<p>“it’ll be hard to prove how Asians are being discriminated.”</p>
<p>Not really: just do a 10 year chart showing the admission pattern for Asian Americans in the University of California System. I bet the statistics will show that the overall undergraduate percentages at UC Berkeley and UCLA will have declined as a direct result of this unconstitutional admissions policy.</p>
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<p>This seems quite possible. </p>
<p>I’m for diversity but not at the expense of someone being passed over to achieve it. For example, taking a student from Poland who matches up against a kid from San Diego is fine. If head-to-head this is no difference in their application, I think having a kid with a different perspective and significantly different experiences can be seen as value-added to a program. </p>
<p>Taking kids that have lower stats from region of the state to offset the many that come from another region or taking kids with lower stats of one ethnic group to to offset the many from another? I see that as unfair. </p>
<p>As for the point of getting into the UC system but not getting where you deserve to go is just political nonsense. The best candidates should have the best options … period.</p>
<p>that’ll show a correlation, not a causation. </p>
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<p>I think ctyankee is right.</p>
<p>How is this not breaking the Equal Protection Clause?</p>
<p>There is no such thing as “reverse” discrimination. If there is discrimination, regardless of who it benefits, there’s nothing reverse about it. Whether or not it is justified or beneficial in the long run is up for debate, but saying “reverse discrimination” is stupid.</p>
<p>Thank you Mephisto. As I stated earlier, it is not about the issue of discrimination, I think the UCLA case some years ago reflected the desire to keep a certain % of White students as particular levels and this apparently is being done as the expense of the Asian population. There is a legal case to be made, but it needs to be grounded on historical precedents of outright discrimination and white privilege rather than the empty ground of “reverse” discrimination.</p>
<p>As for CT Yankee, "Taking kids that have lower stats from region of the state to offset the many that come from another region or taking kids with lower stats of one ethnic group to to offset the many from another? I see that as unfair.</p>
<p>As for the point of getting into the UC system but not getting where you deserve to go is just political nonsense. The best candidates should have the best options … period."</p>
<p>Once a bar of qualifications has been set, then the argument of who is “more qualified” is completely relative. First of all, most kids with proper time to study, a good high school, computer at home, supportive parents and an SAT prep course can achieve good numbers. That’s wonderful but not everyone has such privileges and a kid should not be judged solely on his/her test scores when they do not tell the ENTIRE story about a person. Socio-Economic Status plays a huge role in academic success as does having parents with a college education. Some kids have to work 30-40 hours a week to help out their families, while others get to be in clubs, join sports teams, be involved in band, student gov’t and focus solely on getting good grades. </p>
<p>This is not “political nonsense” these are SOCIAL REALITIES and they must be taken into account. </p>
<p>I will make one last point. Having taught at a top tier UC school, I came across kids with great SAT scores and 4.6 or whatever GPA’s all the time. Problem was many of those kids could not critically analyze themselves out of a paper bag. All they were about was memorizing and regurgitating without the ability to understand issues, theories, concepts in any kind of in depth way. Typically, outside of their Math courses, they had to be re-taught and many could not think on their own. Whereas, the students who might not have had the perfect scores but had some difficult life experiences were much more critical in their ability to analyze abstract concepts. </p>
<p>Point is, test scores and GPA do not tell the entire story and in order to have a free exchange of ideas you need all types of people and students. Again that is not some political “nonsense” that is the world we all live in.</p>
<p>As for SSobick, I have already explained how this does not break equal protection. Try reading and thinking rather that repeating.</p>
<p>This case is so funny/lame/interesting</p>
<p>I can’t wait to see people like fighting about it</p>
<p>it’s entertaining</p>
<p>My prediction for the UCs: The only way out of this predicament (i.e., claims of racial discrimination coming from all sides), is to set the minimum qualifications for admission, then draw names by lottery.</p>
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I’ve seen no evidence to suggest that it does.</p>
<p>Other than feathers being ruffled about the number of Asian-American students dropping, what proof is there? That in and of itself is certainly not evidence.</p>
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<p>vociferous made it perfectly clear the type of students who he/she prefers not to have at the UCs. And this is exactly why many worry about the changes in UC admission policy and the rationals behind these changes.</p>
<p>And the perverse notion that math is unimportant/unnecessary contributes to the
current terrible state of our education from elementary to high schools.</p>
<p>NCL, please don’t misunderstand me. Math is extremely important obviously. But memorization and regurgitation only gets you so far even in Mathematics. My point was that we have to literally re-train students. High School and the SAT (for the most part) is reflecting of an education that essentially relies upon memorization and regurgitation. We literally had to re-train the students in terms of how they approached learning. Students with more life experience tended to have greater analytical skills for whatever reasons. If we only relied upon GPA and test scores (of course keep in mind EVERYONE met the UC requirements) we would lose out on a good mix of students</p>
<p>The irony in all of this is that the kids coming from elite private schools actually were more versed in a university approach to learning and it was less of a transition for those students.</p>
<p>vociferous, sorry if I misinterpreted your post. </p>
<p>But those statements can apply to a subset of any group of students. Would you argue that students “with great SAT scores and 4.6 or whatever GPA’s” require more retraining than students with 3.0 GPA and 1500 (out of 2400) SAT score? And would it be worse for students who can handle college level mathematics? And if we ask random people on the street to assign an ethnicity to the students described in your post, what would the most likely answers be? </p>
<p>Also, a good math education at any level (from 1st grade to upper division math classes in college) must involve certain degrees of practice (root memorization) as true of any other discipline, but more important are the mathematical concepts and rigorous and logical math reasoning.</p>
<p>Ever wonder why chinese are kicking US butt when it comes to economic growth. How much do we owe to China again? Poor chinese fellows. They are good only in math and technology. They can’t think critically. If only they knew Americans will wiggle their way out of deficit by printing more money, produce more michael jacksons and britney spears.</p>
<p>^ Good point</p>
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<p>I truly agree, but here’s the rub … how do you successfully take that into account? </p>
<p>Applicant A’s profile is terrific. By profile I mean grades, scores, ECs etc. He uses his essay to talk about issues he personally finds interesting. </p>
<p>Applicant B’s profile is terrific. He uses his essay to talk about how he overcame living in a zero parent home to achieve terrific things. </p>
<p>Applicant C profile is very good but doesn’t match up to the others. He uses his essay to discuss how coming from a zero parent home and having two worked multiple jobs hurt his grades. </p>
<p>You have one spot, who do you admit?</p>
<p>If it is applicant B or C guess what? Be prepared for every essay to be about adversity or rising above adversity. As the game changes, so will the gaming. Applicant A will just like Applicant B as he will tell you what you want to hear, even if he has to make things up. </p>
<p>If California taxpayers really want a truly diverse student body in their top schools, they simply need to admit students in a lottery system where a truly marginal student has the same odds as a star student. Of course, that will never happen.</p>
<p>As far as a student being able to think on their own, I agree with your point to a degree. Interviews can be quite helpful, but given the 20,000+ applications these school receive and the state of state budgets, I don’t think that is too feasible. </p>
<p>Nothing is perfect and I agree with the point that all you truly know about a student that got good grades in school is that they got good grades in school, but short of another suggested objective measure, it is (at least) an indication of some degree of success.</p>
<p>I knew a half dozen Asian students who graduated with my oldest sons. All outstanding students. They all applied to the top schools. Though they all got impressive acceptances, they also got what their families felt were surprising rejections, given their academic profile. However, I had trouble telling them apart. They all were great musicians, had similar names, interests, awards, activities and were all going into the sciences. I could see why one college would not want all six of them from the same area to boot. </p>
<p>In fact, one of the big problems that occurred was that not all of them were accepted to the local elite university. And I really could see why. They all lived in our area, but there were many, many more that fit their profiles to a T within commuting distance of the college. And like all schools, it was looking for diversity, not to mention having only so many seats in the sciences. </p>
<p>My son applied to that school with less impressive academic credentials but was not only athlete but was interested in an undersubscribed area of that school. He and a number of kids were accepted to the university. I doubt he would have been accepted as an engineering, premed, sciences major despite his ECs. It would have done him no favor to accept him as such. But he was solidly in their for the humanities and social sciences schools.</p>
<p>^ That seems pretty unfair</p>
<p>I think it’s more than a big ironic that some people in this thread think holistic admissions breaks the Equal Protection Clause when the whole point of its institution (well, its modern day institution) was to include students from diverse ethnic/racial backgrounds – including Asian American students – in college admissions equally. If not for the EPC, Asian Americans would be left out of elite colleges just like black and Latino students were before the 1960s.</p>
<p>Actually, interestingly enough “holistic admissions” that took into account life experiences, extracurriculars, and other factors besides just GPA and test scores were started in the early twentieth century to keep minorities OUT – namely, Jewish boys – from elite schools. There’s a book about this that I can’t remember the name of, but the general premise is that Jewish young men were scoring higher and getting better grades than white young men at a time when admissions counselors only looked at the grades and scores, because so few people in the U.S. had the prerequisites for admissions into these elite schools. They instituted holistic admissions to keep whites in the majority and keep Jewish kids out. Interestingly, admissions counselors turned it around in the 1970s and 1980s and started using holistic admissions more positively, to balance their classes ethnically and racially.</p>
<p>In any event, I’m not sure whether or not I’d characterize this as discrimination against Asian Americans since they are already grossly overrepresented in the UC system. Asian Americans only make up 12% of the California state population. However, they make up 42% of the undergrad student body at Berkeley and 38% of the body at UCLA. All of the UC campuses – Davis, Irvine, Riverside, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Merced – have overrepresentation where Asian Americans make up at least 25% of the student body. At Irvine, Asian American students make up 54% of the student body.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, white students are underrepresented, and other minority groups are even more disadvantaged. UC-Berkeley is only 3% black, which is much worse than the 7-9% average at other elite private schools across the nation. UCLA is 5% black. Note that the California state population is 6% black, so UCLA is about on par with that. Moreover, although Latinos make up 36% of the CA state population, Berkeley is only 11% Latino and UCLA is only 16% Latino.</p>
<p>Juliet, you start off well in your arguments for holisitic admissions. Problem comes when you switch from protecting the minorities to white “minority”. It is one thing to argue that latinos and blacks are underrepresented, and must be considered in their local context, hardships, etc. And we should whole heartedly support that. The problem is white majority opposed that and forced affirmative action out legistatively in California. And asians benefited. Now the new twist is: how do we increase latino, black population, BUT keep the white folks happy. Solution is : screw asians. Do only at the cost of asians who are otherwise more eligible (your recent stats prove it). Unless asians become politically active, they will and must get screwed. But that does not make your argument right or even in the larger good of California (see my post 33 above).</p>
<p>“Now the new twist is: how do we increase latino, black population, BUT keep the white folks happy. Solution is : screw asians. Do only at the cost of asians who are otherwise more eligible (your recent stats prove it). Unless asians become politically active, they will and must get screwed.”</p>
<p>Ding Ding Ding! - Sounds like a breach of the Equal Protection Clause if you ask me.</p>
<p>Let’s look at the situation now, and at this current moment in time the Asian Americans will be shafted in the years to come (the writing is on the wall). In my opinon Social Engineering is being forced, and this agenda blatently disregards the 14th Amendment in favor of achieving some ridiculous pie in the sky objective.</p>