<p>Perhaps you’ve heard? Today is kind of a big day for lots of schools, with a whole mess of deadlines imminent in the next half-dozen hours. </p>
<p>Over on Reddit, I’m hosting an admissions AMA (ask me anything, for the uninitiated to the Front Page of the Internet). So far, most of the questions have been about Tufts, but I’m itching to help anyone, and I don’t really care where you’re applying. If, in this scary time of the first days of our year 2013, you’ve got an admissions question to ask anonymously, and you want a professional’s answer. </p>
<p>(Also, if you read this after today, and you’ve got a question, drop it on this thread and I’ll help if I can)</p>
<p>I didn’t apply to this school, but I love how you are taking initiative through an AMA. </p>
<p>I personally loved your response to Affirmative Action…I never saw it that way before.</p>
<p>My question (since I’m too darn lazy to log into my reddit account) is: Most people think colleges have to sacrifice merit for diversity and vice versa in terms of sculpting their freshman class. Thus the argument boils down to:</p>
<p>Diversity vs. Merit</p>
<p>I won’t ask you about Tufts peers institutions because you only represent Tufts, but do you feel Tufts has to trade off for one or the other, or can Tufts have the best of both worlds, merit AND diversity?</p>
<p>Thanks once again!</p>
<p>This is a really great thing you’re doing.</p>
<p>So… I set out to answer the question you ask, SpaceDuck, in a brief paragraph or two, and what I wrote turned into an 800 word response that looped in the upcoming Supreme Court decision. Rather than dump the whole thing in here, I’ll condense my thoughts. (I’ve decided to submit it to a few newspapers, and if it takes, then I’ll post the link here - if it doesn’t, I’ll just post the whole thing)</p>
<p>I do want to answer your question, so here’s my boiled down version, which I hope can spark some conversation here about how “Merit” is perceived by the CC community, and high school families at large.</p>
<p>Merit and Diversity are the same thing. </p>
<p>There is no “vs” - no trade off. Holistic admissions (I hate that phrase, but it is apt here) is about MUCH more than admitting the students with the best numbers who will pull in the best grades in the classroom. What I do, what my office does, what all these offices strive to do, is build the best possible learning potential that we can. Ok, doing that requires the “smartest” students you can find, but it also requires fostering the largest set of learning opportunities so that those students can grow.</p>
<p>A student that brings in an underrepresented perspective - and I’m not just talking about race here, though race is a big one - bring with him or her the opportunity for others to learn from that perspective. That student directly furthers the academic mission of my university.</p>
<p>That is “merit.”</p>
<p>Do you want me to post my response in the AMA so it’s easier for you to respond?</p>
<p>I understand the gist of your argument, and I agree that there is no trade off between merit and diversity.</p>
<p>But merit and diversity…they are the same? That’s where I’m struggling to understand.</p>
<p>Your example of the student with an underrepresented perspective…I can see where that implies diversity to a campus as that student care share it with other students…but how does that include merit? It is because they had to overcome (that might not be the right word) the circumstances that ultimately shaped their perspective?</p>
<p>If you could elucidate on that part, I would be most happy.</p>
<p>Thank you for responding to my answers regardless! Maybe I should have looked into Tufts as a school! =]</p>