Posted on 10/02/2008 6:05:19 PM PDT by flowerplough
It's kind of hard to talk about affirmative action in college admissions when you have a black man from the Ivy League leading in the home stretch of the race for the nation's presidency.
How much more proof of equal opportunity do we need? But I was alarmed last month by the stance of a UCLA political science professor who resigned from the school's admissions committee because he suspects that "cheating" on the admissions process accounts for the recent jump in blacks. He quit in protest after UCLA officials, citing privacy concerns, declined to give him access to student applications to test his suspicions.
The number of black freshmen jumped from 96 students in 2006 to 235 students this fall. That's in a freshman class of almost 5,000.
Dwindling black admission at UCLA has been a source of hand-wringing for years, since the state voted to outlaw the use of race as a factor in admissions decisions. Now numbers are beginning to climb, thanks to a holistic admissions process that gives more weight to students' life circumstances, not just GPA and SAT scores.
I worried about the message the professor's protest would send to UCLA's black students. So I visited the campus Monday to find out how they were faring during this first week of classes.
Did they feel isolated, unwelcome, invisible?
I worried about not finding enough black students to talk to. What I didn't count on was my own confusion:
I couldn't tell who the black students were.
The first girl I approached looked at me blankly when I began my interview. Turns out she's not black, but Indian. The daughter of a convenience store owner, the first in her family to attend college.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
University of Caucasians Living among Asians.
“He’s a Fairfax High graduate with a checkered history: a series of dead-end jobs, a 10-month prison term for passing bad checks, unrelenting family drama.”
...guess his checkered past all counts favorably as part of his “holistic” application package.
“Please describe any aspects of your personal background, accomplishments, or achievements that will allow the department to evaluate your contributions to the University’s diversity mission. For example, please discuss any academic research interests focusing on cultural, societal, or educational problems as they affect underserved segments of society; educational experiences that provide an understanding how to address the academic needs of underrepresented students, or evidence of an intention to use the doctoral degree toward serving disadvantaged individuals or populations. In addition, please describe any aspects of your personal background that might add to the diversity of the graduate group, such as experience living in bicultural communities, experience with barriers in access to higher education, multicultural competency, economic challenges, fluency in other languages, physical or mental disability, or other life experiences that will enable you to address the needs of our diverse society in your scholarly career.”
-UCLA Grad Film School application
What a bunch of crap!! Whenever Black people can't/won't qualify for something, they change the rules.
Typical North campus “news” piece. If you were a hard science major you just smirked at these folks on your daily Bruin Walk commute.
University of Chinese Immigrants ......
That may be true. But the Chinese students play by the rules. They are generally good at school and doing well in the tests. I respect that. But the jump of the number of black freshmen at UCLA is ABNORMAL. Kudos to the professor!
Hey! I was admitted to this department this year. I am a conservative Republican, and I just started Grad school at UCLA for an MA in Critical Studies for the Film and TV department. I know, everyone is a bunch of liberals, but I love my school already.
The Bruin Republicans will be at the Palin rally this weekend!
Woohoo!
"She told me it was just a difficult day for everybody. They were busy, frustrated . . . Not to take it personally. Because it wasn't about me at all. I was ready to believe it was racism, but she kind of took me behind the scenes to look at it from another way."
She was confused about who was Black and then ended up getting a ridiculous interview with a 40-year old freshman after getting blown off by other black students. The older guy was the only one she could find to mouth her preconceptions about what Blacks should be saying. What a worthless article.
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