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I think it is insulting and detrimental to minorities.
It is insulting because is sends the message they are not capable of getting in if they have to compete equally with whites. It is often detrimental becuase it sometimes results in the admission of students who are really not qulaified for the degree or the resulting job. Thus they either waste time and moeny and end up dropping out, or they waste time and money and then cannot get or hold a job in the field. Frankly whatever skin color, I woudl think a student woudl only want to be admitted and invited to pay tuition if they have a reaslitic chance of success both in classesa nd int he workplace.
If a person is not well educated due to bad schools, it is not their fault. they may be very smart, but they are still not well educated and not qualified to succeed in college and beyond. If they want to provide a better opportunity for those who get bad education, they should offer a middle step to fix their education and make them well educated so they will be fully qualified to compete with students who went to better schools.
We had a Hispanic family next door in SoCal whose daughter had racked up a 3.9 in biochemistry and was admitted to 9 medical schools. She did not need affirmative action, i.e. a concession for a lower GPA to increase diversity.
This very subject was the crux of the Allan Bakke case. I believe it was around '78. He was an engineer by virtue of his undergraduate studies who had high grades, evidently took the medical prerequisites, probably did well on the MCAT, and found himself denied admission to medical school(s). He fought affirmative action and claimed discrimination. He won. He is reportedly now a physician.
Graduate school and/or promotions should be based on a meritocracy. In the latter, politics will get in the way. In the former, it's a sad day when our educational institutions lose their integrity. Based on my friends in academia, it's no place I'd want to be. And what happened at Penn State, in terms of deceit, is probably just the tip of the iceberg.
not necessarily. Qualifications at there heart are supposed to be the ability to predict success within a given environment. A certain GPA or score on a test is always associated with a given measurement error. It is not often the case that they take a minority with a 3.2 and a 1000 SAT score over a non-minority with a 3.8 and a 1500. More than likely it is that same minority over someone with a 3.3 and an 1100 SAT.
You may say that the non-minority with a 3.3 is more qualified but if the standard error of measurement for GPA is .1 and for SAT is 100 from a statistical measurement perspective they are both equally qualified.
IMO it's more complicated than simply comparing numbers and selecting in a top down ranking. If academics in high school perfectly predicted success in college that may make sense. But they don't, it's not even close. Academic performance in HS has about a .3-.4 correlation with academic performance in college. that means that 85-90% of the variance in college academic performance is explained in something difference than academic performance in high school.
I am simply basing my position on reality, not on statistics or theory. I see minorities who got into their position on AA who are not ready for the program or job and end up failing. It is not fair to them to put them into that position. The difference is often greater than the tiny amount in the hypothetical. When you are in a shcool where everyone had a 3.8 GPA yet minority students with a 3.0 are admitted, they are likely to struggle at best. Students with a 3.0 GPA in high school and average test scores should go to school and compete with students of simlar performance. Stick them in a school with 4.0 students and they will struggle. Their skin color is irrelevant.
OUr system automatically assumes a miniroity students is actaully smarter and harder working than is reflected in their grades, test scores and writing ability. While there may be instances where this is true, there are also instances where underperforming school engage in grade inflation and the student is actually less capable than represented by their grades. Skin color does not make anyone smarter or dumber or more or less capable. They should be placed according to their abilities, not on some absurd assumption about their abilities based on their skin color. Setting up someone to fail is not doing them a favor.
I am simply basing my position on reality, not on statistics or theory. I see minorities who got into their position on AA who are not ready for the program or job and end up failing. It is not fair to them to put them into that position. The difference is often greater than the tiny amount in the hypothetical. When you are in a shcool where everyone had a 3.8 GPA yet minority students with a 3.0 are admitted, they are likely to struggle at best. Students with a 3.0 GPA in high school and average test scores should go to school and compete with students of simlar performance. Stick them in a school with 4.0 students and they will struggle. Their skin color is irrelevant.
OUr system automatically assumes a miniroity students is actaully smarter and harder working than is reflected in their grades, test scores and writing ability. While there may be instances where this is true, there are also instances where underperforming school engage in grade inflation and the student is actually less capable than represented by their grades. Skin color does not make anyone smarter or dumber or more or less capable. They should be placed according to their abilities, not on some absurd assumption about their abilities based on their skin color. Setting up someone to fail is not doing them a favor.
There are people that fail regardless of qualifications. My point is our predictors aren't perfect so you can't really screen people out in a top down manner like that. If every person with a high GPA in HS also got a high GPA in college your scenario may make sense. The issue with HS GPAs is they are all different. I knew people that graduated with 5.2 GPAs because their AP and advanced classes were weighted more heavily. So is a 3.8 better than a 3.0 when a person received a weighted B+ in an advanced course which really wasn't all that advanced because they went to a rather mediocre HS and the person with a 3.0 went to a HS where no classes were weighted?
HS GPAs aren't as simple as this person had a 3.8 and this person had a 3.3 the 3.8 is obviously more qualified.
I went to a private HS that did not weight any classes and got a 3.3. I know somebody that went to a public HS and got a 3.9. In your opinion which person is more qualified? The person I know barely graduated with their AA. I am finishing up my PhD. My HS was just much more challenging than many other area HSs. But a college wouldn't know that.
As for test scores, there is evidence that test scores don't predict as well across certain minorities. So while test scores may be pretty good predictors for whites and asians they tend to be less valid predictors for hispanics and AAs. This is called differential prediction.
I was admitted to a high school research program based on my ethnicity. I was admitted to my undergrad college and given a scholarship based on my ethnicity. I was admitted to the US Antarctic program based on my ethnicity. I was given a grad school fellowship based on my ethnicity. I was recruited for my position based on my ethnicity.
In each of these situations, I was easily equal in credentials and ability to the other people in my programs including the white males. I was completely inferior to them in connections. The non-AA people attended elite private schools, had family members who were friends with key decision makers (or even personally knew the key decision makers), received private legacy scholarship or foundation support that are never advertised the public, and above all were clearly where they were because they knew exactly the right people. With one exception (and that person was literally royalty, a prince who study at an extremely elite private school) these well-connected people were all white males.
Without affirmative action, I had zero any chance of receiving any of these opportunities. I was successful in all of them except my first undergrad school (where a bad family situation got in the way). The people who received these opportunities without affirmative action were no better than me. They were no better than tens of thousands of others exactly like them. But, they were far better connected in a way that extremely few minority candidates, and certainly no middle class or lower minority candidates, could ever be.
Now, I think it is horrible that an unconnected white male student will never get those opportunities no matter their talent level. But, at least affirmative action breaks some of the stranglehold that is still clearly held by elite class white males today.
I used to feel insulted by it, but what I've come to accept is that it really isn't just about me. People still do get systemically marginalized in ways that prevent the demographic from being accurately represented in one form or the other. Perhaps the marginalization is unintentional, but still, it happens nonetheless. I, for one, support all forms of affirmative action.
TMy HS was just much more challenging than many other area HSs. But a college wouldn't know that.
Colleges do know that and factor it in where it is demonstrated. If someone just claims they think their school was more challenging, it will do them no good. However college admissions have computer programs that weigh grades based on how competitive the school is. Further some schools offer grades above a 4.0 (usually for AP classes). Some high schools give everyone grades between C and A. There is no D or E. You cannot compare grades form a 5.0 based school with grades from a 4.0 based school and colleges know this and adjust.
While not every 3.8 student will do better than every 3.3 student, 1000 3.8 students will do better as a whole than 1000 3.3 students. (After adjusting GPAs for high school differences, grade inflation etc). It is crazy to say students with a 3.0 GPA should be shoved into a school with 3.8 and above students and expected to compete because one of those 3.0 students may actually be able to compete well in that situation. That may create a trophy for proponents of he system to point at, but it does not make it fair for the other 450 3.0 students who waste their money and fail where they might otherwise have succeeded (if there was no interference).
If they want to dip one tenth of a gpa point ot ten percent of test scroes below their minimum to accept minority students, it will have a less significant impact. Those kids will still be starting at the bottom of their class and most of them will be at a disadvantage. Yes a couple of them probably just had a bad day when they took the test, or their cat peed on their homework or something, but the majority will really be a the bottom of the class and will be at a disadvantage. That majority is better off being in a school where they are in the middle, or at the top of their class and not at a disadvantage.
However worse yet, schools dip considerably below a tenth of a GPA or 10 % on test scroes for their AA programs. That is where they are being particularly harmful. Frankly I think they do not really care about the majority of the AAA admittees they are harming, they want the one trophy case they can point to and taut the success of their programs.
Colleges do know that and factor it in where it is demonstrated. If someone just claims they think their school was more challenging, it will do them no good. However college admissions have computer programs that weigh grades based on how competitive the school is. Further some schools offer grades above a 4.0 (usually for AP classes). Some high schools give everyone grades between C and A. There is no D or E. You cannot compare grades form a 5.0 based school with grades from a 4.0 based school and colleges know this and adjust.
If I went to a HS in St. Louis and applied to Stanford they would know how competitive my HS was? How would they know this? You are telling me Stanford has a database that shows the difficulty of every HS in the country and compares them to each other. I call BS.
They may have an idea regarding schools that they get large numbers of applicants from, but they can not adjust for every applicant like you claim.
There are over 40 thousand different High Schools in the US there is no way they could have data on every HS.
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