The Chinese imperial exam was an essay test. They removed all markers and the test proctors were able to grade it for all sorts of subjective stuff and spit out an objective ranking of the test takers. They were able to do this thousands of years ago.
Extra curriculars are not that difficult to grade on a spectrum.
I suspect there is some way to score interviews and pass that score on to the admissions committee.
And in what situation do we have affirmative action for promotions within an organization to combat unconscious discrimination?
I know some fire departments tried it and it didn’t work too well.
I think he was being sarcatistic. that by showing one example of a non black student getting into all the schools, it shows that it is possible to get into all 8 ivies without AA. Noone ever said otherwise. But if you read the end of the story where they list the others who have achieved this in recent years, they are all black. mostly black immigrants from Africa. mostly black immigrants from the African nation of Nigeria.
I was pretty clear that not everyone is in the same pool.
And, as I speculated before, “people that apply to 8 Ivys” is a really small group. I’ve never seen anyone do it, and our kids get waivers, so it’s not even the $80 application fee that’s stopping them. So I can readily buy that Nigerian-American communities put a lot of stick in this achievement for whatever reason, and so push kids to try for it. It may well be that all the other kids who might potentially achieve this don’t try, cuz it’s frankly pointless.
What systemic inequalities are we seeing?
What systemic inequalities are we seeing that would be remedied by having middle/upper class African immigrants admitted to selective colleges at higher rates than their qualifications would justify?
I think that unless we severely restrict AA to the descendants of slaves and American Indians, we are going to see the end of AA altogether.
By any means and no matter the cost?
But until we address inequality for other folks lets just concentrate on AA for Nigerian immigrants and the descendants of Caribbeans for now?
And I see no evidence for bias against blacks in the admissions process that would justify AA.
You know there is a difference between evidence and proof, right?
Unless the colleges come out and state that race played a factor in her admissions, we will never “know” but the fact that so many of the folks that get into all the ivies are black immigrants is evidence that affirmative action is playing a role.
I’m not talking about just her. If it was just her, it would never have registered. It was the fact that every one of the students that achieved this was black. It was also the fact that the folks who were achieving this were not the descendants of American slaves.
Not her specifically but blacks generally. There is no AA for white dudes and there is for blacks. I don’t have a problem with AA. I have a problem with AA being used to benefit the children of African immigrants. We are distorting a system and implementing race based discrimination in order to give advantages to the children of black immigrants.
And it doesn’t strike you as odd that the only immigrants groups that are producing these exceptional students are black immigrants?
Didn’t iiandyii say exactly this? Paraphrase: We will know we have a level playing field when we achieve relatively level results.
This was only at the top two schools. Across the UC system the enrollment of black students did not drop much. But a lot of Berkely black admits probably went to UCLA and a lot of UCLA black admits probably went to UCSD and so on down the ladder.
Like I said, I am perfectly happy to have AA for the descendants of slaves and American indians. hell you can have reasonable quotas if you want; but we should not be applying AA to the children of African immigrants.
I think it is relevant that some kid had to lived through a war bfeore he lived on a raft for a month before being picked up by pirates only to be rescued by the US Navy before being sent to a refugee camp for a few years was resilient enough to recover from that experience and get reasonably good grades, reasonably good SAT scores and put together a reasonably good application with extracurriculars and everything.
But that’s not a race thing.
Personally I would like to know if the applicant had to overcome adversity that makes their less remarkable scores seem fucking heroic.
And why are we giving their lunch to middle class/wealthy African immigrants?
OK. That makes sense. Perhaps there is something to that.
I’d be interested to hear your take on the application of AA to the children of black immigrants.
I started this thread ten years ago (gasp!) about whether I should allow my, at the time, non-existent children benefit from affirmative action despite the fact that they will grow up economically advantaged.
My kids are now real live people (three of them. I did not see that coming when I started that thread!), and I’ve decided that I have no problem with them benefiting from affirmative action. I’m not going to lie, some of it is pure selfishness. But I also think they could do some good as examples to other American Indian kids, regardless of their upbringing.
My take is that you’re making a mountain out of a molehill. I don’t think African immigrants are taking anything from the descendants of American slaves. Nor do I think black people who benefit from AA are taking anything from white people or anyone else for that matter.
What is your take on the article I posted?
There’s a great Malcolm Gladwell article about the experiences of Carribean immigrants in the '90’s which ends up in pretty much the same place - the immigrant generation does especially well, but their children don’t, necessarily. He breaks out two factors that could account for it - firstly, that the surrounding population can tell the difference between immigrants and native-born African Americans and discriminate less against the immigrants, and secondly that, not having been brought up in a culture which expected failure from them, they had more confidence, and higher expectations of themselves.
Neither of these advantages are available to the children of immigrants.
These students were refugees.
If you mean why do they get some help too (and in the assumption they don’t need it, which I don’t necessarily share), then it’s probably because they’re a relatively small group and trying to write an exception for them into the rules would cause more harm than good.
That doesn’t necessarily alter my point, unless you think that refugees that make it (or are selected) to schools in the US are entirely “average”. It’s very possible that they’re also, to some degree, the “cream of the crop”.
The history of treatment of Asians and Jews in the US (which of course includes lots of terrible stuff) is very different than the treatment of people coming from Africa.
It’s possible, and could fit my “cream of the crop” hypothesis.
I think it should be based on smarts and aptitude, rather than who can tell the best hard luck story.
Do you not think that there is anything to be said for overcoming adversity? That that might not indicate what sort of potential you may have?
If you have one person who grew up in an upper middle class household, went to private school, had private tutors, and gets straight A’s and does well on the SAT’s, is that person going to do better than someone else who, while having slightly lower grades and test scores, achieved those results in spite of growing up poor, in a low quality school, with few teachers to take an interest in their education?
Hard luck story doesn’t just show where you came from, it’s not just an emotional plea, it is an indicator of character, of a will and a desire to succeed. Your higher graded student who has never faced adversity may very well give up the first time they find themselves challenged, while you can see that the student that has already overcome many obstacles will more likely face their challenges and grow.