URMs Feeling Pressure to Prove Themselves
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
Not all T25 It's easier to get into some schools if you're white than black like Emory and Georgetown. And some of you don't realize that the top 1% of black test takers is a 1390 if I remember correctly so a 1350 for a black child is great compared to a 1450 for a white child. |
Anonymous
This isn’t the brag you think it is. |
Anonymous
|
DS has had a similar experience. He looks white, but has a URM last name. When he has performed well at school, he’s had both teachers and fellow students say “I didn’t know you were smart.” He’s also been called a “fake” minority. It’s the worst of both worlds. Minorities don’t think he’s ethnic enough and whites automatically think he’s dumb.
It’s been an eye opener since college acceptances have been rolling in. People assume he’s been accepted to his schools bc of his ethnicity. When you look at naviance for his school, he’s in the green. The whole issue makes him incredibly self conscious and he doesn’t say anything. I’m white and I 100% support preference for URM. DC’s in a world where people first assume he’s dumb just because of his name. And he doesn’t even “look” like a minority. |
Anonymous
What isn't the brag? both statements are true. The schools can't accept students that don't exist. POC are vital to the college ecosystem as they will soon make up the majority of Americans. If POC test scores were higher colleges would accept those students instead, and with glee. |
Anonymous
That 1390 was probably taken once and with little to no test prep. I'll take that over a cushy test prepped super score. And.... it's in the 90th percentile. Colleges will take this from a URM with excellent grades, ECs without question. If white and Asian parents want to be mad, then tough. |
Anonymous
I have no problem with athletes getting in. At my Wall Street company, the hardest working employee was a Harvard quarterback. At least they had to work their butts off to be a top athlete and get recruited. Unlike legacies and URMs, who were just born a certain way. |
Anonymous
I’m not sure why you think URM don’t prep. When they look into it, asians prep the most, followed by blacks, hispanics and then whites. 11th grade black students are the single most group likely to prep. It a lot of difference between different types of prep (I.e. tutoring, vs classes) either. One of the studies: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40984541 “ One of the noteworthy findings in the BC study is the racial and ethnic differences in the use of test preparation: blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites from comparable backgrounds to utilize test preparation. The black-white gap is especially pronounced in the use of high school courses, private courses and private tutors. The Hispanic-white gap is more modest, and is limited to the use of private tutors.” Another: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1573-7861.2012.01326.x “ Black non-Hispanic students are more likely to participate in test prep, and there are also significant interaction effects of race and grade level on prep, with black 11th graders having the highest predicted probability of prep.” |
Anonymous
My kid works at one of the elite IBs and he had to interview (involves solving around 5 problems) some applicants for the summer analyst positions. He was told by the upper management to 'pass' and move forward black applicants if they can solve at least 1 problem (Hispanic applicants 2) while all others had to solve at least 3 and more likely 4 problems to move forward in the process. He was not successful in finding 1 black applicant who could move forward out of about a dozen candidates with about half URMs. |
Anonymous
| The side effect of AA is that people will always wonder if your child was accepted on their merits or if they were a diversity admit. It’s the kind of thing most people wonder but don’t say out loud. It astonishes me that people are actually saying this. |
Anonymous
This is how some Asian American students and their parents feel if they get high test scores/grades and into magnets. People automatically assume "tiger mom" and "tutoring/prep classes". Neither is true for my Asian American magnet kid with a near perfect SAT score. DC self studies. |
Anonymous
DP. Numbers don't lie. 
|
Anonymous
| I never assume a URM wasn’t qualified. But I know my kid still wouldn’t have gotten in with the same stats. That’s the thing about a hook. |
Anonymous
I’m white. This chart actually shows that Black kids have SATs almost as high the SATs of the white kids and probably have a lot of test score overlap with the white kids, especially after you adjust for high school quality. |
Anonymous
+1 and those test scores for Black students is top 0.5% as compared to the top 5% for white students. |
Anonymous
Agree with this. |