall.</p>
<p>Hey! We have an Irish name too!</p>
<p>^^^ 10 character Irish smile.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not if they are URMs. Then they need AA to not be denied.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You mean, they only care about hundreds of millions of dollars of donations, but turn their nose when the donor actually earns that kind of money?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why do you think that is the case? SAT, after all, is a pretty meaningless exam which is not hard at all. How do you think society can help here and improve SAT scores for URMs? The first thing that comes to my mind is to encourage them to study hard for the SAT, and provide funding and free coaching for those who can’t afford it.</p>
<p>^ Not hard at all for YOU. So if you had ten things URM’s could do with their time between seventh and eleventh grade, what rank would that be? Would there be some point where it did not add value? tirade. I could see something like an hour a day for a year, to move from 2000 to 2200. I’m just not sure the rest would be worth “it”. Since it’s “meaningless.”</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Can you explain that math one more time please?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not sure I understand the question.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I fully agree. Asians would pick up most of those seats and Asian enrollment would go up by another 15 points or so (as Hispanics would be displaced too).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Oh, I think my bias is pretty well known. I am at peace with it. What I find kind of funny is how many others are ashamed to state their bias, even though it is quite clear.</p>
<p>Guys, A scary thought came to my mind. If Asians take 25-30% seats (already happening at MIT, and creeping up towards that in Ivies and Stanford), Jews take another 25-30%, athletes, legacies and the like take another 10-15%, then only 25-40% seats are left for the unhooked non-Jewish White population plus URMs. Yet, they are about 95% of the population. Wow! That would be some serious fight for limited resources. It would be interesting to see if the non-Jewish White population would then be willing to keep a 25% quota for URMs, while essentially getting wiped out of the top schools themselves.</p>
<p>"Not sure I understand the question. "</p>
<p>Sorry. I fixed it. </p>
<p>Keep in mind, I don’t quite get the whole Harvard thing and can’t imagine telling my child to do this (study for a year to improve SAT score by 200 points’ for even a 1/10 shot at Harvard). Is that bad? Does that make me a bad parent? I just don’t think the SAT should be used that way, and I’m okay if my child “misses out” as a result. “Grades” are different. Just speaking for myself, not “black people”.</p>
<p>"That’s just life. The others who were denied will be just fine.
Not if they are URMs. "</p>
<p>I wish you and Fab would stop repeating that. Not sure what the technical name is, for doing that in a debate; can I just call it annoying?</p>
<p>Night all!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, that was neither my bias nor my point. My point was to demonstrate a simple thing. The bias against Asians and STEM is so profound that even if it was choosing the end of the world on one hand and admitting 50% Asian STEM kids to Yale on the other, many on this forum would rather choose end of the world.</p>
<p>Thus, debating about merit and unfairness of racial bias is pointless with these folks. Some of them have come out and openly said that 50% Asian kids is simply not acceptable, even if that is racist. Many others haven’t. I was merely trying to help the others come out of the closet, so to speak.</p>
<p>"unhooked non-Jewish White population plus URMs. Yet, they are about 95% of the population. " -IP</p>
<p>IP What planet are you on? Do they have ivy league colleges and oxygen there? I would like to visit.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Excellent post, and indicative of a few things. No, it doesn’t make you a bad mother at all. It just makes you a mother who doesn’t emphasize SAT scores. Thus, you are making a conscious choice, and should be willing to accept that possibility that your kid would likely get a low SAT score, which in turn can keep him/her out of a top school in a world without AA.</p>
<p>If URMs took that stance, I would have no problem with that. However, what I often hear on this forum is that such low scores (which, mind you, are entirely a choice) is the reason why there must be AA for URMs. </p>
<p>Notice what is being implied here. A certain group decides to make a conscious choice to be underperformers, which is precisely why this group should be given a preference in college admissions. It rewards conscious underperformance. So why would URMs put in any effort at all?</p>
<p>You know what this does? It hurts URMs and no one else. Sure, a few Asian kids get knocked down a bit in college selection, but that only makes them more determined to remedy that in Grad School, and then at work. But what happens to URMs?</p>
<p>I am using SAT here as an example. I have a suspicion - and you tell me if this is true or not in your experience - the whole GPA and academics thing is understressed as well in the URM community. Frankly, I would be shocked if it is not, as a kid who is getting straight A’s wouldn’t even bat an eyelid to study one hour per day for a year to get better SAT scores. </p>
<p>So this is likely systemic. AA is breeding this culture of underperformance. On the reverse, Asian families who stress overperformance are being labeled as boring, prize-grabbing, heartless swines. Which is all fine in college admissions, but the working world behaves very differently. It is all pay for performance there.</p>
<p>Now that made me pretty mad. </p>
<p>"and you tell me if this is true or not in your experience - the whole GPA and academics thing is understressed as well in the URM community. "</p>
<p>Not my experience. But I can only speak for my family, and we can afford a different set of priorities.</p>
<p>A 2000 on an SAT is not “underperforming” and that’s what my kid got, along with her 4.0 (ok, 3.92) unweighted GPA. Hard work on grades and EC’s, but no SAT prep… And she did not apply for any Ivy’s. Not asking for anything, Never heard of AA, and Ivy’s, had nothing to do with our priorities. Can you imagine that?</p>
<p>Shaking my head.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Exposing inconsistency in the position of the other side always comes across as annoying. Either all kids will be fine if they are bumped out of Ivies and have to go to other colleges, or no kid will be fine. Right now the position of many is that Asian kids would be fine, but URM kids would not. It is a completely nonsensical position, which is why they get upset if they are reminded of that.</p>