<p>I think that when dealing with state universities, affirmative action can mean an
education for those who normally wouldn’t have been able to have one. But at the Ivy level, the URMs applying can easily get an education elsewhere and the purpose of AA becomes skewed. suddenly it’s about creating a diverse atmosphere on campus rather than actually creating opportunity.</p>
<p>Why even have anyone apply to an Ivy at all? They can just “get the education elsewhere”!</p>
<p>AA should help those who need help. a URM applying to an ivy with a 2100 SAT and a 4.0 who is a legacy from a prep school…yea, that’s not the point of AA</p>
<p>What if they’re an URM who can’t apply to a state school because of immigration issues, and thus, their only option is a private university?</p>
<p>“suddenly it’s about creating a diverse atmosphere on campus rather than actually creating opportunity.” And what’s wrong with this?</p>
<p>I posit that the diverse (and excellent) nature of the top tier schools’ student bodies is one of the fundamental reasons WHY they are considereed the “top tier” schools. Remove that and you alter the fundamental quality of the institutions. </p>
<p>Can’t have your cake and eat it too.</p>
<p>
a lot of top schools pride themselves in their diversity and it’s that diversity that attracts a lot of students to those schools. without AA, it’d pretty much be illegal for schools to even ask for race on applications. taking away a school’s right to diversify its student body would be dangerous. it’d more than likely be followed with more and more pressure to force schools to take the “most qualified applicants.” that’d mean less racial diversity, less intellectual diversity, less social diversity, etc. these schools would become a lot less interesting and i bet that their perceived prestige would decrease as a result.</p>
<p>also, before anyone else starts the whole “i’m not for race based AA but socio-economic AA is ok,” i’d like to point out that schools already do consider the opportunities that were provided to the applicant. a socio-economic AA system that considered only income and class would create the same exact fuss that the current AA system does right now. also, a lot of people complain about the lack of socio-economic diversity at top schools yet they miss the fact that majority of college-bound middle class and working class kids don’t even bother applying to ivy league schools because of the cost and the fact that they can get a pretty good job from just attending their local state school. (now that FA is getting better, i think that more middle class/working class kids will be encouraged to apply to top schools and the lack of socio-economic diversity will no longer be an issue.)</p>
<p>I like what nervousashell said. </p>
<p>Why should anyone apply to Ivy level schools? If you’re going to say that its not important that urms go there then why is it important that anyone go there?</p>
<p>^^^
haha that’s a great way to look at it lol.</p>
<p>krazykool, sorry man but that has to be one of the dumbest arguments against aa i have every read.</p>
<p>what is wrong with you krazykool? if you want to argue affirmative action you know there is a search feature that will take you to hundreds of threads on the subject. just stop.</p>
<p>please don’t tell me that you were rejected ED/EA from an ivy and now you’re blaming AA…please say it isn’t so…</p>
<p>Wow, thank you krazycool for creating a redundant petty post, that will not acutally acomplish anything. Thanks.</p>
<p>I like when I see when people who really need it, especially socio-economically URM, get the benefit of AA. Otherwise, I feel it’s been heavily abused.</p>
<p>interesting thread. but (just to point something out) don’t assume that being black, hispanic, etc. automatically makes you a URM and thus prone to benefit from affirmative action policies. someone i know (who is black) got rejected from harvard, yale, and princeton with a 2200 + SAT (stats that some on this site say would undoubtedly ensure that this student would have been admitted to the above institutions), solid gpa, and pretty good extra curricular activities. the kid though, attended a prestigious private school in manhattan, had a family income of over $150K…basically never knew what it was to be truly “underrepresented.” now i’m sure that there have been cases when affirmative action policies have been abused, but i’m sick and tired of people automatically assuming that this is the case without providing any evidence to support.</p>
<p>I do agree. I think it’s when a person who might be classified as a URM is basically the same as the majority when it comes down to it…that’s when AA should not be used. I mean, I think AA needs to be used for those URMs coming out of urban schools with low income. They deserve it more than any 160K URMs. I find it sad how those of higher status think they deserve it more than a student from this kind of background.</p>
<p>Rich URM or not, diversity is a buzzword at colleges for a reason, and not just so they won’t get sued.</p>
<p>Different kinds of people mean more experiences and more to learn from. It benefits other students as well.</p>
<p>Even if they’re wealthy, different cultures are different cultures. I think socioeconomic status should be considered more heavily, but in building a freshman class, I’d rather have a lot of different people then a lot of similar ones.</p>
<p>I’m not saying that a rich URM deserves it more than a brilliant impoverished ORM, but there’s a reason universities are proud to show their numbers on minorities.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of a complaint from someone actually in school about being exposed to a lot of different kinds of people. I’ve heard plenty of them from people disappointed that their student body is homogenous.</p>
<p>Is it time for this discussion already? I thought students typically blamed AA for rejections around April or May. And aren’t there like 100 threads already out there about AA?</p>