Without affirmative action, elite colleges are prioritizing economic diversity in admissions

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they prioritize economic diversity over race black / Hispanic numbers return to pre affirmative action while increasing the Asian numbers to 50%, but the white numbers take a 12% hit, it this happens Blum will say universities are using economics as a proxy for race to discriminate against whites

The reason they never wanted to do income based affirmative action is because the majority of smart poor kids are rural whites. Those are the absolute last group of people that college administrators want to help.

It gave us JD Vance.

He went to Ohio State on the GI Bill, did really well there, & got in Yale Law based on grades & LSAT. Where was the Affirmative Action?

I say this as a military spouse (and both of us are lawyers), there’s absolutely AA in law school for veterans.

I don’t consider it affirmative action. Veterans absolutely have a special set of skills and work ethic earned and learned from their time in the service and that is taken into consideration for acceptance.

But that doesn’t mean that they will be good lawyers. Why should they get preference for law school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This will work out fine because a lot of rich whites don't want to send their kids to these schools just to subsidize other poor kids. They will be at large southern universities.

Doubtful

Wait and see. A lot of smart wealthy kids have zero interest in the cold, boring northeast where fun goes to die where they are just viewed as a piggy bank. Their parents agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sometimes it feels like these elite institutions could simply reserve 25% of their spots for low-SES students and leave the remaining 75% for everyone else—without all the extra theatrics—focusing on academics for the sake of academics, rather than acting like exclusive social hubs for the wealthy. Instead, what’s happening now sends a discouraging message: you can work incredibly hard, but if your family is neither poor enough nor rich enough—the situation most students fall into—there’s no place for you. Not poor enough to inspire institutional sympathy, not wealthy enough to offer “network value.” It makes you wonder what the purpose of an elite college even is anymore.

And again, how much do these elitists want to drain the average people's time, money and energy...They work so hard to be exclusive so they can keep the wealthy 1% to themselves, and make sure the rest are poor FOEVER

You sound like you feel that people have a right to seats, but you don’t. Top schools have never been about peak academics and they have every right to admit according to their priorities, not yours.

They should be transparent about this. It is simple. Just tell everyone especially the mc kids, you are the lowest priority although the biggest groups. Everyone will just skip these schools and I believe this is happening any way they aren't as worthy as before

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I have a child who is now a freshman at an Ivy and attended a private feeder and is ending the semester with 99-100% across the board in all classes, frankly without studying. There are kids who routinely get 15-20% on the exams and they aren't the athletes who they say are primarily the private school kids and/or kids from areas like the DMV.

I get that colleges want to extend opportunities to kids who otherwise would never get a leap up in life and I think this is probably a very good institutional priority. But a result you have many, many kids who are very average at these schools (and again, they've generally not the athletes). My kid says the kids in their private school classes were far more impressive than the kids in their Ivy classes. This is NOT a private/public school debate as I'm sure it would be the same if he/she went to a magnet or high performing public.

The gulf in the classroom at these Ivies is now HUGE in 2025. You have kids (mine and other from high performing privates/publics) who are doing next to no work and getting perfect grades and others who are really, really struggling. It's striking. Ask any kid who is a freshman at one.

My son isn’t seeing that. His course sizes are small and every kid he meets is highly intelligent (per him). He loves it. Catholic school kid- very prepared for the rigor- won a departmental award 1st year. Maybe they aren’t taking the sane courses- but he’s not seeing what you describe.

+1 and certainly not seeing everyone getting all As. Grading isn’t cake anymore. They work hard.

People just make sh@t up on this board like it’s gospel.

Facts matter. A's are given out like Halloween candy almost everywhere.
https://www.gradeinflation.com/

My dad is an Ivy League prof. I used watch him grade exam books when I was a kid. In the 80s, he’d regularly hand out F’s to people who earned them. By the 90s, he’d give C’s to those people, because he was told by the dean that he could no longer give Fs. Now, he can’t even give C’s. He’s retiring so it’s not his problem anymore, but he is genuinely worried about the state of things, because he tells me most of his class now would be earning F’s if we were back in the 80s. Reasons for this include not showing up for class, not coming to office hours if you don’t understand something, complaining if something in the test isn’t exactly what was covered in the notes, and poor time management overall.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they prioritize economic diversity over race black / Hispanic numbers return to pre affirmative action while increasing the Asian numbers to 50%, but the white numbers take a 12% hit, it this happens Blum will say universities are using economics as a proxy for race to discriminate against whites

The reason they never wanted to do income based affirmative action is because the majority of smart poor kids are rural whites. Those are the absolute last group of people that college administrators want to help.

It gave us JD Vance.

He went to Ohio State on the GI Bill, did really well there, & got in Yale Law based on grades & LSAT. Where was the Affirmative Action?

I say this as a military spouse (and both of us are lawyers), there’s absolutely AA in law school for veterans.

I don’t consider it affirmative action. Veterans absolutely have a special set of skills and work ethic earned and learned from their time in the service and that is taken into consideration for acceptance.

But that doesn’t mean that they will be good lawyers. Why should they get preference for law school?

DP. Disagree. Makes it substantially more likely that they’ll be “good lawyers” as compared to your average kid coming out of undergrad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:With AI progressing so quickly, college prestige may matter less and less. People won’t need a degree to prove their abilities. Seeing so many Gen Z job struggles—unemployment, low wages, outsourcing, H-1B competition—makes it feel like our kids are just fighting to survive. It’s hard to know whether a college degree still makes a difference.

Bottom 25% ( in academic nous) should never have been in college…Soon it will be so

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not sure how this will play out with Trump’s merit initiatives with college Prez. It sounds like this could be a violation when much more academically qualified applicants are getting rejected.

There are no Trump merit initiatives, there are Trumps more white male initiatives. Trump,doesn’t care about merit as you define it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I bet that this ends up translating into which lower income families have access to schools with full course offerings. I imagine that means families who move to high-income districts even if hard for themselves, or exurban/growing districts with some poorer rural residents. In my mind this isn’t supportive of Black America. It’s Asian families in high performing districts and lower income white families in newly booming exurbs.

Any boosts to Asians in high performing districts will be temporary at best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who is now a freshman at an Ivy and attended a private feeder and is ending the semester with 99-100% across the board in all classes, frankly without studying. There are kids who routinely get 15-20% on the exams and they aren't the athletes who they say are primarily the private school kids and/or kids from areas like the DMV.

I get that colleges want to extend opportunities to kids who otherwise would never get a leap up in life and I think this is probably a very good institutional priority. But a result you have many, many kids who are very average at these schools (and again, they've generally not the athletes). My kid says the kids in their private school classes were far more impressive than the kids in their Ivy classes. This is NOT a private/public school debate as I'm sure it would be the same if he/she went to a magnet or high performing public.

DMV is the capital of Student Athletes

That’s funny

[Anonymous]

Actually I disagree. I think frankly that Asians will keep chasing Ivy access for generations to come and many are not high income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they prioritize economic diversity over race black / Hispanic numbers return to pre affirmative action while increasing the Asian numbers to 50%, but the white numbers take a 12% hit, it this happens Blum will say universities are using economics as a proxy for race to discriminate against whites

The reason they never wanted to do income based affirmative action is because the majority of smart poor kids are rural whites. Those are the absolute last group of people that college administrators want to help.

It gave us JD Vance.

He went to Ohio State on the GI Bill, did really well there, & got in Yale Law based on grades & LSAT. Where was the Affirmative Action?

I say this as a military spouse (and both of us are lawyers), there’s absolutely AA in law school for veterans.

I don’t consider it affirmative action. Veterans absolutely have a special set of skills and work ethic earned and learned from their time in the service and that is taken into consideration for acceptance.

Similar to athletes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who is now a freshman at an Ivy and attended a private feeder and is ending the semester with 99-100% across the board in all classes, frankly without studying. There are kids who routinely get 15-20% on the exams and they aren't the athletes who they say are primarily the private school kids and/or kids from areas like the DMV.

I get that colleges want to extend opportunities to kids who otherwise would never get a leap up in life and I think this is probably a very good institutional priority. But a result you have many, many kids who are very average at these schools (and again, they've generally not the athletes). My kid says the kids in their private school classes were far more impressive than the kids in their Ivy classes. This is NOT a private/public school debate as I'm sure it would be the same if he/she went to a magnet or high performing public.

The gulf in the classroom at these Ivies is now HUGE in 2025. You have kids (mine and other from high performing privates/publics) who are doing next to no work and getting perfect grades and others who are really, really struggling. It's striking. Ask any kid who is a freshman at one.

My son isn’t seeing that. His course sizes are small and every kid he meets is highly intelligent (per him). He loves it. Catholic school kid- very prepared for the rigor- won a departmental award 1st year. Maybe they aren’t taking the sane courses- but he’s not seeing what you describe.

+1 and certainly not seeing everyone getting all As. Grading isn’t cake anymore. They work hard.

People just make sh@t up on this board like it’s gospel.

Facts matter. A's are given out like Halloween candy almost everywhere.
https://www.gradeinflation.com/

My dad is an Ivy League prof. I used watch him grade exam books when I was a kid. In the 80s, he’d regularly hand out F’s to people who earned them. By the 90s, he’d give C’s to those people, because he was told by the dean that he could no longer give Fs. Now, he can’t even give C’s. He’s retiring so it’s not his problem anymore, but he is genuinely worried about the state of things, because he tells me most of his class now would be earning F’s if we were back in the 80s. Reasons for this include not showing up for class, not coming to office hours if you don’t understand something, complaining if something in the test isn’t exactly what was covered in the notes, and poor time management overall.

Is not any different at UVA or USC or Bama….etc

It’s today. Public HS has some of the craziest grade inflation ever. Start there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a child who is now a freshman at an Ivy and attended a private feeder and is ending the semester with 99-100% across the board in all classes, frankly without studying. There are kids who routinely get 15-20% on the exams and they aren't the athletes who they say are primarily the private school kids and/or kids from areas like the DMV.

I get that colleges want to extend opportunities to kids who otherwise would never get a leap up in life and I think this is probably a very good institutional priority. But a result you have many, many kids who are very average at these schools (and again, they've generally not the athletes). My kid says the kids in their private school classes were far more impressive than the kids in their Ivy classes. This is NOT a private/public school debate as I'm sure it would be the same if he/she went to a magnet or high performing public.

I believe it

DP. I honestly think at this point there might be a higher-quality overall student body at a place like Carleton or Middlebury than at an Ivy. So many super-qualified upper-middle-class kids are just not getting a fair look at the Ivies.

Disagree that UMC kids aren’t getting a “fair look” (and my kid is one).

UMC kids’ stats are not the result of superior capabilities or work ethic—they are the result of external resources and coaching.

Perfectly reasonable to take that into account (and partially discount those stats) when looking for intellectual talent, potential, and drive.

That approach has led to where we are, with Ivy classes filled with very average kids, as noted by the PP talking about her kid's experience at an Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they prioritize economic diversity over race black / Hispanic numbers return to pre affirmative action while increasing the Asian numbers to 50%, but the white numbers take a 12% hit, it this happens Blum will say universities are using economics as a proxy for race to discriminate against whites

If they are doing it to increase URM, then they wouldn't be wrong.

Any preference is probably bad, the racial ones are forbidden.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:With AI progressing so quickly, college prestige may matter less and less. People won’t need a degree to prove their abilities. Seeing so many Gen Z job struggles—unemployment, low wages, outsourcing, H-1B competition—makes it feel like our kids are just fighting to survive. It’s hard to know whether a college degree still makes a difference.

Social media and AI were the worst creations in history

Woke and humanities majors are worse.

The way white people use woke needs to stop, just go back to social justice warrior, because woke actually means to be aware of the deep state and the tricks that they play, sounds alot like maga , doesn't it

HORSESHOE ALERT