<h2>Find me ONE source stating that African Americans are at a disadvantage compared to other ethnicities in the admissions process, due to a factor outside of their control. Building on the fact that URM’s obviously do not have a disadvantage in admissions, I’ll prove my point by proving that African Americans and Hispanics have lower academic standards.</h2>
<p>Even with Affirmative Action, why are URM’s still just a small percentage of a college? This must be because of a general lack of academic achievement…how??? A economic disadvantage is a common explanation. But making a ‘sweeping generalization’ and assuming that URM’s all come from the inner-city is asinine. In any case, this is what Affirmative Action assumes, and why my analogy of the wealthy African American is relevant.</p>
<p>But even among wealthy African Americans, low scoring is prevalent. There’s an article floating around about how African American students from a household earning 100k+ score, on average lower than White and Asian families making less than 100k.</p>
<h2>Therefore, academic success barely correlates with economic status. The most common support for Affirmative Action is dispelled.</h2>
<p>So what is the true reason? Lets put race aside, and have a pool of colorless applicants. What truly determines your academic success? Your diligence, discipline, work-ethic, and the emphasis placed on education by your family.</p>
<p>Lightzout- That is my point. Socio-economic AA would creative a diverse environment because minorities with a lower income would benefit from it, but caucasian people w/ a lower income would benefit also. That seems more logical and fair to me.</p>
<p>Yes, it has been said often, but what is the evidence underlying this statement. </p>
<p>Please note that you also mentioned “Americans of middle eastern descent” (who are they, by the way?) and thus I’m also asking about that part of your statement. What is the evidence that “Americans of middle eastern descent” are even distinguished from other applicants in the college admission process, whatever their admission chances?</p>
<p>If asked to provide evidence “that Asian Americans have the hardest time in ADMISSIONS [sic]”, I would point to Espenshade and Chung’s 2005 paper published in Social Science Quarterly. They found that all else equal, “…Asian applicants face a loss equivalent to 50 SAT points.”</p>
<p>It is (or used to be) a common claim that Espenshade and Chung’s paper was completely refuted by William Kidder. In actuality, Kidder only disputed Espenshade and Chung’s conclusion that “Asian applicants are the biggest winners if race is no longer considered in admissions.” Kidder argued that it was negative action that hurt Asians and that ending this negative action while keeping affirmative action would benefit both Asians and “under-represented” minorities. It is important to note that Kidder believes that Asians are being discriminated against in undergraduate admissions. He simply disputes that affirmative action is the reason why.</p>
<p>The reason why I say “used to be” is because the CC’ers who consider Asian admission disadvantage to be a colossal myth were the very ones who proudly cited Kidder as the answer to Espenshade and Chung. When I pointed out that Kidder actually agreed with Espenshade and Chung that Asians are disadvantaged in admissions, they quickly distanced themselves from the man they once considered “end-all be-all.”</p>
<p>Actually, since this is not China, there is no mandate that says Harvard MUST be better than Oakland University. Harvard has no obligation to take any “better” students than Oakland university. If Harvard wanted to, it could accept only academically underachieving students with the intention of propping them up. Or it could take any student that the school thought had a personality that fit with the community, similar to a fraternity. </p>
<p>Academic “merit” is anybody who can graduate. Because graduation rates of all of these students are fine, all of them “merit” being there because these schools (private at least) have no obligation to educate any specific person, only to improve the school and the country as a whole. </p>
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<p>That’s your spin on the situation. If you prefer to give diversifying the student body that spin, that’s your choice (and the choice of many others). Almost all of academia, the supreme court, and a good chunk of the general public see educating the nations future leaders in an environment reflective of the real world as important. </p>
<p>Bottom line, the answer to your rhetorical question is yes. </p>
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<p>If only this were true, but according to the test score statistics I’ve cited several times on this thread, the academic achievement gap for minorities is even wider at the bottom economic levels. This would result in, as E&C I believe pointed out, a large increase in Asian students, and a miniscule to nill increase in white enrollment. Minority enrollment would plummet.</p>
<p>I personally am not sure if Asians are disadvantaged in admissions, if they are I don’t think it is just or would stand up to legal scrutiny. I think a more likely conclusion is that Asian applicants tend to choose a similar track to academic achievement. So when it comes to holistic admissions, they tend to lose as many blend together in the mind of adcoms.</p>
<p>Isn’t it also possible that if admission rules were altered that students of several different ethnic groups might respond to those new incentives by changing how they prepare for their college applications?</p>
<p>The answer to the rhetorical question is not a matter of opinion; the correct answer is a resounding NO. As Justice Powell wrote in Bakke,</p>
<p>“If petitioner’s purpose is to assure within its student body some specified percentage of a particular group merely because of its race or ethnic origin, such a preferential purpose must be rejected not as insubstantial, but as facially invalid…Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake.”</p>
<p>A quarter-century later, Grutter, Justice O’Connor upheld these principles: “Enrolling a ‘critical mass’ of minority students simply to assure some specified percentage of a particular group merely because of its race or ethnic origin would be patently unconstitutional.”</p>
<p>I haven’t read through this entire thread, so if the topic has already been discussed to death, please quote or reference previous posts.</p>
<p>In your opinion, what -changed- when the UC system prohibited racial consideration in admissions to cause an actual Asian majority on certain campuses? The UCs, like many state universities, do place higher emphasis on academic achievement where Asians excel; however, they are also selective and presumably weight ECs, personal character, economic hardship, etc., as well. What is your rationale/reasoning? The unique CA situation has always puzzled me and is frequently cited in my (Asian) community as evidence of AA being discriminatory against Asians. I know it’s not that simple, of course.</p>
<p>And I live in hope that some school, somewhere–perhaps a small, progressive LAC–will adopt truly holistic admissions that also happens to disregard race. The result and data would be so useful!</p>
<p>What happens in one particular state university system has a lot to do with in-state demographics, because most state universities admit mostly in-state students. One would hardly expect the University of Minnesota and the the University of California and the University of Georgia all to have the same ethnic percentages, even if they had exactly equivalent admission policies.</p>
<p>I agree, California is home to a lot of Asian students (something like ~20%?), but Asians are still greatly overrepresented. Judging from UC admissions before the constitutional amendment banning race consideration, the UCs would -never- be majority-Asian if the school could do anything about it. Doesn’t that support indirectly the argument that AA is discriminatory against ORMs (Asians and whites)? The more important question, for me, is whether AA discrimination is net positive or negative; I think the fact that it -is- discriminatory is undeniable; ‘discrimination’ is defined as:
[discrimination</a> definition | Dictionary.com](<a href=“http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/discrimination]discrimination”>DISCRIMINATION Definition & Usage Examples | Dictionary.com)
The individual merit part is arguable, of course, but as one poster said, any college-able student possesses merit; at selective universities–especially public institutions held to a higher constitutional standard–merit is determined holistically. Discrimination on basis of socioeconomics is a kind that I would consider “positive” because I believe that ALL students in a lower socioeconomic tier receive less opportunity to excel (even if the family emphasizes education, finances are a huge barrier to enrichment–which I can personally attest to, as 5 years of my own childhood was spent right around the poverty line). In contrast, I believe that only SOME students of a particular race receive less opportunity to excel, and therefore such discrimination is not “positive”; I’m not sure if it’s net negative or net neutral, given the indirect benefits of a diverse college community.</p>
<p>I’ll note for the record that enrollment in California state-funded institutions of higher education as a whole reflects the demographics of college-ready young people in California very well. UC Berkeley and UCLA are a tiny part of the overall system of higher education in California.</p>
<p>How do you define “college-ready”? CSUs have been compared to mediocre state flagships in other states. Especially since they have become more selective this year, I think that there are more college-ready (as in, prepared to succeed in college) students than there are spaces at the UCs–thus the stringent prerequisites. And the UCs in general, not just UCB and UCLA, are Asian-overrepresented. Still, I would be interested in statistics on racial makeup of the “college-ready” population.</p>
<p>Thanks for asking the follow-up question. I’m not completely committed to one definition of that term, but some of preliminary research on the issue suggests that about twice as many young people are college-eligible (that is, will be admitted to college if they apply) as are college-ready (that is, will complete a four-year college major program if they start one). That squares well with observed graduation rates at some colleges. </p>
<p>One study of the issue that is easy to look up is ACT’s: </p>
<p>But, again, I’m not saying I’ve completely agreed with ACT’s definition. The idea is that not all young people complete high school, and not all high school graduates are prepared well by their high school studies for college studies.</p>
<p>Sorry, I already asked this question before. But, if I leave the ethnicity question blank (even though I’m a permanent resident of US & citizen of India), I will not be discriminated against? I will have an equal chance of admission as anyone else?</p>
<p>^ The short answer is that no one can say for sure. The cynical–myself among them–will argue that adcoms can figure out your ethnicity easily enough and thus can still say to themselves, “oh, just another math/science Indian.” (If I assume wrongly, my apologies.)</p>
<p>There aren’t figures available from college admission offices to show what choices are most expedient for applicants. But LARGE numbers of applicants are admitted when they don’t check any ethnicity box </p>
<p>(post 4, above), so it seems to me that there is little harm in just being one human being among many in the eyes of the admission office. It’s safe to be post-racial.</p>
<p>personally i don’t believe race should be used at all in the decision process (it really has no bearing imo) so i think i’m going to leave it blank.</p>