I’ve seen what happens when underqualified men are recruited to teach. I’ve seen what happens when Spanish-speaking teachers are terrible but somehow stay on staff for years, thinking they’ll never get fired because of their language skills.
I disagree with you a little. You can lower the admissions standards for men slightly if it doesn’t make a difference in the end (eg, people being able to do the job), but how far do you want to go?
You are likely quoting an article with inaccurate data. According to this site:
I have not seen the data, so I have no idea who is right, but it does seem kinda fishy that the number in the OP’s article are far, far off from several others I have seen. Regardless, even if the truth lies in the middle somewhere, I can easily imagine this is in large part due to White flight and/or signaling to the Asian community that the UCs are increasingly Asian-centric. Things often tend to become more homogenous after they hit a tipping point. I don’t think we can necessarily attribute causation to the changes in admissions polices. To quote this article:
This trend was happening before the decision to have race-blind admissions. Also note the percentage of underrepresented minorities before and after the changeover period at the UC schools has not changed a great amount (ranging from 20.6% in '94 to 19.7% in '02, with a low of 17.3%). So maybe the race-blind admissions criteria only exacerbated a trend that was already occurring. There is a reason UCLA is jokingly call the University of Caucasians Lost among Asians. Like many UCs, it has become a school whose culture is dominated by Asian-Americans. That perception, real or imagined, tends to increase homogeneity.
That said, I am surprised the fact that students are, in essence, lying on applications to gain admission to schools they think so little of that they would tacitly accuse them of irrational bigotry and racial prejudice, has not been discussed more. Honestly, if all of these people feel Harvard is giving them the shaft, why are they going to these lengths to go there? The reality is that the value-added at schools of that ilk that is not that great, and if they truly feel they are passing over tons of talented Asians in order to accept untalented minorities, they’d be far better off going somewhere where they will not only receive a better education and a fair shot. They would also be allowing Harvard to tarnish it’s own brand by embracing “low expectations”.
In the context of what we were talking about, foreign graduate students don’t seem to be relevant to the conversation.
I wasn’t particularly passionate about it either until I had kids. Now I feel like my kids have to work harder and achieve more to have the same opportunities than any other kid their age. I guess it doesn’t bother me as much if we were talking about affirmative action for blacks or indians. But the only thing working against hispanics is poverty and I don’t think that their poverty puts them at a much greater disadvantage than a poor Asian kid or poor white kid. Its not like there aren’t any poor Asian or white families. If you want to tilt the playing filed in favor of poor kids then do so, don’t use hispanics as a proxy for poor.
I’m also a bit disturbed by the notion that we need to limit the number of Asian kids to make sure that the student body look recognizable to a largely white alumni.
Perhaps, I was getting it from something linked in the thread.
I have had trouble finding numbers that flat out break down racial demographics at the various UCs between 1995 and 2010. Your link doesn’t work for me.
You can always find some alternate explanation for a phenomenon.
The level of underrepresented minorities has dropped after 1995, perhaps as a result of a renewed evaluation of the chances of admission. With the growing Asian population isn’t it poosible that this might have been occurring within the white population as well or has that 40% drop in white application absorbed by admissions to Stanford instead? Perhaps they just don’t think they could get in if there isn’t a de facto quota on Asian admissions.
From your link:The two Berkeley admissions officials, Laird and Hayashi, claim that “fallacies” obscure the truth about affirmative action. In particular, they point to: exaggerated notions that many highly qualified whites and Asians have been rejected to make room for Latinos and African Americans (In fact, increased academic success by Asian Americans is the single most important reason why white enrollments declined at Berkeley)
This is happening at ALL top schools. Are you saying that Asians should say scroo that, we’re all gonna bust our butts in high school and then go to second tier schools and teach those top tier schools a lesson? They aren’t merely accusing top tier schools of racial discrimination, they are accusing the system of racial discrimination.
I think you might be underestimating the value of a diploma from a top tier school
Would you have said the same thing to a black student who want to go to UVA instead of Virginia State in 1960?
There is a huge advantage to going to a top tier school. I am working with a team of consultants from a top shelf consultancy. Every single one is a graduate of an Ivy + MIT + Stanford. A couple of years ago we had a consultant who went to Oxford and LSE. Apart from that I can’t remember a single consultant I’ve worked with who was not from Ivy + MIT + Stanford.
Michigan or Cal simply isn’t the same thing reputation wise when you are talking about the most prestigious jobs in business at least.
The link itself is broken, or you don’t find the data sufficient?
I suppose that is true, but the data support my hypothesis far more than they support the OP’s.
The last year affirmative action was used in UC schools was 1997. The percentage of underrepresented minorities in '97 was 17.5%, in 1998 it was 15.1%. A drop, but not an enormous difference.
The drop occurred BEFORE the admission policy changes.
Perhaps, but the drop was looking at applicants, not people admitted. If the lower enrollment numbers were a result of increased competition form Asians, you would see a smaller percentage getting in, not just fewer applicants.
Nonsense. The UCs are just one example of a school with race-blind admissions. Regardless, you are ignoring what makes a good school, a good school. If Asians truly think Harvard is stacking the deck against them, then they should focus their collective resources on either changing the system, or boycotting schools that practice policies they deem unacceptable. The reason the won’t do that is because they “reverse racism” is greater overstated, and because of the fact that they need Harvard more than Harvard needs them. Just cause you score well on a few tests means very little in the grand scheme of things. Pretending they are the aggrieved party who would otherwise be successful if it weren’t for the Ivies trying to keep them down is just foolish.
Even if that were true, why does that excuse lying by omission? Do the ends always justify the means when it comes to getting into one particular school? I suppose I just don’t understand why someone would want to go to a place they feel is taking active steps to limit the number of people who look like them from enrolling.
As I would imagine people accused Rosa Parks of underestimating the value of a bus ride to and from work. At a certain point, don’t you have to stand on principles? Besides, I think you are overestimating it. Additionally, there far more spots for elite students than there are elite students. The pressure and selectivity is largly a result of illogical brand awareness, not any true educational differences. There is little that makes Harvard much better than Duke, or UNC, or Standford, or UC- Berkeley, or any number of other schools. It’s this blind allegiance to a brand like Harvard or Yale that makes the problem what it is. My point is that if you are at a point where you are scheming a plotting, and lying about who you are in order to get into a school, maybe you should ask yourself if its worth selling you soul for. Most of the empirical evidence suggests it’s usually not.
This is not really accurate. At nearly all schools, and certainly at the large and elite kinds of school, the admission preference given to legacies is less than that given to minorities; for example, a study cited in Wikipedia puts the value of a legacy at about 160 SAT points, and the value of being black at about 230. Other studies have shown comparable results. Hence, the people most hurt by legacy admissions are not so much minorities as poor whites.
And of course, it’s also only an issue at privates and a very few highly elite publics – at the kind of colleges most students attend, it’s not an issue.
If there were a nationwide equivalent of Proposition 209, would it also drive up the percentage of Asians at high-tier public universities?
By this logic, why should black people have done sit-ins at restaurants that didn’t want to serve them? They could have gone to different restaurants instead.
Since the thread has been resurrected, here’s a recent story about an Asian who put himself down as black to get into medical school.
What lead you to revive this thread?
I didn’t want to start a new thread if there were already existing threads covering the topic.
Bush went to Yale. That’s where he got his undergrad degree. Perhaps you’re thinking of him not being able to get into the University of Texas for law school. He then instead went Harvard business school.
Then you might want to send a note to brickbacon that you are responding to a conversation he left over 3 years ago, otherwise you might have to wait a wee bit for a response.