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I agree. I don’t know how it works in other states but in California there is guaranteed admission to a UC or CalState for CC students who are able to maintain certain grades in the right classes. This opens the door for many who either aren’t prepared when they reach the end of HS, weren’t focused enough while in HS, or didn’t have enough guidance to take the right classes in HS to enable them to attend the flagships. It’s also a less expensive option for many.</p>
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One of the things my UCSD D likes about the school is that they don’t offer any athletic scholarships (and also don’t have a football team). The students at the school seem to be split with some students like my D who’d rather see money spent for academic purposes and others who’d like to have a football team they can rally around.</p>
<p>Why do these threads always end up focusing on white vs. black scores with AA benefits latino, asian pacific islanders and, most of all, women?</p>
<p>I would think this fact alone demonstrates why AA is still needed.</p>
<p>How does AA benefit women at this time? I thought it is the opposite, that since greater numbers of qualified women are now applying to colleges than men, the men are actually getting preferences at some colleges. </p>
<p>The benefit that men are now beginning to have has led to some well-publicized articles this year; there was also a very long discussion about it in CC earlier this year:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=160476&highlight=men+preference+college+admissions[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=160476&highlight=men+preference+college+admissions</a></p>
<p>and a shorter one:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=160482[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=160482</a></p>
<p>While overall female applicants may be on the rise, in the arenas of hard sciences and engineering women still benefit greatly from AA.</p>
<p>And even if we leave out this large chunk of AA beneficiaries, it still doesn’t explain the predominant theme of AA threads is white vs. black, not hispanics, native americans, etc</p>
<p>And in nursing and elementary education, men are vocationally favored. No hard feelings.</p>
<p>I have never seen any data that support that women applying to engineering schools or who are science majors are less qualified. They are just fewer and so there is presumably competition to get them. That is not AA.</p>
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<p>I was not slamming community colleges. </p>
<p>I was reporting a phenomenon found by researchers who used and pre- and post- measures of aspirations. All things being equal, students who attended community colleges were more likely to alter their degree aspirations downward. </p>
<p>I am truly pleased that your experience with Detroit-area community colleges has been positive. The research I am reporting on was at the national level, looking at college attendance across the 50 states. Perhaps Wayne, Monroe Macomb, Oakland, Mott, and other community colleges in SE Michigan offer a truly unique experience. I would probably feel more reassured if I could see comparable empirical data, however.</p>
<p>When I spoke of diversity at community colleges, I was referring to the fact that there are students who enroll there for a wide range of purposes. Some have no desire for or need for a 4-year degree. I was not making some kind of veiled reference to an opinion that being around other minority students is somehow going to kill their dreams.</p>
<p>This overall interpretation of my post is discouraging and puzzling. I hope I’ve clarified my meaning.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure I understand the distinction you’re making here. Can you amplify? In my thinking, if women engineering applicants weren’t “less qualified” on the measures talked about here, why would colleges need to use a boost to get more of them enrolled?</p>
<p>The authors of Prop 2 felt otherwise–as did the voters who voted for the no race-no gender measure (instead of rejecting it favor of something more tailored). I can’t speak for them, but I would assume they’d argue that a boost is a boost, whoever is getting it, whatever the reason for getting it. </p>
<p>FWIW, there are some who have framed the URM argument the same way–there is a relative shortage of college-bound URMs, so there is increased competition to get them. But in my thinking, it doesn’t erase the issue of the boost, or change the fact that if you give one group a leg up, it means some with lower measures (on whatever criteria) will get in over those not in the group with similar or better measures.</p>
<p>Qualifiers such as grades and SAT scores are not that different in female and male science and engineering majors. The females are not getting a “leg up.” They are a minority in engineering due to less interest. It was, in fact, male nursing applicants who received extra points under the old U-Mich point system. The Engineering School at Michigan did not have a published point system, as far as I know. I doubt that Engineering Schools are trying to achieve 50-50 M/F female ratios. They are happy to accept qualified females. I also do not know if they accept black/Native American/Hispanic students with lower grades and SATs and what support they give once accepted. </p>
<p>AA typically revolves around accepting applicants who have lower scores and grades to promote diversity. The students who are URMs with equal scores and grades are heavily recruited, as there are fewer of those in the general application pile.</p>
<p>Engineering did have a point system. The Selection Index system you’ve seen was used by nursing and LSA, so (as you noted) it reflects the boost that men got if they applied to Nursing. </p>
<p>Engineering’s was slightly different in that it separated math and verbal test scores and weighted math more heavily. Women applicants did, indeed, get a boost in engineering.</p>
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This makes sense to me. There are plenty of females who are as qualified as males regarding their stats including math/science. I truly think there just aren’t that many who make the decision to go into engineering just as there aren’t that many female mechanics. Both of my daughters are in engineering and are definitely in a minority (roughly 15% of the freshman engineering class). In both cases they were the only females they knew of in their HS class to choose to enter engineering although a number of males did.</p>
<p>Hoedown, I know you weren’t referring to racial diversity, and that’s yet another bone I have to pick with you. Why is it only ETHNIC and diversity that is good? I don’t understand why ethnic diversity is so precious that we should suspend equal rights to achieve it, but diversity based on politics, wealth, age, military background, and aspirations are either not worth considering or even (as in you “Hail Mary” pass) NEGATIVE?</p>
<p>I’m certain that my community college experiences were not unique, nor are the Southeast Michigan community colleges unique. You seem to suffer from that common Ann Arbor malady called “academic elitism.” How many people do you know in Ann Arbor who ever set foot in a community college or other institution at which admission is pretty much dependent on one’s ability to fog a mirror? I have had the privilege of attending and teaching at some colleges you’d probably consider crappy (the community colleges, Chaminade U of Honolulu, Central Michigan U), as well as some really good ones (Boston College, U of Toronto, Indiana U). And there is plenty to learn at both types.</p>
<p>Make no mistake: giving a boost to women in engineering, men overall, URMs, or oboe players is ALL about the numbers.</p>
<p>The reason that there is AA is that colleges get disproportionately fewer AA applications and have lower AA yield. Thus, they enroll fewer AA students than they would like. Solution? Simple: accept more of the applicants from the pool. To accept more, you dip deeper and take “lower stats”. There is absolutely no difference between AA for URM and AA that involves dipping deeper in to the pool of male applicants or the pool of female engineers.</p>
<p>I am sorry you feel that way about my posts.</p>
<p>I am not speaking from academic elitism. I am talking about repeated research and consistent findings–which is not just published (or read) in Ann Arbor. This is research that many people in higher ed–including my colleagues at community colleges–absorb, discuss, are concerned about and want to address. It’s not a normative judgment about community colleges–it’s a documented outcome. It has nothing to do with a college being “crappy,” a word I have not used. Until that is addressed, I have concerns about a plan, suggested here, to regularly track poor and/or minority students into community colleges instead of 4-year institutions. Community colleges are appropriate for many students and U-M admits hundreds of CC students each year as transfer applicants, and one of my colleagues chose this route for his own daughter. However, it is problematic, in my view (given decades of research into aspirations, persistence, and degree attainment) to make it a general policy for underprivileged and underrepresented students. </p>
<p>There is much to be said for diversity of all types. I think a discussion of more-broad diversity could be interesting, and I think it would be both refreshing and intriguing to for people to advocate (as you seem to be? I don’t want to put words in your mouth), that college students would benefit from a campus boasting a diversity of preparation, ambitions, skills, aspirations, and backgrounds. These ideas have merit but would be pretty new for College Confidential, as many poster seem to think otherwise (that is, that elite and selective are “better”). Ironically enough, this seems to be the underpinning of much of the argument against AA–that students with higher SATs and grades are “better” to have on campus. </p>
<p>However, it feels to me as though this is a digression of my original point. My concern about community college is specifically related to increasing the risk for certain at-risk but highly capable students, not some aversion to having college students commune with the wider world.</p>
<p>I am not sure what your personal judgments and guesses about my experiences and educational background bring to this, but you are drawing some wrong conclusions. Among them, I have not only “set foot on” community college campuses, I’ve earned credits at one.</p>
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Personally, I hope this doesn’t happen at the schools my daughters are attending (and I don’t think it is) just as I hope no preferences are given for anything they had no control whatsoever over such as gender, race, height, etc. I feel comfortable that it didn’t happen in the case of my Ds because their stats were higher in every way than several white male classmates who were accepted at the same schools of engineerining as them including UCB, UCLA, etc… </p>
<p>I don’t want my Ds to have a stigma that they were somehow given a boost due to their gender or that they were somehow allowed to meet a lower standard threshold than others due to this reason. I don’t want people whispering “oh, they were only accepted to UCB engineering because they’re female”. If they didn’t make the cut, then they would have simply gone to another school where their stats would have been accepted. In California at least, there are plenty of fine public University options to choose from along with a number of great privates.</p>
<p>On the plus side, for Blacks, Hispanics, and any other URM attending the UCs and CalStates, they can feel confident that the whispering doesn’t apply to them - they met the same standards as anyone else and their race was no crutch on admissions.</p>
<p>ucsd<em>ucla</em>dad: I agree that no one has come forward with actual stats that would prove that women engineering students have lower stats than the males. In fact I think that they may have to be even more qualified because they are still in enough of a minority that they will have to be “proving themselves.” The postings were just a way to try to prove that women are part of AA, which is not true at this time. There were NO points for being female in the U-Michigan point system. I think your daughters both being in Engineering is a testament to your raising them in a non-biased way per gender roles.</p>
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<p>I am not sure this is accurate–See post #90.</p>
<p>Hoedown, I must admit you are gracious even when I’m hurling a lot of crap your way. I haven’t read the literature on acute relative aspirational dissonance or whatever it is. The whole thing smells like a post-doc with too much time and data on his hands. If one of the main reasons against using community colleges as a stepping stone is that the students there have to rub shoulders with riff-raff that don’t pine to go Ivy, then I’d say it’s still a pretty good option.</p>
<p>But it’s by no means the only option. I’ve brought this up before but nobody commented on it: even the U of Michigan ITSELF has 2 less-competitive branch campuses that would be great places to ensure those who can’t get in Ann Arbor have a fine and reputable place to land. Both of these campuses are even close to the 2 poorest and most URM-dominated areas. If they were far from uban areas in places like Monroe and Gaylord, I wouldn’t be mentioning them as reasonable options. But they are in Flint and Dearborn (which borders Detroit). </p>
<p>Re your other concern: no, I’m NOT advocating colleges rig the admissions standards to ensure that the poor, the Republican, the military vets, the old, the slackers, and other underrepresented groups have a critical mass on campus. I just mention them because I think a case could be made for the college as a whole being better off because of their presence. I mean, what poli-sci class these days wouldn’t benefit from the presence of an Iraq or Afghanistan vet? But even if their presence would be beneficial, I don’t see why that would justify raising the bar on rich, young, non-Vet, hard-working Democrats just to ensure there is room for the others.</p>
<p>P.S. You gotta read the John Ridley essay on race in the December “Esquire.”</p>
<p>hoedown: I would appreciate your providing a link to this information about the point system used in the Engineering School that awarded extra points for female gender. The only information that I can find about the point system used by the Engineering School is that they more heavily weighted math SAT scores that were high. I can only find that gender points given during that time were for males applying to the School of Nursing, who received 5 points. How many points are you saying that females applying to the School of Engineering received?</p>
<p>Since you are an academic, I am sure you will easily find the original source!
Thank you.</p>
<p>Argh, server ate my reply.</p>
<p>well, a recap:</p>
<p>Tourguide, we probably agree, largely, about the value of community colleges as an important avenue for college access. Just to reiterate: My point about the research wasn’t made because I wanted to take a swipe at 2-years, but because it was directly relevant to the issue. The suggestion of sending more of these students to community college was aimed at narrowing the graduation gap. But for all the benefits of spending the first year or two at a less-expensive, supportive 2-year college, it would appear that an increased chance of timely degree attainment is not necessarily one of them. Not just according to postdoc research, either.</p>
<p>As for diversity, I think about it more widely too–if that doesn’t make it into my posts it’s because we’ve been focusing on the Prop 2 issues.</p>
<p>UM-AA touts Flint and Dearborn as options to students it denies for reasons of space. I don’t know how much application overlap we have with the branches, however. Incidentally, veterans probably get a fair shake at U-M. The director of admissions is former Air Force and one of the senior associates is former Army. Such a font of trivia I am.</p>
<p>Haven’t seen the Esquire yet.</p>
<p>collegialmom, I am not able to find an online course for the engineering formula. I looked earlier so I could point people to it, without success. I now assume it wasn’t ever made public (likely due to lack of interest–the Gratz case focused on ethnicity and LSA admissions. Had I known it was not in the public domain I wouldn’t have brought it up. I apologize.</p>