<p>As an “URM”, this thread is dangerously close to being offensive.</p>
<p>The Affirmative Action Stigma of Incompetence: Effects of Performance Information Ambiguity</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.jstor.org/stable/257055[/url]”>http://www.jstor.org/stable/257055</a></p>
<p>This is just one example. Google and you find more. Look, the point is that some time we think we are doing a good thing, and it seems great on the short run. However, policies may have unintended consequences that we need to recognize. Let us not try to bury our heads in the sand.</p>
<p>I also agree that a better solution is to start interventions early. I am all in favor for academic reinforcements that help at-risk students succeed. Regardless of gender/race/ethnicity/beleifs…</p>
<p>^The stigma will start to go away when it isn’t so unusual to see URMs in elite universities. CLEARLY we are not there yet. Which is why we still need AA, IMO.</p>
<p>To the question of “why AA, if these kids are qualified?” AA serves as a framework, a regulation that exists on its own and covers a number of situations. The strong defense of diversity by respected colleges is an indication that they see value, are not rotely implementing it. Etc, etc. </p>
<p>Because the holistic privates are, following the words in the Grutter judgment, looking at various elements of “qualified” for all students, not simply using quotas to slip in ill-prepared minorities (despite myth,) we can just as easily presume those adcoms know what they are doing, on behalf of their institutions. Yup. </p>
<p>Don’t tell me you know some one or two kids who squeeked through and disappointed. It can happen to anyone- just look at sad CC College Life threads. Or parents fretting over their good hs kid’s lackluster college performance. Kids complaining about slacker roomies. Don’t judge a whole group in society by one or two examples, some media hype, an incomplete study. I could say don’t assume your own inherent superiority and the inferiority of others. </p>
<p>Even the notion of “early intervention” can assume and presume, not to mention the certainty that Black culture keeps its own down. (What a sweeping statement.) Of course, there are studies and there are underperforming high schools and kid who can’t do college work and lousy teachers and those problems should be identified and tackled. It cuts across many lines. To presume this applies universally to one or two subcultures in our country— wow. </p>
<p>Look at Pascarela and Terenzini, for a take on the benefits of diversity- not some NYT or interest-group summary, go to the source. Think.</p>
<p>ps. According to the Common App folks, all schools using the CA are holistic.</p>
<p>Why is it so unusual to see URM in top schools? And what defines an URM?</p>
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<p>Quoted for truth.</p>
<p>Also, I’m sick of the “improving the lot of the URM is a noble good” BS.</p>
<p>Having a reasonably representative number of URMs on a campus improves the “lot” of everyone on campus.</p>
<p>Do you believe you are going to graduate and live in a world without URMs? You aren’t.</p>
<p>Some of you really could have used some team sports experience when you were growing up. Not individual, but team sports. No wonder finance and consulting so heavily recruits team athletes.</p>
<p>I cannot imagine that I would be meeting people, at the age of 18 or 19, and thinking anything other than either: a. will he/she be my friend? b. are they fun? c. do I want to date them?</p>
<p>egads. the things I am learning on this thread. :eek:</p>
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<p>For the millionth time, minority students admitted to colleges within the range of acceptable qualifications can handle the work. People of ALL races get rejected from elite schools because the adcoms do not think they can handle the work. As GA2012MOM just stated, colleges care–a lot–about graduation rates.</p>
<p>And really. You can’t tell within five minutes of talking with someone whether they are intelligent? I have been out of college for nearly three decades and I have no trouble assessing whether someone seems like the kind of person I would like to have a philosophical debate with or someone I would trust to help solve a problem that required superior critical thinking skills.</p>
<p>I’ll show them “information ambiguity”.</p>
<p>by the time a student is actually being considered for acceptance to a top school, the question is not “can the student do the work?” the question is: what does this student bring to the community that nobody else brings?</p>
<p>This is a very, very different question.</p>
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<p>PG, you forgot for some people there is d. will they be a good study partner? :rolleyes:</p>
<p>poetgrl, the “noble good” isn’t all BS. Sure, of course there’s selfish good to AA. It benefits everyone both in the short term of the university experience and in the longer term in the way it changes societal norms over time. But I do think there’s a noble component to it as well and I don’t see anything wrong with that. It forces those who live complacently within the status quo to look beyond our own narrow experiences and recognize that there is a duty to those who don’t benefit so nicely.</p>
<p>The diversity of my son’s campus was one of the best things about it (among a lot of other great things); friends from all over the world, all over the US, with many income levels, etc. They enriched each other’s college experience and will be friends forever. The friends I’ve met have enriched and expanded my life too.</p>
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<p>That’s rather like saying that interracial marriages are a bad idea because they create the unintended consequence of prejudice against the children that result. Uh, no. People who CHOOSE to be prejudiced against (URM’s in elite schools) / (multiracial children) are the cause of that prejudice. No one forces you to look at a black kid in your dorm / class as “a black kid” and question his credentials as opposed to just Tom or Joe or whatever his name is. YOU’re the one choosing to treat people as racial entities versus just as people.</p>
<p>Tell me, do you also look to verify the study-buddy credentials of white kids in your classes too? Or is it assumed their spots are all earned?</p>
<p>^ I worry that “noble good” masks accomplishments. And, depending on when and how its used, can seem patronizing. We have education issues in this country, but we also have determined, goal-oriented, achieving kids of all sorts.</p>
<p>“There is a difference between who you want to hang out with and who you want as your study partner.”</p>
<p>It’s so unjust that seats at top schools go to people who think this way instead of to folks who really deserve to be there.</p>
<p>Once someone is in college, you don’t need to rely on predictors of his college performance. You can look at ACTUAL college performance. This is why no one will be talking about Gallup polls on Nov. 8, unless they are trying to design better algorithms for 2016. We will have actual results to judge at that point. It only takes a week or two in a seminar to detect which of your classmates is really on the ball. If you want to see SATs at that point, either you have a racist axe to grind or you are way less perceptive than you claim to be.</p>
<p>“you can’t accuse him of being one of those people that are bitter because they were rejected by HYPSM.”</p>
<p>Do we really know this?</p>
<p>Lookingforward, how so? I understand that a person looking at another and evaluating his worth based on his race/ethnicity/gender and allowing his presence because it’s “noble” of me to allow this person into my club is offensive. I guess I still don’t understand the problem with seeing a positive (noble/good as well as selfish/good) motivation for having affirmative action policies in place.</p>
<p>Poetgrl said:</p>
<p>“Also, I’m sick of the “improving the lot of the URM is a noble good” BS.”</p>
<p>FWIW, I volunteer at a group that helps inner city kids get jobs in my industry for which they otherwise would not be considered. Does that make me a saint? No at all, but I put my efforts where my mouth is.</p>
<p>Just because someone disagrees with you and has reasons for doing so does not make it BS.</p>
<p>And sure we have great, goal oriented, achieving kids of all sorts. What about “noble/good” minimizes their accomplishments?</p>
<p>First, there are plenty of well qualified URM students who do not need to depend upon AA for admissions. Second the SAT is a predictor of first year success and by its own admission not a predictor of overall college success or an IQ test. Thus, it is a false premise for the 2200 super score (after 3 tests with tutoring) suburban kids from upper middle class households in great school districts to complain about being passed over by the 1900 (one try w/o tutoring) AA students from disadvantaged backgrounds. It is hard to predict upside here between these students and so colleges look to fill institutional needs including ensuring diverse points of view and accepting students from a variety of backgrounds. </p>
<p>Students with 1800+ on SATs can succeed at even the very best universities – so long as they are given appropriate academic support (ie, as others have pointed out on this post, see the NW and ND graduation rates for football players and Duke, Vanderbilt and Georgetown graduation rates for b-ball players, all well above 90% even though compromises are made in admissions decisions at all of these universities). The key for colleges with strong AA is not to stop the process upon admission but to continue the program with strong advising and mentor relationships (even better to make such programs available to all students as many of these universities do). </p>
<p>Also, given that these colleges justify these admissions decisions based on diversity, they have a special duty in my view to work to ensure inclusion and intermingling so campuses do not practice de facto segregation where the races intermingle only in the class room. This is where I believe many of the schools fall down by failing to foster this intermingling thus denying the students the benefits of diversity and also tolerating an environment where some AA students feel like outliers (which also likely impacts their academic performance).</p>
<p>Hebege - I applaud your volunteer work!</p>