Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I hate it. But I'm probably biased because I'm Asian so yeah.
I have a cousin who studied his butt off to get into an Ivy League, got perfect SAT scores and did a number of extracurriculars and still got rejected from the Ivies. He had a black friend who got lower SAT scores than he did and didn't do as much extracurriculars as my cousin and still got into Columbia. My cousin got into Stanford which is still great but it would have been so much better if colleges didn't judge by race but actually looked at the applicants' abilities and scores.
Columbia University accepts 10% of the people that apply. http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/...=190150#admsns They could have accepted your cousin's friend because he played the oboe, or because he wanted to major in Physics. Who knows?
Ivy league admissions are ridiculously complicated.
I had pretty solid credentials applying to college. 3.98 (we had no honors, so on a strict 4.0 scale), 1510 SAT (old scale), all-state wrestler on an olympic training squad, scholar athlete of the year finalist for my state, young scholar researcher in the US antarctic program. I am Hispanic and came from a lower middle class family.
I did not apply to a single Ivy league school, but most of them either sent me letters telling me essentially not to apply, or sent me scholarship offers after the deadline.
Cornell wanted me because I was an all-state wrestler. No reason other than that.
Yale sent me constant scholarship offers pretty much because I said Harvard was my first choice. I am pretty sure my ethnicity actually figure in there.
Harvard basically told me to screw off because I said Yale was my first choice.
Dartmouth made it clear I could get in because the research program I was working with was based at Dartmouth.
Princeton recruited me lightly based purely on my SAT scores. I never expressed interest, they never wrote me back. A friend of mine in the antarctic research program with nearly identical credentials expressed strong interest in Princeton and received a full ride.
Brown and Penn never contacted me, which seems to be pretty standard if you cannot afford those schools.
On major non-ivies
Caltech bent over backwards for me because I was friends with the son of a powerful alum family that wanted me to attend.
Stanford and Chicago both recruited me solely because of wrestling.
MIT had no interest in me at all.
Harvey Mudd actively recruited me based on my academics and academic fit, about the only school that did.
None of those fives seemed to have race as a factor.
The UC schools had interest in me early on, which seemed to be predicated partly on race, but none of them actually bothered to recruit me in any way (I was from California).
In every case except maybe Harvey Mudd and Princeton, the admission office's stance towards me had little to nothing to do with my academics, and not much to do with my ethnicity either. Connections and my ability in my key extra-curriculars (wrestling and polar research) were much bigger factors. If you do not have national level abilities in an extra-curricular or connections, getting in is a crap shoot because everyone else has high level academics and a lot of low level extra-curriculars.
Affirmitive Action is a racist & sexist qouta which is created by maniac egalitarians who think by going against & sticking it to the White male status quo that they are some how supporting an egalitarian ideology.
They are out of their minds. It is like because White males mistreated others in the past. That it wasn't enough to create equality of rights. No no they had to create reverse discrimination to give those evil White males a taste of their own medicine.
Um, not sure where you are getting your data, but AA has actually benefited males at certain colleges.
In fact, the University of Georgia had to stop giving preferential treatment to males in the late 90s because of a lawsuit. All men who applied were given an extra point toward admissions solely based on their gender. Women, on the other hand, got nothing. Fortunately, that practice ended in 1999.
The term "affirmative action" was first used by JFK in a 1961 speech, and later that year in an Executive Order ( #10925). In his speech, Kennedy linked the concept specifically to the plight of Black Americans. In the Executive Order, he stated that those seeking employment should be dealt with "without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin". In 1967, Lyndon Johnson extended protections to include Caucasian women. White women have, arguably, been the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action policy to date.
I would define myself as a libertarian socialist, and I'm opposed in principle to affirmative action, at least as it's been administered in The United States. The libertarian in me is concerned by any policy which subjugates an individual's skill and/or knowledge to an abstract concept of achieving equality, based purely upon demographic membership. The socialist in me mocks the ludicrous idea that resources are so limited that they must somehow be rationed-out to members of the working and middle classes.
There is simply no affirmative action in favor of Asian Americans.
Asian Americans are usually hurt by Affirmative Action just as much as white people are.
Affirmative Action is by far, one of the dumbest things that could have been created. What I don't get is how people don't realize how terrible it makes them look. How can a black person, or any minority for that matter demand they receive special treatment and more relaxed admissions processes? That's like openly admitting they can't compete and can't get the same grades as a white person. I am not personally saying that, but it's what AA implies.
I hate it. But I'm probably biased because I'm Asian so yeah.
I have a cousin who studied his butt off to get into an Ivy League, got perfect SAT scores and did a number of extracurriculars and still got rejected from the Ivies. He had a black friend who got lower SAT scores than he did and didn't do as much extracurriculars as my cousin and still got into Columbia. My cousin got into Stanford which is still great but it would have been so much better if colleges didn't judge by race but actually looked at the applicants' abilities and scores.
I work in Higher Ed and have been at several highly selective schools, including a few Ivies.
Nearly everyone who applies has near perfect scores and lots of extracurriculars. Your friend was not special in the least in that regard.
When the apps come in, the first thing that happens is everyone who does not meet the minimal requirements gets thrown out of the pool. No one who cannot cut it on paper is even considered. But even then, they are left with sometimes 8 times as many people as slots. And all have good grades.
Then the admissions officers read essays, rec letters, assess grades and scores, whatever.... and try to pick an interesting mix of students that meets the needs of the school. They try to pick students who would actually be a good fit for that school's culture, students who are interested in studying something unusual, students with a special skill, students from various parts of the country, students they are likely to yield, etc.
What they don't do is take the highest scores and declare their job over.
What I tell people is that acceptance into a top college is not owed anyone. For whatever reason, people tend to view it as a reward for high school performance that is due them, dammit! Meanwhile, admission people don't care about rewarding the special snowflakes. They are trying to make a class, period. If only 10 percent or less of the people who apply get in, then how can anyone assume they know why they didn't? A kid with an A plus average is not necessarily a better fit for that school than a kid with a A- average.
I will also say this... One Ivy where I worked did an internal study and found that the SAT scores of minorities have no correlation with thier college grades. The high school GPA was a much better predictor. How much you want to bet that school no longer regards SAT scores in the same light?
Yes. University admission should be a "linear" meritocracy.
I hardly think AA is aimed at Asian students. At UC Berkeley, at least 40% of the incoming class/all undergrads are Asian or Asian-American.
We can argue and say that it helps students who come from areas and neighborhoods where there is peer pressure NOT to excel. But even in those situations, I've heard of kids that pull straight As.
We lived in a real multicultural middle class neighborhood growing up, and had Hispanic neighbors whose daughter pulled a 3.9 in Biochemistry and got admitted to about 10 medical schools. Clearly, she didn't need AA to get in.
That's because Berkeley doesn't have affirmative action. The UCs voted to do away with it in the 90s...
I think it's a sloppy way to try to make up for discrimination. Discrimination has to be approached by getting through to people, and changing their attitudes.
i agree with its intentions. some minority groups do need to "catch up" socioeconomically. this would help with a lot of racial issues in our country as most of these issues are tied to socioeconomic differences. however, i don't feel like AA in college admissions and the workforce effectively accomplishes this. we need to do more work at the bottom. those minorities who really do need the help to move up the ladder never even get close to the point of applying to selective colleges.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
What do you think about affirmative action?
