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Obviously, we need more fluff courses More

Obviously, we need more fluff courses

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  • âoeMaybe he didnâ(TM)t have to be the straight-A kid heâ(TM)d been in high school anymore,â

    He was a straight A student in high school. He was academically qualified. Likely his high school set him up for this failure. Most of the college admissions process is based on the high school GPA, with a little bit of influence coming from standardized test scores as well.

    Unless you can point to straight-A white kids who applied for the same entering class and were denied entry, you really don't have good support for the claim that he was admitted on the basis of being black.

    I will openly conc

    • His SAT scores had to be a part of his package and it's my guess that they are much more indicative of where he is at academically.

      But I do think that you are correct in that the failure is not affirmative action, it is an education system so rotten that kids like this are screwed a long time before they are old enough to apply to any university.

    • He was a straight A student in high school. He was academically qualified.

      *cough*Grade inflation?*cough*
      No, that doesn't happen, and I'm the bad guy for even suggesting it.

      • He was a straight A student in high school. He was academically qualified.

        *cough*Grade inflation?*cough*
        No, that doesn't happen, and I'm the bad guy for even suggesting it.

        Come on smitty, I explicitly mentioned grade inflation in my comment [slashdot.org]:

        I will openly concede that there are a lot of high schools that are guilty of grade inflation, and hence the high school GPA isn't nearly as valuable as college admissions offices often believe

        However the GPA is a number that colleges use to filter out kids who are qualified from those who are not. He was a 4.0; it's not like he was a D high school student who was admitted to the university.

        So no, you're not a bad person for pointing out that grade inflation happens - or if you are, then I am too - but it appears you may be trying to claim that this kid was admitted simply for being black and that is not the case. On pap

        • Fair enough. But, while this case may be egregious, I don't think it atypical. Transcripts and academic work are so meaningless these days that, unless you're running as a Republican, you really needn't produce them at all. So much for meritocracy.
          • I would like to point out though that the single best predictor of college GPA is high school GPA. While the high school GPA is undoubtedly flawed in many cases it does a far better job than any standardized test at predicting which students will do well in college and which will not. Being as colleges make far more revenue from graduates than they do from dropouts, it is in their best interest to try to find students who are likely to graduate. If there was a better metric to predict which students are
            • Nicely played.
              • If you want to pull back the curtain you should address everything behind it, not just the bits that you want to call attention to.
                • "Everything" is somewhat inclusive. The sequence of approaching the challenge is key.
                  I'll buy off that Affirmative Action may have helped to get the pendulum swinging a different direction, but I submit that, like an immune system run amok, it's doing far more harm than good at this point.
                  More generally still, such is always the nature of bureaucratic solutions. Political parties are subject to the same observation.
                  So I don't think this is solvable, and there for may not be a problem in the mathematical

                  • "Everything" is somewhat inclusive.

                    Yeah, I'll give you that one. It just seemed obvious to me that we had an equally valid complaint regarding the previous guy :)

                    So I don't think this is solvable, and there for may not be a problem in the mathematical sense. Like the immune system run amok, we're drowning in allergy symptoms.
                    Perhaps a better question then is: How do we minimize these ill effects?

                    I really don't have a solid answer for that question. I admit that the current system is not perfect, and needs to be fixed. The problem though has several different facets and they pretty much all need to be addressed simultaneously in order for a proposed solution to be considered:

                    • Large volume of applicants that need to be filtered quickly
                    • Ability to evaluate applicants from
                    • I think the most important thing to do in reforming education is get the Federal government out of the loansharking business.
                      Every student is in a state, and those states should not be circumvented as under the current system.
                      The really good reference on the meltdown of our education system is Instapundit [pjmedia.com].

                  • Perhaps a better question then is: How do we minimize these ill effects?

                    First step: Recognize that you are ill.
                    Second: Create a desire to cure yourself.
                    Third: PROFIT! Real profit, not gold colored plastic trinkets.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Arker ( 91948 )

      I am afraid it is more insidious than that. You start with many black kids (and many fewer white kids) in schools where straight As and top of the class does not mean much. They used to detect that with the test scores, which in the old rational way of thinking of things is fair - the test doesnt care what your color is just how well you can answer the questions.

      In California, they were unhappy this was effectively weeding out the black kids, and they have adopted this new anti-rational view where the stati

      • The intentions may have been good

        Never let people who wish to be judged solely on intentions, not results, wield power.
        On the other hand, the end doesn't justify the means, either.
        A synthesis of the two seems more desirable.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Arker ( 91948 )

          Indeed, the ends must be just, and the means must be suited as well.

          In this case I can sympathize with the intended ends, while nonetheless noting that the ends chosen we irrational, ineffective, and ultimately tragic.

          • Maybe the 'ends' aren't what they seem. You shouldn't expect people who created a racist system to even be able to correct it. They think just because slavery was officially abolished there is no more racism, when all that happened was it being shifted, or morphed into the 'corrections' system, for example. Again we must understand that those swimming in privilege will never even know, much less accept that they are. Any attempt to change that will always be framed as 'reverse racism' and 'affirmative actio

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