<p>entertainer: i will only believe you when you can prove to me that no one from u mich transfers out to a lower school, or drops out entirely. the top 1% of a class usually consists of about 3-5 kids at a medium-large high school. let’s assume all five of them go to u mich. now u mich is a HUGE school of about 25k+ students, and that’s not including grads. so even a 1% dropout rate or transfer rate equates to about 250 students leaving the university. i would not hesitate too much to bet that those 5 in the top 1% of their class are part of those 250 who leave. now maybe u mich’s dropout rate isn’t 1%, but if it’s not 0% then i still think those kids, or ones like them could not handle it. and for all the diversity you preach regarding u mich, you should know that 74% are white, or unreported. only 6% are black, and 3% hispanic, so while i understand their obligation to state kids i don’t understand why no one more qualified applied than those in need of remedial courses. and username is right, for the last time, the sat is not biased, i’ve already addressed that, and yes teachers can be biased. i doubt they could get away with giving an a student an f, but it would not be the most difficult thing for them to bump a kid down to a B or C. if you get one teacher like that per year you may end up with a gpa that does not reflect your ability at all.</p>
<p>Maho: A 2nd or 3rd grader could easily get those questions wrong, especially with the time limit that is enforced.
I wasn’t assuming you’re white, I’m saying for the average white student. You are most likely asian. Correct?
And what people with less that 3 GPA’s and 1500 SAT are going to Stanford? You assume these people get in when in reality they don’t, URM or not! Check your facts. You make crazy assumptions about URM’s who get into top schools. They do NOT have those stats. And the vast, vast majority of them CAN handle the work. Their graduation rates are consistent and actually much higher than average at lower-tier schools.</p>
<p>I think someone is imagining that URM is an instant-win, requiring no hard work, and that society, school, and parents have absolutely nothing to do with the values of a URM student when in fact they are the primary factors. Where would you be without your parents telling you to succeed, raising you to value education? Without your teachers? Without your income? Without your school dedicated to teaching you and society promoting the idea that you should succeed? Nowhere, that’s where. You would find your story, GPA, SAT scores, etc. would be completely different. That’s what AA is for. AA is founded on the principle that students who overcome the odds and bust through the achievement gap should be rewarded.</p>
<p>Wait so just because Michigan has a 6% black population and a 3% hispanic population means that they aren’t committed to diversity? Last time I checked Michigan was sued because they used race/affirmative action policies in their admissions process. Guess who won the supreme court case? Michigan did!</p>
<p>The graduation rate among African Americans/URM’s at Michigan is roughly 70%. That is among the top 5 in terms of public universities. I think Michigan is doing a great job in terms of helping URM’s. The national average for URM graduation is 43%-50%</p>
<p>I think Michigan’s commitment to diversity exceptional. </p>
<p>I personally don’t think the SAT is biased. I think its a great way to measure reasoning skills, but at the same time GPA is still a good indicator in determining success in college. I wonder why prestigious/highly selective public universities still make students take placement tests even after they have taken the SAT and scored well.</p>
<p>Honestly no 3rd grader can do well on the SAT’s unless he or she is a genius. You have to kidding me. Last time I checked, in 3rd grade I was still learning the multiplication table. Let alone do Algebra? Give me a break.</p>
<p>Affirmative action policies are outlawed in most states now. Schools are not allowed to give “preferential treatment” to URM’s. Admissions officers can still use race as a factor in their admission policies in order to achieve a diverse student body.</p>
<p>Its funny how wording makes such a big difference.</p>
<p>“The University of Michigan is firmly committed to the goal of creating a diverse educational environment. We work to build a community that is broadly diverse, which means that our faculty, staff, and students come to U-M with a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, each of whom contributes to the excellence and dynamism of the University’s learning environment.”</p>
<p>"Q: Why does the University of Michigan believe diversity is so important? </p>
<p>A: We know from research and from our experience as educators that building a diverse community adds to the quality of our teaching and learning, our scholarship, and our creative endeavors. U-M President Mary Sue Coleman discussed this in her November 2006 address to the University community when she said, “Diversity makes us strong, and it is too critical to our mission, too critical to our excellence, and too critical to our future to simply abandon. This applies to our state as much as our University. Michigan’s public universities and our public bodies must be more determined than ever to provide opportunities for women and minorities, who make up the majority of our citizenry.”</p>
<p>"Q: What is the relationship between the University’s pursuit of diversity and its academic excellence? </p>
<p>A: The University strives first and foremost to be academically excellent. Diversity is an essential component of our excellence. The quality of our academic programs is enhanced by the rich and varied contributions of our diverse students and faculty, who approach problems from different perspectives. Many top scholars are attracted to our community because they can study and conduct research with others who challenge their ways of looking at the world. The University of Michigan has become one of the top public universities in the world precisely because it is diverse — and measures such as our graduation rates, scholarly production, rankings of our academic programs and the number of applications for admission are evidence of this success."</p>
<p>Instead of trying to justify racial affirmative action by citing economic disadvantages and poor schools, why can’t we rectify this ailment with economic AA instead of judging all URMs, poor and rich alike, by race?</p>
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<p>Are you saying that Michigan only reaches out to low-income URMs? I’m assuming that low-income whites and Asians lack such a boost, or receive a lesser one, because of their race?</p>
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<p>GPA is not only biased but is a subjective indicator since School A could be less rigorous than School B. Thus a 4.0 from both schools would be indistinguishable despite the fact that the 4.0 from School B required more work and better prepared the student. Standardized testing, albeit not perfect, acts as an objective indicator.</p>
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Test scores tend to correlate with higher college GPAs (although I will concede that there are many other variables, including high school GPA).</p>
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<p>Well they are committed to helping the low-income families of detroit get access to higher education. Most people in Detroit are URM"s. I didn’t mean to generalize.</p>
<p>Test scores can in some ways correlate to higher college GPA’s, but its still far from 100%. I have nothing against standardized tests. I just think that people weigh them too heavily. There are many more factors that people have to consider.</p>
<p>“The racial makeup of the city was 81.6% Black, 12.3% White, 1.0% Asian, 0.3% Native American, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 2.5% other races, 2.3% two or more races, and 5.0 percent Hispanic.”</p>
<p>Wow that study is extremely interesting. African Americans are sort of below Asian, white, and their latino counter parts in most of the categories, but stunningly they are way below average when it comes to test scores.</p>
<p>If the majority of the low-income are URMs, economic AA would still aid them. Race doesn’t even need to be part of the criterion.</p>
<p>i am not asian, and you are clearly new to this thread because from page 6 to 14 or so there is nothing but talk of the girl with a 1300 who went to stanford. and i’m not making crazy assumptions, these are statements made by others in the thread like the sub 20 act kids. btw that’s about the the same as a 1410/2400 for you sat takers. so they really do have these stats. and i think a 2nd or 3rd grader could handle the first 3-4 questions of an sat math section well within the 20-25 minutes allotted, and even if they guessed everything they could probably do better out of sheer probability.
Entertainer: by these numbers Michigan is less diverse than many other schools by % urms attending. they may have more total urms because of the size of the school, but some other schools have more diverse student bodies, like harvard. they have 19% asian, 8% black, and 7% hispanic. as for the 70% that graduate, it still leaves 30% who don’t, and as for the national average of half of them not graduating it proves my point even more! it means half of them couldn’t handle the work!</p>
<p>Mahomushi68, are you referring to me? My post was largely devoted to the UMich and reliability of the SAT topics, not the sub-1500 Stanford girl one.</p>
<p>no ap930, sorry, i was referring to jayay and entertainer respectively, i just couldn’t post fast enough</p>
<p>Well it doesn’t prove your point per say. The national average refers to all colleges and universities in the United States. How can you say the primary reason for not graduating was because they couldn’t handle the work. There are no statistics to prove that. You are just making an assumption.</p>
<p>Also just because Michigan doesn’t have a higher percentage than some universities doesn’t mean they aren’t committed to diversity. They cannot give preferential treatment to URM’s because Affirmative action is outlawed. Thus they have to admit applicants based on some form of academic achievement. Being in the top 1% is an achievement, regardless of their test scores.</p>
<p>you’re grasping for straws, perhaps a portion of the urms has a legitimate reason for not graduating, but it is completely ridiculous to think that half the urm’s the country just up and left college on a whim. and seeing as how i can’t ask each and every one of them why they didn’t graduate, it is a valid assumption.</p>
<p>Let’s be real. universities do use race as a an admissions factor, they even list it as “considered” or “important”. the only reason it’s not affirmative action is because they don’t reserve a specific number of spots for any one race in any college or program. it’s a technicality, and as we’ve seen many times they DO give preferential treatment to urms. that’s what we’ve been discussing this whole time. seriously, at a school like that, with scores like that, it’s not an achievement, it’s a loophole.</p>
<p>“you’re grasping for straws, perhaps a portion of the urms has a legitimate reason for not graduating, but it is completely ridiculous to think that half the urm’s the country just up and left college on a whim. and seeing as how i can’t ask each and every one of them why they didn’t graduate, it is a valid assumption.”</p>
<p>It is a valid assumption, but it isn’t backed by any facts so you can’t make an argument suggesting that African Americans/URM"s drop out because they lack academic ability.</p>
<p>"Let’s be real. universities do use race as a an admissions factor, they even list it as “considered” or “important.”</p>
<p>I never said they didn’t use race as an admissions factor. They use it to achieve a more diverse student body. </p>
<p>“the only reason it’s not affirmative action is because they don’t reserve a specific number of spots for any one race in any college or program.”</p>
<p>Affirmative action deals with preferential treatment, not a reservation of spots for one particular race( Even though they seem similar, they aren’t). That would mean if Michigan reserved 500 spaces for African Americans and only 500 applied, anyone with any kinds of grades could get in. That is obviously not the case. There is no diversity quota in terms of admissions. URM’s still have to meet a certain academic standard and criteria to be even considered for admission.</p>
<p>“and as we’ve seen many times they DO give preferential treatment to urms. that’s what we’ve been discussing this whole time. seriously, at a school like that, with scores like that, it’s not an achievement, it’s a loophole.”</p>
<p>How do they give preferential treatment to URM’s? If a black person applied to Harvard with a 3.0 and a 1600 SAT, they would be denied. They wouldn’t be accepted solely because of race. </p>
<p>How is being in the top 1% of their class a loophole? They obviously were the best or one of the best in their class (academically speaking) so regardless of test scores, or the high school they went to, being in the top 1% at any school is an achievement. Honestly stop putting your personal standards in your argument. What you think is not an achievement may be different to another person or to an institution such as the University of Michigan.</p>
<p>Would it be to the university’s disadvantage to deny these students in the top 1% the right to a Michigan education? No. Obviously it has worked for many years and Michigan is still one of the most prestigious universities nationally and internationally because of it. Mostly all institutions of higher education have no cut-off GPA. Like I said they can’t just admit a URM solely because of race, that would be affirmative action(preferential treatment). Their needs to be some sort of academic and personal achievement evident.</p>
<p>ok letting in kids of lesser quality because of diversity is preferential treatment. it would not be preferential if these kids met the same standards as everyone else. and you need to study more history, there was a court case where a kid sued jhu because they reserved a number of spots for kids of various ethnicities. the kid was more qualified than others who got in, so the court ruled in his favor and jhu was forced to admit him. there are many different types of AA, that’s one of them. and from what i’ve heard it seems like they do admit anyone, as long as they live in michigan. these aren’t personal standards. the top 50 schools and moreover the top 25 and on down the list are difficult to get into because they get a lot of very qualified applicants with high test scores, hard classes, work experience, volunteer work, and strong gpa’s. the top 1% means nothing unless they have good course rigor, good grades, and good tests scores. otherwise i could take 1000 of the dumbest kids and make a school, but the top 1% would still be some of the dumbest kids. i put no stock in class rank. there is also no way to link the prestige of the university to the underprivilaged kids they admit. it was probably the over qualified out of staters that went on to do great things, not the sub 20 act kids. it’s really not their diversity or compulsion to help the under privelaged that make them a top university.</p>
<p>and the scenario you mentioned with the black kid with 3.0 and 1600, if it was out of 1600 he would get in for sure. i don’t know whether or not harvard uses the writing section, or to what extent.</p>
<p>maho: Your talking about ‘quotas’ with the jhu case. And that system has been overturned because of that court case.
And at top schools ‘lesser quality’ is still a 3.7 with a 2100 SAT. These people can handle the work. And even if you can find one or two cases where someone with ridiculously low stats got in, frankly, you don’t know their life. You don’t know what struggles they wnet through and maybe they portrayed this to the adcom. You also don’t know their EC’s. It’s poor judgement to jump to the conclusion that it was because they are URM when you have so little information. If you’re not white or Asian then what are you? Because I have a feeling if you were a URM yourself maybe you would understand the situation and not be so quick to dismiss all claims of societal disadvantage. You come off as if you have no idea why black people achieve less when there are several very good reasons, culturally, societally, economically.
And again with simplifying the SAT/ACT. Probability will not get you a composite higher than a 20. And a 2nd or 3rd grader would not do well on the test. I don’t know what super smart 2nd graders you know, but most are just getting the hang of simple math. No algebra. No geometry. And forget trig. Forget long word problems that require you to set up equations. And that’s the majority of the test.</p>
<p>“ok letting in kids of lesser quality because of diversity is preferential treatment. it would not be preferential if these kids met the same standards as everyone else.”</p>
<p>Ok the united states is a country of immigrants. First generation immigrants, statistically, make salaries which are extremely below those of college graduates (legacies, peole whose parents have also gone to college) from the US (citizens, etc). So please don’t tell me that it’s “preferential treatment” for a school to admit a kid from a “less competitive school” (knows as such because the kids there dont do exceptionally) who has amazing grade sand works hard into a top university. You simply do not know what they have gone through and what struggles they’ve overcome to achieve those grades. Admitting and making spots for these kids in comparison to kids who attend top high schools and private schools and have the money to fund their spectacular education is wrong?</p>
<p>You have a very archaic way of thinking about this, the way that Harvard, Pirnceton and such used to think in the 50s. Let’s take all the kids (usually legacies) from all the top private schools in the country! What does that leave you with? Elite families who get their kids into these schools even if they haven’t had to work as hard as an inner city kid at anything. They are genetically smart, and they have the money. Do you seriously support that lack of social mobility in this day and age?</p>
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<p>That’s my friend, he went to my school.
He’s a smart man, passionate for what he does, and certainly well-deserving. Although I do admit his scores were low for those two schools XD</p>
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<p>Being from a lower-middle class family, I have to say again that there’s nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>Smarter people with more education ARE able to contribute more to the world, that’s a fact. The world is not a fair place, and no matter how you try to manipulate it, it still will not be a fair place. That’s also a fact.</p>
<p>So, smarter people with more education SHOULD deserve spots in the few prestigious schools, even if most of them are already rich snobs, as they will contribute more for the world. If a poor kid was to study hard and achieve what the rich kids have, then good for him, he deserves a good life too. However, you can’t admit below par students simply because they’ll have a chance to be less poor… That doesn’t help the world or anyone except maybe that single student.</p>
<p>The middle 50% of SAT scores at Stanford are </p>
<p>650-760: Critical Reading
680-780: Math
670-760: Writing
30-34: ACT</p>
<p>Your friends SAT is 20 points below the middle 50% of accepted students. </p>
<p>I still don’t get how African Americans/URM’s get preferential treatment. Clearly your friend is near the average student at Stanford. Also colleges have a bottom 25% of students also. Meaning that 25% of the student body achieved scores lower than 650, 680, and 670. I still don’t understand how this is giving preferential treatment to African Americans/URM’s. Clearly your friend was qualified in terms of GPA and test scores. Just because the average asian or white person gets scores way above your friends, doesn’t mean that they would be rejected from Stanford if they applied with these statistics.</p>
<p>Low Income, African American male, and first generation? This is outstanding from my point of view. Do you know how hard it is for African American males to succeed in society? Clearly you don’t know. He is also experiencing clear financial instability and he is first generation. I don’t know about you, but Stanford is committed to diversity and has a strong representation of URM’s in its student body. Also the URM’s that get admitted there with “below average stats” succeed there. Their stats aren’t below average. Maybe if you compare them to the average Asian or Caucasian that applies or is admitted, but college admissions don’t compare URM"s to other races in the student body. It is essential to compare URM’s in context to their surroundings, income, environment, geographical location, etc. There might be poor asians and poor caucasians, but if you look at statistical averages such as income, ability to get a job, and other factors, you will see that they clearly aren’t a struggling people. I think people need to look beyond race. URM’s that are accepted to these schools are capable and outstanding. </p>
<p>@ Maho: I was referring to a 1600 out of 2400. Harvard does take into account the writing section of the SAT.</p>
<p>because the 25% is purely URMs and athletes (or close to it)</p>
<p>???</p>
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<p>exactly. Which is why URM AA doesn’t make sense.</p>
<p>if a poor asian can succeed, so should a poor african. It’s his own fault if he can’t.</p>