<p>The gists:
you might be better off going to a school where your academic indices put you in the middle rather than at the bottom. Better off meaning more likely to graduate, more likely to pass the bar exam, and likely to earn more money. Footnote 59 of the article explains a statistical analysis of minorities who were accepted at their first choice school but chose to attend their second choice school and had better outcomes.
Professor Heriot in effect accuses elite law schools of consumer fraud in admitting “diversity” students without warning them of a dramatically higher risk of failure as compared to a lower-tier school. This victimizes the supposed beneficiaries of the policy.</p>
<p>A little autobio on the author. (a former supporter of race-based admission policies)
EDUCATION: </p>
<p>University of Chicago Law SchoolJ.D. 1981 cum laude
(In 1981, cum laude was awarded to the top 9% of the class.)</p>
<p>Honors: Order of the Coif, Associate Editor, University of Chicago Law Review.
Comment: Civil Discovery of Grand Jury Documents, 46 U. Chi. L. Rev. 604 (1980)</p>
<p>Northwestern UniversityB.A. 1978 with highest distinction
(In 1978, highest distinction was awarded to the top 1% or 2% of the class.)
Major: Political Science with minor concentrations in economics and art history.</p>
<p>Yes, I read it. Did you? Here is the author’s thesis.</p>
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<p>He is illustrating his point by talking about admissions standards at selective law schools not selective colleges; thus, this article has more to do with pre-law/law and should be placed in a more appropriate forum i.e. the Pre-Law forum section.</p>
<p>middsmith:</p>
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<p>The article is about admissions standards for minorities at selective law schools.</p>
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<p>Why are you so set on sparking another affirmative action debate? Why not go relieve your urges yourself by reading one of the many already exisiting threads on this topic?</p>
<p>Also, I am not saying the thread should be deleted. I am saying that it should be placed in a more appropriate forum since this article has little to do with college admissions.</p>
<p>Post #4 contains an excercpt that directly relates to college admissions at undergrad institutions. And the article as a whole has obvious implications for college admissions.</p>
<p>What’s your point? URMs shouldn’t go to elite schools? I find that terribly racist. Why didn’t you just say that people with scores in the bottom quartile of a college not attend elite schools, which doesn’t make sense because there always has to be a bottom quartile? Are you asserting that all URMs are in the bottom quartile of their college in terms of stats? I know I’m in the top quartile (and probably tenth) of my elite school in terms of stats. Should I not attend Stanford? I’d love the answers to these questions.</p>
<p>Pretty much common sense. Enter as some of the least academically able. Won’t be able to keep up.</p>
<p>AA is a flawed but necessarily institution that can give a small proportion of gifted but seriously disadvantages students (single parents, low income, poor neighborhood) a chance. </p>
<p>I usually become pretty irate when an URM from a great background (even with an advantage over other applicants) gets in a school solely because of his/her race.</p>
<p>The point is if you get in by a lower standard, it’s better if you go somewhere else. Since you are in the top quartile, it has nothing to do with you. Again, you did not bother reading what she had to say before jumping to the conclusion that people are out to get you.</p>
<p>So if I wanted to ask everyone what they thought about the movie “College Road Trip” this would be the appropriate forum since the movie has to do with college admissions?</p>
<p>I would think something like that belongs in the Cafe…</p>
<p>Preface this with the fact that none of Sanders research applies on the undergraduate level, where graduation rates of minorities are the same, they earn more money by going to more elite schools, and attain professional degrees more often, and where “mismatch” even potentially exists at the top 25% of schools because the overwhelming majority of schools accept nearly all applicants. </p>
<p>I’d like to bring everyone to Sander’s thesis, which is based on no evidence, just a leap of faith presented as conventional wisdom:</p>
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<p>“Mismatch” has been disproved multiple times, and even reversed on the undergrad level. I don’t see any evidence that similarly credentialed black students at more elite law schools pass the bar exam any less than those attending less elite schools with the same credentials. </p>
<p>The only evidence he presents is that black students who attend more elite institutions get lower grades than those who do not, which is not surprising as at elite schools they have lower credentials with respect to the other students. </p>
<p>Furthermore, financial status was not factored into Sander’s data, only that students who dropped out due to “financial hardship” was about the same, far from meaning the same thing.</p>
<p>Sanders does not present the right evidence to support the claims he makes. </p>
<p>I’m not sure how I feel personally about affirmative action at the graduate school levels, as graduate schools serve an entirely different purpose from undergraduate. I don’t however, find this a “great, sobering article”, and it leads me to believe miles did not even read it thoroughly.</p>
<p>At Mount Holyoke, Smith, Wellesley, Pomona and Macalester, the black student graduation rate was higher than was the white student graduation rate.</p>
<p>When graduation rates are published, the rates reflect students who graduated from a particular college within 6 years of entering it. What’s not tracked is whether students transferred and graduated from another school, which could be a better school. (Remember Obama transferred from Pomona to Columbia).</p>
<p>To the OP: why so eager to “prove” a point based on one disputable empirical article?</p>
<p>In any case, are you going to tell an African American male to take a top 20 school over Harvard because he’s black simply because he will get lower grades? While 1) Everybody who knows anything knows that almost everyone who starts a degree at an elite school finishes graduates and 2) that almost all HLS graduates are able to get top-notch jobs? I would like to see your face when that same African American ends up at Wachtell despite the presumed lower grades–and does quite well in practice. You make me laugh.</p>
<p>So what’s your point? You don’t think people of color should be lawyers? What a pathetic and ignorant outlook on life. Your ignorance and arrogance is awe-inspiring–and I try hard not to feel sorry for you, but it’s hard. And I am disciplined.</p>