<p>I think the terminology you use does denigrate their accomplishments. If an NYC kid studies hard for the SHSAT, encouraged by his parents, and does well, I doubt he regards himself as having been “born on third base”. I do not. Tiger Woods’ father was training him in golf from a young age, and the Williams sisters were likewise coached by their father. I have never heard them described as being “born on third base”. They were talented and worked hard.</p>
<p>I hope the math, music, and sports lessons, the frequent trips to library etc. we provide for our kids will make them more accomplished people, but they will be the ones taking the SAT, playing the piano, and kicking the soccer ball. They will deserve to get credit for what they achieve, just as athletes do, and not be described as children who were born on third base.</p>
<p>You are talking about the deficiency in the implementation of AA, rather than AA itself. Please also keep in mind that race is just one of the many non-academic factors such as SES in the holistic admission process. From conversations with adcom people of my former/current institutions, I have been told that they do consider SES conditions among URM applicants.</p>
<p>Bay, the problem starts with folks not knowing what goes on in admissions reviews. The take their 4 years of hs experience and a handful of college visits and assume that what applied in hs, the scheme by which their kids move forward, excel, achieve rank and status, etc, is a mirror for what colleges look for. They say, my kid is smart and accmplished, was in these ECs, I am proud of him. Adcoms should value what I see.</p>
<p>Not necessarily so. Add to that, since many kids cannot answer the Why Us? question, it seems there is a wide lack of knowledge about what these schools offer- and, hence, what these schools value.</p>
<p>They consider SES among majority kids, too. It’s not a hook, it’s a context.
Bel, someone else first used third base on this thread, not poetgrl.</p>
<p>Arguing against transparency is one of the worse ideas. In general, people tend to “advertise” things that they are proud off. Things that they are not proud? They prefer to keep it hidden. </p>
<p>If schools do not want to <em>quantify</em> quality, it is fine… use words instead. But they should tell us how they judged quality.</p>
<p>I agree with what you just posted in #1009. I do want to add that, as a “civilized society”, we should offer every child a chance to reach his/her potential, even if his/her parents are not as responsible as you and most CCers. In my view, this is the social mission many universities have rightly taken on.</p>
<p>Lets look at the make up of the specialized high schools in NYC. With the exception of LaGuardia, which is performance base, all have admissions based on testing. There are some that are definitely more diverse than others (however the “big 3” do not fit this category. While there are plenty of students that are still testing at the big 3 there are also many family that are looking at other options (smaller schools, more racially diverse). This does not include Hunter and the district 2 feeder schools.</p>
<p>I wish that race wouldn’t be a factor too. </p>
<p>However, race is still a factor in almost anything in this nation we are so proud of. As long as we still try to avoid “certain neighborhood” when walking/driving/buying a house/…, as long as companies still prefer job candidates with the “right names”, as long as CCers still argue for or against this culture or that culture, …, race is a factor in life.</p>
<p>Then, may I ask, why shouldn’t race still be a factor in college admission?</p>
<p>Pablo, many people object to any advantages given to kids from families that suffered historic discrimination. They feel those times have passed, period the end. You’ll find that over on the racism thread. Along with plenty of gripes about challenges endured by other groups.</p>
<p>Each kid is subject to a kaleidoscope of reactions. This is the proverbial queston about which is harder to carry, a 100 pound weight or 100 pounds of feathers. There are multiple considerations. Some are standard, some are a matter of the kid’s context.</p>
<p>NYB: transparency? It’s there. People ignore it. There are no formulas- and that befuddles many families. I’ll explain further, later.</p>
<p>I think the mission of the NYC elite high schools is simply a different mission from the mission of the nation’s elite colleges. I think both missions have a place; neither is right or wrong, just different. It’s not “wrong” for those schools to base their admissions strictly on tests and it’s not wrong for the nation’s elite colleges to look at other factors other than test scores. The consequence of Stuy being 1% Afr American, for example, is far less important than the consequence of Harvard being 1% Afr American. (Because in the final analysis, the NYC elite schools matter to no one outside that system.)</p>
<p>But behind closed doors, they still might admit someone with lower scores who has a compelling life story or some interesting personal spark over someone with higher scores who isn’t as interesting, and then what? Fundamentally, the question is - is that OK with you? Make these 2 students the same race if that helps.</p>
<p>Adcoms, including some on CC, have TOLD you a million zillion times how they do it. You just don’t like the answer, because you don’t like when you hear that the kid with the 2400 SAT who won the math competition didn’t get in when a kid with a 2200 SAT who showed unusual leadership in an extracurricular or ran some interesting charity did get in.</p>
<p>The fact that you want there to be some metric, where SAT points count for x% and GPA counts for y% and this activity counts for more than that so you can dutifully ensure that your child checks all the boxes, isn’t the elite colleges’ problem. Good lord, when you hire people for work, you don’t assign them points on a scale - you ascertain their general abilities and then you assess the interpersonal feel - will this person work well on a team, present well to a client, whatever your standard is.</p>
<p>There are many eloquent posts on why considering race as a factor among many in “holistic admission” DOES NOT equate with racial discrimination, while it DOES bring many benefits to ALL. There are many equally forceful messages disagree.</p>
<p>I happen to be in the first camp, you in the second.</p>
<p>Not sure if you will read this, but here we go:</p>
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</p>
<p>Here is the thing that it seems is still misunderstood.</p>
<p>I completely agree that making judgments based on preconception only is prejudice. This is wrong and should not be acceptable. </p>
<p>What I argued previously is that AA does give additional information. It gives the information that, in institutions that practice AA, the average qualifications of members of one group are likely to be different than those of other groups. Given this extra information, some people may make judgments about students, in the way you stated:</p>
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<p>This type of judgment is not prejudice, because you are not using a preconceived idea to assess the background of the student. You used the information that the student was from such and such school.</p>
<p>My entire point is that the practice of AA is not without a cost. And the cost is that some people may use school information to tell a lot about the background of the student (as you stated).</p>
<p>Now let us look at a different situation. At UC Berkeley there is no AA. Therefore URM students from Berkeley are less likely to be subject to stigmatization than students from an institution that aggressively pursues AA (say Pomona or Amherst).</p>
<p>PabloN, I agree with your comments, but we are past 1000 posts on this thread, and many of your views have already been expressed and responded to.</p>
<p>Yes, but if the average qualifications of groups in the general population differ, they will likely differ at a college, even without affirmative action. If for example a public university admits all high school graduates in the state, the white students will likely have higher SATs than the black students, even though there are no preferences. Even if a minimum SAT threshold of 1500 were imposed, a differential would exist, although it would be smaller. Affirmative action increases a differential that would still exist in its absence.</p>
<p>Whether one <em>should</em> care about the probable SAT of a classmate is a different discussion, which I am not trying to revive.</p>
<p>Pablo, I do not see the Wall Street kid given an advantage over others. His context is his context. If he’s a semi-slacker or same-old/same-old, he’s not going to stand out based on skin color alone. Not going to fill some mythical “quota.” If he’s a brlliant kid who extended himself, shows impact, bless him.</p>
<p>C’mon Pizza. You use the strategy of denying everything.</p>
<p>You denied that some people “suffers damage” because of AA.
You denied that AA may help to increase/perpetuate stigmatization.
Now you want to deny that Adcomes are keeping the infromation private???</p>
<p>Can you or anybody here tell me what is the average GPA and Standard Test scores of students admitted/enrolled at Harvard? Or Northwestern for that matter?</p>
<p>The only information we have from elite institution is from Duke admissions, because of a recent working paper from Duke Economists (not because Duke adcoms released the information).</p>
<p>I was the first to explain the mechanism of stigmatization. My belief is that we all benefit by knowing how it can operate and why AA may facilitate the increase in stigmatization. The same way we benefit by knowing that some other social policies may have unintended side effects.</p>
<p>Some proponents of this thread tried to deny the mechanism of conditional probabilities, by making it all about students finding out about SAT scores to decide on future dates or homework partners. These are pupet, decoy issues presented to derail/cloud the argument. </p>
<p>Intelligent people should see that the issue is whether the AA can foment negative assessments of the academic qualifications of AA beneficiaries. These assessments may perpetuate even in the labor market.</p>
<p>The fact that some people wanted to ridicularize it to extreme situations so as to defend AA, does not mean that the mechanism is flawed. This quote from PoetGrl, one of the advocates of AA exemplifies this:</p>
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<p>So I do not think that people go out inferring SATs to chose date partners. But I do think that, in general, people may use information about instituiton, social policies, demographics, etc. to “tell a lot about your background”, as Poetgril puts it.</p>
<p>Back to the transparency issue:</p>
<p>IMHO schools do not want to disclose information because they know that the degree of preferences they are applying is quite significant. I think they fear that when everything is transparent, the outcry against AA is likely to increase. </p>
<p>If you look at the court files in the Texas case, it becomes clear that schools could do more to recruit URMs under a color-blind process, but this would be difficult and costly. Thus, schools prefer to use the demographics box on Common App to facilitate their process.</p>
<p>NotYourBusiness, most colleges publish a Common Data Set which provides the SAT and ACT ranges of their students. You can simply google the college name and common data set and it should pop up.</p>
<p>But you still haven’t answered the question. Is it ever OK with you if a student with a higher GPA/SAT is turned down and a student with a lower GPA/SAT is admitted? Is that “unfair”?</p>
<p>The concept of “looking for interesting people who are smart” seems to be lost on those who think that there has to be objective criteria that a computer could use / spit out.</p>
<p>MITChris is an adcom who has been on CC. He has said REPEATEDLY that above a certain SAT level, the specific numbers don’t make a difference - that MIT isn’t privileging the 770 math over the 730 math, or whatever. Do you think he’s a liar? Do you think MIT should do so? Do you think it’s “wrong” that the 730 math kid “steals” the spot of the 770 math kid?</p>
<p>“I want transparency” is code for - I want there to be an objective, specific formula, so I can push and stretch my kid to fit into the formula.</p>
<p>And I don’t think some of you are getting how race is used. It is not used as the - he’s not good enough, oh wait! he’s black! throw him in the yes pile, and toss out that Asian kid who is currently there. It is used as PART of the picture that draws the picture of the complete person - which includes the high school profile, demographic characteristics, parent education, and the portrait as revealed through essays and teacher recs and extracurriculars. It’s not some trump card thrown on in the last minute to rescue-the-dead.</p>