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<p>It “blatantly” matters in AA. Should color continue to matter in college admissions?</p>
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<p>And this is exactly why I think “affirmative action” and special privileges based on race should be replaced with special privileges based on income. Race is not a barrier to success in today’s world; it’s income and education level. Sure, one could argue that most low-income families and first-generation college students are URMs, but there are certainly many others that are ORMs, and why should the URM get the unfair advantage over the ORM when both have had to overcome similar financial struggles, simply because s/he is a URM?</p>
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This is ridiculous. Race alone is not a barrier to academic achievement, and anyone who believes so is profoundly racist. There’s nothing in Black/Latino DNA that makes it impossible or more difficult for URMs to succeed in school. There’s no reason to be more impressed with a URM with good grades than an ORM with a perfect GPA. OTOH, what should be more impressive is a student (of any race - ORM or URM) who has succeeded in school despite financial struggles or while living in an unstable home environment, because those conditions (unlike race) are true barriers to academic success.</p>
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<p>France hasn’t exactly tried to ease relations between conflicting groups either, as shown by the government’s support of the headscarf ban increasing tensions with Muslims/Arabs. The US, on the other hand, has long supported policies of Affirmative Action and other anti-discrimination laws/measures. There are very few places today (the race-segregated proms featured in a Seventeen magazine article come to mind) where race discrimination allowed by a local government occurs, and the vast majority of the country is far less discriminatory against URMs than ever before.</p>
<p>Millancad, that yoga reference was an inside joke. My mom owns a yoga studio. We kid her because so very few people of color have ever taken a class at her studio. Her classes are about 95 percent old white women.</p>
<p>The bottom line for me is that I wish every child could be raised in a healthy environment where they could achieve whatever they wanted to achieve. It breaks my heart to see any child raised in an unhealthy environment. I may change my mind one day, but sitting here today I am convinced that the only way to do this is for parents to make sacrifices, stay together, work hard, and encourage their children to study hard and plant in their children’s heart the belief that they can achieve anything they desire. I absolutely hate it when I hear anyone tell another “You can’t make it.” When you tell a child they can’t succeed, they won’t. And they won’t take responsibility for their actions or futures either.</p>
<p>Just thought I’d point it out there. Buddhism is NOT ingrained in all East Asian cultures. The majority of China and Korea (or I think the largest group at least) identify with being nonreligious. Buddhism is much more prominent in Japan.</p>
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<p>Agreed, Jennieblue22.</p>
<p>"i was just wondering</p>
<p>if a person didn’t report their ethnicity and if their name sounded somewhat black, would AA help? "</p>
<p>I’m not sure, but I definitely think that a URM reporting his/her ethnicity would help more when it comes to claiming benefits from affirmative action. After all, affirmative action was designed to prevent discrimination and aid those who have been discriminated against. It’s fair to assume that the applicant would have to prove that it is indeed race that caused a disadvantage and not simply a bad GPA or horrid test scores, and it would likely be harder for someone who didn’t report his/her race to prove that race was the deciding factor.</p>
<p>AP930:
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<p>Lollerpants:
I was aware of the prevalence of atheism in China, but not in Korea, so thank you for informing me.
Nonetheless, Buddhism remains an important religion and a big part of culture in China and Korea. Of all Chinese theists, 85% are Buddhists and it has left an indelible imprint on Chinese culture.
Of all Koreans, 22.8% are Buddhists. (As you mentioned, a large portion, 46.5%, do not follow a religion.) Again, its former prevalence in the country means it is a part of Korean culture, even unto today, just as Christian practices remain a part of the cultures of European nations despite high percentages of atheists.
Shintoism is the indigenous religion of Japan, though Buddhism is heavily followed there as well. Many Japanese practice the two in a syncretic manner.</p>
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<p>My step-brother has a name that tends to be more black than white, and he swears it’s what helped him get into law school.</p>
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<p>I guess I must be black, as my favorite record album is Miles Davis’s [Kind</a> of Blue](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001KL3GZO/]Kind”>http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001KL3GZO/), the best-selling jazz album of all time. No, wait, I must be white, as another favorite album of mine is another top-selling jazz album, is Dave Brubeck’s [Time</a> Out](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/Time-Out-Dave-Brubeck-Quartet/dp/B000002AGN/]Time”>http://www.amazon.com/Time-Out-Dave-Brubeck-Quartet/dp/B000002AGN/). Oops, that can’t be right; really I’m Asian, because I also especially like Utada Hikaru’s album [First</a> Love](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/First-Love-Utada-Hikaru/dp/B00006L5E1/]First”>http://www.amazon.com/First-Love-Utada-Hikaru/dp/B00006L5E1/). </p>
<p>Okay, actually I believe that music is part of the common cultural heritage of humankind. (Playing music is a cultural universal of the species Homo sapiens, and very likely has been from the beginning of the species.) One wonderful thing about living in the United States, and traveling around the world, is hearing lots of different kinds of music.</p>
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<p>If you want to quote a mere sentence of my post out of context and then put a straw man/reductio ad absurdum argument, go ahead, but it doesn’t help your argument.</p>
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<p>Styles of music are cultural traits, just as styles of visual and performance art are, and almost every ethnic group is of a singular race. There’s just no way to refute that, because it’s true. The fact that I like a bhangra song does not make bhangra less a part of Indian culture.</p>
<p>“Race” is a poorly defined term here. See </p>
<p>[Black</a> or African American persons, percent, 2000](<a href=“http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68176.htm]Black”>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/meta/long_68176.htm) </p>
<p>for the acknowledgment that the federal categories “are sociopolitical constructs and should not be interpreted as being scientific or anthropological in nature.”</p>
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This might be true in the Old World, but not in the Americas.
The second-largest ethnic group in the United States (Hispanic/Latino) is not of a single race.</p>
<p>Which is a huge pain. All of my friends have asked me what are we supposed to put down for Race. Honestly, we don’t see ourselves as anything but Hispanic.</p>
<p>The 2000 Census form had a choice for some other race, and 97% of persons who checked that box also identified as Hispanic.
<a href=“http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/cenbr01-1.pdf[/url]”>http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/cenbr01-1.pdf</a> at page 3 note 5</p>
<p>It looks like the 2010 Census form has the same option.
<a href=“http://2010.census.gov/2010census/pdf/2010_Questionnaire_Info_Copy.pdf[/url]”>http://2010.census.gov/2010census/pdf/2010_Questionnaire_Info_Copy.pdf</a></p>
<p>The Common Application, on the other hand, does not have a some other race option.
<a href=“https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/downloadforms/CombinedFirstYearForms2010.pdf[/url]”>https://www.commonapp.org/CommonApp/Docs/downloadforms/CombinedFirstYearForms2010.pdf</a></p>
<p>Thanks for the link to the specimen 2010 Census form. For college applications, there is a federal regulation </p>
<p>[U.S</a>. Department of Education; Office of the Secretary; Final Guidance on Maintaining, Collecting, and Reporting Racial and Ethnic Data to the U.S. Department of Education [OS]](<a href=“http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html]U.S”>http://www.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/other/2007-4/101907c.html) </p>
<p>(linked to from the very first post in this thread) that defines what categories are asked about on college application forms, effective this application season. First the form must ask about Hispanic ethnicity. Then the form must ask about the federal defined “race” categories. A person of Hispanic ethnicity can be of any race. </p>
<p>[Guidance</a> on the Presentation and Comparison of Race and Hispanic Origin Data](<a href=“http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/compraceho.html]Guidance”>http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/compraceho.html)</p>
<p>According to the linked Dept. of Ed. guidance–
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<p>So ansar and his friends can provide all the information a college needs by checking yes for Hispanic/Latino on the CommonApp, even if they leave the ethnicity question blank.</p>
<p>A rising senior in the family prompted me to action and I discovered CC. In my search for relevant info, I came across numerous references to URM status as an absolute advantage. In contrast, ORM status is viewed as a clear disadvantage. I know the college admission process is not based on true meritocracy, but I think automatically putting an applicant in a biased category just based on the stated ethnicity is unjust and something should be done about it. I understand adcoms need to compensate for hardships and difficult circumstances, but I don’t think URM by itself is the right vehicle for this. President Obama even said that his daughters should not be given preferential treatment because they are not in a disadvantaged socioeconomic class.</p>
<p>If increasing or improving diversity is the goal, then what kind of diversity are we aiming for? Diversity in skill, personality, interest, idea, view on life and approach to problem solving? Or diversity in culture and background? Or diversity in skin color? One can even argue that diversity in culture and background eventually maps to diversity of the first kind and therefore it should not be a primary pursuit. If the first kind is not enough, then are we ready to say that students in top colleges in China, Japan and Korean are in a huge disadvantage because these colleges don’t have our URMs? Do all Chinese think alike? Do all Indians have the same view on life? Are we perpetuating stereotypes in our pursuit of “diversity”? What issues cannot be addressed without admitting or not admitting applicants based on their URM or ORM status? </p>
<p>Honest opinions please.</p>
<p>If you use the search function on this site, or do a google search with the parameter “site:talk.collegeconfidential.com” you’ll come up with a ton of threads on this subject. [url=<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/742349-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-4-a.html]This[/url”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/742349-race-college-admissions-faq-discussion-4-a.html]This[/url</a>] is the biggest thread on the subject.</p>
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<p>[It’s</a> true](<a href=“https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2075.html]It’s”>https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2075.html).</p>