<p>No one is claiming that kids who have URM status are not getting consideration for that status. Everyone knows that is true, and the colleges themselves will tell you so. The suit claims that Princeton is discriminating against Asians. It would be interested to see how many kids with Jian Li’s profile have been rejected at Princeton, and how many of them are Asian.</p>
<p>please don’t tell me that colleges consider the conditions i grew up in. i live in southern arizona where many schools, including the one I attend, have greater hispanic enrollment than any other race. In fact, it has been in the newspapers lately that in a matter of years hispanics will outnumber whites in total population of my city. As it stands, in my environment i am a minority. Go ahead and reject me from my top colleges because my parents are more affluent, but do not reject me because i am an ORM. Outnumbered or equal all my life and then rejected because i am overrepresented just doesn’t make too much sense.</p>
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<p>Bear in mind that Princeton receives federal funds and as a result, is required to comply with Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. If AA as it is practiced by Princeton’s admission office violates Title VI, then being a private university does not afford Princeton any additional rights.</p>
<p>The Daily Princetonian updated the article this afternoon. Here’s the link:
[Investigation</a> into alleged admissions bias expands (Updated 1:31 p.m.) - The Daily Princetonian](<a href=“http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/06/11/21269/]Investigation”>http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2008/06/11/21269/)</p>
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I’m pretty sure they take both into account.</p>
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Yeah, I do. It’s simply a question of numbers. There are so few African Americans with high scores and so many underprivileged Whites/Asians with good scores that it becomes a numerical impossibility to meet their quotas without regard to race.</p>
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Well, I don’t claim to know the exact specifics, but it’s very fishy how elite colleges can get their URM numbers as high as they are without factoring in race quite heavily.</p>
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Is that so? I’ve never found that argument compelling. There is no proven advantage of a heterogenous educational experience over a homogeneous one. There certainly isn’t a societal difference. Considering Northern Europe, Japan, etc have some of the most homogeneous societies in the world and consistently have some of the highest quality of life as well (educational performance, crime rates, life expectancy, etc).</p>
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<p>I don’t think it’s possible to measure such an advantage. But I can say that being exposed to students of different backgrounds has broadened my perspective and has made me better able to confront difficult issues (AA for example) from a variety of perspectives. It is one of the parts of my Princeton education that I have found the most enriching.</p>
<p>Look people, nothing guarantees admission to HYPS. Legacy, perfect SAT scores/GPA’s , URM status or even being the presidents daughter. Nothing. There is still the possibility that you may be rejeted. Citing a Harvard admissions officer, “there is no formula for admission to Harvard University”. He should just move foward, why be bitter? </p>
<p>You have to keep in mind that the white race enslaved African-Americans for decades and prevented them from having an education and even reading. That affects a race’s general intelligence from my perspective. I think they deserve a boost in the admissions process. Now, don’t get me wrong, I do not think that an underqualified URM should be admitted but if his application is compared to an ORM and the two are nearly equal the URM should be admitted without a shout of a doubt. Its only fair.</p>
<p>he’s not bitter, he’s just trying to get attention for this issue</p>
<p>why would HYP schools be accused of something like this? A lot of students at these schools are asian or are international students…</p>
<p>I’m a URM (African American Male), got a 2360 on the SAT, and 800’s on 3 SAT II’s. I was #2 in a class of 563 at a large public high school. I was quite involved in all facets of my high school community. I took 14 of 23 AP courses offered by my school system and scored 5’s on all but one exam (Music Theory, got a 4). I captained 3 varsity sports teams, was a class officer two years, and student council president my senior year. I come from a family of 5, My mom grossed just under $10,000, and I’m the first in my family to graduate high school, let alone attend college. I attend a prestigious LAC; while I recognize I am certainly an anomaly, I do feel that to some extent a person’s environmental factors should play into the admissions process, REGARDLESS of race.</p>
<p>I actually cringe when I hear my peers, who come from two-parent homes that gross six figures a year, boast about the fact that they had lower stats but were still admitted. It sickens me even more when these students bash anyone and everyone who is against AA. </p>
<p>While I feel that AA is wonderful in theory, its execution is tremendously flawed. As I said, it should be based on an applicant’s ability to overcome a variety of factors (socioeconomic, type of school attended, parent’s educational level, etc.) not race. </p>
<p>Diversity is not necessarily achieved because a school admits URM’s, I know plenty of homogenous black and hispanic students who “overcame” and yet they bring no insight or perspective to a campus community. Diversity takes on many aspects, and while I am not saying the ranks of colleges should be littered with the country’s tired and poor, those individual’s (myself included) just due to the fact they overcame insurmountable odds bring wisdom, life experiences, unique perspectives, and life journeys that some would never have contact with if AA was not practiced. While I have no way of knowing if this is always the case, I would argue that this is fact is oftentimes why “subpar” URM’s are admitted over “more qualified” ORM applicants. And I agree, these threads do bring out the worst in people</p>
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<p>Any school which takes federal money (such as Princeton) should not be allowed to practice AA. Even worse is the cut off for Asian students we all know exists . What happened at the UC’s when race stopped being used in admissions? I think we all know the answer to that question… </p>
<p>AA is itself a mockery of the attempt of the disadvantaged to gain equal rights. If people want to be treated the same, then they should no act like being of a race makes them different or entitles them to special privileges. We should seek to eliminate the bias the system has against minority students, and not to treat them differently. Is hypocrisy to claim you want equal rights but also demand to be treated differently because of your race. I think it is incredible that a black student at Andover with parents making 500,000K a year has an advantage over a white student with parents at the poverty line. If there was real justice in the world socioeconomic class would be what go you a boost and not race.</p>
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No, that’s not fair at all. Blacks are not the only people who have suffered in this country. You can’t quantify or rank the amount of discrimination or pain dealt to minorities in the past. There is no logic behind saying things like, “My people suffered more than your people!” How in the world is it fair that a rich black kid going to an elite prep school will have a leg up in admissions over the poor Asian kid growing up in the ghetto? Not because of anything he did in life but simply because he was BORN black? Just so colleges can fill some racist quota for whites/Asians/ORM disguised as “diversity”? </p>
<p>Whenever I think of AA, I always think of MLK’s quotation that “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”, and I just wonder… how distorted and warped that has become. I got friends marking down “other” for their ethnicity even if they are white just because they think it will give them a boost. If colleges were serious about AA, why not have it be based entirely off of socioeconomic factors, and NOT something so ridiculous as the color of your skin? The whole process is beyond unfair, and it violates so many of America’s supposed principles of equality and justice. It’s about time somebody sued.</p>
<p>BTW, has anyone noticed that AA often hurts blacks as well? Whenever people see a black person at a prestigious institution, chances are what are the first things they think of? He’s only there because of affirmative action. You always have the “token black” who is perceived to only be there to pay lip service to “diversity”. It completely undermines and dilutes the value of people’s accomplishments.</p>
<p>Wraider, I agree with you on some points, especially when you discuss the stigma that comes along with AA, i.e., “hes only there because of Affirmative Action”. However, the main difference between blacks and asians for AA is that Asians have not been profoundly discriminated against in the past and blacks have. Do you think that most black applicants would stand a chance if AA didn’t exist? Would you want to be in a school filled with only whites and asians? You would be undermining your own success if you did. Being able to succede in a school with a myriad of races/nationalities translates to you being smarter than people who aren’t solely from your own race. This is an important aspect of AA which little thought has been given to. </p>
<p>Do you honestly think an admissions officer would accept a rich black kid with high SAT’s over a white at the poverty line with average stats? I think admissions is smarter than that.</p>
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<p>Two wrongs don’t make a right. Your post is clearly ignorant. Discrimination has happened to every race in the world.</p>
<p>^^^Why should universities stop practicing AA because racists stereotype all black students are only there to pay “lip service to diversity”? Anybody who would think that is already racist towards blacks anyway. The best way to alleviate that is to have them in a classroom where they can watch those black students thrive at the same curriculum they do, which does happen based on the statistically identical graduation rates between blacks and whites (when economic status is factored in). </p>
<p>Blacks in the same schools as whites DO face institutional biases. I’ve witnessed in elementary schools, when white students aren’t focusing in school they are “bored with the curriculum” and they’re tried out in gifted classes. When black students aren’t focusing in school, they’re either diagnosed with ADD or put back in LD classes. </p>
<p>I think some of you need to make a few black, educated friends and have a genuine conversation with them about race in education, not just one that’s interrogative (I’ve heard people ask “Do you think race made your education harder!? Do you think you deserve handouts!?”)</p>
<p>“AA is itself a mockery of the attempt of the disadvantaged to gain equal rights. If people want to be treated the same, then they should no act like being of a race makes them different or entitles them to special privileges”</p>
<p>When people just sit around and wait for rights to come, nothing happens. After slavery was abolished the country just SAID blacks and whites were equal under the law, but took no action to make it happen. And what did we have? Probably worse inequality than before. </p>
<p>Affirmative Action is taking ACTION to assure that minorities are just as educated as whites (statistics show that african americans are one of the only socioeconomic groups that have their income significantly raised with prestige of university), insure that all students are exposed to a variety of backgrounds and witness competent, successful people from all groups. And they hold colleges publicly accountable for low minority enrollment, forcing them to step up recruiting procedures. </p>
<p>I do think affirmative action needs a little retooling. Remember, the original intent was to force universities to actively recruit minorities to their school that would traditionally be ignored. However, elite colleges came to find that very few minority students even existed with the high credentials, especially test scores, to compete with their top applicants without race being a factor. </p>
<p>But instead of messing with Affirmative Action, we should keep it to gauge progress as we overhaul the public education system. Unfortunately, since the supreme court ruled busing based on race is illegal, a ruling i strongly oppose, it makes doing so very difficult since schools are very much segregated, funding is based on property taxes, and Americans would be outraged if the government attempted to use their taxes to teach other peoples kids. (The whole funding system was borne out of racism, I believe)</p>
<p>But nonetheless, the idea that urms admitted to elite institutions are under qualified is not supported by any evidence, and refuted by their high graduation rates.</p>
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<p>Asians have not been profoundly discriminated in the past??? Are you serious? I think you should check up on your history … cause I won’t waste my time doing that here. (and if you need help, maybe look up the Japanese internment camps WWII, Chinese Exclusion Act 1882)</p>
<p>And while i don’t support Dr. Science’s point, it was not ignorant. </p>
<p>African Americans and women are the only group that have had institutional discrimination that actively prevented them from achieving and equal education. After the civil rights movement active steps were taken to assure women were educated in a manner equal to men. however, not much was done to assure an equal education for blacks. </p>
<p>Discrimination against Asians, ect, did not hamper educational advancement, so while it would make sense to account for AA for african americans, it would not make sense to do so for Asians. </p>
<p>It’s like giving you a band aid to cure your cancer…</p>
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If they were truly the most deserving candidates- ie. made the most out of the academic and social opportunities given to them- I would not have a problem with that at all. Just like it wouldn’t be a big deal if I went to a school where every person there was black, but were the most deserving candidate. It’s not like have a “diverse” student body automatically enhances your education and makes you a better person/student, especially if the different groups don’t interact to begin with. From my past experience at a pretty elite LAC which is supposedly diverse, many black students simply hung out with black students, Asians with other Asians, and a good majority of international students only hung out with international students. So rather than having one heterogeneous campus, you have 3 or 4 homogenous campuses that just happen to be living together. That defeats the whole purpose of “diversity”, don’t you think?</p>
<p>I knew someone would say that… Tyler 09 has already said what I was going to say - “Discrimination against Asians, ect, did not hamper educational advancement, so while it would make sense to account for AA for african americans, it would not make sense to do so for Asians” (Tyler09)</p>
<p>Like I said before, and no one is acknowledging that I said this: If a URM and a ORM have similar credentials the scale should be tipped in the URM’s favor because ORM’s have not had their education opprotunities hindered in the past. I’m not condoning AA for underqualified canidates. Do you think Harvard or Princeton would enrol a black kid with a 1500 SAT score and 2.9 GPA. NO. All of the URM’s are qualified for the most part, so quit moaning.</p>
<p>I see your point, but I will continue to not support AA … period.</p>