Black privilege in College Admissions

That's like recruiting a team of black kids who ran 4:30 in high school over a team of white kids who ran 4:05. Sure 90th and 99th percentile are roughly equal.

Mike the miler wrote:

That's like recruiting a team of black kids who ran 4:30 in high school over a team of white kids who ran 4:05. Sure 90th and 99th percentile are roughly equal.

Out of all high school milers, both of these athletes would be well above the 90th percentile.

Sports are such a bad analogy for college admissions, but even the arguments people come up with don't hold up.

wake up dude wrote:

Free_the_thigh wrote:

Not saying it’s right or wrong, but this is a very different issue.

Affirmative action for minorities has the stated goal of allowing in more minorities than would otherwise be accepted.

Athletics in expensive sports has the unintended result of allowing in rich students who may otherwise not be allowed in.

One is intended the other isn’t.

Why do you assume the latter is "unintended"? Crew is a non-revenue sport. It's incredibly expensive for a school to field a competitive crew team. It's there because the alumni and donors want it to be there. That is, in part, because they know it's a potential back-door admissions process.

Why does a Harvard have a crew team

1. It is exists as a secret conspiracy theory to allow well connected rich donors to get their kids into Harvard (because for some reason they couldn’t just let them without a rowing team, or

2. The team has existed since the 1850s so it is kept around for tradition.

Why I don’t know how I came to the conclusion I did, both are equally possible and rational

Free_the_thigh wrote:

wake up dude wrote:

Why do you assume the latter is "unintended"? Crew is a non-revenue sport. It's incredibly expensive for a school to field a competitive crew team. It's there because the alumni and donors want it to be there. That is, in part, because they know it's a potential back-door admissions process.

Why does a Harvard have a crew team

1. It is exists as a secret conspiracy theory to allow well connected rich donors to get their kids into Harvard (because for some reason they couldn’t just let them without a rowing team, or

2. The team has existed since the 1850s so it is kept around for tradition.

Why I don’t know how I came to the conclusion I did, both are equally possible and rational

Cool, that's Harvard. Now explain why the University of Central Florida (founded 1968) has a crew team.

An even better question: Explain why men's crew isn't governed by the NCAA or subject to its rules. If this was only about "tradition," these schools wouldn't need an extra-judicial pool of scholarship money lying around.

bad argument wrote:

Free_the_thigh wrote:

Why does a Harvard have a crew team

1. It is exists as a secret conspiracy theory to allow well connected rich donors to get their kids into Harvard (because for some reason they couldn’t just let them without a rowing team, or

2. The team has existed since the 1850s so it is kept around for tradition.

Why I don’t know how I came to the conclusion I did, both are equally possible and rational

Cool, that's Harvard. Now explain why the University of Central Florida (founded 1968) has a crew team.

An even better question: Explain why men's crew isn't governed by the NCAA or subject to its rules. If this was only about "tradition," these schools wouldn't need an extra-judicial pool of scholarship money lying around.

Because other schools have them.

Now you explain why a rich well connected donor would go through such an elaborate long con to get their kid into the school instead of just asking their friend on the golf course to put in a good word?

It's not elaborate, lol. Parents hedge their bets with their kids from a young age. No one is saying the crew kids are frauds like the USC scandal. We're saying that parents push kids into these sports as a hedge against failing to get into an elite school on their academic merits.

I was raised by a single mom who dropped out of school before ninth grade. We were proud poor. I never wanted or needed any advantage other than some financial help. So I am in the slow group you were referring to.

When I was in college I had no safety net and in fact my goal was to lift my families economic status. I did well enough to get a free ride to grad school based on academics and test performance. (This isn't a rag to riches story but both my wife and I are professional and doing ok.)

But here is my point. I had all the advantages over my college mates. If I didn't do well, I had no safety net and would have failed my responsible to improve my families position. Now who do you think will do better in college, the rich kid or me? Who had the advantage?

And then you find out that three-quarters of them are dumber than that -- and that's among the people who actually take the SAT, so they at least have some hope of getting into college, or think they do.

Nice score, especially without studying. Now go do something with that intelligence -- test scores don't pay the bills or make you happy with your life. (I did a bit worse on the math, better on the verbal, pay the bills fairly comfortably after some struggles along the way, but am still working on the life happiness, as shown by me spending my time posting in a LetsRun troll thread about the SAT.)

I don't believe that there is that much to the notion that affluent people are generally smarter than poor people. If you do the right things to educate kids from an early age, almost all of them can advance to any arbitrary level you set. Take math, for instance. Entire nations do far better than even upper class American whites at international comparisons because they set high standards and enforce them. Math is a kind of language in its way that hardly ever gets practiced, whereas English gets practiced by kids 10-12 hours per day. Change the balance just by a little bit and you would have kids years ahead of American schools. I know this from doing only a bit of extra math a day, just a few minutes, with my kids.

You are correct. Then it is more like recruiting 5 minute black milers instead of 4:05 white milers. You helped make the point of why it is morally wrong to reach down to the 90th percentile.

It is very simple. Never, never, never discriminate based on color of skin, political connections, religion or gender.

Those factors should never be used to disadvantage someone. Why is there even a discussion of such a fundamental value.

Does anyone argue that they want special advantage because of one of these factors.

I am glad that so many people support this practice. Some people are telling the white applicant with a 1580 SAT and 4.0 GPA, too bad, work harder if they are denied in favor of a black applicant with a 1350 SAT because the black student is pretty smart also. Everyone should then be supportive of employers hiring less qualified white candidates. We know that blacks have been discriminated against their whole lives so they have had to wotk much harder to get where they are. Therefore, the white candidate has significantly more untapped potential. It is like finding. A 4:20 miler who never trained in high school as compared to a 4:15 miler who ran 70 mpw. Just rememeber that if most of you

support racial discrimination in the admissions process, you absolutely should support it for private employers.

"Affirmative action" is wrong and has been a total failure to address inequities.

It's practice creates more discrimination and animosity. It a white kid knows a black kid with same record will be chosen over him, all white kid denied entrance will wonder if their denial was caused because they were white. This will add to any racial animosity.

It communicates to everyone that blacks are not as good and can't compete without special advantage. This is wrong.

Implementation is impossible because with all the mixed races how do you divide people and is skin color really that important.

Economic status is more important that skin color.

This is a case of good intention having very negative unintended consequences. Affirmative action needsto be condemned.

Sounds like almost everyone here agrees that blacks need help if they are to compete with whites. Many are saying it is okay or even preferrable to reach down in order to get more blacks admitted. Others are acknowledging that blacks are not as smart but that we should treat everyone as an individual. Nobody can dispute that whites score better than blacks on ACT, SAT, and IQ tests.

Dissing the dissed wrote:

Sounds like almost everyone here agrees that blacks need help if they are to compete with whites. Many are saying it is okay or even preferrable to reach down in order to get more blacks admitted. Others are acknowledging that blacks are not as smart but that we should treat everyone as an individual. Nobody can dispute that whites score better than blacks on ACT, SAT, and IQ tests.

Sounds like almost everyone here agrees whites and men need help if they are to compete with Asians and women. Many are saying it is okay or even preferable to reach down in order to get more white and men admitted. Others are acknowledging that whites and men are not as smart bu that we should treat everyone as an individual. Nobody can dispute that Asians and women score better than whites and men on ACT, SAT and IQ tests.

I have a good friend working in college admissions so I know the inside story.

First they never use the phrase affirmative action even though that's what they do. They have to make all these moral compromises getting legacy kids, rich donor kids, well connected kids and athletes who don't belong into their programs.

They are also under pressure to keep stars such as GPS and standards scores high to reflect well on college (that's changed by making it optional).

So to feel good about themselves they pick some poorer black kids, give them all this tutoring support and then they go on and talk about how they changed lives. After all the other phony stuff they do this makes them feel good about their jobs.

Anyone who works in admissions, you know this is true.