What can we do instead of Affirmative Action?

[nil_desperandum]

<p>

Is that the current legacy admit rate? I was under the impression that legacy acceptance rates were dropping everywhere (and faster than the drop in overall admissions rates). I, personally, have never seen an unqualified person get into a top school because of the legacy factor. I have, however, seen quite a few perfectly qualified kids turned away from top privates (Duke especially, where my parents went and know several classmates with college-bound kids). So in my experience, at least, the boost isn’t really there. "

</p>

<ol>
<li>Just because you don’t necessarily see a legacy boost, doesn’t mean it isn’t there.</li>
<li><p>If legacies are so qualified then legacy has no place. Why are we helping people who don’t need it?</p></li>
<li><p>My opinion: First,from examining all the arguments I think that neither socioeconomic AA nor AA would fix the problem.
What we need is transparency. Colleges should post a huge authoritative list of all the things they look for, all the things that make a candidate a definite admit including Sat scores and extracurrics (like winning Intel). Socioeconomic AA should be built into the system(I suspect it already is). Colleges could assign a point value to the intangibles and if one amasses a certain amount of points- one should get into the college.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Next, 12,000 schools produce more than half of all the drop outs in the nation. Instead of giving free money to all schools including schools in nice suburbs, we should target these 12,000 aggressively with mentoring and such so that these students can meet the requirements for the top schools or at least go to college. </p>

<p>As for legacy admit status, it shouldn’t even be a question. It should be gone,long gone. It is a waste of time. For us as a society, there must be a cataclysmic shift. African Americans (esp. boys) are expected to do one of three things

1. play basketball
2. rap
3. go to jail
   Society shares a significant amount of the blame for making black boys symbols instead of actual people. </p>

<p>Now, for AA’s in affluent neighborhoods- this might/might not hurt them.</p>

<p>I see a couple of scenarios. </p>

<ol>
<li>AA’s in affluent neighborhoods are hurt because they achieve to lower standards than their white/Asian counter parts.</li>
<li>AA’s in affluent neighborhoods are hurt because for a long time, at least until the system kicks in there isn’t any diversity at top colleges and they refuse to go to elite colleges preferring Howard/Spellman and Morehouse over HYP. ( If such happens all predominately white colleges would suffer as talented AA’s got to HBCUs and those HBCUs rise in status,rivaling top 30 colleges)</li>
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<p>anyway, I’ll think about it more and refine my ideas later.</p>