Proposal 2 and UofMich

[parsley]

That's not at all what I'm saying.

I am saying:

Candidate A: 3.6, 173 candidate who did two relevant internships plus extracurriculars. OK PS.
Candidate B: 3.6, 173 candidate who financed 75% of their tuition by working 30 hours per week, economically disadvantaged and a few extracurriculars. OK PS.

Take Candidate B.

How do you get that I think the exact opposite of this from the post (from another thread) that you cite?

[BrerAnansi]

So you're saying that Candidate A would have to perform to a higher standard to impress you as compared with candidate B??..

How much of a GPA/LSAT increase would it take for Candidate A to trump Candidate B??...

Edit: that post I cited was from pg 2 of this thread...and I took it to its logical end...at some point the disadvantaged candidate would have to face off against non-disadvantaged candidate..unless you supported only comparing such candidates to each other...which I didn't think you did given the thrust of some of your posts...

[parsley]

Eh, here's a shot.  Haven't fully thought this through, but I'm the kind of person who thinks while I talk (or write).

I think that affirmative action (I wouldn't even call it that, but whatever) should only compensate for a gap somewhere if and only if that person has overcome serious challenges.  I think that overcoming that specific, personal challenge should count as an accomplishment in itself.  This system is not to increase racial diversity (although, because poverty and race are linked in certain areas of the country it would probably have that affect as well) but instead to evaluate candidates based on achievements.

I think "I earned a 3.8" is an achievement.  But "My mom's in jail and I had to put food on the table for my sister, and I earned a 3.8" = two major achievements.  I do not think "I am black, but I earned a 3.8" is any more of an achievement than "I earned a 3.8". 

[BrerAnansi]

Point is that the two often occur together...(being URM and having to overcome some deficit in education/economics etc.)

I know there is an idea out there that middle-class+ URMS get the bump that should be "reserved" for poor URMS...but unless you're willing to believe that the children of people who managed to acheive and succeed themselves consistently underperform then it's reasonable to think that they would have gotten in regardless...

My point is that adcoms do exactly what you were doing in your CAN A/ CAN B scenario...the only diff is the numbers of the disadvantaged candidate are always so pretty...but then again this isn't an Horatio Algers story...

[parsley]

Point is that the two often occur together...(being URM and having to overcome some deficit in education/economics etc.)

Got it, and mentioned this as well.  But there are also white people who are poor. And I think they should get an equal "bump."  Race shouldn't be a factor.

adcoms do exactly what you were doing in your CAN A/ CAN B scenario...the only diff is the numbers of the disadvantaged candidate are always so pretty

OK.  If they were doing this with race (two equal candidates, accepting the person of the race you have less of) then I may be more accepting of it (but only slightly, I still find using race discriminatory).  The practice, however, of weighting it to the point of creating two entirely different standards for admissions is my problem.

[pikey]

Point is that the two often occur together...(being URM and having to overcome some deficit in education/economics etc.)

Got it, and mentioned this as well.  But there are also white people who are poor. And I think they should get an equal "bump."  Race shouldn't be a factor.

adcoms do exactly what you were doing in your CAN A/ CAN B scenario...the only diff is the numbers of the disadvantaged candidate are always so pretty

OK.  If they were doing this with race (two equal candidates, accepting the person of the race you have less of) then I may be more accepting of it (but only slightly, I still find using race discriminatory).  The practice, however, of weighting it to the point of creating two entirely different standards for admissions is my problem.

The problem with just using SE status as an indicator is that Whites and Asians are the main beneficiaries.  That does nothing to help the historically disadvantaged groups that AA was supposed to benefit.

[parsley]

The problem with just using SE status as an indicator is that Whites and Asians are the main beneficiaries. 

Since when are whites and Asians the only poor people in America?

That does nothing to help the historically disadvantaged groups that AA was supposed to benefit.

But I don't believe that race-based AA is all that helpful to those groups... And I don't think it's good public policy.  This is just getting into another tired AA debate when all I was saying was that there are other ways of measuring diversity. 

[BrerAnansi]

Point is that the two often occur together...(being URM and having to overcome some deficit in education/economics etc.)

Got it, and mentioned this as well.  But there are also white people who are poor. And I think they should get an equal "bump."  Race shouldn't be a factor.

adcoms do exactly what you were doing in your CAN A/ CAN B scenario...the only diff is the numbers of the disadvantaged candidate are always so pretty

OK.  If they were doing this with race (two equal candidates, accepting the person of the race you have less of) then I may be more accepting of it (but only slightly, I still find using race discriminatory).  The practice, however, of weighting it to the point of creating two entirely different standards for admissions is my problem.

Who said anything about race...I was specifically talking about disadvantaged candidates...I merely mentioned that the two often conflate...

You yourself ascribed a value to overcoming hardship in your A/B scenario...and I made the assertion that it is that same value judgment that adcoms make again and again...
 
Now you seem to be backing down from your prior statement and reverting to the idea that there exists some model of admissions that is "fair".  There are value judgments to be made every step of the way...a major in poly sci versus one in biochemistry...178 from someone fresh from two Testmasters courses versus a 163 from someone who self-studied...there are no "completely-the-same-save-for" candidates...every application decision is a value judgment...and every sort of candidate gets an unfair advantage...people who are poor, people who can afford Testmaster's, people who had no responsibilities and had time to invest into interesting extracurriculars, people with family connections, people who happen to be good writers, native speakers of English and the list goes on and on...

Yet people choose to emphasize LSAT/GPA above all other factors and go on about meritocracy...that's easy enough to achieve...forget admissions committees altogether...the LSAC computers can do it with ease...submit your transcripts, write the LSAT, forget all that other stuff...the computers rank your index numbers and then issues acceptances (going alphabetically in case of a tiebreaker) to the top school on down (let's say according to US News)…

[parsley]

OK, I get what you're saying now.

But I think you're trying to argue with me about a point with which I don't really disagree... 

[BrerAnansi]

Most people don't disagree with my basic point, but you'd be surprised how bitter the discussions once somebody says AA...suddenly URMs are candidates who are accepted solely because of their skin color - they're completely one-dimensional...

URM status is just one more factor in the value-based admission...is it weighed more heavily than say knowing how to play the cello???...yes...but it's not as if that weight was arbitrarily assigned...but try to explain this to people who've decided that the top schools are flooded with underqualified URMs as if HYSCCN are letting in 2.6/159s left, right and center...