<p>
College admissions have never been about meritocracy. Minorities used to be actively excluded from ivy leagues. For example, the anti-semitic Numerus Clauses was once used by colleges and universities to reduce the number of Jews. Another example that is less extreme is how being a recruited athlete or a legacy used to bear much more weight in the admissions process. For example, take Dexter Manley, a former football player for the Washington Redskins. He played football for Oklahoma State University and supposedly studied there as well despite being functionally illiterate.</p>
<p>One thing that I find funny though is how everyone looks towards the usual societal scapegoats: Africans/African-Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans. Fact is that these groups make up such a SMALL percentage of college students. The real issue here is that the college admission process is still unfair to minorities in general. </p>
<p>1.) Legacy status mainly benefits caucasians since caucasian applicants are the most likely to have parents who went to college. </p>
<p>2.) To a certain degree this is also the case with athletic consideration since whites and blacks make up a majority of athletes. (I know this is a generalization but when considering all college sports it fits pretty well.)</p>
<p>3.) The whole concept of URMs and ORMs hurt minorities. These concepts imply that there ought to be a set amount of minorities attending colleges.</p>
<p>cookiemon90: I do agree that there should be “meritocracy.” However, I do not believe that GPAs and test scores are the only things that should be considered. (I’m not sure but it seems as though that’s what you have been saying.) I think that the applicant as a whole should be considered.</p>
<p>The purpose of AA is to allow colleges to consider race. AA DOES NOT mean preferential treatment or quotas. In order to consider the applicant as a whole, colleges should be allowed to consider race since that is a part of a person’s identity; thus, AA should be allowed.</p>
<p>EDIT:
Check these sites out. They are very, very informative:
[Asian-Nation</a> : Asian American History, Demographics, & Issues :: Affirmative Action](<a href=“http://www.asian-nation.org/affirmative-action.shtml]Asian-Nation”>Affirmative Action : Asian-Nation :: Asian American History, Demographics, & Issues)
[Myths</a> and Fact about Affirmative Action](<a href=“http://www.iupui.edu/~aao/myths.html]Myths”>http://www.iupui.edu/~aao/myths.html)</p>