California Colleges Mull Return of Affirmative Action

I hate the 10% rule. The public school I went to was a very good public school because so many kids made good grades. The top 10% automatically get into any school in the state.

But there are people at my school who were in the 50th percentile who are way smarter and made better grades than many in the top 10% at a school close by. Those kids at the other school automatically get into anywhere they want in Texas, whereas the smarter kids at my school don't get in automatically. The kids at the other school probably wouldn't have been able to get in if it wasn't for the 10% rule.

I just read on Wikipedia that 81% of UT's incoming freshman students were automatically accepted due to the 10% rule. That's not right to kids who go to very competitive schools who were not in the top 10%, but should still be able to go to UT.

 

I honestly hated this rule. Back in my day, a competitive student just outside of the 10% would actually move schools just to get that benefit. Other less fortunate students were left out simply because our school was so competitive.

I agree with everyone on the income based approach, but then you will have several people (Asian parents) gaming the system again to make sure their children have the economic benefits as well.

I honestly think our country needs a new SAT test. I know that's what the SAT II subject tests are for, but everyone knows that the SAT is the gold standard for admissions. Something that better reflects real intelligence and is difficult enough to the point where no student can achieve a perfect score. The SAT being based only on verbal and math is a really narrow way to categorize students.

 

Everyone seems to hate that rule as much as AA, it was a stopgap of sorts between the last liberal AG and the increasingly conservative legislature; people get just as angry at being punished for selecting a "good" school as for their race. Just considering the increase in college enrollment over the last twenty years, now 70% of all high school grads, the amount of lawsuits over stuff like this just keeps it from being worth defending.

 

The admissions already are based on merit, just not the ones that better off people in nicer neighborhoods can set their watch to. They will never relinquish that sense of destiny with regards to the best opportunities and outcomes, nor will they subsidize them for inferior social groups. My own class resentment aside, the diversity era is over; college is too popular, necessary and expensive for the majority to tolerate any obstacles to obtaining it, and with the seemingly permanent achievement gap between blacks and whites discrimination lawsuits are a fish in a barrel.

 

Very good point. I think eventually this is going to be the case and some of those separate boxes have already been started. For example, the U.S. census does have that. By lumping all the "Asians" together, it neglects the huge differences especially between Southeast Asians vs East Asians.

http://www.asian-nation.org/demographics.shtml



Cal-States also have separate categories for Filipinos/Fil-Ams and Mexican/Chicanos.

http://www.calstate.edu/AS/stat_reports/2013-2014/f_eth13toc.shtml

 

http://www.asian-nation.org/demographics.shtml

 

There shouldn't have been an argument for AA in the first place. It's downright discrimination but somehow some people have began treating it like their God given right.

Reminds me of those bigots in Arizona who cried about their "religious freedom".

 

You are being unreasonable yelling racist all the time. Would you be fine with a composite that looks at a whole host of factors or do you believe that any sort of benefit to any sort of group is inherently racist?

 

People are always going to game the system, but as long it is not predominate and you get the desired effect, it's a good system. Kids that grow up in the hood with lots of distractions deserve the same chance as affluent kids in Fort Bend or Westlake get. The affluent kids that don't get in to a public school have a better chance of going to college because their parents can pay for private schools.

 

many believe AA hurts blacks and hispanics more than it helps them, because many automatically assume those that "succeed" got where they did because of AA...

 

I believe UT is Top 8% this year and will scale the percentage into a narrower range as years go on. Not sure if this is a rumor or true, however.

 

So you're okay with a white student and an Asian student being denied their college education simply because the color of their skin?

I think you'd be yelling raaaaaacist all the time if this were something that negatively impacted Arican Americans.

 

The problem is you are comparing kids from the hood with rich kids. That's not who it predominantly affects. What about the whole bunch of regular middle class kids who go to competitive public schools who are outside of the top 10 and therefore can't get into a good school they could have gotten into if it wasn't for the 10% rule?

 

If those regular middle class kids do well on standardized tests due to said competitive school environment, then I'm sure they can also get into a good college as well. Or they could just get into the top 10% in their school and not worry about it. There's no natural law that says if you go to a "good high school" you are guaranteed to go to a good college.

 

You know what it means when you assume something based on race, right?

 

Assuming things based on race is what AA is based on.

 

Then those people lack a real understanding of what AA is. Nobody gets in who isn't qualified regardless of race. I feel sorry for those folks who lack a real understanding and then make unqualified judgements like that.

 

This. The 10% rule also equalizes disparity in funding that schools receive. I don't know how Texas does it but I know several states fund schools based on local property taxes so poorer communities schools are also disproportionately much less funded than well off schools.

This is why systems like AA were established in the first place. As others have noted students from better performing / more affluent school districts already have a leg up on students from poorer students. Their schools can afford to higher better teachers and provide better services. So it isn't just that the students are more competitive they actually have more opportunity than a student from a poorer school.

Obviously the system isn't perfect and some fall through the cracks but no system is. I would still contend that it is in the long term benefit to address these type of structural problems.