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THANK YOU! good lord. look, now, you can’t possibly attack luciab for being a so-called “white supremacist.” even she- a URM- can see the inherent racism in AA, and prefers socioeconomic AA instead.</p>
<p>^lol, good call Stupefy. Also Dbate claims that some minorities receive discrimination despite their wealth. But this is where the ‘socio’ part of socioeconomic comes in. The essay, additional information, and interview can explain this. Also I read mifune’s post where he uses the well-kknown example of a white cop pulling over a black individual to support his argument earlier in the thread (I spent over two hours reading this entire thread <em>dies</em>) and it is referenced in Dbate’s post. But has anyone ever considered that their driving may be at fault rather than their race? I have personally been stopped by the police but both times I will admit that my driving habits, NOT my race were the motives behind it.</p>
<p>Also, I am having trouble if NearL really believes everything he is saying or if he just enjoys playing devil’s advocate to give everyone a hard time.</p>
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<p>Colleges and universities reserve their right to select among students with aptitudes and endowments that will indeed provide the greatest contributory merit to their campus environment. However, diversity in a student body is derived from a combination of differing perspectives, experiences, and actively pursued interests. Skin color does not automatically suit these criteria since ethnicity does not predeterminedly endow an individual with any of these qualities. As LuciaB correctly articulated above, the diversity of talents in a university is derived through the indivudal capacities and expected contributions of the cumulative student body. Moreover, selecting students who have proven their academic, personal, and contributory merit or displayed meritorious qualities within the framework of their respective social and economic backgrounds need not mechanically induce a student body rife with homogeneity. Namely, the establishment of a more progressive meritocratic process does not produce a subsequent correlation in student standardization.</p>
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<p>Yet, NearL, you contradict yourself by not admitting the merits of socioeconomic AA when the material deficits of minorities have “huge implications,” which indeed rightfully asserts that the lack of income and favorable assets diminishes opportunity and is, overall, a disadvantageous ontological circumstance that is not conducive to individual success. Even if you do not feel highly of a policy that includes, but certainly is not exclusive to, whites as one of its beneficiaries (I cannot change that), please note that it disproportionately benefits minority groups due to the very statistics that you provided above. Quantitatively, it would provide opportunities to the greatest amount of Caucasian students, but under the greater circumstances, it will ultimately serve to diminish the effects of socioeconomic disparities and mitigate the inauspicious conditions associated with unfavorable social and economic predicaments to greater promote the American virtue that education is a right, not a privilege, for those willing to work towards its irrefutable benefits. That is ultimately what matters most.</p>
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<p>No, it is not. Socioeconomic hindrances are unfavorable towards achieving academic success, developing one’s ultimate potential, and proving that one contains the degree of merit requisite to warrant a college acceptance by limiting opportunities that are derivative of more comfortable living circumstances. Ethnicity, contrarily, is not the causal element of individual shortcomings although it indeed holds a degree of correlation to social and economic barriers.</p>
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<p>Indeed, the consideration of socioeconomic factors need be more mathematically rigorous than the current quantitative methods associated with current AA policy of simply adding a predetermined allotment of points based on the cursory perusal of an applicant’s racial demographics. </p>
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<p>It is not that simple to have a parent or guardian quit his or her job or not take another just to have his or her college-bound student receive socioeconomic AA. One’s social and economic background is not as easily fabricated as the simple act of checking a box as in the case of racial background. How can one verify one’s race and its ultimate implications on an applicant’s ability to demonstrate his or her merit simply through a checked box? That is, how can we be certain, under current policy, that an applicant is truthfully reporting his or her race and automatically place that student within a preordained racial stereotype that presumes relentless subjugation due to previous social despotism?</p>
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<p>I sincerely appreciate this assertion. However, policies that recognize underprivileged individuals regardless of their ethnic identification must be instituted to provide a degree of social mobility for those unable to properly achieve and exercise their complete individual aptitudes due to disadvantageous circumstances.</p>
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<p>Any trace of this thought is distortion from the argument under consideration. Indeed, Asians and whites display the highest statistics of any college applicants as a collective body. That is not the equivalent of communicating that there are not well-qualified individuals from minority backgrounds. Undeniably, there are several many minority students who display applications that equal or exceed the merits portrayed within those submitted by their Asian or Caucasian counterparts.</p>
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<p>I have not yet applied to Yale so I do not know.</p>
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<p>Thanks.</p>
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<p>Indeed. Nor does any college know the experiences of every African American, every Hispanic, every Native American, every Asian, every “undeclared” applicant (such as myself for purposes of college applications), or every International applicant and how each of his or her experiences have wielded any individual talents, academic achievements, personal successes, or future contributory promise.</p>
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<p>That is true. We cannot quantify the extent to which this discriminates against those of color, but it is a social plight that indubitably exists for many. However, as LuciaB expressed in her preceding insights, the essay(s), additional information section, and interview are supplementary mediums through which these concerns may be addressed.</p>
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<p>Okay, we shall come to the inevitable conclusion that we must agree to disagree. I, too, am having any remaining free time saturated with this discussion. If we have indeed made any progress, we agree that the elimination of all forms of AA will serve to decrease social mobility and that socioeconomically oppressed individuals do indeed warrant recognition. But do not get me started on the methods in which socioeconomic AA can be synthetically manipulated to induce undeserved advantages, or else we will be arguing for the next few days.</p>
<p>LuciaB, I would like to thank you for your support and enlightening other posters with a viewpoint from a minority poster which inevitably holds more weight than those from my own ethnic background. It is appreciated.</p>
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<p>If writing about how ones racial identity impacts them is acceptable, then why when I told people I wrote about my experience being the only black at science fair did people say I was exploiting my race? </p>
<p>I read several people’s common app essay throughout the admission season and almost everyone wrote about something personal to them, and several were about being Arab or Asian distinctly. Wouldn’t the person’s identity as an Asian or Muslim then become a basis on which the admission committee accepted them? </p>
<p>I pose this question: when an Asian person or Muslim person writes about his heritage and an admission officer admits him or her are they exploiting their racial identity?</p>
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<p>This does not occur and is unconstitutional: see Grantz v Bollinger. In fact looking at the threads of past admission cycles you will see several high stat blacks and Asians who were based over for minorities with lower stats. The admission process IS holistic even for minorities.</p>
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<p>I don’t want white kids sneaking into elite colleges under the guise of ‘meritocracy’. The fact of the matter is that a large amoutn of whites get substantial affirmative action in the form of legacy status and athletic recruitment and no one bats and eyelash. But when other minorities get affirmative action as well, there’s a huge problem. It’s very racist to attack affirmative action for minorities and ignore it or rationalize it for whites. It’s more racist to question the ‘qualifications’ of blacks based on some ‘white standard’ because whites are not based on the Asian standard. Why is it OK, for white students to chastise black students for having weaker objective stats, when whites have weaker stats than Asians? Why are whites the standard for academic achievement? I want an answer.</p>
<p>I’ve brought up this point several times, and yet no one has acknowledged the fact that college admissions is only a meritocratic process for Asians. We’re the only group that receives no affirmative action.</p>
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<p>Legacy advantage and athletic recruitment are not forms of affirmative action. Nonetheless, plenty of people are upset with these policies. </p>
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<p>It’s not, but it sounds as though you’re chastising Whites for having weaker stats than Asians. I don’t think anyone on this thread has chastised African American students for having weaker objective stats. Moreover, the wrongness of White’s chastising African Americans has nothing to do with the level of Asian achievement.</p>
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<p>Your question has the false premise that Whites are the standard for academic achievement. I don’t think anyone on this thread has stated this. Even if they have, I don’t know what real effect this seemingly arbitrary selection has.</p>
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<p>I don’t think anyone’s bothered to acknowledge it because they probably don’t see its relevance. I sure don’t: how does the supposed fact that Asians are the only true meritocratically chosen applicants support your position that affirmative action is a good practice?</p>
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<p>Are they not preferential treatment to applicants based on something other than academic achievement? They are essentially affirmative action, especially legacy. You could try to argue that athletic recruiting isn’t affirmative action, but you cannot support legacy status (which compromises some 10% of admits at Yale and its peers) and remain an opponent of Affirmative Action. Your racism would have to really obscure your reason to do that.</p>
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<p>If no one believes that whites are the standard for academic achievement, then why would anyone have a problem if some black and Hispanic students are admitted with stats lower than their white peers? From what I’ve read, people have a problem with black and Hispanic admits because they aren’t held to the same ‘standard’ as whites. But whites aren’t held to the same ‘standard’ as Asians, and they aren’t subject to the same abuses as black and Hispanic admits. So they must be the standard for academic achievement - the standard at which any greater achievement is superflous.</p>
<p>My question is why is this the case? This is obviously racist, self-serving and hypocritical.</p>
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<p>While it has not been overtly stated, the implication of mifune’s and other’s arguments are essentially a denigration of minorities because of the lower standard. I think it is obvious that there are some minorities who are admitted to top schools with lower standards (I was one of them) and so I do not think the attacks are unfounded. However, were one to actually know the standards applied to athletes, one would see that they are the primary beneficiaries of a non-academic boost. In terms of legacy status, however, the boost is entirely commensurate to the extent of legacy.</p>
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<p>Because whites, being the majority, account for the vast majority of admits at any given school, therefore the average student is a white kid. Consequently minorities are judged according to the average student at a school, not the highest achieving or lowest.</p>
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<p>But they should feel so ashamed at being admitted at lower standards than their Asian peers!</p>
<p>Well yes that may be the case, as a substantial portion of the white population at Ivies are actually either legacies or athletes, but people just seem to disregard that fact because whites are perceived to be a baseline standard for accomplishment. Whether this is racist or not is a point of contention, but is is the reality of the situation.</p>
<p>As proof the Yale institutional research factsheet states that 13% of the class of 2012 were legacies and another source quoted a figure that 15% of Yale’s undergraduate class was filled with atheletes. So assuming that whites constituted 90% of each population (which is probably the case given the history of Yale and the sports that Yale recruits for) approximately 36% of all white students at Yale received a boost in the admission process, as the fact sheet indicated that 70% of the class was white. </p>
<p>So when removing all minorities and the 36% of hooked white applicants only 49% of Yale’s undergraduate class was admitted solely based on merit. That is the reason the standards for Asians are lower, and the 51% figure is somewhat close to the figure cited by Michele Hernandez who said that approximately 40% of any class at an Ivy is filled with hooked applicants. </p>
<p>So, as any person who has every stepped foot inside a Yale classroom can tell you, admission to Yale is not based solely on merit.</p>