<p>How do you know that you’re in the top 10% of your race? If you saw it on your transcript then yes, it will be reported to colleges. Otherwise, no. You can email your counselor and ask, but honestly I don’t think it would help you anyway. Colleges don’t assess candidates’ ranks within their race. Are you expecting them to evaluate you only against people of your race once you’re attending? No. But if your high school is full of smarties they’ll know that and consider it in junction with your rank.</p>
<p>Schmaltz, I really don’t appreciate you talking down to me. I didn’t “make a claim with no proof”. I posted an article, although you most likely cannot access it, and I recommended a book. If you don’t want to use either of my suggested sources, I’m sure you can find some research that backs up what I’m saying on your own. I never claimed to be an expert, alright? But what I’ve read draws me to the conclusion that the major contributing factor to the achievement gap is culture. And I’m not that politically correct in general, so that really isn’t a factor. I’m sorry that I’ve drawn a conclusion? I don’t really know what you’re so angry about. There’s nothing wrong with having an opinion as long as one is willing to change it if it is proven incorrect.</p>
<p>If you have research that is opposite my opinion (and I’m sure it’s out there), I’d be happy to read it. You really just need to relax though. I’m not trying to claim that I’m more open-minded and intelligent than you are. You seem to be taking this conversation really personally. . .</p>
<p>Oh, and the book I meant to recommend was Outliers, not Blink. I haven’t read Blink, but I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with what we’re discussing. Sorry about that.</p>
<p>Maxdel, I only use all caps on words wose meaning I want to stress. I’m not “yelling” those words. </p>
<p>Your “Scientists Say…” article focuses on the term “race” and says that the differences that occur aren’t such that they could qualify as “racial.” (But they recognize differences, and even mention that Africa has the most “diversity.”) In other words, the article is as much on linguistics (i.e., what qualifies as a “race”) as on science. Reminds me of those people who smugly say “There’s only ONE race, the HUMAN race.” Fine, I don’t care what word you call the groups that tend to look different on the surface. Call them groups, tribes, families, I don’t care.</p>
<p>Max, I’m probably a little older than you, and actually DO remember when there was a wave of political correctness that stressed that all male/female differences were based on social conditioning. So boys were bought dolls, and girls were bought trucks, and you were a sexist pig if you looked around at all other species and saw different roles and capabilities for the different sexes. But as technology got better, and people were able to study the brain in new ways, they found all sorts of differences, and there were cover stories on Time and Newsweek and such, as if they’d come up with something completely unexpected.</p>
<p>I am completely open to evidence that humans “groups” are all the same or all different. It would probably surprise me a bit if these groups that don’t seem to have carved out very similar civilizations turned out to be of equal capability. Heck, even my own brother and me are completely different in our thinking and mental capabilities.</p>
<p>yeah i read some of those stories- though i dont know when they were written, more of the lines that men were better at more mathy type of stuff (of course not said explicitly) while women possessed a different subset of skills which are suited for humanities. linguistic type stuff (of course not stated explicitly). It didn’t say anything new, but then we can’t say anything about intelligence because if intelligence is based on more math stuff from their studies men would be smarter but if based on the other stuff that women had an edge in then women would be smarter. that the major problem with intelligence.</p>
<p>Another example which is a little bit out of scope. When i was in high school, I had friends who were as stupid as crap in any academic endeavor, and could not memorize stuff to save their lives. However, they could name every soccer player in the premiership, bundesliga, Premier A (soccer leagues around the world) analyze their attributes and other stuff. I had luike no interest in that, and would be considered stupid if a test was based on it.</p>
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<p>Let’s not overgeneralize based on race.</p>
<p>Asian ethnicities such as Hmong, Laotian, Viets, etc. tend to underperform w/ regard to academics, black immigrants from Africa tend to overperform and Jews outperform other whites (granted, these are generalizations as well).</p>
<p>But yeah, the whole “I’m in the top 10% of my race” is pretty silly.</p>
<p>k&s, aren’t a a good amount of Hmong immigrants below the poverty level because most come from small farming communities? A lot of them seem to come to America with few quality educational opportunities open to them. Also, I live in an area with a larger than average Jewish population, and this is completely anecdotal, but the parents of my Jewish friends really, really stress academics.</p>
<p>Still, I was definitely generalizing; it seems like you know more about this subject that I do.</p>
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<p>I agree with this sentiment, which is exactly why I don’t believe URMs should get a significant boost if they aren’t already highly qualified for a school. The ultimate solution to restore racial balance is time, especially for the African-American community; the African-American community needs time to move away from the strong attitude that paved the way for the Civil Rights movement but at the same time caused a cultural segregation that today hinders the intellectual curiosity of the African-American race. Artificial facilitation of this process will only delay the completion of this process. I do believe that URMs are self-sufficient enough to alter their mindsets, similarly to how both Asian and African immigrants are able to maintain extremely high academic standards despite being associated with supposedly separate ideologies.</p>
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<p>Not only that, but Hmong (and some other SE Asian ethnicities like the Laotians) due to their history and cultural baggage often don’t see higher education as the way out of poverty or even a possibility.</p>
<p>That’s why a lot of SE Asian males end up joining street gangs (not that NE Asian males don’t) - there was a club in Miami (of all places) that banned all Asian males from entry since AMs were stereotyped as street thug.</p>
<p>■■■■■</p>
<p>“I’m Black/Hispanic/NA! Therefore, I should be given more kudos for making straight Bs than nerdy Asians who make straight As!”</p>
<p>Give me a mother-effin’ break.</p>
<p>What do you want? A cookie?!! <em>gives cookie</em> There, now go away.</p>