Are the SAT's different by school?
I think not.
As for the grades in a school. It's probably easier to get a higher grade point average in a lesser schools than it is better schools, where the parents demand higher levels of teaching.
You're right. Kids from bad schools usually kick ass on the SAT.
Of course. That's precisely the point. And if you choose to make that your primary (and, perhaps, only) criteria for college admissions, the kids in colleges are going to be kids from affluent schools. The system will invariably perpetuate itself.
Again, that's exactly the point. In the world that you propose, nobody in a college admissions office could (or should) consider an A average from a poor school to be the academic equivalent of an A average from a good school. And, ultimately, if your admission criteria consider grades and test scores, the likelihood is that the kid with the A average from the poor school will -- as things are normalized by national testing -- have poorer test scores than the kid with a slightly lower average from a much better school.
What then?
Too bad, so sad that you grew up in a bad neighborhood?
We simply disagree with what is right. Even if you are right, you need to determine by factors that are not race based.
Again, there are several whites who also have poor socioeconomic conditions.
How can we ever get rid of racism when people like you keep fanning the flames?
If you look at Texas's top 10% automatic admission that is also unfair. Take a small town school in south Texas where the graduating classes are small and the classes are full of low achieving at risk kids and it's easy to be top 10%. Compare that to a school like Reagan where they may be graduating 800 kids and the academic compe ion is fierce. There are probably kids in the second quarter at Reagan that would be valedictorians at Poteet.
Edit. I see FWD is addressing this point. There is no easy way to do college admissions.
It certainly doesn't seem fair that an academically superior student would end up having to go to a second tier college when less able students get auto admitted to UT, A&M, Tech etc.
Last edited by CosmicCowboy; 10-08-2012 at 08:21 AM.
Where in my posts did I mention race?
Go ahead, tell me all about your assumptions.
My argument relates to impoverished socio-economic conditions. As you've said repeatedly, those conditions exist in non-minority communities. My argument has only to do with taking those conditions into account in the admissions process, not to taking race into consideration. You're the one interjecting race here.
Sure. At the same time, it seems unfair that a student who excels despite a bad environment but who might be not quite as academically advanced as a student who does well in a great environment should lose the opportunity to attend a top-tier school just because he or she grew up in the wrong place.
I'd agree, by and large, with your point here if Texas required equal funding for its public schools, but with our provincial system, making college admission decisions based solely upon academic bona fides (with no consideration of external, socio-economic factors) seems a guarantee to populate top-tier colleges almost exclusively with kids from affluent backgrounds.
Who is to say how those 2 students would have done had they attended each others' high schools.
Or where the parents demand higher grades?
Let's be honest, the only public universities in Texas with strict admissions requirements are UT-Austin, UT-Dallas and Texas A&M.
But here's the thing: UT-Austin has a CAP program that let's students who didn't get admitted go to a UT System school and then transfer after just one year if their grades are decent. This girl could have gone that route, but she clearly just wanted to be a drama queen and destroy affirmative action.
The Ivy League schools, in their Amicus Curiae in support of UT, make a good case for diversity and holistic admissions. UT also has a holistic admissions process for its non-top 10% admits.
Thus, in addition to seeking students who are qualified, each ins ution also looks to compose a student body that is exceptional, complementary, and diverse in many ways. In service of this goal, each ins ution seeks, and invites applicants to submit, any relevant information about their experiences, accomplishments, and background to understand how the applicant might contribute to the vibrancy of the student body. The individualized, holistic review processes em- ployed by Amici are not ways of ranking candidates from “strong” to “weak” but instead means to assemble an exceptional undergraduate community that exposes students to differences of many kinds: backgrounds, ideas, experiences, talents, and aspirations.
Amici’s admissions policies are based on the principle that, in a free society, inquiry proceeds best when views and goals must withstand examination from the widest possible range of perspectives. And Amici’s experiences bear this out: A student body that is diverse in many dimensions, including racial and ethnic background, produces enormous educational benefits. Such diversity significantly improves the rigor and quality of students’ educational experiences by leading them to examine and confront themselves and their tenets from many different points of view. It also prepares them for life, work, and leadership in a nation and world that are constantly becoming more complex.
This diversity benefits society as well, for it fosters the development of citizens and leaders who are creative, collaborative, and able to navigate deftly in dynamic, diverse environments. Indeed, the university plays a unique and critical role in this respect, for in our society a university educational experience may offer one of the few opportunities for individuals to live and interact on a daily basis with peers from markedly dif- ferent backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives.
The pluralism of the Ivy League schools is part of what makes that experience holistically educational. The classroom teaching there is obviously exceptional, but the exposure to so many different people -- and so many different kinds of people -- is a daily education that no book or teacher can provide.
My apologies.
You came in as z0sa and I were discussing race.
Affirmative action is straight up racist and disciminatory against everyone. It goes with the logic that anyone that belongs to a minority group is too weak and helpless and cannot achieve success on their because they belong to a minority group. So with that strike against them, they need a helping hand since they are not smart and independent to achieve success on their own. It also goes with the logic that all white people are powerful and never need any help at all because they're white and have had everything handed to them on a silver platter.
Affirmative action does not really help minorities. It tells them that they are stupid, weak, and powerless because they're a minority and they need help from white people to be winners in America. Where is the tolerance in that?
Jacob...
I agree with you except for one thing. Not all affirmative action is quota or favoritism based. The original intent of affirmative action was good. It is what it has changed into that is bad.
It's bad because you're telling certain people that are helpless and stupid because of their skin color and that they need a helping hand from white people. It's bull . You're basically writing them off and saying that there is no way that they can make it on their own.
Yes, most types of affirmative action are bad in that way. Affirmative action originated as a program to make sure minorities knew where opportunities were available. That was the limit of the help, originally.
Affirmative action is a great thing. You can get into Stanford with a 1200 SAT and go on to become mayor of San Antonio.
A score of 1200 is not a bad score, it's just not Stanford material.
CAP program is great, but what people dont mention is that it only limits students to the school of natural sciences and liberal arts. if you want to be enrolled in a decent UT program, you have to apply separately, and for the most part it's impossible to get in (unless you're applying to com school lol).
If AA were eliminated, is there any doubt that certain minorities, i.e. Indian, Asian, etc. would not be well represented?
Apparently they can't make it without AA. See post below.
Last edited by DMX7; 10-09-2012 at 07:14 PM.
I don't know about Indians, but Asians are dominating the UCLA campus now that AA been banned there.
Here's some more interesting info:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Educati...ns-at-collegesThe campuses that have seen the biggest declines in African-American and Latino enrollment in the wake of affirmative-action bans have been UCLA and UC Berkeley – prestigious public schools that compete for students with private colleges that have been free to continue to use race as a factor in admissions.
At UC Berkeley, for example, African-American enrollment ranged between 6 and 7 percent before the voter initiative that banned affirmative action in California in 1996. It then dwindled to between 3 and 4 percent, and in 2010, despite continued attempts to create alternative routes to diversity, it was only 2 percent. Hispanic enrollment also dipped, from about 14 percent before to about 11 percent.
A system that acknowledges that some people are born with a head start and that others have actually achieved far more given where they began is a good one in my opinion.
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