For all the parents complaining that the admissions process is rigged against their kids--

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even at the highest-performing local public high schools, 50% of the graduating class has under roughly a 1330 on the SAT (which is just over 90th percentile nationally). Being at these high schools, although they offer great college preparation compared to worse high schools, can seriously skew one’s perception.

Thank you, only 66% of high school graduates even enroll in college and only 60% of those finish in 6 years!!

Most of you are living in a bubble.

Perspective people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is never a good thing when criteria is less about objective measures like test scores and GPAs and more about opaque subjective ones, which can be used to mask a whole host of biases.

It is how "old boys club" employers traditionally kept out women and minorities. (Sure, they may have had better undergrad transcripts, but they just weren't "cultural fits")

I can't believe the same people who claim to be nonprejudicial are so quick to believe having lots of Asians at a school is a bad thing because they are all robotic violin players with Tiger Moms who won't add to the richness of a school community. This is racism, plain and simple.

If there are problems with tests or GPAs, fix the tests and grading systems.

In the meantime, I'm teaching my kids they have to be much better than the average to have a shot at a school, and even then, it isn't a meritocracy -- so don't stress. The system isn't fair, but life isn't fair. Just focus on controlling what's in your power to control.

That's what black parents have had to teach their kids for generations and now Asian and white parents must. Two wrongs, of course, don't make a right. But this is where we are.

Thanks for letting us know who the racist actually is. You’re pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even at the highest-performing local public high schools, 50% of the graduating class has under roughly a 1330 on the SAT (which is just over 90th percentile nationally). Being at these high schools, although they offer great college preparation compared to worse high schools, can seriously skew one’s perception.

If 50 percent have 1330 or lower, that's outstanding. 1330 is around the 85-90th percentile nationally. The median score is around 1050. If this is, in fact, true, it's probably the case that 90-95 percent of kids at this school have scores over the national median...again, outstanding.

I know that’s the case for Whitman, or was until recently. It is for the top 5 privates, Blair magnet & TJ as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are visiting colleges now with our DCs. According to DCUM, we should be seeing plenty of URM « black boys » on these campuses. We simply are not. But do carry on lamenting how these Black boys are stealing your white and Asian kids’ spots at Ivy schools and How life will swing the pendulum back and will be fair again. 😏

True.

We've been on tours of the T20 schools. Across 5-10 schools, we've seen very very few URMs and almost no black males.

Most of the people on DCUM college threads are astute. They look at Common Data Sets and know the demographic stats.

I love how no one on here is acknowledging this. Again, the URM kids are "stealing" all the spots at these elite schools from more deserving white and asian kids, but the vast majority of the demographic on these campuses (white and Asian), are the the ones who actually deserve to be there, correct? How do parents know that it wasn't one of these kids who stole their child's spot? How do they know that legacy wasn't a factor, or money, or influence, or cheating, or lying? Nope, its those CLEARLY unqualified blacks and Hispanics.

No one is acknowledging this because this is not a position that people are taking. You are making up a strawman. Second, your anecdotes are meaningless against real actual data that's been published. It's undisputed fact that schools are discriminating against Asians in favor of other student demographics.

Wrong.

https://www.harvard.edu/admissionscase/key-points/

So Harvard is defending a massive lawsuit that has made its way to SCOTUS on this issue. Millions have been spent at this stage. Their PR is questionable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are visiting colleges now with our DCs. According to DCUM, we should be seeing plenty of URM « black boys » on these campuses. We simply are not. But do carry on lamenting how these Black boys are stealing your white and Asian kids’ spots at Ivy schools and How life will swing the pendulum back and will be fair again. 😏

True.

We've been on tours of the T20 schools. Across 5-10 schools, we've seen very very few URMs and almost no black males.

Most of the people on DCUM college threads are astute. They look at Common Data Sets and know the demographic stats.

I love how no one on here is acknowledging this. Again, the URM kids are "stealing" all the spots at these elite schools from more deserving white and asian kids, but the vast majority of the demographic on these campuses (white and Asian), are the the ones who actually deserve to be there, correct? How do parents know that it wasn't one of these kids who stole their child's spot? How do they know that legacy wasn't a factor, or money, or influence, or cheating, or lying? Nope, its those CLEARLY unqualified blacks and Hispanics.

No one is acknowledging this because this is not a position that people are taking. You are making up a strawman. Second, your anecdotes are meaningless against real actual data that's been published. It's undisputed fact that schools are discriminating against Asians in favor of other student demographics.

Wrong.

https://www.harvard.edu/admissionscase/key-points/

So Harvard is defending a massive lawsuit that has made its way to SCOTUS on this issue. Millions have been spent at this stage. Their PR is questionable.

I'll take Harvard and its lawyers over Edward Blum and his.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.
.

But parents on here aren't doing this. They aren't sitting their kids down and saying "look you have so many unfair advantages outside of your control, that make it more likely that you, relative to the average child of color born on the same day in this country, will end up at these schools. Statistics make that 100% clear."

They are telling their kids "every way that you are advantaged, and there are many of them, is "fair", and we will take advantage of them as much as possible. the one way that you aren't advantaged as much as people like you in previous generations is unfair, and we will whine as loudly as we can about that. "

Pp here and I’m not saying any such thing. I tell my white kids they need to do better in school and extracurriculars than their friends who are URMs to get into the same schools. They also have to do better than legacies and I tell them that as well (a number of their friends want to go to where their parents did or know they have a leg up there so makes sense to rank no. 1). My kids are very privileged no doubt. I work hard in part to provide those benefits, a terrific school, access to great educational programs, travel, the ability to choose jobs out of interest rather than for pay through high school. I’m lucky o had the opportunity to go into a field o love that is also high paying. Most people don’t have that option in a predictable way. I had to work very hard, but also got lucky. None of this changes whether my kids need to do better in school than their URM peers to get into the same college.

It is just such an odd message to be sending to your child. Tens of thousands of students are vying for these spots. Even with the inequities that favor athletes or legacies or major donors ar URMs, I have no way of knowing if any of those bumped my kid or if it was just a more outstanding math whiz. I cant imagine telling my student that one if those spots was yours but that kid took it.

There are way too many qualified kids vying for very few spots. I am going to focus on supporting and celebrating what my kid can and does achieve instead of instilling grievances that can't ever be verified. And is also taught to congratulate the achievements of other people instead of wallowing in self pity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

So ironic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

We are visiting colleges now with our DCs. According to DCUM, we should be seeing plenty of URM « black boys » on these campuses. We simply are not. But do carry on lamenting how these Black boys are stealing your white and Asian kids’ spots at Ivy schools and How life will swing the pendulum back and will be fair again. 😏

True. We've been on tours of the T20 schools. Across 5-10 schools, we've seen very very few URMs and almost no black males. Most of the people on DCUM college threads are astute. They look at Common Data Sets and know the demographic stats.

This mirrors our experience as well. There just aren't that many black kids either on tours or on campus, especially males. There are a few more Latino kids, but even then, not many. The majority of the students are white and Asian, so much so that my DC now looks at the demographic data on the school's CDS before we visit. Conversely, we were at VT's admitted student/Open House this weekend and the engineering students were overwhelmingly Asian males - like 85%. So, the line that those kids aren't getting accepted or facing discrimination doesn't gel with what we're seeing on the ground or the schools' CDS.

Same. I also think many half-black children / biracial mark themselves as black which makes it looks like the black population is higher than it actually is.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

OMG +1

This is almost the exact dinner table conversation we had with our Asian senior. There is nothing we can do to eliminate the systemic racism currently practiced against Asian students like him in the current admission cycle. He will continue to encounter discrimination and racism while he is at school; this is not fair but that's not an excuse to not try his best. But once he is out in the real world, the world will be fair again and he will be able to succeed unhindered. Dwelling on victim status or making excuses for himself because there is active discrimination against him is counter productive and helps no one. The best revenge is success.

+ 1

While this admissions process has been hard for our white UMC DD, it has been even harder on her Asian friend.

Awwwwww.

It's hard on every kid.

It's just a little harder on the kids with the wrong skin color.

Yep. Tell that to the black kids who get stopped by police and targeted in stores for shoplifting just because of their color.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

OMG +1

This is almost the exact dinner table conversation we had with our Asian senior. There is nothing we can do to eliminate the systemic racism currently practiced against Asian students like him in the current admission cycle. He will continue to encounter discrimination and racism while he is at school; this is not fair but that's not an excuse to not try his best. But once he is out in the real world, the world will be fair again and he will be able to succeed unhindered. Dwelling on victim status or making excuses for himself because there is active discrimination against him is counter productive and helps no one. The best revenge is success.

This is funny and explains a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

Dear “good parents” of brilliant children,

You should be aware that many, many companies not only factor URM status into their hiring practices these days, they also demand quotas from companies and firms with which they contract, and those companies and firms must comply or be passed over (whether they have a liberal agenda or not). Telling kids “Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years” will win you zero parenting awards.

Sincerely,

Fellow parent living in the real world, not la la land

First, private company behavior is of a different nature than public-funded organization behavior. Private entities have freedom of association and I believe they should be able to discriminate however they want. Second, there are far more opportunities in the world than working at one of the woke/racist companies in terms of working with cutting-edge technology, impact on the world, and potential financial rewards. Those who want to work at a woke/racist company can do so to their heart's content. Those who don't can find other rewarding employment/entreprenurial opportunities.

You do realize that many of these so-called “woke” companies are the tech and entrepreneurial companies many young grads want to work at, right?

Maybe your kid will want to work at some racist shipping company or big bank, though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are visiting colleges now with our DCs. According to DCUM, we should be seeing plenty of URM « black boys » on these campuses. We simply are not. But do carry on lamenting how these Black boys are stealing your white and Asian kids’ spots at Ivy schools and How life will swing the pendulum back and will be fair again. 😏

True.

We've been on tours of the T20 schools. Across 5-10 schools, we've seen very very few URMs and almost no black males.

Most of the people on DCUM college threads are astute. They look at Common Data Sets and know the demographic stats.

I love how no one on here is acknowledging this. Again, the URM kids are "stealing" all the spots at these elite schools from more deserving white and asian kids, but the vast majority of the demographic on these campuses (white and Asian), are the the ones who actually deserve to be there, correct? How do parents know that it wasn't one of these kids who stole their child's spot? How do they know that legacy wasn't a factor, or money, or influence, or cheating, or lying? Nope, its those CLEARLY unqualified blacks and Hispanics.

No one is acknowledging this because this is not a position that people are taking. You are making up a strawman. Second, your anecdotes are meaningless against real actual data that's been published. It's undisputed fact that schools are discriminating against Asians in favor of other student demographics.

It’s not “undisputed fact.” It’s actually the central issue of a law suit, which is basically the definition of a disputed fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid is white and has parents who graduated college, they are already unfathomably privileged. Of course, they don't realize that, because they have been privileged by it their entire lives.

The United States economic system is performance based. It provides opportunity to all members. Some will have to work harder than others and for many it is their struggles that make them stronger than their peers. I put myself though college due to divorced parents and an alcoholic father. I am now a 1%-er. My journey to this point was a lot harder than many of my peers but nothing in this life says things must be handed to you - THAT is entitlement, not being a hard working teen of now-wealthy parents. If you want a society where outcomes are not driven by effort, stamina and drive; where challenges are all expected to be equalized then there are plenty of socialist democracies that you can join (and I hope you do).

A hard-working teen is working 30 hours a week to put food on the table AND getting perfect grades AND getting excellent SATs. Those kids exist and thats what your kids is competing against in 2022.

This is contrary to fact. It's been demonstrated that grades and test scores are lower for some student demographics - they are not the same level. The kids are simply not on the same academic performance level.

Says you. Some aggrieved anonymous poster on dcum.

A disadvantaged kid that still managed to succeed is superior to one that is prepped and polished and pampered.

. Yep! Ever hear of grit? Many of the kids with disadvantaged backgrounds show what they can do in spite of tremendous challenges and the schools value that. So they are 100 points lower in the SAT? They can still do the work and have shown that they can despite having a job or what we other things they overcame.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.
.

But parents on here aren't doing this. They aren't sitting their kids down and saying "look you have so many unfair advantages outside of your control, that make it more likely that you, relative to the average child of color born on the same day in this country, will end up at these schools. Statistics make that 100% clear."

They are telling their kids "every way that you are advantaged, and there are many of them, is "fair", and we will take advantage of them as much as possible. the one way that you aren't advantaged as much as people like you in previous generations is unfair, and we will whine as loudly as we can about that. "

Pp here and I’m not saying any such thing. I tell my white kids they need to do better in school and extracurriculars than their friends who are URMs to get into the same schools. They also have to do better than legacies and I tell them that as well (a number of their friends want to go to where their parents did or know they have a leg up there so makes sense to rank no. 1). My kids are very privileged no doubt. I work hard in part to provide those benefits, a terrific school, access to great educational programs, travel, the ability to choose jobs out of interest rather than for pay through high school. I’m lucky o had the opportunity to go into a field o love that is also high paying. Most people don’t have that option in a predictable way. I had to work very hard, but also got lucky. None of this changes whether my kids need to do better in school than their URM peers to get into the same college.

It is just such an odd message to be sending to your child. Tens of thousands of students are vying for these spots. Even with the inequities that favor athletes or legacies or major donors ar URMs, I have no way of knowing if any of those bumped my kid or if it was just a more outstanding math whiz. I cant imagine telling my student that one if those spots was yours but that kid took it.

There are way too many qualified kids vying for very few spots. I am going to focus on supporting and celebrating what my kid can and does achieve instead of instilling grievances that can't ever be verified. And is also taught to congratulate the achievements of other people instead of wallowing in self pity.

Don’t know where you’re getting the idea I think anyone is taking a spot my kid should get. To the contrary, all spots are up for grabs. As compared with kids with preferences, whether race, legacy, etc., my white unconnected kids just need to perform better to get into the same college. Asian kids need to do even better. And certainly no self pity for my kids or myself. We have a great life and they have a great life. The college thing is just a reality. Along with other realities, like that their underrepresented minority friends are discriminated against in other ways, and likely will be later in life. These things can all be true at the same time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a great article on how to teach your child to have no competitive spirit and be happy with what meager rations they are given.

Kids this bright are quite aware of who is getting into the schools they and their friends have been targeting for 2 or 3 years and they can see the reverse discrimination and unfairness at play. They are not 2 year olds looking for moms reaction on this.

Maybe responsible parenting is acknowledging that while top schools are a stretch for everyone, it IS unfair that qualities outside of their control and baseless to achievement are getting prioritized over what should matter and thus impacting your child's results. It's not fair and there is nothing we can do.

But that they will still go to a good school and because they are brilliant they will make the best of it. The world will level out once they get past the insanity/bubble of college admissions because in the real world results matter more than checking a demographic box and brilliance and hard work will pay off, regardless of liberal agendas.

Companies focus on things that matter and so while this phase of life will illustrate to them the unfairness of racism of discrimination, the good news is that they will be past this BS in four years.

That is the article I would write.

WELL SAID!!!