That is one philosophy of admissions. It has been largely rejected. One reason is that many of these minority students have just as much merit, it has just been suppressed because of the conditions of their education and home life, which is a societal problem. When I say suppressed I don’t mean they have not done very well, but it is the difference between a 2350 SAT and a 2200. Or having 12 AP classes instead of only 1 or 2. Or the ability to have tons of EC’s and experience all sorts of things that money allows instead of having to work an after school job 5 days a week. So what you really mean is demonstrated merit. Colleges are looking at overall merit, given the totality of the circumstances. It isn’t perfect, a wealthy black student might get in because of AA when that isn’t really the intention of what we are trying to address. But those cases are rare, nearly by definition.</p>
<p>It is a question our society is constantly struggling to answer. How do you account for gross social inequities that are entirely out of the control of the student so that they have a seat at the most privileged table? How do you ensure that these children of privilege get exposed, in an up close and personal setting, to the point of view of these very people, instead of just studying them in some abstract manner? The world as you apparently would like to see it has the advantage of simplicity, but most would hardly call it fair. I know, you would say it is unfair to the white student that did everything by the book at it isn’t their fault they were born into a privileged family. And that’s true. But all that says is that because we are dealing with a product in limited supply (the number of openings available at the top schools) and very high demand for that product, this is always going to be unfair to many people. They just shouldn’t all be minorities who would be nearly shut out of these schools without this kind of consideration.</p>
<p>In essence, what these schools are trying to do is balance people that have demonstrated merit, but in a great many cases had the advantage of college educated parents and excellent high schools and even top prep schools (not to mention SAT classes and the like) with those that also have demonstrated merit at a slightly lower level but given the circumstances have a lot of untapped potential. Race and ethnicity is a clumsy way to do that, I grant you, but it is a start and works reasonably well. Add to that the desire for diverse viewpoints that can only be achieved by having representation of talented people from other backgrounds than the rather homogeneous white upper class male that was almost exclusively at these schools not really all that long ago, and you get the system a lot of people argue for.</p>
<p>In summary, “merit is merit” might make a good bumper sticker, but it is woefully naive. Of course it is the college’s responsibility. They are there to provide for the best education possible, which includes diverse points of view. They are there to help serve society in general, all of society, a role they didn’t truly adopt until the last 40 years or so. That really isn’t a liberal point of view. It is simply acknowledging that the definition of merit you are using is extremely narrow, and not in the best interests of a healthy democratic society.</p>
<p>Racial and ethnic diversity is a very good proxy for a diversity in ideas and experiences, and therefore how one interprets and digests all sorts of intellectual material. Isn’t that supposed to be one of the main purposes of a liberal arts education? It’s not trade school.</p>
<p>Second, I may agree with part of the premise if help on the SAT only was provided through private tutors. You can get plenty of help from the books in the library, at school, online. There is another thread here about how someone raised their SAT score by 790 points. AFAIK, it looks like it may have cost $100-200 assuming he bought everything new.</p>
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<p>Sure he MAY have. Or he may NOT have. It is also unfair to penalize a rich kid who may not have used a tutor and did well in favor of a student who, even if they used a tutor, may have still done poorly.</p>
<p>Third, you are assuming that the SAT is the major determinant in admissions. There is no evidence of that. </p>
<p>Some schools have done an admirable job of leveling the playing field in terms of encouraging students to apply (outreach), enabling them to apply (fee waivers), being seriously considered (the value of the context of the application) and being able to attend (financial aid). I think that is all good.</p>
<p>One observation I have about this is that it seems OK to discuss affirmative action (and other hooks) in the abstract, but it seems kind of rude to point to any individual kid and say that he probably got in because of the hook–even if it’s probably true. If we recognize that colleges use these hooks in making admissions decisions–and they say that they do–then it’s obvious that some kids will get into the colleges who would not have done so without the hook. The kid we’re talking about may or may not be one of them–he has pretty good stats, after all.</p>
<p>But I have to agree that it was a mistake to make a big PR deal out of his accomplishment. It invited just the sort of questions that have been asked here.</p>
<p>Wow, talk about distorting what someone says. No I am not saying that minorities are the only ones that have diverse ideas. That is not even close to what I said or implied. I said diversity of perspectives. Surely you cannot possibly think that a rich white kid, or even a middle class white kid, can possibly have the life experience as a black kid from Watts or a Brazilian kid from their slums. It is a strawman argument to say that white people have different ideas and perspectives from each other. Of course they do at the detail level. That isn’t what these schools are trying for. How can a white person truly know what racial discrimination feels like? Come on, man. You are smarter than that. Don’t try an absurd interpretation of diversity to make this argument. It is beneath you.</p>
<p>Absent the ability to do deep background checks on each and every candidate, plus possibly psychological testing, one can only use proxy factors to get as close as possible to the kind of diversity we are talking about. One that reflects some of the real divides in this country and in the world. Race is an imperfect but acceptable proxy to achieve that for now. As society changes that would need to change as well.</p>
Come on, man. You can do better than that. I gave that as one example of several to demonstrate that with wealth comes advantages in meeting the standards of these schools. In fact, I mentioned SAT tutoring as a parenthetical thought after my other examples of various advantages. And not just wealth, but home environment as well. If you are going to pull one thing I said completely out of context to make your arguments, you are desperate in trying to defend your position.</p>
<p>By the way, I never said I wanted AA, I am just giving the arguments that support it. Although I do think they are pretty good arguments.</p>
<p>@fluffy2017 - ^^^Who are you talking to? Either name the person in the quote command ([q_uote=name], without the underscore of course) or do the @ whoever thing. This just hangs out there.</p>
<p>I just replied to the post that you wrote when I asked about income-based AA. That post only had the SAT example.
I have no idea if you gave other arguments to support that in this thread. </p>
<p>@fluffy2017 - Please don’t make such leaps, then. I was not at all responding to anything specific regarding SAT tutors vis-a-vis AA. I was specifically responding to the statement
I pointed out that no one actually said that the SAT is THE major determinant, at least that I can find. I followed that up with the fact that Harvard, at least, puts SAT scores at the same level as GPA, strength of schedule, EC’s etc. I never said what you said I said in the context you said it.</p>
<p>Apologies. I was originally responding to teamRocketGrunt who used SATs in his argument to me about income-based AA.
You jumped in mid-stream and I confused you for him/her.</p>
<p>However, by using the SAT tutoring as the example for income-based AA, he/she certainly did imply that it was a major determinant. If it wasn’t, then their point wasn’t relevant to begin with.</p>
<p>@fallenchemist stated, “Racial and ethnic diversity is a very good proxy for a diversity in ideas and experiences, and therefore how one interprets and digests all sorts of intellectual material.”</p>
<p>It is the type of belief that really has us, as a society, in knots re college admissions etc. I recommend you re-read that sentence very slowly.</p>
<p>The day I find I can look at a person and based on their ethnicity and race pre-determine what he thinks, his ideas and how he intellectually digests information, I will open up a fortune-teller business and charge a whole lot. </p>
<p>How racist and shallow is it that you think you can tell the ideas and intellectual bent of a person by his race? Like very. I bet you if you meet me you would 100% wrong, and with all my friends and family too. So if you would be wrong with the 75+ people I know, you should ask yourself how wrong your assumptions are about others? </p>
<p>Seriously, ideas and intellectual acumen and bent are not genetically coded with skin color. And how one intellectually absorbs and digests information is not genetically coded either. </p>
<p>Do you realize what you just told me is if you met me that having a conversation with you is fruitless because you would bring and carry away pre-conceived and pre-formed notions about me because of my race. What would be the point of talking to you if you think you know me already without talking?</p>
<p>Either you are truly a mind reader or somewhat scary that you really believe that. I hope the mind reader is the correct one. I will give you the benefit of the doubt, but be careful because others will not be that kind, as what you wrote is no different than saying they all look alike and act alike. </p>
<p>@awcntdb - you are making the huge mistake that what is true and highly predictable for groups is true for every member of that group. Look at the voting records for example. Not every black is a Democrat, but 90% vote that way time after time. I have no preconceptions about any individual. I have hard data about the group. People are constantly polling on numerous issues and then break it down by race. That is all I am talking about. In a large enough group, you will mimic these same views. You went off track from the very start of your reply. In fact, I even mentioned the caveat that specific people within the racial group will not help the schools achieve what they are trying to. You read way too much into what I said. You understood nothing of what I said. In fact, I even said that without deep background checks and psychological tests of each applicant, you can only use this group approximation. No mind reading, no nothing like what you are accusing me of saying. You couldn’t be further off base in comprehending my point.</p>
<p>Now if you think the group postulate is wrong, then fine. Even though it has been mathematically proven, you are free to think that. Do some research on it and you will see.</p>
<p>I also think it’s problematic to tell anyone that their role at the university is necessarily to ‘contribute to diversity’ because it suggests perhaps that an institution is more concerned about how having a diverse student in class will benefit the nondiverse student, rather than what the benefits would be for the diverse student himself. It’s problematic both to say that you automatically know what the diverse student would think and also to say that therefore they would necessarily ‘contribute to the overall community dynamic’ by virtue of that diversity-representing viewpoint. (In other words, if you only accepted me because I was Hispanic and therefore you thought I would offer these great insights in my international relations class based on my extensive knowledge and condemnation of American policies in latin America and how they had affected my family – and it turns out that actually I’m a pretty conservative person who usually votes Republican and doesn’t speak Spanish – then you have both guessed wrong and assigned me a role which benefitted the class but maybe not me.)</p>