Reply to Banneker versus School Without Walls

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a big issue with ANYBODY taking a spot if they haven't had the prep to handle the work at the college in question.  I'd like to see bright, hard-working "poor and brown" students who haven't had the requisite prep get it.  The common admissions practice of admitting low-income AA students with standardized test scores that wouldn't pass muster for equally low-income white and Asian students is going nowhere for our society, other than to the courts.[/quote]

All colleges discriminate against students based on income and therefore race as well. Elite colleges enroll more kids from the top one percent families than from the bottom 60 percent. Certain elite colleges that do the best to try to reverse this trend only enroll up to 20 percent low income students max. Early decision, which excludes low income applicants de facto (you cannot make a binding decision if you do not know what your financial aid package will be and there is almost always a gap even at elite schools) accounts for half the incoming class with acceptance rates three times as high as regular decision. The odds are stacked against minorities in a major way, including of course Asians - many Asians are low income though this is not well known. Athlete recruits favor white men. The low income minority taking the spots is a myth. This is all about money.

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Elite colleges have to pay their bills.  Legacy loyalty and early decision/early action certainty generates vast income to subsidize low-income students' enrollment. Legacy admissions are way down at most of the Ivies and other elite colleges as compared to a generation ago. Harvard's legacy admissions are in the teens, down from almost half in the 1970s. Student loan burdens are also down at elite colleges, way down.  In the 1980s, it was common for low-income minority students like me to graduate from Ivies owing tens of thousands of dollars in student loans. Now the institutions ensure that most poor undergraduates graduate debt-free.

If low-income minority students want to compete with wealthy whites in college admissions, they need to work their tails off to score high on standardized tests, period.  This is the message I got from caring teachers at my urban, test-in magnet program.  They got through to me, so I studied like mad for SATs and AP tests on my own, mainly using prep books checked out from a public library.  Later, I did the same thing for the GRE. I scored high and attended Ivies for undergrad and a PhD.  Banneker students could do follow suit, but are seldom encouraged to, so few bother.
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