Proposed Solution to AA backlash

Parents Forum
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<p>"End 5 generations of AA for wealthy white kids "</p>

<p>mini that would be fine but how many white families do you think have been wealthy for five generations ot even in America for five generations? Nobody in my sons family, either side has been in the country five generations. In fact if I look at his grandparents I see four people raised in single parent homes - two widowed and two divorced. I see sexually abused kids, I see kids who spent years in orphanages because their moms couldn’t feed them. I see kids who lived in abandoned railroad. I see kids whose widowed moms took in boarders to make ends meet. There are millions od hard luck stories out there and having a white face doesn’t make you the recipient of five generations of AA for the wealthy. </p>

<p>In fact your statement smacks of ignorance and bigotry. It is just as ignorant and bigoted as saying Black folks can’t succeed in college or be expected to meet the same standards as white people because they are the product of five generations of ignorany and shiftless welfare queens. Maybe you need to get out of your neighborhood and meet a few folks.</p>

<p>In any event I don’t object to the continuation of AA so much because it may hurt a few white kids applying to highly selective schools as I do because it is now tending to perpetuate the myth that URMs cannot compete and will not be able to compete with White people until we have had five generations of AA and maybe not then either. Talk about battering someones self esteem.</p>

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<p>Tututaxi noted,"
I don’t know the true facts about the 2 students you wrote about but maybe those universities saw something in the URM student that was lacking in his Caucasian counter-part, that had nothing to do with race or ethnicity."</p>

<p>Response: I can’t say you are wrong because it is a possibility. It is also a possibility that the URM got preference over the better student (GPA and SAT wise) solely because they were URM.</p>

<p>Again, AA and quotas are very close cousins. I am dead set against any discrimination that occured in past year based on religious or race. My fear is that the ugly head of unlawfull discrimination will rear itself under the new guise of “diversity.” The minute we allow any promotion or admission based on factors other than objective merit, we also open the doors for possible discrimination with little or no monitoring.</p>

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<p>Selecting people for jobs based on their race is unlawful and morally wrong. When academics chose students based on race and give their racism a pretty name “affirmative action”, it is unlawful but the laws are not enforced. </p>

<p>I would like to see a new law. One that prohibits schools from asking for or receiving information about a student’s race. Maybe then colleges will begin judging people based on their abilities and not their race.</p>

<p>As to legacy and athletes, those decisions are business decisions – either making money or improving the quality of life at the college so students will want to attend. As soon as we see a civil war and constitutional amendment regarding legacy and athletes, then I will agree they should be lumped in with race. Until then colleges should stop being racists.</p>

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<p>I agree that affirmative action is a pretty name for a form of discrimination. No discrimination is proper. However, athletes should not be given the latitude they now have. If you can’t meet the minimum standards of a college, you should not go there. Look at the minimum standards used by the NCAA clearinghouse regarding High School GPA and SAT scores. It dumbs down the academic requirements.</p>

<p>Competition to get into the elite colleges is intense enough without creating the additional barriers of “affirmative action”.</p>

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<p>Marite: I’m still not seeing the connection. You took an extreme example of the Hmong who didn’t have written language in their own culture and are applying it to African Americans and Filipinos? Literacy is important but I still fail to see how African Americans and Filipinos can have greater English literacy issues than Asians.</p>

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<p>

I can’t argue with that, but it is not realistic. Major college athletics is dominated by african american athletes. Every time someone tries to raise the minimum SATs and GPA, african american groups scream racism. I am sick of seeing so many basketball teams with players who never graduate. Those students are definately taking the place of better qualified academic students. It is very unfortunate, but there is too much money at issue for any significant changes to be made.</p>

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<p>Well…no. I don’t know what unenforced law you’re referring to, but the law is crystal clear at this point – AA is 100% legal, though not constitutionally required. Maybe you mean that you believe the 14th Amendment is being misinterpreted by the Supreme Court, and that it really bans AA? Or perhaps you just mean that you think there OUGHT to be a law?</p>

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<p>Norcalguy, why are you so intent on repeating the same question? On top of it, part of your question contains a statement that is not necessarily true: that asians have overcome their language handicap. I hope you are not buying into the myths that are so often repeated on CC about SAT scores. </p>

<p>The rise in scores in verbal by Asians is a recent phenomenon that carries very little signifance. I do not really want to argue about the historical data and you can look it up yourself. </p>

<p>Marite has pointed to the difference in education levels. In the past months, I have posted a graph that illustrates the differences among the minorities in the level of parental education. </p>

<p>Lastly, it is impossible to make comparisons between the various ethnic groups for education attainment because the vastly different socio-economic circumstances, population distributions, and recent immigrations patterns are distorting the statistics.</p>

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<p>The lack of understanding of the basics here is painful. No athletes, no legacies, no full payer preference, equal opportunity for all=few viable colleges. The fact is, someone needs to give the money for all the aid that allows the degree of meritocracy that exists today. This is not a communist or socialist country! </p>

<p>And every private college gets to decide who will gain entrance to achieve the perception they wish to perpetuate. Intellectual, quirky creative, athletic, artistic…what’s in this year?</p>

<p>Everyone who could not afford full freight would go to a state school if the schools decided not to do the amazing amount of outreach that many are doing today.</p>

<p>Access to a college is no more anyone’s right than a mansion or a Mercedes or dinner at the best restaurant in town. Why does this remain so confusing?</p>

<p>The ultimate irony? You can have lots of money and still be refused, No one has any guarantee. It’s like Studio 54 in the 80’s, the bouncer got to decide if you had the look they wanted that night. Fair? No more or less so than so many things in life.</p>

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<p>In her original post, Simba describes a “backlash” to AA, and I think that, regardless of one’s personal feelings about AA, it is clear that there ARE hard feelings being generated (among students, parents, communities) by admissions outcomes that appear to be unrelated to a strict interpretation/understanding of merit in its narrowest sense (i.e. “stats”). What I think is really interesting, however, is that so much of this debate centers around the assumption that WHITE kids are the “losers” in AA, when, in fact, it seems pretty clear that some of the most glaring examples of uneven outcomes occurrs with Asian students. The link to the Dartmouth Online article that Sybbie provided on Pg. 1 was illuminating. One excerpt:
“But not all minorities are receiving preference. The number of Asian American college applicants has grown substantially over the last decade, so that Asian Americans no longer receive a significant preference for being a minority sub-population. ‘Colleges count Asian Americans in the numbers of students of color, but Asians receive no preference in the admissions process. I can’t believe Asians aren’t outraged,’ [former Dartmouth adcom Michelle] Hernandez said.”
And I think that’s the OP’s point: increasingly, many of these kids – firm believers in meritocracy – ARE outraged.</p>

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<p>There is no question that hard feelings are generated. But for the time being many colleges want a representation of URMs and there are not enough of them with the stats to be admitted on a color blind basis. That is the truth of the matter. And the highest court in this land has agreed that URM status can be taken into consideration in admissions decisions, so it is perfectly legal. I don’t think anyone really likes the idea, but that is the situation right now. The solution is for more URMs to achieve the test scores/classes/grades necessary for admissions at schools so that they can be represented more in proportion to their numbers. The top colleges are all in agreement that the representation is important. Important enough to make it a tagged category such as athletes, legacies, celebrities, development kids. To me, the reason is pretty clear, and I concur, though, yes, bottom line it decreases my children’s chances of acceptance into such programs that practice this AA. We have run into the situation personally, and I still feel that AA in this case is important enough to continue down this path until some natural parity is achieved. I also understand that males get a bit of a pass at schools such as Vassar, Wheaton, Goucher, Bennington, Skidmore, and agree that this form of AA benefits the schools and the students there. I know that females will get more merit aid and some leeway at tech schools.</p>

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<p>I personally have nothing against development cases and legacies or athletes; but when a white or Asian kid does not get into his dream school, he usually blames it on AA. Now, why is that?</p>

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<p>Probably because schools don’t publish numbers on how many legacies they admit or brag about those numbers in their publications. And atheletes are considered special cases like music or studio art students, kids with special talents that fall outside of the strictly academic.</p>

<p>In fact how many legacies are admitted at top schools and what do their profiles look like? Maybe the schools should disggregate all of their admissions info and publish it. It might be enlightening. Shed a little sunshine on what goes on behind closed doors on how decisions are reached.</p>

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<p>“There were two kids who applied to the same ivy schools and also applied to some LACS. One was Jewish with 1490 SATs, great SAT2, editor of school newspaper, all As in tough courses, very good ECs and was one of the top writers for a student that I have witnessed. The other was an African American boy,whose parents were both doctors. I can assure you that this kid did NOT come from an economically disadvantaged home.His SATs were 50 points less than that of the other child, had a few Bs in school (although not many), was not a top athlete but he did have good ECs too. He got into every ivy that the other kids applied to, and the other kid got waitlisted at both ivy schools! Moreover, the African American kid got merit aid at several LACs while the other got nothing! So please don’t tell me that the percentages are small. To one of these kids, the percentages are
meaningless!”</p>

<p>But what about the WHITE applicants (probably greater in number) who were doubtlessly admitted to the same schools you reference, who also scored 50pts (or lower) below the star Jewish student in your example, whose GPAs were also a tad lower?—because it most certainly did occur. </p>

<p>Why is it that the raw numbers are the ONLY things that matter when it comes to comparing white applicants against URM applicants? You’re splitting hairs over 50 SAT pts and a fractional GPA difference…?! It has ALWAYS been the case that some white applicants with even significantly lower stats have been admitted to the elite schools over higher scoring white applicants. And it still commonly occurs, don’t kid yourself. Many times, I’ve seen posters on CC calmly rationalize this phenomenon by concluding that the lower scoring applicant must have “had something special” that the higher scoring applicant did not. Yet, when it comes to comparing a URM applicant who was admitted against a white applicant who was not, the same conclusion is almost never entertained. The contrasting outcry is always predicated upon an assumption that there is NO WAY that the URM applicant could have had “something special” to offer the college other than his skin color—a conclusion that I find racist (though, oh so subtle) in and of itself. The truth of the matter is that, unless a URM applicant’s stats, ECs, Recs, etc are higher than any other applicant in the pool, the very fact that he is an URM is often seen to preclude any possibility that he is actually worthy of his place. I have seen CC AfAms with absolutely stellar stats and acheivements told by other posters that he/she only got into HYP, et al, because of AA. AA is used as a handy excuse to discredit the accomplishments of the AfAm applicant, and the wholesale dismissal of AfAms’ academic qualifications didn’t start with the issue of AA. The truth is that black students have NEVER been seen as worthy of the comparatively few spots they were granted at the elite institutions, no matter what their qualifications. The assumption has ALWAYS been that they must have been admitted over a more worthy and qualified white applicant. LONG BEFORE there was ever AA, this was the mindset. </p>

<p>My D was admitted to a top 25 LAC with a 1300 SAT and a 4.2 GPA (the average SAT at her urban high school is 850). Were there many white appliants who were both admitted and denied admission to the same school with higher stats? Undoubtedly. However, there were also a LOT of non-URMs who were admitted to the same school with significantly lower stats than my D’s. Only 5% of the student population at her school is AfAm. But 25% of applicants admitted for academic year 2004/5 scored below 1200 on the SAT. Obviously, with the TOTAL URM population on campus numbering below 9% (even if they’d ALL scored below 1200—which IS NOT the case), there must have been AT LEAST 15 to 18% of the admitted non-URM population whose stats fall into that category. Yet, when it comes to my D and other URMs, if you follow the “logic” of so many who wail and moan about the unfairness of AA, the assumption has to be that she couldn’t possibly have brought anything to the table other than her skin color because there were “better qualified” white applicants who were not admitted. Why is pure, numbers-driven meritocracy the ONLY thing that qualifies a URM for admission, when pure numbers-driven meritocracy has NEVER been the sole criterion for admission to the top LACs, even for white applicants? I find the hypocrisy of many here who wail and beat their breasts over the fact that race is taken into consideration when college adcoms assemble classes galling. Race has ALWAYS been taken into consideration when adcoms have chosen classes. It certainly was when URM applicants , regardless of their academic qualifications were shut out for HUNDREDS of years.</p>

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<p>Poetsheart, I support AA in its current form as I have posted above. But to answer your question, about the resentment, though race has been taken into consideration in the past, it was wrong then, and many feel that it is wrong now. What was done wrong in the past is not a justification for doing it now. The problem is that there are URM kids accepted because of their URM status. If admissions were to go color blind, there would not be as many URMs. That is the whole reason for the URM category in admissions at a number of schools. </p>

<p>Of course, URMs bring something more to the table than their skin color because being of that skin color or ethnic group (I am sure there are many African Americans, Hispanics and American Indians with skin colors just like Asians and Caucasians) brings with it certain baggage whether the student has experienced it YET or not. An African American student who lives in a white neighborhood, goes to a school that is predominantly white, perhaps even has a white parent and has not really been around other African Americans, is still a URM with all of the potential issues that go with it when he goes out into the world. A college does not just look at the past and present of a student’s resume but it’s potential future as well, and sometimes that is the most important factor of all.</p>

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<p>The sense I have from CC is that URM admissions reflect a very small percentage of total admissions. So I was hoping that someone could explain the following, excerpted from Yale’s newspaper - specifically, that “about 42 percent of admitted students are minorities or international students…” Here’s a fuller excerpt from the article: </p>

<p>"…The overall acceptance rate for Yale College hit a record low again this year, with 9.7 percent of applicants from an overall pool of 19,448 students receiving letters of admission to the Class of 2009, the admissions office announced on Thursday…</p>

<p>Yale admitted a smaller number of applicants this year than in 2004, in part because Shaw said he expected the overall yield rate to increase slightly this year. While 68 percent of admitted students chose to come to Yale last year, Shaw said he was hoping for a 70 percent yield rate this year – especially with Yale’s new financial aid policy taking effect for the class of 2009…</p>

<p>Admitted students to the Class of 2009 represent all 50 states and 51 countries around the world. The gender breakdown slightly favors men, with 973 men and 907 women gaining admission, Shaw said. About 42 percent of admitted students are minorities or international students, he said…"</p>

<p>FYI, my S did not apply to Yale and was admitted by all of the schools to which he applied, so I have no ax to grind. I was doing some research for a friend of his who was waitlisted and I came upon the article, and it left me curious. Thanks.</p>

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<p>The predominant minority at Yale and other highly selective schools is Asian. More than half of that 42% group is likely to be Asian.</p>

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<p>Thanks, Jamimom. So they meant - and indeed said - minorities. But when I read the article, I was thinking under represented minorities, which is not the same thing. Got it.</p>

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<p>“The problem is that there are URM kids accepted because of their URM status. If admissions were to go color blind, there would not be as many URMs. That is the whole reason for the URM category in admissions at a number of schools.”</p>

<p>Yes indeed, many are admitted “because of their URM status” but almost never ONLY because of their URM status. As I’ve pointed out above, many URMs like my D, have stats comfortably within the normative spread (if that’s an acceptable term) of the school’s academic standards AND they ALSO bring socio-ethnic diversity to the student body, a contribution that, like it or not, many adcoms deem as valuable as unusual ECs, circumstances, or accomplishments. As I’ve pointed out, it is not unusual (nor has it ever been) that white applicants with “median” stats, along with other valued assets, are given the admissions nod over white applicants who are “more qualified” by raw numbers alone. It is only when the applicant with the median stats is a URM that his acceptance is called an unreasonable compromise of admissions standards and “unfair” to white applicants with higher stats. So then, it would seem that it’s “understandable” why an adcom would choose the engaging and quirky red head from Iowa City who founded a Kazoo and Washboard Band in his high school ( but whose SAT is below the 50th percentile ) over an applicant from Phillips Exeter with the 1540 SAT—as long as both applicants in question are white. But that lower scoring kazoo player had just better not be a URM!</p>

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<p>I think the excellent statistics that were brought up earlier in this thread have been ignored showing how small URM populations are at top tier schools. I’m too lazy to look back, but to the person who said ‘well, it matters to those 30 kids!’ who didn’t get admitted, I’m sorry to say that’s life. Not everyone gets what they want sadly, not even the URMs who according to disgruntled seniors are getting in every college willy nilly. </p>

<p>I find it ironic how everyone is turning AA around, ‘it’s racist, we should not judge people by the colour of their skin!’, ignoring the fact that the last vestiges of legal racism (Jim Crow) just ended about forty-five years ago! Let’s see, 350 years of slavery followed by years of LAWS forbidding blacks to pursue degrees of higher education at prestigious colleges and trying to vote by guessing how many jelly beans are in a jar and we’re supposed to be on the ball in forty-five years you say? Let’s ignore the fact that blacks could, and would, be lynched for being ornery enough to think they deserved to be treated like a white man-Tulsa race riots were only 84 years ago my friends and not one person was prosecuted for murder and general destruction of one of the most affluent black cities in the nation at the time. I could go on, but I suspect that these anecdotes are going to be shot down shortly anyway so why bother. Maybe I should mention Native Americans? Have we forgotten how we decimated a nation of people while ruthlessly taking their land, (only after finding out they didn’t make good slaves because they could escape to easily!) and let’s not forget the very earnest efforts to break native american culture and ‘civilize’ them. And did they get squished even more into tiny, terrible pieces of land after some tribes made the mistake of fighting for the confederacy. I’ll leave hispanics for another post.</p>

<p>And let me mention the biggest benefiters of AA that no one has had the guts to attack in my history on CC: WOMEN. Second-class citizens for centuries, domestic abuse was legal and condoned. Prevented from seeking higher education and forced into demeaning and incompetent social roles. Remember Rosie the Riveter? The call for women to take of ‘real work’ in the ‘name of the country’? These women worked and held real jobs, these women started baseball teams, they got a taste of full equality just in time for tired male soldiers to come home and kick them right back into their traditional social roles.</p>

<p>These groups didn’t just get strange looks and snide comments people-THEY WERE NOT TREATED AS FULL HUMAN BEINGS, they were second-class at best, and nothing more replacable than a table leg at worst. And all they got for their years of toil and fighting was this crummy thing called AA. It’s a short-change at best, but it’s all URMs have to show for their struggles. And I know the stories that will appear: my uncle came over after all this, my great great grandfather fought for equal rights, my parents fled from communist <em>insert country</em>, so why should other people mistakes keep me from HYPSMCUCBSDI?</p>

<p>I will say this, because it is the truth, and because it is it will be controversial and shot down and I’ll be tarred a heretic, but here it is: Because these people in many cases put in the most work to BUILD the country of ‘the American Dream’ your parents could flee too-for the least reward. Yes, the Great Fathers of this country wrote that wonderful constitution, but who do you think was back at home picking the cottong, milking the cows, caring for t he kids and running the household so that they didn’t come home broke? Who do you think they got that land that they were able to FARM UPON? America was built upon screwing over certain groups of people and that’s what AA was supposed to help, a little. That’s all these people got for their trouble. That’s what Native Americans got for the guns and the smallpox, the land-stealing the wife-raping and the ‘civilizing’. That’s what women got for the child bearing, the household running, the war-time economy saving. That’s what blacks got for being thrown on a cramped boat for months and being worked like dogs, bred like cattle and being lynched in uniform because they wanted to be served at a white bar. </p>

<p>So I apologize for those thirty kids who have to go to UMich instead of Harvard. I feel your pain, really. I’m an MIT reject actually, which apparently isn’t possible with my nifty black/native american 1450/800/720/720, 5/4/5 , NMF and NAF. Maybe I didn’t play the ‘unqualified black native american female’ card enough eh? And by the way my family makes less than five thousand dollars a year, so that’s why I left off ‘overpriveleged’ since it’s against the rules for URM parents to succeed apparently.</p>

<p>But you know what, I feel more sorry for those thousands of people who died on the Trail of tears, of post childbirth infection, and lashings more t han your rejection. I’m sorry for being so horribly insensitive, but that’s how I feel</p>