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<p>Berkeley is a public school.</p>
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<p>Perhaps my refinement of calling it inevitable is more accurate than “logistical near-necessity.”</p>
<p>Berkeley’s status as a public school does nothing to refute the fact that it manages to survive without legacy status. Oxford also lacks legacy status and does fine. Thus legacy status is not at all necessary. It’s an archaic system that only exists to keep the old boys in substantial number at schools like Yale.</p>
<p>Chicago has no athletic recruiting and is a private school. It does fine.</p>
<p>And again, if you want to look at a meritocratic school that’s doing well, I suggest you look across the pond at Oxford and Cambridge.</p>
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<p>How is athletic recruiting or legacy status inevitable. There are elite colleges in America that have neither that do fine.</p>
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<p>mifune, in my opinion, has already won this debate a long time ago since he is legitimately points out flaws in current AA and what we can do to reform it on a more objective basis. He has proven that AA is not perfect since it is subjective and places individuals into stereotypes and mentions more objective measures. Also I cannot get enough of his eloquent prose. I’m actually saving it on my own computer for when I need writing motivation :/. Silverturtle is also very objective, well-spoken, and makes good arguments. Dbate also brings up some good points and while I can truly understand Nearl’s argument, the miscomprehending of arguments and personal attacks is too much for me.</p>
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<p>Don’t even go there…</p>
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<p>Yeesh Nearl. Don’t immediately decide that everyone is a racist for not supporting AA or that recognizing something is </p>
<p>I THINK WE MUST ALL AGREE TO DISAGREE. Or at least agree that current AA is not perfect and that it deserves some reform to better find who is underprivileged and deserves the rightful “boost” and who is not.</p>
<p>also mifune, just curious, but what does your username mean or represent?</p>
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<p>At what point did I call anyone racist for being an opponent of AA? I claim that its racist to support legacy status and athletic recruiting knowing that it is essentially AA for whites while making an anti-AA argument based on merit. Either find a reason why legacy status and athletic recruiting somehow are necessary or toss the merit argument. You can’t claim that AA is unfair because it’s not meritocratic and then support legacy status, which is at least as bad as racial AA.</p>
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<p>Definition of “meritocracy” from Merriam-Webster:</p>
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<p>Athletic recruitment is a form of meritocracy; granted, it’s not intellectual merit, but it’s achievement nonetheless. Being born into a certain race is not an achievement.</p>
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<p>Support of athletic recruitment and legacy advantages is not racist. The fact that these programs may disproportionately help White applicants does not render them racist. Racism is a menality, not an incidental effect.</p>
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<p>That’s not my argument. My argument is the following:
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[<em>]Colleges should accept students based on what they’ve done in the context of their environments.
[</em>]Just as students from high schools with few opportunities should be judged differently from those who attend exclusive preparatory academies (that is, with contextual consideration), so should students from backgrounds that make academic success difficult be judged differently from those who live in an ultra-rich household with professor parents.
[<em>]Examples of backgrounds that may inhibit opportunities for academic success: impoverishment, one’s high school, racial prejudicies and their manifestations, and the support of one’s parents.<br>
[</em>]Racial affirmative action attempts to address only one of these factors, and it does so in far too blanket and inexact a manner.
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Anyone is willing to comment on my above assessment of the issue.</p>
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<p>That’s doesn’t make it valid. Should we recruit dancers, too? How about kids that are really good at jump rope. What makes athletics important? Nothing. In fact their inception to the admissions process was just a way of keeping Jews out of Ivy League schools a few decades ago. Check the article I posted a few days back.</p>
<p>By the way, surviving America’s daily onslaught of racism is and doing well despite it could be considered an achievement.</p>
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<p>I said being an opponent of AA for reasons related to academic merit while being supportive of legacy status is racist. Legacy status is NOT based on merit. The only difference is one mostly helps whites and is based on parentage and one is based on race and helps blacks, Latinos and Native Americans.</p>
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<p>If that student can verbally demonstrate the unique perspectives, experiences, and/or hardships that race has contributed to his or her life, it is not necessarily an exploitation of ethnicity to achieve an unwarranted advantage in the admission’s process. This contribution of race to the unique factors that constitute cultural diversity is yet not exclusive to those of color. For instance, any non-African American individual in Detroit (a city in which 90% of the population is black) or any non-Hispanic individual in Chula Vista, California (a city in which over half of the population is Hispanic) will endure much of the baseless prejudice that the typical minority will suffer in a predominantly demographically Caucasian environment simply because in that particular microcosm of society, that individual is a racial minority. Based on my own experience in an inner-city neighborhood public elementary school, the white and Asian students were those who were most prone to violence from other racial groups due to the scenario that it was a school predominantly attended by low-income students of color. Yet, there are no current oversight mechanisms in current AA policy to consider that students from “majority” (Asian and white) groups are not, as the common argument for racially-based AA purports, the benefactors of previous social improprieties.</p>
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<p>It apparently did occur in the admission practices of the University of Michigan for quite some time and since it was a state university (which can have its admission practices regulated), it was mandated by the Supreme Court to drop the mechanical racially-based point allotment. However, for private universities, it is quite a different matter and basic common sense and explicit statements by admission officers confirm that racially-established paradigms do exist among practicing institutions. </p>
<p>And yes, elite institutions are still largely meritocracies as we all realize.</p>
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<p>NearL, I agree with your concern regarding legacy-based admits. I do not support the lower standard implemented for legacy-base admits (which is essentially a continuum based on the ancestral extent of the legacy) since it is essentially an elitist procedure by routinely providing advantages to those in positions of power (George W. Bush is perhaps the most famous Yale legacy admit and arguably would not have attained his presidency without this policy). However, I find this procedure much more resistant to the eventual decline that will accompany racial AA since it invariably creates internal conflict within the institution. With generations of familial ties, loyalty, and monetary donations that fund programs and create the source necessary for the liberality of the university’s financial aid program among other effects, how does the institution gracefully deny the legacy applicant without the act being construed as an overt act of betrayal? </p>
<p>I believe that this conflict is exactly what silverturtle is explaining through his articulation, “logistical near-necessity” or “inevitability.” Essentially, the institution is deciding that the preferential treatment of legacy applicants is a more beneficial outcome for itself than inducing a disruption in the funds and support that helps to preserve its legacy as one of the world’s epitomes of higher education. In fact, Harvard explicitly admits to this privileged handling of legacy applicants directly on its website by asserting that “the sons or daughters of alumni/ae may receive an additional look.” How do colleges resolve this ideological divergence from meritocratic-based admits? I honestly cannot provide a solution. </p>
<p>I also agree with your concern regarding athletic recruitment and its irrelevance towards education. However, differing experiences, perspectives, and talents are associated with and recognized within athletes and thus it is indeed a form of meritocracy.
Also, please be careful by asserting that legacy- and athlete-based admissions are synonymous with “white AA.” Neither form is exclusive to, nor discriminatory against, any ethnic body. That is, any individual, regardless of one’s birthright, is entitled to it. Several many minority and Asian applicants are admitted on the basis of athletic achievement. Similarly, several minority and Asian applicants are admitted on the basis of legacies. However, racially-based AA is not equally entitled to individuals due to its particular ethnic categorizations.</p>
<p>To summarize, legacy- and athletic-based admissions lower standards without regard to academic relevance, which is not proper. In addition, one particular troubling facet of the contrast between racial AA and legacy and athletic “AA” (for the lack of a better term) is that the latter form does not have the vast implications of the former. Namely, individuals cannot automatically label legacy and athletic admits as such if they are of descent from majority groups. Thus, there will be no suspicions regarding their merit. This is not racist in nature, but merely recognizes that students are cognizant of racially-based admission paradigms. However, racial admits will unjustly suffer external suspicions (often for the remainder of their lives) regarding their individual merit due to their outside appearance even when they were truly qualified for admission. This is an additional deficiency associated with racial AA and harmfully affects the individuals that it seeks to initially support.</p>
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HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA
if this was facebook I’d be “liking” this post right now</p>
<p>mifune, you’ll spare yourself a lot of pain if you learn how to write short sentences before college. Grandiloquence is not a virtue. Big words and long-sentences will get you a blood red essay and a low grade in the big leagues.</p>
<p>I’m going to try and show you what I mean. I’m not the best writer in the world; I’m a science major. But I’ll still give it a go.</p>
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<p>“If a student can demonstrate that race has been relevant to life experiences, it is not unfair to write about race in a college admissions essay.”</p>
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<p>I don’t agree with this statement at all. Nevertheless, I will rewrite it.</p>
<p>“However, race isn’t only relevant to minorities. A non-African American individual in Detroit, a majority black city, will endure prejudice because he or she is an minority in that context.”</p>
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<p>I don’t agree with this statement either. I know for a FACT that whites from majority minority schools get a significant boost. In fact, I know students that fit that very profile perfectly. Students from majority-minority students have very compelling applications, especially if they chose to write about their experiences.</p>
<p>Anyway, on the rewrite:</p>
<p>“When I attended a low-income majority-minority school, I noticed that white and Asian students were more likely to get picked on. However, there are no policies that consider students from majority groups.”</p>
<p>So basically, I’ve gone from this:</p>
<p>If that student can verbally demonstrate the unique perspectives, experiences, and/or hardships that race has contributed to his or her life, it is not necessarily an exploitation of ethnicity to achieve an unwarranted advantage in the admissions process. This contribution of race to the unique factors that constitute cultural diversity is yet not exclusive to those of color. For instance, any non-African American individual in Detroit (a city in which 90% of the population is black) or any non-Hispanic individual in Chula Vista, California (a city in which over half of the population is Hispanic) will endure much of the baseless prejudice that the typical minority will suffer in a predominantly demographically Caucasian environment simply because in that particular microcosm of society, that individual is a racial minority. Based on my own experience in an inner-city neighborhood public elementary school, the white and Asian students were those who were most prone to violence from other racial groups due to the scenario that it was a school predominantly attended by low-income students of color. Yet, there are no current oversight mechanisms in current AA policy to consider that students from majority (Asian and white) groups are not, as the common argument for racially-based AA purports, the benefactors of previous social improprieties.</p>
<p>to this…</p>
<p>“If a student can demonstrate that race has been relevant to life experiences, it is not unfair to write about race in a college admissions essay. However, race isn’t only relevant to minorities. A non-African American individual in Detroit, a majority black city, will endure prejudice because he or she is an minority in that context. When I attended a low-income majority-minority school, I noticed that white and Asian students were more likely to get picked on. However, there are no policies that consider students from majority groups.”</p>
<p>without losing ANY INFORMATION.</p>
<p>Personally, I would put my antidote before making any grand claims about what will happen to white and Asians in majority-minority places but to each his own.</p>
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<p>Regarding the Asian subgroup, the largely socioeconomically hindered subcategory primarily consisting of Asian refugees, including those of Burmese, Laotian, and Vietnamese descent, essentially receive no trace of racially-based AA in similarity to their Asian-American counterparts who collectively hold the highest degree of wealth in the United States. This cognizance of the own social disparities within the predefined stereotypes of existing policy demonstrates one of the central flaws of racially-based AA – * the experiences of individuals who are categorically equal are not the same. * Thus, socioeconomic AA is a more objective measure of one’s resources to place a context to individual achievement, although it is not an absolute perfect measure. But frankly, no measure is free from concern and wholly objective in scope.</p>
<p>NearL, I sincerely appreciate your above effort since you are attempting to help me. I intend on going into the sciences as well since I plan to pursue medical research. What particularly realm of science interests you? I personally am looking for something that integrates chemical, physical, and quantitative methods into the study of the biological sciences.</p>
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<p>This is generalization since we cannot stereotype individuals or individually realize their struggles entirely based on racial classification. Moreover, the scope of the myriad of elements that contribute to a less than optimal academic or personal performance is very broad and more expansive of factors that cannot be intrinsically associated with race. Silverturtle’s Post #448 demonstrates a fantastic ability to outline these additional factors.</p>
<p>yay! you guys are stillll rambling on!!! high fives!! yay yay yay</p>
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<p>Affirmative Action has created no more ‘internal conflict’ at Yale than legacy status. There are no boards reviewing Yale’s use of affirmative action. From what I understand, the leading body of the university, Yale Corporation, hasn’t mentioned Affirmative Action in decades - if ever.</p>
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<p>I fail to see what ‘generational familial ties’ have to do with the university. Who cares if some schmo attended Yale two decades ago? If he isn’t creating an endowed professorship or funding a renovation, he shouldn’t have any say in how the university conducts itself. What of loyalty? If a Yalie’s loyalty is somehow contingent on being able to help his children get into to Yale than he’s not a loyal Yalie to begin with and the university is better without him. </p>
<p>Yale is a university. You pay to attend the school if admitted and you get what you pay for. Beyond that, the university doesn’t owe you anything. It doesn’t owe your kids special consideration. It’s not betrayal if it doesn’t put them in a special pool. And since only some 41% or so of alumni even donate, the idea that the children of alumni should get legacy status is ridiculous. Alumni donations are usually small, too. The university doesn’t depend on alumni to fund financial aid. It depends on its endowment and big donors.</p>
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<p>Disruption of what funds? Alumni giving is an inconsequential part of the endowment. Last year, the Yale Alumni Association raised maybe $38 million. Yale’s endowment stands at $17 billion. If they donated nothing, Yale wouldn’t feel a thing.</p>
<p>[YALE</a> » Tomorrow | Yale Office of Development](<a href=“For Humanity”>For Humanity)</p>
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<p>Why athletes though? Why not recruit artist and dancers?</p>
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<p>They are, historically speaking, white affirmative action. Legacy status and athletic recruitment came about as a resistance to increasingly large Jewish enrollment at universities like Yale and Harvard. You cannot reject this historical truth. Though they may not be explicit affirmative action, their objective remains the same - to admit white students that otherwise would not be admitted. To this end, it is very effective. If athletic recruitment was scrapped, Jewish enrollment would likely increase in addition to Asian enrollment.</p>
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<p>@Dbate: No, what is particularly a denigration of minorities and a devaluation of their accomplishments is the institution of a lower standard for admission fundamentally established on racially-motivated stereotypes. Further, the foundation of such a policy is wholly undermined by a class-based evaluation of the societal objectives of AA. A minority student cannot fall into this typecast when he or she lacks the social and economic detriments that the policy seeks to recognize and systematically correct.</p>