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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana  |
I was then, and remain to this day, anti-elitist, so I never would have considered applying to Harvard. I got into Bennington, which might have been as difficult, but then decided it was too isolated from the real world and went to a Bennington-like program the University of Michigan instead (the Residential College). At that time in my life I was a very eccentric child who yearned to be "normal." I think Bennington was pretty surprised when I didn't matriculate. I had gone up there to visit a few times and even made friends among the current freshman class. I still can't imagine ever being comfortable at Harvard. I'm choking even thinking about it. I do have a lot of Harvard grad friends. The sense of superiority seems to stay with one for life.
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
As far as the topic goes, I do think college admissions should be color blind. My first college roomate, in 1973, was a black girl from Detroit so had been admitted under the university's relatively new policy to actively recruit minorities. I felt truly badly for this young woman. She was so in over her head, so not prepared for for college. Her struggle was painful to witness. She was out by the end of her first semester, when she plagiarized a philosophy paper. She was miserable and terrified. I hope things have changed, but back then some of these kids were admitted strictly on the basis of race/socioeconomic disadvantage and clearly were not prepared in high school for college. Early affirmative action was not pretty. I think to be fair to these kids they should have prepared them from a much younger age before instituting this program. They were set up to fail.
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| "I've got morons on my team." Mitt Romney Minor Deity  |
Yale does ...  | |||
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| Does This Avatar Make My Butt Look Big? Minor Deity  |
I think your information might be out of date. I’m unaware of any evidence that minority students at elite universities are in over their heads. | |||
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
1973 was indeed a long time ago. And this was my personal observation as a college freshman. I did say I hope things have improved--i would assume they have but my later college experiences wouldnt apply. There were no minority dtudrnts in the college classes I taught in the 1990s--and it wasnt an elite school. I dont think you read my post very carefully.
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Has Achieved Nirvana |
I went to Cornell in 1976. I worked with several athletic teams in a variety of capacities, so I knew many of the athletes pretty well, among them the football players. There were also two black football players who lived down the hall in the dorm from me, and I spent a lot of time in their room (it was a super large double), with them and other football players. I didn't meet a single one who I thought was out of place or over their head. There is a great danger in drawing generalized conclusions from a single data point. | |||
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Another example. In law school, there were 17 of us in the JD-MBA program, so we knew each other pretty well. One was a black woman who already had a medical degree (and we never really got a story as to why someone with a medical degree wanted a JD-MBA). But she was totally unprepared for law school. All of the professors would call on people at random during class; one had a practice of calling on people in a random row in each class. She sat way in the back, and, if that professor started calling on her row, she'd get up and leave. She wound up dropping out after less than a month. Would that single example justify drawing larger conclusions about whether black people in 1980 were prepared for law school? Hell no. She was just one person who was unprepared for law school, regardless of her skin color. Two other black women in our class were editors of the law review. | |||
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
I clearly said "some of these kids" and that is a fact. I was personally close to one individual's pain and suffering. I never, in my post or ever, elsewhere, drew from this a general conclusion that all black students in the 1970s were suffering and in over their heads. The fact that *some* were is not good at all. And my argument is for color blindness in admissions, and support earlier in life, instead of throwing unprepared people into an environment they can't handle. In no way did I, nor would I, suggest that no black students could handle college in the 1970s. The fact that anyone was admitted without being prepared to handle college is a bad idea, in my view, regardless of their race or ethnicity. It can be scarring and traumatic. That unfair to them. Another reading comprehension fail.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
You gave a single, Ronald Reagan-like story and generalized from there. It was embarrassingly wrong. Even if you knew several kids who were in over their heads, it was embarrassingly wrong. I’m sure there were white kids struggling too, but you just didn’t focus on them. I reject your conclusions. | |||
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
I said "regardless of race" it is not a good idea to admit unprepared students. What is your problem?
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
This. This is my problem.
I think that statement is wrong and wrongheaded. It makes it sound like affirmative action was a bad idea UNTIL:
Since they weren't prepared (in your view), the logical implication is that they should not have been admitted. It makes it sound like affirmative action for college-age students should have waited another generation until programs were put in place at lower levels to help them succeed. It makes it sound like an entire generation of college-age students should have been told, whelp, the whole situation's unfair, but you're just not ready, through no fault of yours, so you're stuck. Even assuming you were right about the level of preparedness, which I've said I'd dispute, did it never occur to you that the COLLEGE could have taken steps to help them cope with a transition for which you seem to think they were unprepared? I am utterly appalled at the logical implications of what you were saying. | |||
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| czarina Has Achieved Nirvana |
I'm appalled that educators thought it would benefit disadvantaged students to put them in situations they couldn't handle without the support and preparation they needed. I don't see that any good is accomplished by doing that. Certain students were failed by this project. The university isn't the place to teach remedial math and reading. This is true regardless of the race of the student. How could we otherwise achieve the goal of equal opportunity? I'm sure there could have been many other innovative ways of accomplishing these aims. Throwing people who can't swim into the ocean isn't my idea of a humane strategy. This in no way whatsoever suggests that there were no people of color who couldn't handle college in 1973. Not at all. I met plenty of those people too. What I object to is admitting people who are not prepared, not equipped, simply because they belong to a certain demographic. If we want to help those people, there are other ways to do it. Post-high school remedial or college preparatory programs. Community colleges. Not Big Ten and Ivy League schools. Let's be truly color blind here and admit the students who qualify regardless of their demographic, and help students who don't qualify but who want a college education with programs outside the academy. My stepson wanted to go to Yale and did not qualify when he was a senior at a public high school. He wanted to go to Yale badly enough that he put himself through a rigorous college prep program for a year after high school and then applied--and got in. He applied for and received scholarships to attend that program. (This was all on his own initiative, btw--he'd been accepted at a public university but had his heart set on Yale. All of us discouraged him, but he went after What he wanted.) He is an example of a white student who would have floundered academically in that environment without getting the preparation he needed. I know because i coached him through his applications. I do not believe that people should be admitted to programs they are not prepared for. That is not, in my view, the function of a university. If you choose to find that appalling, that's not my problem.
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| Has Achieved Nirvana |
Way to double down. | |||
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| "I've got morons on my team." Mitt Romney Minor Deity |
The world isn't black/white (pun intended). Not all black students admitted under "affirmative action" in the 1970s were "unqualified." Especially if "qualified" means "could succeed." Yes, of course, some students admitted under affirmative action did not succeed in the hothouse environment of elite institutions. Many succeeded just fine, i.e. got a degree from an institution whose average "white kid" might have had higher SAT scores. This issue isn't simple and straightforward. A radical suggestion, I know (  ), but maybe reading some professional literature on the subject could go a long way toward taking the conversation beyond "I feel," and "my experience of one or two acquaintances ..."Affirmative Action and the Quality-Fit Tradeoff I know I'm a real downer by always pointing people to genuine social science literature written by some of the best social scientists in the US today, but ... there it is. Sorry ... | |||
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