Is Affirmative Action even a factor in admissions anymore??

[shedara2008]

Well I wanted to start a new thread because none of the others really seriously addressed this fundamental question. Is affirmative action truly a factor in admissions acceptance today?? If so how?? I am starting to believed it may be phased out or coming to be nonexistent. I have no proof. I just believe that it is too tight and too competitive for everyone for affirmative action to be utilized. Not to start a fight, but if a person is not disadvantaged, but is a minority, there is no affirmative action for them, right?? or am I wrong?? I don't know. just a thought. what are your thoughts??

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[AmpedUp]

Don't worry. It still applies. But don't dwell on it, of course.

 

[persenmi]

Put it this way. Let's assume we have two applicants with identical stats and experiences. If one is a white male and the other is from a minority group, say Native American, then admissions will take the minority person in the interest of increasing diversity at the school. This is because they probably already have a majority of white male students and they don't need another one. Therefore, I believe ethnicity plays a role when it comes down to equivalent applicants in tough decisions.

 

[UKdreams]

I don't think that it's a primary factor. D-schools usually decide on an individual, not a comparison of several students. When you look at the male to female ratio, it is not always equivalent. For instance, UK had about 30 female and 20 males where UL had 77 male and 44 female (give or take a few). So at the end of the day, I doubt it would be in the forefront of their minds.

 

[Montserrat]

Search for DocToothache's threads. He posted ADA acceptance rates between minority and non minority applicants and showed a comparable trend. There is certainly a bias in the ADA's analysis with their lack of providing acceptance data like GPA, which makes their conclusions worthless, but some numbers are available.

Affirmative action certainly plays a role in admissions, and not just when there are two equally qualified applicants. However, it really isn't worth dwelling on. I'd imagine most people out there would take advantage of affirmative action if they could qualify as an underrepresented minority though. There are not many times in life when people are afforded an admissions advantage like that, so more power to the people that can use it. For those who can't, just roll with it.

 

[yappy]

AA most likely plays some role in admission when simular candidates are being reviewed. That is why if you're not going to benfit from AA - make sure to do better than those they're assuming will have lower numbers - play the game.

 

[darkwalk]

For those interested, here is a well written article on Stanford philosophy website about affirmative action as well as supreme court rulings.

http://www.seop.leeds.ac.uk/entries/affirmative-action/

 

[doc toothache]

I don't think that it's a primary factor. D-schools usually decide on an individual, not a comparison of several students. When you look at the male to female ratio, it is not always equivalent. For instance, UK had about 30 female and 20 males where UL had 77 male and 44 female (give or take a few). So at the end of the day, I doubt it would be in the forefront of their minds.

Your numbers appear to be a little bit off. For 2010 UK was 25/32 and UL was 41-44. You must believe that admission is by happenstance.

 

[IronJeff]

There is certainly a bias in the ADA's analysis with their lack of providing acceptance data like GPA, which makes their conclusions worthless, but some numbers are available.

What Mont said. From what I have seen, only number of applicants and acceptance rates are given between racial groups. The data seems to support the idea that race has little to no effect on acceptance rate. Still, it is worth noting that this data has nothing to do with other more telling applicant statistics such as DAT score or GPA. Thus, there is absolutely no public data (to my knowledge) that would allow someone to conclude that the average DAT scores or GPA of accepted students do or do not differ between students of different races. So no real conclusion can be made as to whether or not AA is a large factor in applicant acceptance.

Like others have said.. do what you need to do and don't worry about the things that are out of you control

 

[chocchipcookie]

does URM status depend on your biological heritage?

 

[slm266]

does URM status depend on your biological heritage?

What else did you have in mind?

Conservative in California?

 

[chocchipcookie]

haha good question. i don't know. i suppose because if i can, i may as well use my PR part to my advantage. i don't look particularly PRican though, so maybe that's what i was getting at.