<p>Ha, good find Foil. dontno, I’ll ignore most of your ad hominem arguments, and try to address your points directly. I’ll offer up a short argument from the achievement/ability perspective, instead of the moral obligation perspective, since you obviously won’t agree with my “incredibly liberal bias.”</p>
<p>There’s a fundamental difference between the situation you describe and the situation that minority students are in, which is that the priming effect is something inherent, something that will exist regardless of the surrounding situation. Whether there are disruptive influences or not, this effect is going to happen, and they’ll be negatively affected by it. Your situation isn’t the same–it’s certainly not something that holds true universally for white students.
While I can’t comment on what you say after that (about highly doubting the score difference), the fact remains that URMs consistently perform more poorly on standardized tests. There really are only a few explanations…either you’re going to go ahead and say they’re less intelligent, or that they’re systematically disadvantaged, through implicit racism, economic inequalities, and relative lack of educational opportunities. </p>
<p>So fine, the average high school GPA and SAT score are almost certainly lower for minority students. Honestly, I don’t know how big a difference it is, and neither do you. But how much does this matter? I assume your point is that schools should consider achievement objectively, without taking other (unchangeable) factors or the overall situation into consideration. But then, if you’re admitting students based solely on achievement in high school, most kids from public schools just don’t compare. In all likelihood, the above-average student at Exeter has accomplished more with his time than most other students at other high schools. Does that mean that that student should be admitted every time over the kid from North Dakota with two AP classes at his school?</p>
<p>My position is no, obviously. I think taking the surrounding circumstances into consideration is important in determining the ability of students. I think a student who manages to thrive with few opportunities shows more character than a marginally better student with more opportunities, and that this effort should be considered. Coming from a disadvantaged background in itself shows talent, and I think this actually is reflected in minority performance in college. The study you cited was not only sixteen (!) years old, but completely irrelevant. Much more important is performance in college. After all, the primary goal behind college admissions is to determine whether students will be successful at their school. Graduation statistics at top colleges (lower ranked colleges practice AA more rarely) show that minority students clearly perform at comparable rates to their peers.</p>
<p>Ultimately, your main point is wrong, as I said before. You’re saying that he was rejected solely on the basis of race, because he likely would have been accepted had be been black. But that’s a ridiculous argument. You can just as easily say that he was rejected on the basis of extracurriculars–if he’d just gone to the IMO, he likely would have been accepted. Or you could say that he was rejected on the basis of location. If he lived in Idaho, he would have likely been accepted. Because college admissions are so holistic, you can’t say he was rejected or accepted simply because he was Asian. While you can argue that individual students get accepted partly through race, you can’t argue the reverse–that students are rejected because of race. </p>
<p>Oh, by the way, I’m an Asian American myself. I’m not arguing out of straight self-interest, if you’re wondering.</p>