I kind of hate how you can do everything “right” on an application but you can still be rejected from certain schools. It can’t be helped and it’s nobody’s fault, but it’s a huge bummer and it hurts your self-esteem.
That people need to complain about affirmative action giving URM’s a little boost in the college admissions process when those people will have to face discrimination inn job searches and their day to day lives forever. Seriously, you can’t cut them a break in one small aspect of their lives when they have to face so much? Sure, don’t let in an unqualified applicant just because they’re a minority, but a small bump if they’re on the edge between a waitlist and an admit is really not going to screw over any “more qualified” white or Asian applicant’s entire life.
@skgriffin PREACH, PREACH, PREACH!!!
I really dislike the amount of time it takes to hear back from the colleges. I understand there are a lot of applications to go through, but I know that there are several schools that get thousands of applications that are just completely unqualified to attend. I mean students that aren’t prepared for the college work at the beginning, and would be better suited to start at a junior college. That isn’t an insult as I know several people, including one who attended Harvard, started at a junior college because they knew they weren’t prepared to do anything, but flunk out. I also dislike the high price for applications.
People who pulled themselves together late in the game not for health or familial reasons, but simply because they wanted to “goof off” and then they decided that “okay now I want to work hard” who seem to think that they deserve a spot at a college just as much as someone who’s been working hard for all four years of high school because they wanted to do the best they could; people who whine about how “teenagers can’t have a passion and it isn’t fair to expect people to know what they want to do with the rest of their lives and why does this kid who’s put in hundreds of hours chasing what they love deserve a spot at a college over me when I’ve been running around for four years doing nothing??” and also when people don’t understand that colleges don’t need you to decided what you want to do for the rest of your life, they just want to know that you’ve found something you enjoy and stuck with it; I’m not going to be a musician, but I’ve pursued music purely because I enjoy it, and there is nothing (besides, of course, finances and illness, which I totally understand) to stop other kids from making the best of what they have, yet they complain that it’s “not fair because they didn’t know” when I feel like the point is that you shouldn’t have to “know.” If you needed to “know” what you were going to have to do to make yourself fit at the college, you probably don’t belong there …
Personally, I found waiting to be the worst part of the application process.
I consider myself a very patient person, but when it came down to waiting on an admission decision from my dream school, it really took a toll on me. I applied the first day applications opened, September 1st, and didn’t receive a final answer until the very last day before the waitlist opened, March 27th. The months and days between those dates were the most stressful and nerve-wracking days. I’d continually tell myself that there are people who have it worse and I’m lucky to even be able to go to college, but it was still terrible. I felt that every time I received a grade lower than 100% on a project, test, quiz, whatever, I was worthless and the school would never take me. I was also dealing with the loss of two very important people in my life around the same time I was notified that the school didn’t have a solid answer to give me, and that my application was to be rolled over into the next decision period (which I now recognize as a blessing) so I essentially thought my life was falling apart (admittedly I tend to be a little melodramatic about things that are this important). However, I persevered, aced my finals, and sent the school a very good mid-year report, which I believe really helped push my application into that admitted pile.
All in all, this process is simply a very trying time. My advice to the class of 2016 is to not give up (sorry it’s so cliche) and to work hard on your apps and senior year courses.
Affirmative Action is great and we need a LOT more of it. It’s kind of sickening how people who are privileged their whole lives are blind to their advantages from winning the birth lottery, and then have the gall to complain when any effort is made to help others catch up.
http://thewireless.co.nz/articles/the-pencilsword-on-a-plate
http://www.buzzfeed.com/nathanwpyle/this-teacher-taught-his-class-a-powerful-lesson-about-privil?utm_term=.wsp8ZZJQrg&fb_ref=mobile_share#.vu05XmgK0
The fact that colleges feel the need to be so secretive and blame the applicants for asking lots of questions when something goes wrong on their end of the admissions process. Early decision results at the school I’m attending was delayed almost a week and there was all these reports of CC on nasty responses from Admission officials when students called. Every student was really stressed, checking their emails constantly for 5 days because we were passed the expected deadline, and we received no notification that there was a problem except word-of-mouth and had to live in the dark knowing the notification from our dream school could come any moment. Results we’re supposed to be on the Thursday/Friday before the weekend and it was really stressful to sit by the computer all weekend and not have results come, and further stressful to call in politely to find information and hear snide remarks by admission officers-- especially for the students who didn’t get in and had to be strung along with the rest of us. If colleges we’re just more open in the admissions process and could be honest (i.e. send out an email “sorry we having a problem, sorry if anyone was blunt talking to you, don’t worry about decisions they’ll be out by xxx next week relax and enjoy the long weekend”) it would have been a lot nicer and saved us all a very stressful weekend.
Listening to people that have not ever even taken a second to research institutionalized and personalized racism in America against Blacks/Hispanics complain about how affirmative action is unfair, no longer needed and how it’s “racist” is really annoying and honestly plagues this website.
Listening to people say they didn’t get in because their spot had to go a minority is annoying.
Listening to people tell me that college apps will be easy for me because I’m a minority is annoying.
Also, having to fear things like “Tufts Syndrome” or “Demonstrated Interest” is also an unnecessary stressor.
If I read something that contradicts my research I would certainly be skeptical. However, it Does not take academic research to figure out something is unfair when It’s there for everyone in school to see a minority with decent ECs, decent grades in non-challenging academic curriculum, a poor work ethic, and a 26 ACT get several elite invitations while others with as good or better credentials and between 32 and 34 on ACT get wait listed. One of the negative things because of AA is that some people, as a result, feel that’s why minorities are admitted to elite schools. I think I wouldn’t like that if I were a high performing minority.
You are simply wrong. I personally know lots of minority kids who got in good schools and they have great or sometimes bettet work ethics than othets. Low ACT/SAT doesnt equate to low performance.
The whole admission process.
I think if each school randomly selected applicants who met purely statistical profiles of already admitted students, the incoming class would be just as reasonable as one selected with careful deliberation.
For example, if an Ivy put every applicant with 2200 SATs and 3.8 GPAs in a hat and picked the admittees by pulling names out that hat, I doubt it would turn out much differently from the people they do pick.
Nope, @GMTplus7, I used a specific example of a person who would be helped by affirmative action. I did not intent it to stereotype all Hispanics, whites, etc. But it is really naive to think that a well-off black person has not suffered from the effects of racism any more than a white person of similar economic background has.
I only know many well-off black people, but their experiences have been very different from mine as a well-off white woman. For example, in a discussion of a road rage incident, I mentioned to a black friend that I would have driven straight to a police station. She replied that a family member had actually tried that, but was treated as a criminal. I have no idea what that is like and I doubt you do either.
@StewyGriffin since you aren’t a high stat minority and you don’t know enough about what it means to be black in America to empathize with me or make a judgement call about what minorities “would” or “wouldn’t” like, I suggest you don’t assert hypotheticals that you aren’t really in a position to grasp. The fact that AA makes white people bitter and causes them to make racist comments is not the fault of AA, but the fault of those people.
I also hate how schools release different metrics for their average stats. Some use average admitted student as a way to build up their numbers, and some used average attending student.
Not really about the process, but about the students who engage in it: the kids who simply do not know that Google exists and ask stupid questions that could be answered in five seconds with a quick search. These people do not deserve to be accepted to college.
Atlantic. A) Disagreeing with AA makes no one a racist. I don’t like because it is discriminatory and ineffective. B) You don’t what I know. C) Not sure what “hypotheticals” I asserted. My points were real occurrences.
^^^ Yes! I’ll be attending a top 25 school and there are so many other pre-frosh who keep asking questions which have been asked time and time again, such as “when is the first day of classes??” You’ve been accepted to this school for months now! You should know this already!
Other than that, I hate this expectation that every senior should have a list of 10+ schools they’re applying to. I applied early decision to just one school, and while I realize I’m in the minority, 10 schools is a LOT of time and money to spend on apps. And for people who say “Oh, you’re lucky you got into ___ since it was your only app,” no, I’m not lucky. Luck has nothing to do with this. I did what I had to do to be admitted, and I had every reason to feel comfortable only having one ED app. I had done my research, shown an immense amount of interest, and checked off every box I needed to check off. It was my effort, not luck, which got me admitted.
@StewyGriffin
I never said it was racist to hate AA, it is racist to assume that blacks in college only got in because of it. And if people make those comments, that is their faults for not understanding the policy and not AA’s.
I know that you arent black, and therefore probably dont have a good grasp on all the types of institutional and and individual forms of racism used in the status quo that cause affirmative action to exist right now in the first place.
The hypothetical was about you saying that if you were a minority youd hate AA. Because you being a minority would alter a myriad of your life experiences, you really cant say that.
To prevent further derail, there is a thread stickied to discuss AA where I reference a ton of studies/statistics of status quo racism used to justify AA.
@StewyGriffin
Scores are not indicators of hard work ethic.
Neither is the lack of extracurricular activities.
I personally know many minority,mostly Hispanics students who lacked good test scores and may have had a bit lower GPA, but they showed their work ethics on different areas.
My non minirity friends work for more allowance.My minority friends work for LIVING.
My non minority friends play sports and enjoy their hobbies during break. My minority friends cant because they have to take care off their younger siblings and do housework.
My non minority friends go to bed around 11.
My minority friends go to bed around 3am because they had to study things they couldnt during afternoon.
Yet both my minority and non minority friends get similarly great GPA. Who worked harder? My non minority friends,and my other friends dont argue with this.
Surely you dont expect them to do lots of outdoor activites like JSA,MUN, red cross, DECA, and whatnot when their daily goal is TO SURVIVE(except minorities of upper income )
I am all for affirmative action, but not in the form that it currently exists. URM students that come from privileged backgrounds should not be given an advantaged over non-URM students that also come from privileged backgrounds. Similarily, non-URM students that come from poor socio-economic backgrounds should have an advantage over URM students that do come from good socio-economic backgrounds. Affirmative action should based on things such as socio-economic status and not race.