#college admissions

[lifewithchronicpain]

Affirmative action was never about picking a black person for a college based on just being black. It doesn't "take a spot" from deserving white people.

It acknowledges that unconscious bias will lead people to overwhelmingly discount POC candidates who are more than qualified. Their race is used to color all their accomplishments, and usually negatively. Also that race and racism affect how much access to a good education they have. Affirmative action attempted to negate that bias and allow access to POC who Are qualified and deserve a spot.

Meanwhile, without affirmative action, more of the most pathetic white boy rich kids will get into Harvard and totally think it was because they just worked really hard.

Fuck the Supreme Court

#supreme court #affirmative action #racism #racial bias #college admissions #scotus #us politics

[bitchesgetriches]

Hello lovely bitches! I need some advice 🥲

Basically, the FAFSA fucked me over. They didn’t fix their algorithm to account for modern poverty and inflation, and I’m currently ineligible for Pell. This is an issue because—spoiler alert—I’m poor! I am financially eligible for Pell! I’m contacting FAFSA and my local senators about this really grave computer error.

Is there anything I can do financially to help save money in this time? Or at least anything I can do to freak out less 😅

Darling, we are SO PROUD OF YOU for contacting your reps and the FAFSA people. That is exactly what you should be doing, and it's not easy so good on ya. Let us know how it goes.

Other than that, this is everything we know about paying for school:

How To Pay for College Without Selling Your Soul to the Devil 

Also, the comments are open if anyone else has ideas!

Did we just help you out? Tip us!

#how to pay for college #FAFSA #college admissions #tuition #paying for college #scholarships

[commonsensecommentary]

The disastrous decline of American higher education has been obvious for decades, but it has been in everyone’s career and financial interest to ignore it. Now we are living with the consequences.

(From my blog archive)

#education #higher education #college #college admissions #college readiness #the college scam #save america

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #twitter #tweet #vaush #vaush good #@vaushv #affirmative action #discrimination #bigots #303 creative llc v. elenis #students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard #2023 #us supreme court #scotus #college admissions

[bixiebeet]

Question for the fandom: what do you think the Ghostbusters wrote about in their college/grad school admissions essays?

#ghostbusters #ghostbusters 1984 #the real ghostbusters #egon spengler #janine melnitz #winston zeddemore #peter venkman #ray stantz #college admissions #college advice #college au #is this just a silly topic??!

[metis-metis]

If you’re looking for resources for access into studying Classics/Archaeology/Ancient History at university, and/or access into Oxford University, watch this space!

@thatbarrowgirl and I are working on something, coming soon!

#tagamemnon #classics #ancient history #archaeology #history #academia #greece #ancient rome #rome #ancient greece #dark academia #light academia #oxford #oxbridge #oxford university #university #university admissions #college #college admissions

[hotvampireadjacent]

I’m asking leddit since they’re good for advice like this but I’ll post it here bc there’s more trans people who might know here. Copy and pasting what I posted:

Hello, I’m going to be applying to law school in the future but I’ve had a name change since my undergrad degree. My question is how should I present my degree? Do I contact the university I graduated from’s office and ask for an updated one? Is that a thing I can do? Anyone who has applied to something similar like a masters or phd program have advice? It’s a first name change and not a last name.

#name change advice #college admissions #PhD admissions #I know it’s not a PhD program but like both require undergrad info

[idllyastuff]

YALL GOT UPGRADED IN 2ND ROUND OF DU!!

It's a pretty good college, my mother did her graduation from here and she's so happy for me right now. And moreover I got English hons (my desired course, so happy seeing my mothers reaction, right now.

Gonna join from 16th!! Officially a delhi university gal.

Still gonna wait for the 3rd list tho, might get more upgradation.

Thank you kanha!

#desiblr #desitumblr #Delhi university #college admissions #desi relatable #desi life #kanha #krishnablr #gopiblr

[serpentinesheldonserpentine]

For the heck of it

I read through the requirements and application process for a PhD at a damn fine Ivy League university- , not my present one. There’s a section devoted to telling my story of my struggles and how that has shaped me. I’m fucking serious. So I’m writing “I was fairly dim and pleasantly lit throughout most of my formal schooling and that definitely interfered with my ability to earn better grades. Plus I got “invited to not return” to my first college because I was too cool for those lame-o’s.

#college admissions

[action]

Supreme Court guts affirmative action in college admissions

The Biden administration has vowed to take "swift action" to support diversity in higher education in the face of the Supreme Court's ruling gutting affirmative action, laying out a series of steps it will take through the Department of Education and other relevant agencies.

Check out the article above to stay on top of updates

#signal boost #politics #affirmative action #higher education #college admissions #supreme court

[lifewithchronicpain]

So when are we going to remove legacy admissions? If anything is unfair in the college admissions process, it's children of alumni, typically white and wealthy, can have that be used in their favor. Any plans to do away with that? No? Typical.

#affirmative action #racism #college admissions #supreme court #scotus

[obsidianstrawberrymilk]

Something I don’t see many people talking about is how that scene in the school’s councilor's office with Miles and his parents like. Fully demonstrates how shallow and infuriating the college admissions process in America is. Like yes you need to start preparing at 15 to even have a shot at top colleges, yes you need to have a ‘story’ as a teenager, yes if you come from a certain background you’re assumed to have struggled. Yes, use your trauma and issues and rebrand it all nice and neat but make sure it doesn’t seem like it actually affected you badly or you’ll be seen as a liability. Package yourself and whittle yourself into nothing but a shiny statue who’s never failed at all in one of the most confusing periods of your life. Market yourself. Sell yourself. You are a product, not a person.

#it was such a small scene but it really shook me in how relatable it was tbh #god i just. going through this rn i hate the college admissions process so much #across the spiderverse #miles morales #college admissions

[commonsensecommentary]

“The current model of higher education, one featuring runaway spending and punitive intellectual rigidity, cannot survive.”

#affordability #cancel culture #censorship #college #college admissions #college readiness #critical thinking #economics #education #education reform #free speech #freedom of speech #higher education #online education #political polarization #remote learning #student loans #teaching #Online education

[blueberryshelves]

_______________________________________________

Book Review

Title: The Ivies Author: Alexa Donne

Series: stand-alone

No. of Pages: 336

ISBN:  9780593303733 (paperback) 9780593303702 (hardcover) 9780593303726 (ebook)

Synopsis:

Enroll in this boarding school thriller about a group of prep school elites who would kill to get into the college of their dreams...literally."

The Plastics meet the Heathers in this murder mystery about ruthless Ivy League ambition." -Kirkus Reviews Everyone knows the Ivies: the most coveted universities in the United States. Far more important are the Ivies. The Ivies at Claflin Academy, that is. Five girls with the same mission: to get into the Ivy League by any means necessary. I would know. I'm one of them. We disrupt class ranks, club leaderships, and academic competitions...among other things. We improve our own odds by decreasing the fortunes of others. Because hyper-elite competitive college admissions is serious business. And in some cases, it's deadly. Alexa Donne delivers a nail-biting and timely thriller about teens who will stop at nothing to get into the college of their dreams. Too bad no one told them murder isn't an extracurricular.

_______________________________________________

What did I think of the book?

The Ivies by Alexa Donne My rating: ⭐ 1 of 5 stars (1.5 really) *Disclaimer: Spoilers.* So far, my experience with author youtubers who give advice on writing hasn't been great. The advice is usually solid, and in Alexa Donne's case, I found many of her videos really helpful for figuring out what was wrong with my own writing practices. However, I'm starting to realize why best selling authors with strong prose, plot, and characters, tend to NOT be youtubers. Author youtubers seem to excel at teaching, and giving information, but their actual writing doesn't tend to reflect their apparent knowledge (speaking from my own experiences). So, here lands The Ivies. This is the first of Alex Donne's work that I've read, and I'm totally confused. Despite the fact that the book had me finishing it in two days, rapidly going through page after page on the edge of my seat with it's insane rabbit hole; it left me feeling that the story just wasn't finished. I don't mean "finished" as in, there needs to be a second book; I mean, in the end, no one really solved anything, and there was no closure on the murder. No one changed or grew or improved, if anything, the characters just became even more unhinged as the book went on until it lead to a deflating reveal of the actual killer with a horrifically ridiculous motive. The story was drowned in red herrings and misleads to the point of suffocating the fun out of the book. They were so frequent, and so many that it became downright frustrating and exhausting to read. There were more loose ends that were never tied up than a torn knitted jumper. The "false" reveal was a lot more tense and interesting to read, and the book honestly could have cut out the entirety of act 3 for me, and skipped to the end. The pacing was good in the first half of the book, but suffered in the second half, and dragged on. By the end, I began to suspect Olivia, the MC. Maybe this wasn't the intention, but her choices at the end of the book made me seriously consider if I just got mind-fucked by what she was narrating to herself for the entire story, and she really was the killer all along. Might explain why she never got anywhere in her "investigation" or withholding information from authority for her so-called friends, and we're just being lied to as the readers (she did, after all, have access to everything apparently). While the writing style was easy to get into, it had one issue: Too. Much. Telling. (and swearing…). At the end of almost every chapter, whatever big revelation occurred in the chapter is just told to you in black and white, rather than letting you ride the wave of the realization in your own head. Much of the natural tension of having the realizations on my own as the reader were completely lost, and ruined every tension bubble attempted to be created. It worked great for the end of the first chapter, but it just didn't for the rest. The same can be said for all the schemes the Ivies apparently did. We're just told they happened, but we never get to see these girls actually in action from their PoV. Favorite character/s: Well, not many of the characters are "likeable". It's almost laughable how unlikeable the characters are to the point of 'okay, I kind of hate you all, but I want to know how far the rabbit hole goes, so…'. What drew me to the book? I wanted a thriller to study that wouldn't give me nightmares, and finally check out Alexa Donne's work. Stars: 1.5/5, pretty interesting concept, but too many problems with the execution of it. View all my reviews

#book review #the ivies #alexa donne #murder mystery #college admissions #lies and backstabbing #thriller #fiction #booklr #bookblr #book blog #books #bookish #bookworm #books and reading #book photography

[a-very-zilly-gooze]

people who know me irl know that i am a raging ohioan and TODAY I GOT ACCEPTED INTO OHIO STATE (which is my second choice school but also the home of my people) AND I FELL OUT OF MY CHAIR DURING MATH.

like i knew i was good enough to get in but like i actually got in!!!

yippee!!!

#ohio #ohio state buckeyes #osu #ohio state university #college admissions #if my dream college fails at least i can return to my ancestral homeland of #columbus ohio #aghghghggh i’m so excited!!!

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

What is your take on the Supreme Courts decision to to uphold the ban on race as a deciding factor for admission to college?

“I just opened a brown girl who’s an 810 [SAT].”

“If its brown and above a 1300 [SAT] put them in for [the] merit/Excel [scholarship].”

“Still yes, give these brown babies a shot at these merit $$.”

“I am reading an Am. Ind.”

“[W]ith these [URM] kids, I’m trying to at least give them the chance to compete even if the [extracurriculars] and essays are just average.”

“I don’t think I can admit or defer this brown girl.”

“perfect 2400 SAT All 5 on AP one B in 11th”  “Brown?!” “Heck no. Asian.” “Of course. Still impressive.”

“I just read a blk girl who is an MC and Park nominee.”....

“Stellar academics for a Native Amer/African Amer kid.”....

“I’m going through this trouble because this is a bi-racial (black/white) male.”

This, as noted by Coleman Hughes in his recent "10 Notes on the End of Affirmative Action" post, is the ugly racist reality of "Affirmative Action." The above logs from Harvard's chat system come directly from the Supreme Court documents. This is how the sausage is made. This is racial discrimination.

If what these institutions are doing is so good, then it's curious that this process is not made transparent. Harvard were even insisting that they don't do it, simply because they changed the name so that, technically, they were telling the truth. Shouldn't they be proud of their "equity" work? If it's something that's good, own it.

A lot of the discourse around this is exactly the same tactics we've seen with CRT and gender stuff: "Literally nobody is doing this, but if they are doing it then it's a good thing and you're a bigot for trying to stop it. But nobody's doing it so that's why we have to stop it from being banned. Because of the fact it's not happening." #KettleLogic

They should also be honest with applicants. After all, Harvard's motto is Veritas (i.e. "truth").

https://colemanhughes.substack.com/p/10-notes-on-the-end-of-affirmative

Imagine if every college rejection letter contained an honest account of why every kid was rejected. Imagine, for example, if the Asian-American kid who would have gotten into Harvard were she not Asian received an honest statement attesting to that fact in her rejection letter: “We regret to inform you that you’ve been rejected in part because you are Asian-American. Had you been black or Hispanic with otherwise identical qualifications, we would have accepted you.” 

Coleman didn't go further, but I'd like to suggest the text for an acceptance letter: "We're pleased to inform you that you've been accepted to Harvard. This has occurred in part because of the color of your skin. Had you been white or Asian with otherwise identical qualifications, we would have deemed you as unsuitable."

Welcome to Harvard.

These institutions are neither transparent nor honest. This fact alone suggests they know what they're doing is wrong.

This is the result of what Harvard's system produces.

Sources:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/20-1199_hgdj.pdf - Case

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/is-it-time-to-replace-race-with-class-in-affirmative-action/ - Chart

That is, an Asian person in the top 90-100 range on the academic index (higher scores are better) has a lower chance of acceptance than a black person in the 30-40 range.

Let's be frank: this is about expensive social signaling. Luxury beliefs.

Expensive, because it throws both black and Asian people under the bus. It's a way for elite progressives to signal how Good™ they are, without doing anything. Because it means they never have to wonder what could be done to actually lift black academic performance upwards, instead of lowering standards.

There's some suspicion that the quoted tweet is a parody account, but the fact it's so hard to tell these days means it kind doesn't even matter.

"You see that over here students are struggling, and instead of helping them more, you say, 'alright, well, we'll accept your failure.'" -- Dr. Amir Whitaker

If you're trying to "solve" academic disparity in the gap between high school graduation and university admission, you're out of your damned mind, you're over a decade too late, and you have no clue what the causes are, and therefore whether your "solution" will even do anything.

For example, it's uncontroversial that SAT scores correlate to study time, and that lower study time also corresponds to lower household income.

[ Source: https://www.brookings.edu/articles/analyzing-the-homework-gap-among-high-school-students/ ]

Why, and how can we address this, are all very interesting and worthwhile questions to pursue; there are few studies of enquiry that would be more noble and worthwhile.

Here's the thing: Roland Fryer did uplift very low performing black students to above the level of white students. But it took hard work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8xWOlk3WIw

• "Aggressive Human Capital Management" - i.e. firing lots of teachers "You ask the teachers what you think you need to educate these kids. We got answers like, 'well, all we need is smarter kids.' I said, 'all you need is a new job.'" • Extra time "If you're behind, you either got to spend more time, or ask the white kids to please take Thursday and Friday off." • Small tutoring groups • Use data to drive instruction • High expectations and no excuses for failure

All of this is doable. It won't even cost all that much. But doing the hard work around student study time, performance expectations, staff management, etc, isn't as glamorous as online screaming to show off your progressive bona fides by calling everyone a racist. #MoreHomework isn't a hashtag that's going to go viral. And there's a certain class of person - usually white progressive elites - who wants to claim that the above common sense, pragmatic list is some kind of cloaked message of racism. "bLaMiNg pOc iNsTeAd oF DiSmAnTLInG SyStEmIc rAcIsM" or whatever. You know the song; it's the same one they always sing.

There are dozens of other problems in the way the US education system works which I've talked about before: teaching reading the wrong way; stupid woke classes in fake-math rather than real math; the lack of a fixed, defined curriculum; the pathological avoidance of teaching content. Many of these issues are magnified at the lower socio-economic classes. The failures in teaching reading, for example, can be offset among those in the middle-class if you're engaged in reading at home with involved parents and access to books. In poorer households with parents - or indeed, single-parents - who are time-poor and where books might not be as plentiful, the deficiencies of the education system aren't as likely to be mitigated at home.

So the problem often isn't an issue of race but of poverty. People pay attention to it as it affects race, but that misses the rest of the forest.

Remember the Harvard academic decile rankings table I posted earlier? It comes from an article by Ian Rowe titled "Is It Time to Replace Race with Class in Affirmative Action?" It makes, obviously, the case that assistance should be applied at the level of socioeconomics, not race. The idea that middle and upper-class black people - and yes, most black Americans are middle-class - need assistance, while poor whites, such as the Appalachian areas, do not and are "privileged," is pretty perverted. It assumes black people are incapable, while also redirecting help from people who would benefit from it, simply because they're white. It makes gross assumptions about everyone, while helping very few. If you help poor people, you'll help poor black people as well. Which is what the left used to be about. Remember those days?

I mean, have you ever actually looked at the Nation's Report Card? It's a portrait of a broken, inadequate education system.

[ Source: https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/dashboards/schools_dashboard.aspx ]

My point being that by the time you're talking about admission to university, it's already too late. This should have been addressed right from the beginning as children start school. Then you would have closer parity in terms of academic results, and closer parity in academic admissions.

One other thing that should be mentioned is something I recall John McWhorter discussing which is called "mismatch."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CU3hQfyEKQ

Studies on mismatch show that those lowered academic standards cause black people to attend schools where they're less likely to earn degrees than they otherwise would be.

That is, throwing a student of average academic capability into an elite institution is more likely to have them either fail out or drop out. It would be better to have them attend a university better fitting with their academic ability.

Especially as it relates to ambition. Why everybody needs to aspire to a pretentious, expensive - and let's not forget, woke, as clearly demonstrated - university as Harvard is beyond me.

“I wouldn't want to belong to a club that would have me as a member” -- Groucho Marx

Maybe that's just me, though.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0465029965/

Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It's Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won't Admit It Sander and Taylor have long admired affirmative action's original goals, but after many years of studying racial preferences, they have reached a controversial but undeniable conclusion: that preferences hurt underrepresented minorities far more than they help them. At the heart of affirmative action's failure is a simple phenomenon called mismatch. Using dramatic new data and numerous interviews with affected former students and university officials of color, the authors show how racial preferences often put students in competition with far better-prepared classmates, dooming many to fall so far behind that they can never catch up. Mismatch largely explains why, even though black applicants are more likely to enter college than whites with similar backgrounds, they are far less likely to finish; why there are so few black and Hispanic professionals with science and engineering degrees and doctorates; why black law graduates fail bar exams at four times the rate of whites; and why universities accept relatively affluent minorities over working class and poor people of all races.

And even for black students who legitimately make the admissions standards, their framed Harvard certification will have a cloud permanently cast over it. Did the black Harvard-attending economist you're interviewing for your company get there by merit or by lowered standards? Should you even bother with Harvard graduates any more?

Some of the other discourse is like "you're going to stop affirmative action..." - i.e. racial discrimination - "...but you're not going to stop legacy admissions!?" This is literally WhatAboutism. Both things can be wrong and unfair. "This thing being wrong justifies us doing this other wrong thing."

This case is about race-based selection, filed by Asian students who were being racially discriminated against. The case was not about legacies. You don't rule on a case that nobody has presented. And as far as I know, legacies are not explicitly in violation of the U.S. Constitution. If you think legacies should go away, then make the case. Find something in the Constitution, find a legal precedent, or make a challenge some other way.

But don't make excuses for perpetrating one wrong thing on the basis of another wrong thing.

Coleman's analysis is interesting and goes into depth, so is worth a read.

I won't reproduce the whole thing here, but the headings are worth a read at least:

“Affirmative Action” is a Euphemism for Racial Discrimination

“Affirmative Action” Affects the Elites, Not the Masses

The Benefits of “Affirmative Action” are Dubious

Mismatch is Real

“Affirmative Action” is Not the Product of The Civil Rights Movement

Quotas are a Red herring

We’re Confused About Diversity 

Affirmative Action as Reparations?

The Equilibrium Will Change

If Not Affirmative Action, then What?

Finally, what I will say is that it's simultaneously interesting, gratifying and alarming all at the same time to witness the open and proud denunciation of the "colorblind" ideal espoused by MLK Jr, by people purporting to be "progressive."

When you criticize "equity" as discrimination by authoritarians to artificially manufacture their pet outcomes, people sometimes act like you're just making it up. Then a reaction like this happens and people start saying the quiet bit out loud, proving you right. Not that you necessarily want to be.

#ask #Supreme Court #affirmative action #Coleman Hughes #John McWhorter #university admissions #college admissions #racial discrimination #higher education #corruption of education #meritocracy #make merit matter #merit #neoracism #antiracism as religion #antiracism #bigotry of low expectations #colorblind #colorblindness #religion is a mental illness