No. Would you say that Chicago admits students of significantly lower quality than Cornell or Hopkins simply because it has a higher acceptance rate? Acceptance rates fail to take self-selection into account, a major factor in admit rates. Many Asian-Americans, both on CC and elsewhere, complain about being forced to apply to elite schools that they don’t really like or feel they’re qualified for. Yes, this happens with other races too- but not to the same extent.</p>
<p>Without seeing the actual applications, studies are utterly useless.</p>
<p>Just my take: even aside from this article, the Daily Princetonian is probably the second-worst college publication, to Prism Magazine. It has terribly written columns that are, in themselves, quite funny. This last issue was not needed. Read the sports columns for fun. It makes my day.</p>
<p>“A higher percentage of blacks and hispanics are accepted sinec they aren’t subjected to the same standards as whites and Asians.”</p>
<p>Completely false. The standard is academic excellence, measured by several tools and in several ways. “The study” cited simply does not show that at all. It shows that accepted Asians had high scores. Asians commonly strive for high scores: it’s a major priority in many Asian families. Many of them spend years prepping for the SAT. Another big wow. The colleges have determined that scores on the SAT I are only one measure of promise – important but by no means singularly important. Many admissions officers believe that other measures are actually more indicative of college potential than the SAT.</p>
<p>A perfect score on an SAT does not in itself “qualify” one for an Elite, or “qualify” one for an Elite more than an imperfect score does. Elites reject anywhere between 25% and 50% of perfect scorers every year. Many of those perfect scorers are white. Whites and Asians and Hispanics & Blacks with imperfect but very high scores also get accepted to Elites, every year.</p>
<p>You’ve defined affirmative action to be “programs that advocate hard work for URM’s & earning college acceptances.”</p>
<p>If that were the definition, then Ward Connerly has no civil rights initiatives to fund. I mean, according to you, affirmative action is not racial preference. </p>
<p>I ask then, “How can Mr. Connerly find success in ending racial preferences?” Apparently, they don’t exist. So, how were his initiatives able to end something that doesn’t happen in the first place?</p>
<p>I further ask, “If affirmative action is not racial preference, then why do so many parents here hate Mr. Connerly for trying to end racial preferences?” These parents are all for the virtues of “diversity” and “inclusion.” Why do they get upset when initiatives try to end an already nonexistent system?</p>
<p>Maybe it’s because affirmative action in this day and age is, in fact, racial preferences.</p>
<p>If you use the link I provided, you’ll also find that minorities get bosts as far as the SAT is concerned when it comes to admissions. Here are some more numbers:</p>
<p>SAT gains/losses on a 1600 point scale.</p>
<p>Blacks: +230
Hispanics: +185
Asian: -50</p>
<p>Is this fair? Now way! How is fair to give unearned boosts to URMs. This means that a black student with an 1100 is the same as a white student with a 1330 or an Asian student with a 1380. This is so ridiculous. It’s not like this applies to the “ghetto” URMs that AA is supposed to help. 2/3rds of the black students at colleges that benefitted from AA are either internationals or only part-black.</p>
<p>I am also annoyed when people use the recruited athlete argument when discussing AA. Excelling atheltically is using one’s talents effectively and it should warrant a advantage in the admissions process. Getting recruited takes work and effort. In many cases, it takes just as much effort to stand out athletically as academically. </p>
<p>AA on the other hand, rewards nothing but being a URM. This is not earned. It is the way a person is born. You don’t work out every day and go to practice to be black. That type of work is required to be a star athlete and it is this hard work and dedication that should be rewarded. Race should have absolutely no bearing on someone’s qulaifications or admissions chances.</p>
<p>What is “positive inequity?” There are positive statements and there are normative statements. For example, a positive statement to sum up your post is as follows:</p>
<p>Lighter-skinned minorities are treated differently than darker-skinned ones.</p>
<p>We could test this statement.</p>
<p>A normative statement to sum up your feelings on the issue is as follows:</p>
<p>We should discriminate for using race as a factor.</p>
<p>There is no “positive inequity.”</p>
<p>By supporting affirmative action, you’re stating that “Race is important! Look at my skin color! Treat me differently because I’m [insert color here]!”</p>
<p>Isn’t that reinforcing age-old behaviors held by the majority of our nation? Hmm.</p>
<p>“Many admissions officers believe that other measures are actually more indicative of college potential than the SAT.”</p>
<p>We all know that the SAT isn’t everything. What we do know, or at least should know, is that race plays too much of a role in college admissions. The study showed that if RACE alone was removed as a factor, the acceptance rates for both blacks and hispanics would plummet, even if EC’s, essays, and the like were still considered. If that’s not evidence of blanant racial preference existing in college admissions, I don’t know what is.</p>
Afraid not. Read more carefully: African-American applicants receive the equivalent of 230 extra SAT points (on a 1600-point scale)…</p>
<p>The key word is “equivalent.” They don’t actually receive such a boost. In other words, they are admitted at a rate that is equal to such a boost. For example, I could say that valedictorians get the equivalent of a 300 point boost. They don’t actually get such a boost, but their acceptance rate (~30-40%) is roughly equal to such a boost.</p>
<p>
What’s still being debated is if preferences are a bad thing.</p>
You, of course, are not black and have not come out of the black experience. History tends to have a very great effect on blacks when they are surrounded by whites without the support of other blacks. It can be overcome with a change of culture. My own kids are often the only blacks around in their many activities, and yet they feel just fine, mainly because they don’t look for the approval of people, but are just trying to do their thing, accepting whoever wants to hang with them. And it is funny to see, because - LOL - my kids have a really weird mix of friends, from super hot bombshells and hunks to really geeky, semi-autistic geniuses. The kids just mix ‘em all up, which creates some funny scenes. But, until a change of culture takes place generally in the black community on this issue, black students at our colleges will tend to feel great isolation without the support of other blacks. And it has a severe effect on school performance. If I could get you to see just one thing here, it is that history is still having a devastating effect on us.</p>
Ask those guys if they are constantly looking over their shoulders, and it is very likely they will tell you that in many ways, they certainly are. Blacks are some of the most creative people on the planet. When you consider how much influence this small group of people have had on the world, even while they had nothing at all, while their very bodies were owned by others, it is just astounding. We have developed great numbers of ways to cope in this place, and many of these coping mechanisms were developed to make folks like you feel comfortable. Most blacks won’t just come out and show what is really going on – not unless you let them know you really want to enter into their space. When you convince them this is your desire, then many will let you know what is happening. The problem is, to maintain all this stuff is very tough. [It</a> increases our health problems](<a href=“http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C0CE3D8153BF937A15757C0A966958260]It”>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?sec=health&res=9C0CE3D8153BF937A15757C0A966958260) and generally adds a lot of extra weight that drags us down.</p>
<p>Valedictorians EARNED that advantage. They had to work to be at the top of their classes. Their efforts should be rewarded. How does being black entitle someone to a boost? How does one “earn” URM status? The answer is that you don’t. It isn’t necessary and is merely a handout given to only certain races.</p>
<p>Positive (what is) versus Normative. That has been addressed several times before. Hence, in the real world, practices that produce inequity, while enacted to meet a normative goal, do affect the reality of those who are affected and are on the margins.</p>
<p>URM status is ‘given out’ to most groups except non-minorities, since East Asians and Southeast Asians are sometimes considered URMs for admissions purposes. Asians have benefited. And, in a private holistic admissions process, being of a particular ethnicity does not necessarily make one candidate more admissable unless other factors balance out in some way. Legacies, instaters, athletes, developmental candidates, special talents, those with EC’s, good test scores, high class rank, gender (depending on institution), socioeconomic class, high school attended, parents educational attainment, etc…are all looked upon as a part of the application and may sway the adcom.</p>
<p>As for a valadictorian/salutatorian…sometimes they earn it because they work hard, and sometimes they know how to game the system by using political and social pressure to gain the desired designation. Earn it? Some do, some threaten or litigate. Just like having several co-captains and dropping class rank (partly brought about by those most concerned that children in their community would not get into the right schools because of stiff competition), merit can be debated.</p>
<p>fabrizio, Affirmative Action is never racial preferences alone. Never. If Mr. Connerly is alleging this, and misleading the voting public by stating this, he is simply wrong. AA is contextualized racial inclusion. I’m not playing with words, choosing “inclusion” over “preferences.” “Preferences” to me implies superiority, regardless of the literal way or denotation in which you mean it. It connotes that there is usually or always a hierarchy of choice. No. There is only a context of choice. It is possible (while not likely) that next admissions cycle, the number of qualified applicants currently classified as URM’s (Hispanics, Blacks, Native Americans, some Southeast Asians, etc.) would each of themselves be abundantly represented among the qualified pool to a particular Elite. And at the same time, hypothetically, the white and Asian segment could be small, or “a minority.” That Elite U. would continue to seek a racially & ethnically & culturally diversified class. As that goal has not persuaded them to accept underqualified Hispanics, Blacks, etc., it would similarly not persuade them to accept underqualified “minority” numbers of whites & Asians in such a hypothetical example. However, they might accept all the whites & East Asians who qualified, and (conversely) merely the best of the other named groups.</p>
<p>That’s the way admissions works. It is all CONTEXT.</p>
<p>As to Connerly, my impression of him, since he has spent so long in my State, is that he is well-intentioned but misguided. (I agree with Drossel in that particular matter.) If he is so interested in a level playing field, abandoning minorities BOTH for college acceptance AND for K-12 is simply double abandonment. If he believes vigorously in standout achievement among minorities, and in “race-blind” admissions, he should be spending his energy working for the kinds of K-12 reform that Drosselmeier & I have discussed & proposed & work for ourselves, and that we have shared with you, fabrizio. Because such work will obviate the need for state propositions in the first place. When the number or proportion of qualified minorities equals the number or proportion of the qualified majorities, colleges will be disinterested in accepting all of the highly qualified URM’s in the pool, resulting in nonacceptance of some of the majority. There will be a lot less effort needed at considering racial balance when racial balance already presents itself inside that admissions office.</p>
If you want Kazakh representation at your school, then having one good Kazakh apply will not be enough in an applicant pool of twenty thousand students. You will have to search deliberately for that guy. And my goodness, what a fantastic thing it could be. That one student can help expose an entire class of future leaders to the truth about his country and about his culture. That is education – and Berkeley is increasingly deficient in it.</p>
<p>
It is not the only way. It is certainly what we need to do. But if we do only this, we are talking about increasing the steepness of the hill without a need to do so.</p>
<p>
Because the discrimination did occur, whether I wanted it or not.</p>
<p>“Legacies, instaters, athletes, developmental candidates, special talents, those with EC’s, good test scores, high class rank, gender 9depending on institution), ethnicity, socioeconomic class, high school attended, etc…are all looked upon as a part of the application and may sway the adcom.”</p>
<p>All of those things listed either help/hurt a candidate in some way. If a candidate has a special talent or ability, it should be rewarded, just like high academic achievement. If a candidate is poor, he/she’s lack of access to the best teaching should be considered. URM status doesn’t fall in either of the 2 categories. It is a physical characteristic. Considering it would be like considering hair-color or shoe-size in admissions. Both of these sould stupid by skin color isn’t that far off.</p>
<p>Hepstar–I believe that the statistics you cited in post 377 do not relate to Princeton. According to the study, they represent the combined admissions pools of three universities. Maybe I’m misreading things, but I believe that you got it wrong.</p>
<p>“Maybe I’m misreading things, but I believe that you got it wrong.”</p>
<p>Wherever the statistics came from is irrelevant. If anything, the fact that they came from 3 different universities actually strengthens my argument since it shows that racial preferences are rampant in multiple colleges. The numbers, no matter where they are from, clearly show the preference given to URMs, including higher acceptance rates and an UNEARNED (keyword here) advantage on the SAT. Also, if race was eliminated, the acceptance rates for blacks and hispanics would sink, despite the fact that candidates EC’s, essays, recs, and all other non GPA/SAT factors would still be considered. The only variable that would be removed is race and it alone would lower URM acceptance rates to less than 1/2 of what they are now. That really says a lot IMO about the influence of race in college admissions.</p>
<p>Show me a statistic to prove me wrong. I have’t seen any yet.</p>
<p>Actually, the physical characteristic, which may or may not include skin-tone, does have positive (rather than normative) effects with respect to have a student/family is treated pre-college that does affect performance, socioeconomic class, school opportunities, health care, mortgage rates, insurance costs, etc…</p>
<p>And, people shorter than 4’10" are considered dwarfs, who have been traditionally marginalized by taller people. As for hair color, genetically, those that don’t have recent european ancestors gennerally have darker colored eyes, and more meletonin. Recall the case during the early 1960’s when an Iowa teacher broke the kids up by eye color, brown and blue, and had the brown-eyed kids sit at the back of her classroom?</p>
<p>And, how about state/geographical residency in competitive public colleges? Where does that fit, besides being a perk of paying state taxes?</p>
<p>I highly doubt it. Why should we reward something that isn’t earned? I just never got this logic. Under AA, we are rewarding being a minority, which is merely what you’re born as. You don’t maintain a 4.0 skin color. Yet, AA treats URM status as if it is some sort of honor that is worth a reward.</p>