Reply to Top 10 Universities - Holistic Admissions Fact or Fiction

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Top 10 Universities - Holistic Admissions Fact or Fiction"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Justice Sotomayor also writes that she quickly realized at Princeton that her English and writing were deficient and began reading the classics and studying proper grammar to independently improve her skills — she was able to overcome those challenges to her credit, but she had the chance to overcome those challenges at Princeton because of affirmative action.[/quote]

Yes, but this has to do with her lack of exposure to opportunities to hone her writing abilities, and has nothing to do with her innate potential (as evidenced by her accomplishments later on in college and in her career).  So is it any fairer to have kids who have had every advantage in life and who are 100% prepared be the only people who benefit from attending elite universities?  Because a lot of people on this board support affirmative action for lower income individuals--but the issue of preparation will exist any time people from disadvantaged backgrounds attend elite schools, regardless of race.  How is it any more just to solely rely on people's test scores outside of the context of their whole self?  To be honest, I have also heard of white people from poor rural areas who get into Harvard with a 28 or 29 on the ACT.  Is this bad too?

As far as the race argument goes, I agree (and to be honest, Justice Sotomayor has said the same) that we should be helping disadvantaged people of all races.  But there is some evidence that if there are [i]only[/i] minorities on a college campus who come from completely disadvantaged backgrounds, that is problematic too--it makes people think that all minorities are poor people to whom the generous white ruling class is lending a helping hand and reinforces stereotypes.  The notion of a class containing minorities from a variety of socioeconomic strata is sometimes termed "diversity within diversity" and there is a lot of argument as to whether or not it is beneficial.  As a PP mentioned, even though her son went to a prep school, he experienced all kinds of subtle discrimination like having different grades on his essays when graded blindly, being told he couldn't be a supreme court justice because he was black, and almost being blocked out of accelerated math.  But then you run into the issue that we are not a society that has resolved its race issues, and proportionally more minority families are in poverty than white families for historic reasons.  So the population of upper middle class kids raised by professional parents of color is a relatively small pool--and if you want to create "diversity within diversity" this sometimes means letting people in with slightly lower test scores.

And then if you want to talk about injustice, what about Asian students?  There was a long thread about the "Asian quota" on this forum recently, but it is true that Asian students need to have higher test scores, grades, and accomplishments than their white peers to get into Harvard and the like.  And in California, they did away with race-based admissions, and now UC Berkeley is now nearly 40% Asian, whereas Asians comprise 13% of the overall population of California.  Now you see a lot of white parents whining about the robotic asians taking the place of their creative white kids.

I don't know where I stand on how colleges should be doing their admissions.  I see both sides--on one hand social engineering can seem a hopeless endeavor that causes unforeseen consequences, but on the other hand I also don't think you can judge a person's accomplishments outside of the environment from which they grew up.  Often if you put people who haven't had the opportunity to push themselves in a top environment, it will really allow them to excel...if  fact there was a study reported in the New York Times last year that minority and poor students benefit the most from an ivy education--and Justice Sotomayor and Thomas are examples of this.  I don't like the idea of your opportunities being dictated by the socioeconomic status of your parents, and test scores most strongly correlate to that.  I don't know where you draw the line, hence the reason why colleges have very complicated formulas in terms of how they let students in, weighing their accomplishments, their backgrounds, and yes--their race and class.

Life resides in shades of gray, and there is no such thing as a pure meritocracy.  But I do think it is wrong to question [i]individuals [/i]who make it to Harvard, or a competitive job or whatever and wonder if they got in due to affirmative action.  There is no way you can possibly know unless you were on the admissions committee if a boy of color with a marginally lower test score than average got in because he was black, or because his other impressive credentials would have pushed him over the edge regardless of race.  There is only making assumptions.  And it is really not fair to judge someone by an arbitrary decision that is not under their control.[/quote]

I support helping out people from low SES backgrounds regardless of skin tone.  I don't support giving the children of upper middle class African American parents a bump over poor white or Asian children.  Legally sanctioned racial discrimination is always wrong, but giving a lift to those of low SES is the right thing to do.  Using skin tone as a proxy for low SES is not only wrong, it is racist.  Schools are equipped to distinguish those, like Justices Sotomayor and Thomas, from low SES backgrounds from the children of a well to black couple living in Bethesda and attending Sidwell at full freight. [/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