Reply to Pretends to be black to get into Medical school and it works

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Pretends to be black to get into Medical school and it works"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have Egyptian friends who were born in Egypt (you know, actual Africa). They always checked that they were African American. [/quote]

Egyptians are not African-American.  Most forms that have a blurb about this sort of thing say that African-Americans are people of sub-saharan african descent.  Most Egyptian immigrants come from privileged backgrounds, and a lot of them appear to be white, and go through their entire lives basically as white people with a neat ethnic story.  I'm Egyptian, and I'm white to the point of pale.  These are precisely not the type of people that need affirmative action.  That is my problem with affirmative action- you are giving some people a boost, and those people are going to have to do the rest themselves, but how do you know you are giving that advantage to someone who really even needs it?  I went to an elite college, and quite frankly, most of the black kids were children of well-to-do African immigrants.  [b]At this point, shouldn't affirmative action be based on socioeconomic data that you can't change and not on whatever race you decide to be that day?[/b][/quote]

If they went by socioeconomic data the number of AAs at schools would plummet.  Poor whites and Asians drastically outperform poor blacks, and there are many more poor whites than there are poor blacks.  For example, the children of the poorest white families get the same SAT scores as the children of the most affluent black families.  [/quote]

1.  Do you have a cite for this information?  I think this is an exaggeration, at best.  We all know there is a racial disparity but if it is that extreme then more drastic steps need to be taken.  Affirmative action is like trying to fix a broken leg with a band aid in this respect.  Also, what you appear to be saying is that poor black kids are completely UN-qualified and have no shot of getting into college period.  What the people above are arguing is that affirmative action is a boost for minorities that are already qualified.  Both of those ideas cannot be true.  If, instead of looking just at some subjective idea about race, colleges looked at socioeconomic data, they'd get kids who are actually in need.  If you are worried about minority kids being left out, they could target specific regions where there are high concentrations of poor minorities and make sure to admit a proportion of students that way.  By specifically targeting racial categories, you get a bunch of rich minority kids who were going to figure out a way to get to college  anyway.[/quote]

They quit breaking out the race/income numbers in 2005, but the numbers are from that year.  Look at the last bullet.

But there is a major flaw in the thesis that income differences explain the racial gap. Consider these three observable facts from The College Board's 2005 data on the SAT:

• Whites from families with incomes of less than $10,000 had a mean SAT score of 993. This is 129 points higher than the national mean for all blacks.

• Whites from families with incomes below $10,000 had a mean SAT test score that was 61 points higher than blacks whose families had incomes of between $80,000 and $100,000.

• Blacks from families with incomes of more than $100,000 had a mean SAT score that was 85 points below the mean score for whites from all income levels, 139 points below the mean score of whites from families at the same income level, and 10 points below the average score of white students from families whose income was less than $10,000.

WRT poverty, http://www.nccp.org/media/releases/release_34.html

Whites make up 42% of poor people, blacks 27%.  [b]That coupled with the stark differences in scores would lead to a very large reduction in the number of black students accepted at competitive colleges if only SES were taken into account.[/b]
[/quote]

Is that a problem?  Not being snarky....[/quote]

PP here, it depends on what you want to accomplish with AA.  I used to be a strong proponent of AA before I went to a selective graduate program and[b] had to TA and grade exams.  I saw first hand that a significant number of the AA students simply weren't capable of doing the work at the same level as most of the rest of the student body.[/b]  It was sobering.  Like most selective schools though very few people actually flunked out.  We gave these students B-/C- grades and moved them along.  They've studied thse kinds of things with medical/law school as well.  When you let in less qualified AA candidates they have lower graduation and licensing exam pass rates, but when you correct for (as an example) LSAT scores these disparities disappear.   Good article here: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/10/the-painful-truth-about-affirmative-action/263122/

I think AA should be based on deprivation; the children of doctors, engineers and lawyers need no helping hand.[/quote]

Your school did not use the blind number system to grade papers and exams?  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics