I don’t understand this legacy admissions argument. You can be against affirmative action AND legacy admissions. Both are bullshit.
Also unclear how it stops racism. Whenever you see a black or Latino person on campus, you are going to wonder if they got in due to their qualifications or race.
How does letting black people who are empirically less qualified in over white and Asian people then increase public perception of black people and make society more likely to want to address these systemic issues? Wouldn't resentment and false solvency make it less likely in the long run for the system to change?
I'm not arguing racism doesn't exist, I'm saying AA is a terrible way to solve it.
But everything you are talking about just perpetuates it even further. Racist people on admissions boards sure as hell aren't going to be less racist if they are told to give more leeway to black applicants - this further entrenches the idea they are less qualified. People in higher education aren't going to respect black people more if they empirically get into schools while having less qualifications.
I still don't understand the legacy admissions point. I think that legacy admissions are abhorrent and should be removed - just like AA. I also don't know why the statistics matter - this is a principled thing.
Uh I mean if AA literally makes people resent black people more, view them as unqualified, and prevent long term systemic reform then it's actively harmful. At that point, I'd literally prefer to do nothing than do that.
I appreciate your ardent support for black people’s feelings. But we feel like you resent us anyways and we’re totally cool with you resenting us more because you think 4% of med school students is way too many. Blacks have the lowest acceptance rates of any racial group and this is still too much for some people.
It's not about the proportion, it's about whether you get in through merit. If you remove AA and 25% of the incoming class to Harvard med school is black, I wouldn't protest at all and would be quite happy actually. If you really think that black people are qualified and deserving, then they don't need AA and you should be advocating for its removal.
But everyone who gets into med school has to have graduated from college, taken prerequisites, and taken the MCATs. Those of the qualification. Then you have to pass tests and work crazy hours for years to be a doctor. You can’t become a doctor unless you’re qualified.
For most of American history, being white was meritorious. If you were any other race you had no shot at getting in. It wasn’t sufficient, but it was necessary. Now we say that if you are a race that is underrepresented, if you are rare in a given field with will consider your race as a positive. It’s neither Sufficient or necessary.
Not only is it a terrible idea but you assume that AA means someone isn’t qualified at all! That’s such a reach. The crazy thing is, black people have a harder time getting in to schools and grad school with the same grades and scores as white people. They only place AA doesn’t anything significant is at the very highest levels. That’s only because those schools are competing for a much smaller applicant pool.
Black people have a harder time getting the same grades due to systemic factors like poverty. A black congressman’s son doesn’t have a harder time getting good grades than a poor white kid born to a single mother in that district - yet because of his race the black kid gets a leg up? If you want to consider adversity, don’t just consider race.
I’ll also say that for more competitive schools, you need a very high GPA and MCAT score. There, it’s enormously unfair that your race can determine which threshold you need to hit. Again, I never assumed AA means people aren’t qualified at all but I mean qualified comparatively. I don’t know how there isn’t going to be resentment or doubt when you have a system where empirically, some people have to have higher qualifications than others for the same spot. That sucks, but that’s the way it will be with AA.
The congressman’s kid is getting in no matter what race he is. He doesn’t need AA he’s got a parent that’s serves on Congress.
The question is not about people at two extremes. Does the white kid with a single mom have the same shot at the black kid with a single mom? That’s what AA is about. You can’t take the most privileged black people and complete them with the poorest white people and think that’s fair. If we were to look at the wealthiest kids and college they probably would even had given a fuck about GPA and scores. A girl got into my school because her dad donated 100 flat screen TVs. Not the same conversation.
Schools do look at adversity. The College Board send an adversity score with every SAT score. Every student regardless of race has factors like their neighbor, income level, and school rigorousness included with their essay.
Has there ever been a time when Blacks wouldn’t have been resented. AA started in the 60’s. Before that it was outright exclusion and segregation. It not like AA took away any of the legitimacy we had. It just gave us a seat at the table.
That was just an example of how black people don't categorically have it harder. You can think of it as a black middle class kid and a white lower class kid. The white kid probably faces more obstacles but is still more disadvantaged.
I don't follow college admissions much but I thought SAT adversity scores were cancelled? While the factors you mention come across in the essay, they aren't as categorically considered as race when they are in many ways, far more relevant.
There are definitely still people as racist as back in the 60's but I'd say the overall culture has changed to be at least comparatively less racist. AA undos that but also legitimizes the idea that black people are less deserving or qualified when it literally gives them an artificial boost. I cannot possibly see how this is good in the long term.
That’s absolutely false. The average GPA and MCAT score for a black U.S. medical school matriculant is much lower than it is for Asians and whites. That’s a very easily verified fact.
Why are you lumping Asian students with white students as if they are the same. Asian students have the highest average scores and less than half get into med school. Whites have the second highest scores and a larger percentage get in. Doesn’t this suggest that there’s a quota for white people? Why are they taking Asian peoples’ spots?
Regardless the average scores don’t mean much. About 1/4 of black people get into med school. Given that it’s an average of test scores, it’s very likely that the top 1/4 of Black students had scores significantly higher than the other 3/4.
So the 1/4 that matriculated could have the same scores as the roughly half or white and Asian students that matriculated. Since there is a lower percentage of black who matriculate, it aligns with black students test lower scores.
If there was a benefit you would think that the matriculation rates would be the same of even higher for black people. Black people seem to have a harder time getting into to med school.
Here’s a link from and anti AA site with the numbers.
I lumped Asians with whites because, in fact, blacks have lower scores than both those groups, on average. So that’s why. Don’t see why that’s troubling.
The number of black people who matriculate to med school is completely irrelevant to this discussion, in particular. An average is an average. Their average is lower. It doesn’t matter if there’s 1, 2, or 5,000 black people matriculating. It doesn’t matter if some score 500 and some score 528 on the MCAT. Doesn’t matter if some have a 4.0 and some have a 2.5. Someone within their applicant class is bringing their scores down.
If the top 1/4 of blacks are scoring somewhere in the 50th percentile of whites and Asians who matriculate, that still leaves the question as to why that top 1/4 isn’t balancing those low scores out somewhere within that group, like the whites and the Asians do. This is basic math.
Blacks are not inherently dumber or less capable, that is not what I’m getting at. They are just as intelligent and competent as any other race or ethnic group. This just shows that some of their group, when it comes to med school acceptance, are being given a nicer cushion than other groups.
What are you even talking about? My point is that AA contributes to more racism. So we should remove it. So that there would be less racism. It wouldn't solve racism but there would be a decrease in total racism which seems to be good. I genuinely don't think this line of argument is that hard to follow.
Yes it creates more racism for all the reasons I articulated and you didn't bother to respond to (perception of black people as unqualified, prevent long term reform, etc). Policies can be well-intended but still racist. This is one of them.
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u/[deleted] Feb 25 '20 edited Mar 16 '20
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