You really don’t need this explained to you, right? You are just being intentionally provocative? You understand the difference. I have to believe that.
By defending a system that silo’s applicants by race and distributes acceptances based on a racial quota, you are advocating a system of wanton racial discrimination.
@Postmodern please do not confuse my legitimate frustration with intentional provocation. You don’t have to agree with me but no need to patronize my concerns.
WONTON racial discrimination is not any diffrent than WANTON racial discrimination.
As an Asian, I can make this joke. I think! 
@zobroward
You are totally out of line. How dare you suggest that 'I am for discrimination ’ Nothing I said validates that.
Now I think a moderator better close this thread down before it gets even more out of hand and off topic
I am sorry you found it patronizing and that was not my intention. I have legitimate frustrations as well. I did perceive it to be intentionally provocative and I have a hard time believing any thinking person could genuinely feel that analogy is reasonable.
I don’t see closing threads or banning books as a solution for any problem but yeah if we don’t want to hear opposing views then this is what moderators will have to do. Anyways, we all know that athletics is sacred, academics are not so we’ll never see holistic approach or forced diversity there.
@WorryHurry411
Nothing wrong with opposing views, it’s the personal attacks/insults I have a problem with.
The real question behind this I think is what makes up a college, is it, as someone posted, the model of an IIT or a Tokyo University or Beijing University, where admission is based totally on scores on standardized tests and grades, or does it go beyonf that? The answer might be in the past, where the Ivy league was once the finishing school of the WASP elite, the gentleman class. The schools turned out lawyers and statesman and judges and the like, people who because of the old school ties who filled the aristocracy of the financial world (people like the Whitneys), but they also were pretty one dimensional in some ways, the school was there in part to reinforce notions of class and being elite.
Schools like MIT were founded because the elite colleges were not turning out what industrialists and the like needed, they in some ways were the model of modern universities.
There is another part to a university, or is supposed to be, and that is being exposed to a lot more than classes and grades. You take core courses to broaden interest in other things, schools have clubs and social groups to get kids to explore interests and hopefully learn new things, and that includes being around kids who are different from themselves. If universities went the ‘objective route’, and used only grades and test scores and the like, would you have a university full of kids interested in the world, or kids who have grown up learning that the only thing that matters is great grades and test scores? To a certain extent, schools like IIT and Tokyo University and the like have some serious shortcomings, they turn out well educated students, but they aren’t known for particularly turning out students who go on to change the world, to do new things, either and the schools themselves have admitted to that.
Given the kinds of things high achieving kids we are talking about tend to study, do we want a school that is only STEM majors and those majoring in Economics and Finance? Is a kid who is a serious poet or writer, who may not have gone down the path assumed to be needed to get into an elite college (ie all the high level classes, high test scores, etc) , a valuable thing? Also, given the nature of the education system in this country, where certain school districts tend to turn out the kind of ‘product’ that has these mega stats, would we want a college that represents kids from very limited diversity (geographic, economic), since kids who go to one of the high flying school districts (usually from very well off areas) or prep schools…
I think the answer is that high test scores, high grades and the like are one dimensional, and colleges don’t want any one type of student to dominate. I suspect this is more about wanting a diverse population at the school, ecomomically and socially and racially and whatnot, then being true racial discrimination.
@zinhead, we’ll have to agree to disagree here. People who advocate for a merit-only (i.e. stats only) admissions are asking for a black/white point (which doesn’t address the niggling point about purposefully suppressing people unfortunate enough to not have been born US citizens or obtain a green card) are on one extreme of what I consider a spectrum.
To the other extreme of that spectrum is Jim Crow/Apartheid laws and practices. Affirmative action (of which white women are the largest beneficiaries) is clearly allowed and legally affirmed. What cases like Bakke and Fishcher state is that it’s a policy that’s meant to be finite – and I’m 100% in agreement. Until we our society reaches a point where we can better approach a post racial society, they need to be examined and tested again. Until then, private colleges’ efforts to add diversity to their rolls as both a means of social engineering and to redress historical discrimination is allowed and lauded and defended. To me, where on that spectrum can colleges act with AA is the question. You claim closer to the full meritocracy – I say a little further down is still required.
I would wholeheartedly agree with you that once we pass that barrier in the future where AA isn’t required, our nation will be in a better place.
@T26E4 Asians working for their rights arent necessarily foreign born or green card holders? Most Asian kids I know are US born and multigenerational. Mainstream may treat them as aliens but they have no other place to call home. Most never even traveled to Asia as a tourist. You can relate to their frustrations.
I understand. I was around during the nascent Vincent Chin murder case in the early 80s – indeed he was a family friend. I’m ABC, myself. But regarding elite school anti-Asian bias, I guess I stand at odds w/many fellow Asians.
Is that because you made it to a top school so it didn’t affect you?
T26e4
Imo no school should have athletics other than for fun…like a club. But that is just me…I do not understand why a school gives scholarships for sports. I also understand it is not up to me.maybe a school like u of michigan or u of Kentucky etc…for football or basketball brings a lot of money and attention but still…I do not get sports as a group with special slots and scholardhips for admissions.
@T26E4 - I don’t disagree with schools rigging their admissions to maintain a certain desired level of racial balance in their enrollment. There are societal benefits from this practice, and there are societal costs as well. Just don’t pretend that schools don’t engage in wanton racial discrimination when it is clear that they do.
I don’t really understand the title of the thread. Does it mean spots are being saved for minority athletes? And then the discussion only includes elite schools.
Sports are definitely a way for minorities to get into college and to have college paid for. If you look at Harvard’s women’s golf and tennis teams, minorities are over represented. I don’t think those spots were designated for minorities, but that those women were the best athletes for the team. Most happen to be Asian, and maybe they just like golf and tennis but I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they took up the sports hoping to get into an elite college.
Athletes do have an admissions advantage. Harvard sponsors about 35 varsity athletic teams, which shows athletics are important to the school. Stanford has something like 700 students participating on teams (not all varsity, not all on scholarships). Athletics are important.
@zobroward
Just to clarify…
If you are referrecing the “Ivys” they do NOT give out athletic scholarships or merit scholarships but are entirely need based FA only. Additionally, athletic recruits must meet an Academic Index and pass an academic pre-read to qualify. You can easily reference the stats for that on-line but it is very rigorous.
No. But because I was fortunate enough to have gotten there, I can attest that the benefits of a diverse student body are enormous – and desire the same for my kids. Daresay, the colleges felt that my being non-typical Asian applicant from Detroit probably made me MORE attractive than the STEM kid from CA or NJ.
And also, I assert that outsiders’ perceived benefits of my Ivy degree are overblown. I’m pretty certain that would be on the exact path if I had instead, attended any of the non-Ivy schools that accepted me.
@tonymom
You are absolutely right. Plus schools like Williams, Amherst, Swat do not offer athletic scholarships either.
No I mean any school.