> "Last year, two Princeton sociologists, Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria > Walton Radford, published a book-length study of admissions and affirmative > action at eight highly selective colleges and universities. Unsurprisingly, > they found that the admissions process seemed to favor black and Hispanic > applicants, while whites and Asians needed higher grades and SAT scores to > get in. But what was striking, as Russell K. Nieli pointed out last week on > the conservative Web site Minding the Campus, was which whites were most > disadvantaged by the process: the downscale, the rural and the > working-class. > > "This was particularly pronounced among the private colleges in the study. > For minority applicants, the lower a family’s socioeconomic position, the > more likely the student was to be admitted. For whites, though, it was the > reverse. An upper-middle-class white applicant was three times more likely > to be admitted than a lower-class white with similar qualification ... > > "Nieli highlights one of the study’s more remarkable findings: while most > extracurricular activities increase your odds of admission to an elite > school, holding a leadership role or winning awards in organizations like > high school R.O.T.C., 4-H clubs and Future Farmers of America actually works > against your chances."
[maybe keeping ROTC folks out is good for education, but more importantly, here is what the readers wrote in today's NYT in response;] The New York Times / July 20, 2010 Social Class and College Admissions To the Editor: Re “The Roots of White Anxiety” (column, July 19): Ross Douthat’s critique of elite colleges — that they are not interested in admitting lower-class whites — might have been more compelling had it been written 10 years ago. In fact, the nation’s most elite colleges and universities are now fully engaged in efforts similar to those undertaken decades ago to increase the enrollment of ethnic minorities: not simply promoting the few lower-class whites who bothered to apply but actively working to increase the number applying altogether. By working closely with organizations like Questbridge, which brings selective colleges together with lower-income students of all ethnicities, race-based allowances are rapidly transitioning into those based on social class. Increasing numbers of these students on campuses speak to the success of these efforts. And perhaps most important, my experience has shown that when admissions committees make decisions, the mostly liberal, secular, often nonwhite admissions officers thoroughly embrace the importance of the diversity offered by 4-H members, evangelicals, Republicans and aspiring military officers. If there’s an elitism issue, it’s not originating in the admissions office. Nate Budington Amherst, Mass., July 19, 2010 The writer was an admissions officer at Williams College for nine years. • To the Editor: Ross Douthat presents the classic misdirection of conservative politics. Rather than identifying the true causes of America’s diminished meritocracy — wrongheaded supply-side economic policies that unravel the social safety net — he blames the well-known conservative bogyman: affirmative action. The future of our nation depends less on an equitable number of “red state” students attending elite universities than on ensuring that every student in America has the financial opportunity to attend community college or that the country’s public universities have the federal support to abate tuition spikes. Put simply, conservative policies have created the pretext for these grievances, not the prejudices of elite university admissions committees. Dave Hodapp Columbus, Ohio, July 19, 2010 • To the Editor: In “The Roots of White Anxiety,” Ross Douthat confounds two issues: the underrepresentation of low-income white students in elite universities and the low number of white Christian students at these same institutions. This association is puzzling considering that evangelical Christianity is enjoying somewhat of a renaissance in elite institutions (see “The Holy and the Ivy,” published in Christianity Today in 2005). The lack of low-income students (of all races) at elite institutions is an issue of great concern, but I caution Mr. Douthat against naming systemic bias against white Christians as being among the primary causes of the problem. Julie J. Park Oxford, Ohio, July 19, 2010 The writer is an assistant professor in the department of educational leadership at Miami University. • To the Editor: I grow weary of hearing of the “disadvantages” that white working-class/red state/evangelical Christian/rural/(fill in your favored conservative identity marker) students face when trying to get into elite universities. What Ross Douthat and the authors of the study on which the column is based don’t emphasize is that it is precisely these people who are not applying for admission to these institutions. No wonder they are underrepresented. I served on the admissions board of an Ivy League university for six years and could count on one finger the number of coal miner’s children from West Virginia who applied during that period. Despite energetic recruiting efforts, the most academically talented of white, rural, working-class students overwhelmingly choose to attend their state colleges and universities or religious institutions, where they feel they will fit in socially with their peers more comfortably. This problem stems in part from how they perceive elite institutions. I am certainly not saying that the atmosphere at elite universities might not benefit from having a few more Idaho farm kids around, but beating the drums of the politics of envy à la Pat Buchanan serves no useful purpose whatsoever. Anthony R. Kaney King of Prussia, Pa., July 20, 2010 -- Jim Devine "All science would be superfluous if the form of appearance of things directly coincided with their essence." -- KM _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
