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<p>The above two points are spot on. Here at Yale (especially in the sciences and math) it is nice to not be the only black person in my classes.</p>
<p>smart family here {all 4 at yale}</p>
<p>haven’t read through the entire threat but i love how the topic went from new story to AA</p>
<p>Someone made some comment… It’s how it always happens.</p>
<p>Wait, is this the longest AA thread we have? We should keep it going just to make it as long as possible. Let’s break a record!</p>
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<p>I fully agree on what is said here. I also believe that H and Y in particular have a higher pressure to admit a reasonable number of URMs. They are easy targets for retaliation if they do not do that. For Y, another factor is that there are many URMs in the city they are in; they have an additional pressure to improve their relationship/image because of this. (Yale Corp voluntarily donates a huge amount of money to New Haven City every year. Whenever Yale wanted to do something, like to build a new building, they tend to have a lot of “enemies” from local communities; they are extremely careful about how to proceed it. Often times, I feel that they even need to “bribe” (legally, of course) the local politicians.)</p>
<p>hahahah pigs- that would have been the best short answer response EVER</p>
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<p>Umm, excuse me?!? The racial AA side was absolutely stomped on this thread thanks to the efforts of mifune and the later contribution of silverturtle. They showed why AA is biased and not effective and what needs to be done to better the policy. mifune doesnt need to write another five pages explaining this.</p>
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<p>That’s very condescending - ‘another random student’ and that the university is better with you than someone else… please get a grip.</p>
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<p>Since when does a black male become the representative for every down-and-out student? Other students from other backgrounds (RACIAL OR NOT) have their own unique perspectives to contribute - not only black males. Your above statement is completely racist to even think like that. </p>
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<p>Although Sotomayor comes from my own racial demographic (Hispanic), I don’t think she is a good role model for some of the statements that she made. As a judge, one is supposed to be objective, yet she brings her own political views and biases to the court. Remember this statement: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” ???</p>
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<p>If I was admitted to any of the Ivy League schools that i am applying to, I would doubt my own merit and wonder if my race let me in. I also can’t fault whites and asians for casting suspicions on minorities, most of whom were admitted based on their race considering how much worse they do on objective standards. I am a 2100/3.75 (bad freshman year)/good EC student, but am I anywhere near the top? No. Do I provide anything unique or interesting to the university? Not really. If i do, its not because I am Hispanic or speak Spanish or whatever. I come from a “white-dominated” area, but I think many actually enjoy my presence and treat me with greater respect than the average person.</p>
<p>And your comment “eradicate decades of systematic oppression” is total generalization since not all minorities suffer through this. Thankfully, i certainly dont simply because i come from a well-off family. I would rather have someone who truly deserved a boost receive it rather than myself. That’s why i think socioeconomic AA is far better than racial AA.</p>
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<p>The point is, your disagreement with AA will get you nowhere and this discussion will not have practical results. Schools will continue to practice their own admissions process until they feel like it. I’m sure they’re aware there is a whole bunch of people who disagree with “AA” and that has yet to stop them from practicing it. So, continue as you may to disagree with it, and you might have legitimate reasons to do so, it will essentially not really amount to anything. At least not yet.</p>
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<p>He’s saying that a high achieving black male can serve as a better role model to young, black males because the young one can identify with the black male. When you are being mentored by someone who has come from a similar background than you, and has obviously succeeded, you will do better because you see in your mentor the possibility of success. Having someone of a different race does not work the same because in the other race, you do not necessarily see yourself reflected. You think, “Yeah, he made it. But I’m not like him.” Now, sure everyone of the same race has the same experience. But there is a psychological effect in you seeing someone who looks like you in a place you’re not accustomed to seeing them.</p>
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<p>Okay, so you do not like her. You are entitled to your own opinion. However, to other Latinos in America, especially in the Bronx where she is from, she is a source of inspiration. In her, they see the possibility that many of them have never seen before. Here you have a woman who has come from the same roots as them (as me, in fact) and has gotten to the place that most of us only dream of and never really thought of as a possibility. This is why Dbate cites her as a source of inspiration to many, her comments aside. (Although, incidentally, if we were to argue her comment, we would follow a debate similar to the AA debate.)</p>
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<p>If you’re so aware that your race might get you in over someone who is more “deserving” than you, then don’t apply anywhere good. Obviously you are a mediocre student who barely deserves community college, because that’s where all the 2100/3.75 students belong. For those who are URM, somehow feel ashamed that schools want them in their schools, and would rather some other “deserving” white or asian person got in instead of them, don’t apply! Be warned, the rest of your dreams are going to be plagued by Asians and whites in pitchforks coming after your a**.</p>
<p>Part of the thing that adcoms look at is how well you can get along with people, and that alone can get you in over someone who has objectively done better than you. Why? Because no school wants an antisocial, condescending jerk who has a 2400/5.5 or w/e over someone who is easily capable to survive in the school and also be a joy to work with.</p>
<p>But, obviously, this is very unfair and we should all protest the desire for good humored people in student bodies. I’ll start drafting the letter.</p>
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<p>Yes, they may not matter to you at all since current AA policy subjectively favors specific individuals over others and that you happen to be one of its foremost beneficiaries. Despite the critical reality that multiple factors contribute to adversity and the disruption of attaining academic and personal achievements, many of the most fortunate members of the “disadvantaged” group continue to benefit at the expense at the most underprivileged and destitute members of the “advantaged” group. To Hitler, the actuality that many had intense misgivings about his genocidal practices did not matter to him either – until a collective change terminated the practice.</p>
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<p>An institution’s most notable objective is to provide knowledge and produce the talent requisite for a society to succeed as a technologized, global nation.</p>
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<p>Please do not act as if one race of people has some preordained pre-eminence over the other. Your statement suggests that the success of individuals from one racial categorization is intrinsically superior to that obtained by those of another ethnicity.</p>
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<p>Role models are not defined by their external appearance. They have the quality of possessing traits that are splendid to others and worthy of attainment. However, to assert that the African American male is the quintessence of such emulation is quixotic and a racially- and gender-centered declaration that is patently false. “White Yalies” are not “less potent than black Yalies” as exemplars for underprivileged groups and do not have a “dissonance” within their own “pigmentation…that renders them ineffective candidates for emulation by some minorities.” As aforementioned, individuals from other ethnic groups have commendable qualities, aptitudes, and endowments that are no less valid than those possessing one particular skin color. I understand your argument, but to place role models within racially-determined stereotypes is to disregard the American ideal of transcending racial labels to achieve social equality and the equitable access to the resources our institutions provide.</p>
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<p>Well if you are so high and mighty then just leave your race off. I had a 34 ACT, 3.89, and was 13 out of 495 and I even doubt my qualifications so you probably would too. In fact it you got accepted to any Ivy it would probably only be due to your ethnicity. There are SEVERAL highly accomplished and deserving minorities at Ivies, and even if I am not one of them, they certainly deserve to be there. If you don’t want to be a hypocrite then leave your race off. But you are not going to do that are you? Why, because you want to go to these schools as well. Despite all the rhetoric about fairness and equality people are essentially just spouting off because of self interest. If there was a policy that boosted the admissions chances of Asians than every Asian applicant would be playing the race card.</p>
<p>Listing your race is no different than students who go to expensive test prep and hire expensive private admissions consultants. And if you think the latter is not widespread you should ask around and the Ivy you get into. </p>
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<p>This is exactly what I am saying. As a member of science honor society, I would teach black and hispanic students physics and biology in preparation for standardized tests for them to graduate. Asian students did so as well, but the students were a lot more responsive to me than towards the Asian students because they could identify with me as a black male.</p>
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<p>On this topic you have no idea what you are talking about. If you know anything about basic psychological, you would know that people are more prone to believe they can accomplish something when they see other people with similar traits as them doing said activity. This is magnified when the individual in question is accomplishing something that was historically denied to a specific group.</p>
<p>It is the reason that black people overwhelming rejoiced when Obama was elected president, but did not have the same zeal about Bill Clinton’s election. And why Hispanics were thrilled with Sotomayor nomination to the Supreme Court.</p>
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<p>Under current AA guidelines, this statement is untrue. Much of the past thirty-three pages of this thread have been dedicated to disinterring the subjective, prejudiced practices inherent in contemporary AA policy. As silverturtle outlined in his Post #448, we have many more factors that need be considered to attain an individual context to the candidate under consideration. Instituting these factors into the evaluation procedure is far more socially multifaceted - yet far more objective and telling - and proceeds further than indiscriminately assuming a disadvantageous background due to the simple, unsubstantiated act of checking a box.</p>
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<p>A lower standard instituted for minorities devalues their individual accomplishments and successes by creating doubts about merit within themselves and externally by others. This is not racist for well-meaning individuals (who are socially cognizant of the indiscriminate compensations provided to minority applicants at AA-practicing institutions) to realize this.</p>
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<p>As LuciaB noted above, any classification of minorities as the sufferers of “decades of systematic psychological oppression” is utterly mistaken. Skin color itself it not a causal mechanism behind oppression whereas socioeconomic hindrances are (among other factors; again, please reference silverturtle’s Post #448) since it places social limits on one’s ability to attain success and optimal performance.</p>
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<p>No it isn’t at all. Every institution seeks to maximize the prominence of itself whatever way that may be. Whether that is accomplished by the amazing basketball players at Duke, the genius math whizzes at MIT, or the wealthy elite who donate a building at Harvard. Each individual who is admitted is admitted solely because they make the institution better, not because universities have an altruistic mission.</p>
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<p>Yes, and the institution can produce this knowledge to someone who has a 2100/3.75. Not having a 2400 and a 5.0 does not make you dumb or incapable of learning in a high paced, intellectual environment.</p>
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<p>No one is saying that other races don’t have commendable qualities. (Although, I would argue, races do not have commendable qualities, INDIVIDUALS do.) The point is, for an underprivileged, boy of color living in a poor neighborhood, having a wealthy white man mentor him is not the same as if having a man of color, who also came/comes from an underprivileged, mentor him. The psychological effect of seeing someone who looks like you AND who is, in many intents and purposes, exactly like you, is much stronger than a successful white man mentoring you. Sure, the white man might have many commendable qualities; no one is denying it. But the boy of color won’t be as receptive because in the white man, he might not really see himself.</p>
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<p>This is more hypothetical than reality. When I was accepted to Yale more people told me they were not suprised than raised any doubts about my acceptance. The opposite is actually true, people assumed that I was valedictorian of my class not that I was accepted because of affirmative action. The only individuals who question the merits of others are those who are jealous. </p>
<p>Even today when I went to Target I saw a white girl from my school and she kept lauding over the fact that I went to Yale. Nobody in real life actually seriously questions the admittance of minorities to top schools. Even those who were at the top of my class congratulated me and gave me the moniker Mr. Yale after I was admitted.</p>
<p>Also you assume that the primary purpose of an elite education is to have others recognize that you are intelligent and that is patently false. People doubted George Bush’s qualifications for Yale, but that didn’t stop him from becoming President. People doubted Sotomayor, but that didn’t stop her from becoming a supreme court justice, and in the annals of history no one is going to look back at her and say “Ooo she only became a supreme court justice because of affirmative action” they will think how amazing it is that she was the first hispanic supreme court justice.</p>
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<p>This is asserting that racism no longer exists. If this is your opinion, this discussion cannot go any further. In fact, it seems as this is your opinion (and that of everyone who agrees with you), in which case there really is no point in us continuing to debate this because we will never convince each other.</p>
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<p>That is why we shall agree to disagree but please note that racial AA is not the final policy that will seek to better equalize merit-based practices. One that is more objective and broad in scope, in the direction of the one that silverturtle, LuciaB, and I advocate, will ultimately be instituted due to its greater degree of intellectual rigor and ambition of considering more socially intricate criteria not currently taken into account under current policy.</p>
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<p>The entire purpose for Affirmative Action, as I asserted in one of the post’s from my previous day’s work, is “to be a social policy which seeks to be an objective purpose that places contextual effects into the overall evaluation of an applicant to best seek the equitable assessment of all candidates.” That is, when social, economic, and personal contexts are considered to fully analyze the extent to which merit is obtained, an applicant may be properly evaluated. Noting skin color and proceeding into the evaluation of a candidate demonstrates indiscriminant partiality, the exploitation of racially-motivated stereotypes, and irrationally preconceived favoritism.</p>
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<p>Indeed; I do not doubt that this is true. However, race itself does not render any individual any more or less valuable as one who can transmit information, provide auxiliary support, and supply a positive relationship to any individual’s life.</p>
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<p>This is too true. Merits are questioned not because of AA, but because individuals who do not benefit from a school’s desire for diversity need a scapegoat. I too was welcomed with the same, “I knew you’d get in” and “You deserve to get in” as Dbate seems to have received. Did some people question my acceptance? Yes. But those who did are some of the most stuck up, arrogant people I have ever met. In fact, the two types of people I have met who devalue the efforts of students of color by blaming their acceptance on AA are arrogant, white people who are upset they were not accepted and just plain bitter people. Neither has any legitimacy in questioning anyone’s merits.</p>