[TheElder]

As a white, it makes me somewhat sick to my stomach to think that I might have benefited from affirmative action. If Asians are better than me, score better than me, I shouldn't displace any of them in the university.

I almost always assume that blacks who are in any kind of engineering, math, physics, or hard science schools are placed there because of their race. I don't want to be thought of in that manner.

Now, was it wrong that the first thing I thought of when I saw a black in the engineering department was affirmative action? Maybe so, but what is one to think when affirmative action programs are in place?

[cowmoo]

Affirmative action doesn't bother me. So what if the SAT-tutored and AP/IB class-taking kids from suburbia couldn't get into Harvard, Princeton or Yale? Boohoo! It's the end of the world when they go to the Duke, CMU, or Cornell where upon graduation, you have finally (phew!) saved the family face after all by going to medical school, law school or becoming that engineer - so that your Asian or Jewish mother has something to good to say about her son at her friends' dinner party.

Without the elite ivy league schools offering 100% financial aid (vs. middle-tier state schools that try to amp up their U.S News & Report Ranking by offering full-rides to high SAT scorers from the 'burbs, and hence could not accommodate 100% to need-based financial aid), a lot of urban kids wouldn't be able to afford college at all, not even state school. Also, schools that could afford to let down their average SAT scores often pick students based on their "narrative". A technical forum may sneer at the qualitative over quantitative, but it means that schools consider their applicants' background, what odds they had to overcome in their environment vs. say, how much money someone's parents spent for their child's Princeton Review classes.

However, I agree with you in that affirmative action have a lot of inefficiencies. For instance, a lot of under-represented minorities from the 'burbs and prep school game the system by offering a offer that colleges can't refuse: high SAT score and diversity, but haven't overcome any serious odds as an urban student would. A lot of colleges game the system by claiming diversity on their admissions broshure, when recruiting a lot of black/hispanic students to their freshman pool - but do not do a proper job of trying to graduate their minority students at all.

[amichail]

As a white, it makes me somewhat sick to my stomach to think that I might have benefited from affirmative action. If Asians are better than me, score better than me, I shouldn't displace any of them in the university.

I think this issue of fairness is a distraction. Focus on changing the world instead.

[tokenadult]

what is one to think when affirmative action programs are in place?

I wish I could be 100 percent sure that today's affirmative action programs operate like the first one I heard of (in 1968), when the idea of the program is that it connected students who didn't have college-educated parents to colleges that easily gained applications from children of alumni, but didn't get many applications from first-generation college students. Then what I would think of anyone admitted under an affirmative action program is, "It's only fair that he is here too, even though he didn't have the advantage I had of being a third-generation college student." But it's not clear now, college-by-college, just what happens in detail when the admission committee meets to decide whom to admit.

The great majority of United States colleges admit nearly all of their applicants. Hundreds of colleges have explicit open-enrollment policies. So this whole issue only pertains to a small subset of the most desired colleges, colleges that reject the majority of their applicants.

[amichail]

FYI, the whole idea of affirmative action used to bother me enormously.

But not so much now that I realize that working for others is not a desirable goal.

[nkassis]

"As a white, it makes me somewhat sick to my stomach to think that I might have benefited from affirmative action. If Asians are better than me, score better than me, I shouldn't displace any of them in the university."

I didn't know this when I first heard of affirmative actions (moved to the US in junior year) but predominantly Black Colleges have to adhere to quotas too but have a hard time doing so. Many of those colleges simply do not get enough white or other ethnicity applicants. In fact, some give full scholarships to white students to try to attract them.

So a measure that is supposed to help bring more minorities to college actually causes them to loose places they previously had.

Frankly, having grown up in Canada, I had never really thought of the question until I moved to the US. I guess we sorta have a blind eye to those issues up here. Dunno if that's good or bad.

[tokenadult]

predominantly Black Colleges have to adhere to quotas too

Actually, quotas are strictly against the law under the Bakke decision

http://www.oyez.org/cases/1970-1979/1977/1977_76_811/

for all state universities, and I have every reason to expect that an explicit quota would be found illegal for a private university under the general federal civil rights statute enforced by the Department of Education. But colleges appear to have suspiciously consistent numbers from year to year without admitting to having quotas.

See

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1063172559-post8.html

for examples of colleges with large numbers of students officially reported to the federal government as "race unknown."

[brandnewlow]

Hey, I got into Princeton because they hadn't admitted anyone, much less a white middle class male, from Western Michigan in a few years.

Everyone catches a break. No use crying over it. Exploit it.