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<p>Really. Do you have any idea how many Asian-Americans from California apply to Georgetown on an annual basis? Oh, of course. I must have gotten accepted EA to Georgetown based on the fact that I’m Asian.</p>
<p>Admittance is not solely based on SAT and GPA. We all know that. That’s why we have recs, essays, and EC’s. However, colleges are primarily academic institutions. Therefore, academic factors should be considered above all others.</p>
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<p>We’ve at least identified the bedrock level of this disagreement. You believe that admissions ought be determined on academic potential alone and that having a student body with diverse experiences and backgounds doesn’t offset the so-called “opportunity costs” of denying admission to students who score the highest on some objective metric. (Let’s not even talk about the statistical insignificance of the difference between an SAT of 2250 and 2400.)</p>
<p>Clearly no one is going to change your mind, but not many of us would believe that a school founded on your principles had much to offer in the way of an exemplary educational experience.</p>
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uhhh…crossposted with MarathonMan. I’ll let his stand. </p>
<p>Edit: Great job, MarathonMan. You beat me to it.</p>
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But hepstar, feel free to found your own school.</p>
<p>“Have any of you ever heard of a URM with a 2400 SAT score and 5’s on AP tests getting rejected/deferred from a school? If AA really made the playing field level like it should, wouldn’t there be URMs with Luo’s stats who were rejected/deferred from a school?”</p>
<p>“If AA is supposed to help the disadvantaged minorities, why did it apply to the minorities in the article who attend some of the best high schools in NYC? Last time I checked, going to an elite high school doesn’t fall into the “disadvantaged” category.”</p>
<p>Somewhere amongst the ongoing outpour of the cliched AA arguments and counter-arguments, these questions were forgotten about. Neither one has been answered yet. Why not? IMO, it is because the answers to these questions don’t fit into your argument against AA.</p>
<p>Hep,</p>
<p>You object to URM preference because a person’s race is “unearned.” Perhaps that is precisely the reason it should be considered - no amount of test prep or tutoring can change a URM’s life experience to match your own.</p>
<p>Also, as Cur pointed out, achieving a racially diverse student body is part of most u’s missions. They have already determined it to be in the best interest of a well-rounded education. Unless you can change that mission, you might as well accept it.</p>
<p>How do you know AA applied to those who were “disadvantaged minorities attending elite schools?” How many university admissions committees have we been appointed to? Not a personal attack on you per se, but I’d be willing to bet any admissions director would state that a highly qualified URM was admitted because he/she was successful in such a competitive setting – not because the URM was a URM.</p>
<p>Hep,</p>
<p>I briefly touched upon the 2400 issue. I think it is certainly possible that colleges don’t necessarily look upon a 2400 as better than say, a 2200. In fact, perhaps they look at it as evidence of a student who studies too much, or who puts too much time and effort into something that is just not that important. Just conjecture, but plausible to me.</p>
<p>Still waiting for the answers to my 2 questions from page 1. We’re on page 6, and no one has answered them. They just dance around them with the “minorities are disadvantaged and not privileged” statement. </p>
<p>Quite frankly, this is irrelevant to this argument because the minoritites in the article aren’t disadvantaged. They attend some of the best high schools in NYC, hardly a characteristic of a disadvanatged student. So stop using the disadvantaged argument since it doesn’t apply here.</p>
<p>Hep,</p>
<p>I for one, do not even see “disadvantaged” as part of the argument in favor of a racially diverse campus. A URM’s cultural and life experiences are presumed to be different from yours. That alone, is enough to add value to a university experience.</p>
<p>I think you got your answer in post #75 and are choosing to ignore it.</p>
<p>“I for one, do not even see “disadvantaged” as part of the argument in favor of a racially diverse campus.”</p>
<p>That’s why AA was created in the first place, to help the disadvantaged minorities after being mistreated for so long. </p>
<p>I have been accused by more than one CCer that what I say about AA neglects the URM applicants who earn their way in. In all honesty, I admire the URM who earns their way in. There was a really smart black girl in my 8th grade class who was accepted inot one of the magnet schools featured in NYC mag’s article. Guess what? She did it WITHOUT AA. This particular magnet school admitted students based on performance on the school’s admission test, as well as GPA. My black classmate met both qualifications and was admitted, despite the fact that AA wasn’t a factor.</p>
<p>This thread makes me want to smack a certain someone.</p>
<p>Post #75:</p>
<p>“I can’t think of why anyone (race is inconsequential here) would want to post that they have a 2400 and were rejected somewhere. You’re just not going to get that kind of evidence.”</p>
<p>How is that an answer? I’m sure that if I was rejected from a school with perfect SAT scores, I would want to make it known (like Jian Li did). Either way, don’t you think that there would be an example on an AA support site of a 2400 URM reject? After all, it would prove that it isn’t just Asians and Whites with perfect scores whio get denied. Nonetheless, not one of the AA supporters in this thread has provided a 2400 URM reject/deferral.</p>
<p>Dank08, if you are refering to me (which I’m pretty sure you are), go ahead and “smack” me. At least I can take solace in the fact that no one has been able to argue against me without avoiding the 2 original questions I asked.</p>
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<p>I’ll make a wager here: </p>
<p>How hard will YOU be fighting to PRESERVE legacy preferences in admissions after the policies happen to benefit YOUR family? Probably as hard as you fight to remove preferences for others as soon as they stopped yielding substantial benefits to your racial sub-group. </p>
<p>Climbing the helpful ladder and making sure to take it with you is not one of the principles upon which our country was built. There will always be takers and givers, users and abusers, selfish and unselfish, grateful and ungrateful citizens. It is a choice!</p>
<p>The saddest part of AA policies --which extend much, much farther than college admissions-- is that our country still needs protective legislation, as the improvements for most targeted sub-groups are not showing up in the statistics. </p>
<p>FWIW, I think that you might consider dropping the hollow rethoric for some research on the issues of AA in the United States.</p>
<p>Hep,</p>
<p>I don’t even know any 2400 white or asian applicants that have been rejected. Maybe the problem is that you are on the “Parent Cafe” board. When I went to college, no one would ever discuss their SAT scores. They were considered too private, like divulging your IQ. Asking someone else about their scores was considered very rude.</p>
<p>Bay hit the nail on the head back in post #91. Everyone has been talking past one another Hepstar, because you object to a justification for AA that’s not very much in the picture any more in elite admissions. There were always two streams to AA: the “compensation for discrimination and denial of opportunity” stream, and the “diversity benefits everyone stream.” </p>
<p>In the 1960s and 70s the balance was heavily titlted toward the first factor, the one, I presume, to which you object. Many of us would disagree, but that’s beside the point. </p>
<p>Today, the justification for considering race in elite admissions is almost exclusively based the on the latter claim, that diversity enriches the educational experience for everyone. So if no one was eager to answer your objections, it’s maybe because they were not perceived as terribly relevant. I’ll admit that none of us articulated this very well.</p>
<p>Aside: Most of us will concede that race was one of many factors considered in the 2400-denial cases you’ve cited. We just think that this is fair and reasonable because of our belief in the “diversity stream.”</p>
<p>“FWIW, I think that you might consider dropping the hollow rethoric for some research on the issues of AA in the United States.”</p>
<p>If anyone is spewing out hollow rhetoric, it is you and the other AA supporters. You throw out words like “disadvantaged” and “ghetto” to describe minorities, yet none of you see the statistics that show what AA does to Asians in college admissions. </p>
<p>They are stereotyped as “math nerds” with no personality who have no EC’s. The only thing they have going for them is their brain power. 80% of URMs admitted into colleges were given seats that would have been for Asian/white students if AA wasn’t around. That’s 4/5 URM students, quite a large group of people. </p>
<p>The University of Michigan is perhaps the best example of why AA is wrong. It had an admissions system that was based on a 150 point scale. Applicants with 100 pints or more would be admitted. A perfect SAT earned 12 points. A stellar application essay earned 1 point. URM status earned 20 FREAKING points, implying that it is more important than good SAT scores or outstanding essays. How absurd is that! </p>
<p>Here is a link to President Bush’s speech about UMich’ AA policy, which contains some more info:</p>
<p><a href=“Briefing Room | The White House”>Briefing Room | The White House;