<p>Like I said, how much does it factor in to the process, not how “bad” is it. Maybe asking how “powerful” it is would have been better.</p>
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<p>You worded that very eloquently. Let me suggest a rephrasing of your question, because I think it’s an honest one and you’re not being racist, although I may be wrong with that assumption:</p>
<p>“How much impact does A.A. have on admissions decisions?”</p>
<p>The answer to that question isn’t a simple one. First of all, being African-American, Native American, or Hispanic doesn’t guarantee admission to Ivies or other top schools. But if all your stats are on par and your essays are at least decent, you will have a significantly better chance of getting in than, say, someone who is White or Asian.</p>
<p>Of course, for Hispanics and Native Americans, your ethnicity must be at least a semi-important part of your life. A wealthy Hispanic with no ties to Hispanic culture that isn’t fluent in Spanish and has never visited his country of origin is unlikely to receive significant advantage in the admissions process, whereas a poor Mexican American from a bad area with on par stats will have a much higher chance of admission than the typical White applicant. That’s completely fair in my eyes.</p>
<p>Hope this helped a little.</p>
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<p>What are you defining affirmative action as? Does it really make sense for you to say that Yale wants diversity, and on the other hand practices affirmative action? Are these not, in fact, the same exact thing?</p>
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<p>There is a more hardworking race? Really?</p>
<p>Hard work does not equate stellar stats. There are people who work harder than you might but still don’t get as great grades as you do.</p>
<p>If a school were to go by stats alone, there still would be more applicants than the school can accept. Plus, the class will be filled with boring, book nerds who will do nothing but coup themselves in the library. While I am grossly generalizing, my point is that schools want people who will help their athletic and extracurricular programs thrive. They have to select for those students as well.</p>
<p>Furthermore, it seems that many people have a strange definition of “merit”/what it means to be “qualified.” And, IMO, it’s not all that impossible to have a 4.0/get a 2400 or 36 while not being all that intelligent.</p>
<p>Well, I think decrescendo handled this in an eloquent and effective manner.</p>
<p>To be more specific, you have to look at this school by school. The only elite that has posted information on it is Duke, and I suspect it was done unintentionally. How important is AA? Look at the graph in this article.</p>
<p>[News:</a> Testing for ‘Mismatch’ - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/20/mismatch]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/04/20/mismatch)</p>
<p>For colleges that consider race or ethnicity, it is one factor that can be considered with all others and can help a URM be admitted even with somewhat lower stats than usual. Nevertheless, be aware that a small number of states have adotped laws against the use of such factors in admissions, such as California, and thus public (not private) universities from those states are not allowed to conisider race and ethnicity in admissions.</p>
<p>You arent even in the same pool as the AAs, so dont *****.</p>
<p>Also, without AA, most of this nations bright young minds would never have a chance at top universities. Of course you could reply, “if they were so bright, why is it that they need a few extra bumps to get admitted?” AAs are intelligent <em>RELATIVE</em> to their peers and environment. So, you have kids who have a dream, but live in the projects and have parents that are drug addicts, felons, criminals, or just really really poor. Sure, they dont have the “scores”. But, they dont have the “scores” because the public high school in the area is completely underfunded because no one pays taxes, and mommy and daddy dont give two ****s. Contrast this with a kid from a middle class meighborhood that has a relatively well funded public or private school, who has many kids that graduate instead of dropping out, where crime is relatively low. Those children are bred from day 1 to attend college.</p>
<p>Personally, I think it is much more amazing to overcome all of the trouble of living in a ghetto with poor schools and get scores “comparable”(<70 points difference per section) to upper class individuals, than to be bred from day 1, and only get slightly better numbers on the SAT(1-2 questions, oooooh).</p>
<p>Most people that are bitter about AA just are because they dont want lower class “scum” to inhabit their precious country club colleges, or feel that they are somehow “entitled” over the guy/gal who experienced hardship and/or discrimination in order to get where he/she is today.</p>
<p>Gold will shine where ever you put it. Score is one of many citeria judging the talent of a student. If score is used as the only standard, then the school will be full of people of certain social economic background. It is a good policy to give disadvantaged kids and give them the opportunity to get a head start. This may be the only way to get these kids out of the environment.</p>
<p>I honestly did not intend to sound racist in the post, I’ve just been made a ware recently that A.A. policy plays an impact in admissions and was curious as to how much of an impact it really had. Thank you very much for your answers.</p>
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<p>First of all, I’m a Hispanic. And I take offense to that statement.</p>
<p>I don’t think universities consider URMs to be “scum.” This is the 21st century, not the 1930s.</p>
<p>The people who are angry about A.A. are mostly White and Asian applicants who have better stats than us, but came from more privileged backgrounds. But like I said, most of us (at least the ones who have an advantage) came from less priviliged backgrounds and had to overcome more strife to get to where we are today. So is it acceptable to accept a Hispanic applicant with an SAT score 100 points lower and a few less EC’s than a White applicant if the Hispanic brings cultural diversity and has had to overcome economic hardship? In my opinion, it’s absolutely fair.</p>
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<p>Out of curiousity, could you list these “country club colleges” for me? Because I’m pretty sure that racial discrimination in the education system was outlawed many years ago in the United States. In fact, many universities have a “diversity weekend” where they fly out URMs, sometimes for free, to recruit them. And that includes many top schools.</p>
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<p>Why thank you, juillet. :)</p>
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<p>Dont, I am also a URM. Also, that wasn’t in reference to universities thinking that. They definitely think URM are equal members of society, or that a URM can make great contributions to the university or they wouldnt practice AA. What I mean to say is, its as if OP and “entitled” people see URMS this way.</p>
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Exactly.</p>
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<p>“Country Club Colleges” were in reference to upper class/entitled people thinking that URMs dont belong in their “club”(keeping the rich rich, and the poor poor, in other words). This wasn’t in reference to the universities, themselves.</p>
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As a side note, I had a college that promised to do this for me, if I gave them some information(this was a top school). I followed my end of the bargain, but I never got “flown” out. I took it as bad organization from the admissions office.</p>
<p>Clearly, for at least some “underrepresented” minority candidates, they need the boost, or else they won’t get in. If all “underrepresented” minorities who received an affirmative action boost didn’t need it to get in, then the policy is pointless. If having it and not having it leads to the same outcome, then why have it? It would only make sense to have it if not having it leads to a different outcome.</p>
<p>To answer wrightm’s question, affirmative action only plays a role at selective universities. The vast majority of colleges in our country admit on a “numbers only” basis; that is, if your grades and SAT scores are good enough, you’re in. Selective universities, however, are different. Not everyone in the applicant pool has a 4.0/2400, but enough will have such strong stats that additional criteria is necessary to make decisions. That’s where the subjective criteria–extracurriculars, essays, recommendations–come in, and that’s where racial classification can rear its ugly head and become a factor.</p>
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<p>Sounds great on paper, but is that what actually happens in practice? I don’t know for Hispanics, but I know that for blacks at elite universities, most are not “from the ghetto.”</p>
<p>[New</a> York Times Article](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/education/24AFFI.final.html]New”>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/education/24AFFI.final.html)</p>
<p>Two Harvard professors themselves estimated that as many as two-thirds of Harvard’s black undergraduate population are “West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples.”</p>
<p>[Inside</a> Higher Ed Article](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/01/black]Inside”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/01/black)</p>
<p>40.6% of the black students at Ivy Leagues are immigrants or the children of immigrants. Thus, most black students in the Ivy Leagues are not, but contrast 40.6% to the proportion of black students aged 18 or 19 in our country–13%–and you see just how “overrepresented” they are.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same for Latinos. Thomas Sowell has documented that in every country that has an affirmative action program, the stated beneficiaries are always the downtrodden masses, but the real beneficiaries are always the elites. Not surprising if you think about it.</p>
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<p>Why give him preference based on his ethnicity? Why not give him preference based on his socioeconomic class? Is it not a possibility that some whites and Asians in our country also “overcome economic hardship”? How do you ensure that a candidate “brings cultural diversity”?</p>
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Whites and Asians do not always come from more priveleged backgrounds, yet these applicants can still be hurt by A.A. Don’t assume that all URM’s should receive a boost because they are so underpriveleged, in fact many URM’s come from very wealthy families.</p>
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It’s a shame that the current system of AA is dependent on ethnicity/race rather than socioeconomic background. Your entire tirade would have probably made a lot more sense if socioeconomic AA existed. So I pose to you this question, what about the Asian kids from the aforementioned “</em></strong>*ty backgrounds” and the URMs with family incomes over 200K? AA will favor the URM who was “bred from day 1 to attend college”. </p>
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As do I. Unfortunately, AA isn’t directed toward socioeconomic disparities so your argument is moot.</p>
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The idiocy in this statement is pretty unbelievable.</p>
<p>While I realize many or most will say this isn’t the purpose of colleges, I like this comment from the article.</p>
<p>"Also, some African American or Latino/Latina students do very well; why do the authors of this study not look at this group, and see whether the only difference between them and the ones who do less well is their SAT score? "</p>
<p>This is the most intriguing part of what I have observed here. That is, when you look at “Affirmative Action”, it is easy to focus on the eight, or eighty, or eight hundred kids at selective universities, and notice they may be “sub par” (my favorite CC expression). But in the big picture, among the 80 thousand plus, you realize there is something important going on here, and it might help a lot of people to understand what it is.</p>
<p>I DO get that that is not a priority on CC.</p>
<p>affirmative action
n.
A policy or a program that seeks to redress past discrimination through active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment.</p>
<p>Affirmative action =/= diversity, bigboyjoey, but it does help with it. They want to admit minorities and thus they lower the bar, so to speak, for them.</p>
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<p>White and Asian applicants who are from low-income families will be judged easier than White and Asian applicants from high-income families. First-generation college students, regardless of race/ethnicity, possess a hook that may boost their chances significantly. So no matter what your background, you will be judged easier than others if you’re from a low-income family, although low-income URMs will be judged easier than low-income Whites and Asians.</p>
<p>Also, in response to the Asian stereotype that is often complained about: most Asian applicants are very, very similar in their academics in that they pursue math/science and have very similar EC’s. What I’ve found from exploring CC RD/EA threads is that Asians who show a passion for non-math/science fields have a much higher chance of admission than other Asians. For example, an Asian majorinig in English Lit. or History with a real passion for the subject will be given a significant boost over an Asian who is majoring in Biology or Chemical Engineering. If you’re mad at me for saying this, consider this: if almost all White applicants were majoring in math/science-fields, would their admit rates not be lower as well? There’s only so many spots offered by universities for people pursuing certain departments.</p>
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Any factual support for this claim? Seeing as admissions is need-blind and therefore disregards socioeconomic status, I don’t see how this could be true.
First-generation =/= Low-income. No one has argued otherwise about first-gen applicants.
I’ve already asked for factual support for the claim that low-income families are judged easier, but I would like to ask you why low-income URMs should be judged easier than low-income White/Asians.
The websites and admissions officers of various elite institutions have clearly stated that intended major has no impact on admissions (so long as the intended major does not involve a separate application process/consideration into a separate school of studies within the college itself).</p>
<p>Jersey13 - I’m not going to pretend the URM system is completely fair. Because it can be absolutely unfair. I do not believe that a wealthy African American should get in ahead of a poor White applicant with similar stats. The system does need to be reformatted in one aspect: URMs from homes with annual incomes above $100K should be judged equally alongside White applicants.</p>
<p>But also, look at the US population. It’s 14% Hispanic, and around 10% African American. Top schools should at least somewhat represent the racial make-up of our nation. So what does a school like Yale do when they need at least some diversity but have extremely high standards for admission? It’s an interesting dilemma, one that doesn’t have a definite answer.</p>