<p>Well, being black and attending UVA, let me chime in a little more on this topic. I did fine on my SATs, 1270, not great but respectable and had a ok GPA 3.6. Honestly, I thought I was lucky to be admitted as an out of state student since UVa is arguably the best public school in the country regardless of my circumstances. However, I feel my stats were within the range of admitted applicants. </p>
<p>Does being black help? It probably does, but is that the main reason for me being admitted to UVa, I would hope not since I’m not under qualified. So, what I’m most concerned with is people out there putting the ‘affirmative’ action label not only on blacks but other underrepresented minorities because that label ends up placing a stigma on those groups. </p>
<p>Lastly, based off my experiences and interactions with a lot of the black students, I think that there is a decent percentage who come from very wealthy families but also there is a good proportion, like myself who come from lower-middle class families.</p>
<p>The main point is we know for sure this guy is in because he’s black, whereas if he was white or Asian we couldn’t make that call because he hasn’t posted his class rank yet.</p>
<p>Ummm: let me just be brutally honest. there is absolutely no way a white or asian out of state applicant gets accepted with a 3.6 and a 1270. 0% chance. i will eat my words if you find a single one on the entire campus of uva.</p>
<p>unless maybe they’ve won the nobel prize. let’s be realistic here. without passing a judgment on AA (that can be done in other threads), we must at least acknowledge it exists and what the practical effect of it is.</p>
<p>Zero percent chance? No, but yea it would be extremely difficult for that person to get admitted out of state. I can acknowledge that some type of affirmative action exists but to make it seem that a lot of the black students admitted are there exclusively because of affirmative action I think is wrong. I’m sure black students like many other students admitted to UVa have done other things outside the numbers (SAT and GPA) to merit admission.</p>
<p>Based off what I’ve read, I guess that I’m just another of the ‘affirmative action’ admits who probably isn’t qualified if I were white or asian. However, I think I’m above that and hopefully before I graduate I can make a positive contribution to the university which has no correlation to what I scored on the SATs.</p>
<p>listen, I’m not trying to offend you or anyone else. you sound like you will make a very positive contribution to uva. however, i think a great disservice is done when we turn a blind eye and pretend not to notice things.</p>
<p>this is also why AA is so bad; because of the stigma it causes minorities who do get accepted. they have to deal with other people doubting them and possibly wonder themselves how their decision was affected.</p>
<p>race-blind admissions hopefully is the way of the future, but until then, a black candidate with the stats of the OP will be all but guaranteed admission.</p>
<p>OOS threads are not my expertise b/c I don’t have much hard data to offer when responding. This thread became so heated that I will chime in just to clarify numerically. </p>
<p>In state the data shows that on average a 3.6 + 1270 would not typically be within the realm of acceptance. OOS my data is very limited but I will offer up a NY school. Very tough joint this place when it comes to GPA. But here are some numbers to chew on. This year 5 students were accepted to MIT. I used this particular school b/c I was sure most would agree it’s tough to get in. The average GPA was 93.97 and the average SAT of accepted students was a suprisingly low 2132. UVa’s numbers from the same school are (hold on to your hat) a 93.81 GPA and a 2183 SAT with only 3 acceptances. I double checked the data cuz I couldn’t believe it. </p>
<p>Please remember this is a very limited data set and this is a science magnet school, but it certainly points out how tough OOS can be at UVa. B/C I was so shocked, I’m gonna toss in Yale’s #'s for this year – 94.67 with a 2261 for the 7 admits. I looked at Harvard for good measure but there is some dope with a 83 and a 1900 that messes with the averages so I decided not to post them. </p>
<p>Please remember this is raw data. I don’t have a lot of other info like URM or other hooks, legacy etc., but this school should (based on location) have a diverse student body.</p>