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<p>Why do you assume that the kids with high GPAs and test score don’t also have great talents or essays or recommendations from teachers?</p>
<p>Lol - when my kids send me pictures of their friends and activities from their schools (both top 20), they’re often the only, or one of a handful of white kids in a sea of Asian kids. They “mix” plenty fine. No worries here.</p>
<p>I prefer to be the kind of person who doesn’t spend my days fretting that someone else “got a leg up” on my kid somehow. I have confidence in my kid to do just fine - it’s not a competition. I also refuse to be the kind of stupid person who thinks that HYPSM is the only game in town. I try to pass on to my kids that their success depends on them, not on a school. I feel sorry for the kids whose loser parents pass on a sense of entitlement and chips on the shoulder. It’s an unpleasant way to live. Look, someone is always going to have “more” - money, looks, brains, athletic ability, talent, run of good luck, whatever. You can be a loser and fixate on the other person or you can focus on yourself. </p>
<p>I have a nephew at Princeton. Do you think I spend ONE MINUTE resenting that he might have some “leg up” over my poor dears who had to settle for non-HYPSM? Puh-lees. What a mark of a loser.</p>
<p>It seems to have thoroughly escaped a bunch of you that life success can be had from a multitude of places, even (gasp) state schools. If you can’t grasp that, then a 2400 SAT is wasted.</p>
<p>GMT–I am not assuming that. And I can’t change your mind. Clearly we have different values. My kids have grown up in an incredibly diverse community that has benefited them in numerous ways. You favor the boarding-school model where kids are in a more controlled environment. I attended a very homogeneous private school myself, and I wanted something different for my kids. I believe they are, and will continue to be, comfortable in a much wider range of situations because of the opportunities they have had. There’s a lot more to life than the learning that takes place in the classroom. And the world is changing, in case you hadn’t noticed.</p>
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<p>Exactly.
Even if you took URMs out of the picture, then as long as we have holistic admissions, we’re likely to have a bell-shaped distribution of GPAs and test scores. This would be all the more true if the SATs were re-designed to test for the skill levels of the highest performers. </p>
<p>The biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action are middle class white boys. Standardized tests (especially the Math) are dumbed down so as not to show off the real strength of geeky kids who could score above 800. Admission credit is given for prowess in rowing, fencing, lacrosse and field hockey.</p>
<p>Who is up in arms about the mismatches from these preferences? I suppose the counter-argument is that society and the economy benefit from young leaders who bring other qualities in addition to brains to the admission table. This really is no different than the argument for race-based affirmative action. It’s just that many Americans value the qualities of a future oil tycoon more than the qualities of a future community organizer.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl said:</p>
<p>“I feel sorry for the kids whose loser parents…” “You can be a loser…” “What a mark of a loser.”</p>
<p>Civility, or the lack of it, identifies winners and losers. Since this thread is no longer civil, I will refrain from posting.</p>
<p>@sally305,
I don’t favor the boarding-school model because I want my kids to be in a controlled, homogeneous environment. My kid is in boarding school because I want him to get a good education.</p>
<p>I haven’t read through every post so correct me if I am wrong. But isn’t it the case that the SCOTUS is not reviewing the “top 10% of every Texas high school” aspect of their admission scheme. They are reviewing how the remaining spots are filled and whether racial preferences can be applied to that population?</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl,
The issue here is not about HYP, but about the admissions criteria at any selective school. That includes the UC schools, hence the Bakke lawsuit, and UT, hence the Fisher lawsuit.</p>
<p>And please refrain from calling the other posters here “stupid” and “loser” if you do not agree with their position.</p>
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<p>That is correct.</p>
<p>GMT, I didn’t use the word “because.” The homogeneity is simply a by-product of your choice. I found the homogeneity of my own high school to be a real drawback to the otherwise excellent education I received, so I have made a different choice for my children. </p>
<p>We all want our kids to get a good education.</p>
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<p>I think this goes back to the points Hunt made earlier in the thread. It may well be that universities are descriminating “for” URMs, at the stat level, because they value the diversity, the mission, and the fact that low sES URM’s benefit exponentially more than any other group from these educations.</p>
<p>So, let’s say, for the sake of looking at the issue, that all of us are in favor of giving the low SES student a bit of a break on the stats, for myriad reasons, including we believe deeply that education matters and we know, objectively, that these students simply have not received the benefit of the education we seek for our own children. We know, then, that a high performing, low SES kid is demonstrating ability at a level higher than the stats indicate.</p>
<p>But, what of the issue that they are perhaps discriminating AGAINST asians? I don’t know if you could prove it, and I know, from my perspective it doesn’t matter for my own kids, who will do just fine, but for some this seems to be at the heart of the matter, for whatever guided or misguided reason? What of this question?</p>
<p>At this point, I think the question may be being framed by an unfortunate perspective that the “issue” is the small number of URM’s. Perhaps the issue is about AA for whites, like me? And how do we address that question? I think it may, actually, be more to the point.</p>
<p>In reality, for all competitive schools that promote AA, URMs are admitted with far lower credentials than whites or Asians. So URMs are given a leg up along the entire spectrum of competitive colleges.</p>
<p>Since spots in colleges are fixed, this means other groups are displaced out of the entire spectrum of competitive colleges. Some of the proponents of AA don’t seem to get this. </p>
<p>Not true, not true. First of all, there are certain competitive schools, LACS as far as I know but there may well be more, that actively court Asian students. Second, URMS are not admitted with “far lower” credentials anywhere. Third, any kid who is a realistic candidate for Harvard isn’t going to be displaced out of the entire spectrum of competitive colleges. It’s not as if the choice is Yale or community college.</p>
<p>@3girls3cats,
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<p>Princeton: SAT scores gap relative to white students:
<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/Opportunity%20Cost%20of%20Admission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20June%202005.pdf[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/Opportunity%20Cost%20of%20Admission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20June%202005.pdf</a>
-230 Black
-185 Hispanic
+50 Asian</p>
<p>Duke: SAT scores gap relative to white students:
<a href=“http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/grades_4.0.pdf[/url]”>http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/grades_4.0.pdf</a>
-141 Black
-69 Hispanic
+41 Asian</p>
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<p>Yes, this bears repeating, over and over and over, AND it does not seem to be something these particular posters believe has any bearing on their argument.</p>
<p>How would the Ivy league change, if there was no AA for mid to high SES whites?</p>
<p>There’s a lot I don’t know about the legal considerations here. I imagine that any institution that benefits from federal programs (Pell, etc.) would have difficulty justifying quotas that specifically discriminate against a particular racial group. Is anyone claiming the Ivy League schools are doing that, per se? I’m not bring skeptical; I’m curious. What is the smoking gun here? </p>
<p>As to the idea that being black is not an achievement. Who said it was? But I believe that people do benefit from living and working with people of different backgrounds. I think a black student from any socioeconomic tier brings a different perspective to the table than a white student does. Ditto for students of any background that differs from the majority. I also think it takes a certain kind of arrogance to believe that the mission of any college is to nurture and reward solely on the basis of achievement as YOU define it (whoever YOU are).</p>
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<p>The vast majority of MOP attendees, along with their counterparts in physics and cs, and Intel STS finalists get into at least one of HYPSM. This group of people almost always include at least a few people from TJ. So I’m not sure how the top TJ people are getting rejected in the first place, unless you want to stretch the definition of top.</p>
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<p>You know, I actually really agree with this. I also think that what is going to have to happen, given the tax exempt, federal monies issue, is that these schools are actually going to be “forced” to provide a true transparency in their metrics. In the article I posted earlier, about the OCR investigation into discrimination in the ivies, that was the end of the Boomberg article: that it would be impossible to prove anything unless these universities open their CDS completely.</p>
<p>I’m not opposed to this. I actually think it might be better, frankly, for them to put on the table how they are making these choices, even if it is to finally say, “We then go with our “gut” instinct as to who would be the best for the class.” I mean, if you are only accepting 6& of applicants, there’s not going to be any way to objectively accept a class of matriculants. There just won’t be.</p>
<p>So I called Yale admissions and they told me they’d giving my spot, MY SPOT … to some French Horn *itch who hadn’t even taken AP CALCULUS!!!</p>
<p>My life is ruined … AND IT’S ALL HER FAULT! WA-A-A-H-H-H.</p>
<p>
This isn’t for undergrad, but for med school:
<a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/157594/data/table25-b-mcatgpa-grid-black.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/157594/data/table25-b-mcatgpa-grid-black.pdf</a></p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/download/157598/data/table25-a-mcatgpa-grid-asian.pdf[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/download/157598/data/table25-a-mcatgpa-grid-asian.pdf</a></p>
<p>Sample:
Asian: MCATscore 24-26, GPA 3.00-3.19. Acceptance rate: 5.2%
African American: Same MCAT 24-26, same GPA 3.00-3.19. Acceptance rate: 53.8%</p>
<p>Half the Asians with MCAT 30-32 and GPA 3.4-3.59 don’t just displaced from the top tier med school, or the second, or the third. They basically don’t get into any med school.</p>