[arjie]

The book SAT Wars has arguments for and against and the striking thing for me was that some in admissions believe in a concept called crafting a class: the applicants are input into the admissions officer’s artisanal contribution to producing a class that they believe would be good for the university to have.

The idea of a standard bar and so on does sound like it would interfere with such a process.

I always did find it interesting that US notions of anti-racism required treating individuals not as individuals but as racial representatives. It’s a local quirk of the culture of the land, I suppose, that one’s primary identification here is one’s skin colour.

[usui]

America's vapid fixation with race is ridiculous especially since it uses race as a proxy for social stratum when it could just be addressing class issues directly instead. If only there were some history of forms that parents fill out every year showing their income to the government that is more-or-less vetted to some degree—too bad we don't have such a thing that students could use to prove social stratum! Plus, what the hell is race anyway? An unethical tip one could give to university applicants would be to claim membership to the most beneficial group because it's not like university admissions has any way of proving your "race". Construct any fabricated story that'll get the most approval and maximize your chances of getting into a top university.

[kenjackson]

Unfortunately, the fixation with race in America doesn't start nor stop at college admissions. College admissions is probably the last place where it tilts in the direction of certain minority groups.

I agree that we should just stop using race everywhere and we should crack down on it -- but I think college wouldn't be where my energy would be... actually the military is where I'd start. And oddly it's the place where race based affirmative action is still permitted (military academies - where it benefits minorities) and in its halls (where I've heard that it has a strong white supremacist bent). The reason is because what is happening in colleges is more reactionary -- fix the catalyst and the arguments for the reaction largely go away.

[dyauspitr]

The very real downside is if you just provide equal opportunity then you would still end up with an all white/East Asian/Indian class. You can argue that this is fair and meritocratic and you would be right but I believe there are a lot of people that see value in affirmative action that makes classrooms look more like the racial distribution of the country and provides an easy step up for traditionally poor/downtrodden communities to improve themselves. Affirmative action isn’t only an American thing btw, it’s in China, South Korea, India etc. as well.