Affirmative Action: Preferential Treatment Essay

During the college procedure. pupils are advised in multiple ways on how to properly present themselves to pull the entreaty of colleges. Whether it is by foregrounding their awards. achievements or endowments. pupils are invariably working on bettering their sketch. They were told that with good classs. extracurricular activities. and heart-warming essays that they would happen success in being admitted into a esteemed university. However. there are assorted other factors that determine whether one is accepted or denied. An of import and frequently scrutinized factor is the usage of affirmatory action in admittances. While affirmatory action should non keep the weight it does in admittances presently. it seems that people are incognizant of the other discriminatory interventions given to certain pupils. Af?rmative action in favour of underrepresented minorities has been a controversial subject debated and scrutinized by bookmans. the media. and the populace for many old ages.

Two other discriminatory admittances plans have been less controversial but in widespread usage ; one affecting giving an admittances encouragement to appliers with athletic accomplishments and the other one to kids of alumnas. normally known as “legacies” . As these assorted classs suggest. entry into selective establishments of higher instruction has ne’er been decided strictly on academic criteria—before or after minority af?rmative action came into consequence. As the term “affirmative action” encompasses the ideal that establishments promote diverseness and growing by including historically excluded groups in their admittances. bequest admittances and athletic admittances are considered “affirmative” . ( Massey and Mooney 99-117 ) They do originate from really different motives. but they bring non-academic standards that impact the admittances procedure.

Therefore. by attaching the label “af?rmative action” to bequest and athletic admittances. it is intentionally underlining the fact that minorities are non the lone societal group to profit from such a policy. Supporters of affirmatory action claim that minority pupils. by and large talking. get down out at a disadvantage in their college or occupation application procedure. They normally come from lower income households and. in bend. have fewer chances than those who go to private school. Some interior metropolis young persons had grown up in environments filled with offense. force. and disheartenment. Genuine. hard-working minority pupils are every spot every bit capable as white pupils. but because of these disadvantages. they may non hold the same paper makings. Affirmative action evens the playing field a spot. ( Massey and Mooney 99-117 ) However. it was designed to stop favoritism and unjust intervention of employees/students based on colour. but it in consequence does the antonym.

White persons who work harder and/or are more qualified can be passed over purely because they are white. Contrary to many stereotypes. many minorities fall into the center or upper category. and many Whites live in poorness. ( Fletcher ) Unfortunately. the manner things are set up now. a destitute white pupil who uses subject and difficult work to go the best he can be can be passed over by a rich minority pupil who doesn’t put in much attempt at all. Supporters besides claim that some stereotypes may ne’er be broken without affirmatory action. For decennaries inkinesss were considered less capable than Whites. It took affirmatory action to give inkinesss the chance to demo they are every spot as capable. However. if you were to inquire Colin Powell. Barack Obama. or Oprah Winfrey how they got to where they today. I doubt they would react with affirmatory action. ( Fletcher ) It sets the thought that a minority can non accomplish full potency without the aid of affirmatory action and sabotage their ain abilities.

Another claim protagonists of affirmatory usage is that it draws people to topographic points they would ne’er hold gone elsewise. conveying under-privileged pupils to Ivy League establishment. But if a pupil is admitted on a lower footing. he will hold less incentive to make good or have the inability to maintain up with the work. Why work for that 4. 0 GPA when he got in with sub-par classs? In this manner. affirmatory action is likened to pupils who are given a encouragement for being “legacies” . holding a parent ( s ) attend the school antecedently. A study conducted by H. M. Breland found that af?rmative action for kids of alumna is practiced widely at both public and private establishments ( Howell and Turner 325-351 ) . A ulterior study conducted by Daniel Golden ( 2003 ) revealed that 23 per centum of freshers enrolled at Notre Dame were the kids of alumnas. with corresponding ?gures of 14 per centum at Penn. 13 per centum at Harvard. 11 per centum at Princeton. and 11 per centum at the University of Virginia ( Howell and Turner 325-351 ) .

These Numberss seem to be comparatively modest ; nevertheless. they belie the comparatively little sum of appliers bequests hold. When documenting the figure of appliers. it is easy seen that kids of alumnas benefit from greater admittances rates. Harmonizing to surveies by William G. Bowen and Derek Bok ( 1998 ) . bequests had a two to one admittances advantage over non-legacies. Likewise. Cameron Howell and Sarah E. Turner ( 2004 ) papers a similar advantage at the University of Virginia. where merely 32 per centum of regular appliers were admitted compared with 57 per centum of alumni kids. As a consequence. the first-year category of 2002 was 7 per centum bequest. compared with 3 percent African American. even though the province is 20 per centum black. ( Massey and Mooney 99-117 )

The unfairness that follows bequest admittances is what many feel towards affirmatory action every bit good. By giving blacks/Hispanics an obvious advantage in the admittances procedure. it breeds bitterness and underestimate of them. In the same manner bequests are generalized as “dumb rich kids” . receivers of affirmatory action are seen as unworthy. ( Massey and Mooney 99-117 ) It seems to state that they wouldn’t have been able to be admitted into the school elsewise. therefore increasing the force per unit area put onto these pupils.

The effects translate to pupils being unable to manage the work load. By turning off extremely qualified Asian/white pupils in favour of less qualified black/Hispanic pupils. it is non just for either race. Harmonizing to Dr. Richard Sander. Professor of Law at UCLA. inkinesss are two and a half times more likely than Whites non to graduate and are four times more likely to neglect the saloon test on the first attempt. ( Fletcher ) To carry through their thirst for diverseness. colleges frequently recruit pupils from below the median. As a consequence. they are sick equipped to manage the force per unit areas of such a strict school and have a smaller opportunity of graduating.

It is non to state that affirmatory action is non needed. A homogeneous population would do for an unproductive and nonmoving pupil organic structure. Diversity is needed for growing and experiences that differ. In this manner. you can see the clear advantage of affirmatory action over bequest admittances. Despite affirmatory action being flawed. the advantage is at least given to. who is supposed to be. the deprived party. Legacy admittances should hold no topographic point in the college admittances universe. It is giving an advantage to pupils who are likely are non in great demand of it if their parents attended a esteemed university Supporters of bequest admittances claim that contributions from alumnas contribute to edifice redevelopments and technological ascents. every bit good as back uping fiscal assistance plans for many financially deprived pupils. ( Golden ) Bequest pupils are besides thought to better understand the sense of tradition of the university and embody the values that the university has traditionally supported.

That sounds good. but how true is it? Three elite schools that are large on bequest penchants – Harvard. Princeton. and Yale – rank near the underside when it comes to the per centum of pupils from poorer households they have. harmonizing to Professor Jerome Karabel in his book The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard. Yale. and Princeton. ( Steinberg ) Good pupils from hapless households are frequently deprived of admittance because of the bequest tradition — they are less often helped by the extra financess that the bequest tradition brings to the school. Contrary to what bequest guardians argue. it is dubious that dropping bequest penchants has any important impact on contributions to a university.

Texas A & A ; M and the University of Georgia are among the big universities that have abandoned bequest penchants and neither has suffered a noticeable diminution in support. ( Howell and Turner 325-351 ) In add-on. Massey and Mooney found that. “In schools with a stronger committedness to bequest admittances. the kids of alumnas were more likely to drop out. Ironically. the lone grounds we find of a accomplishments mismatch is for the kids of alumnas.

The greater the spread between a bequest student’s SAT and the institutional mean SAT. the lower the classs he or she earned. though the consequence size was modest. ( 99-117 ) They compared the figure of hours studied per hebdomad. the “psychological public presentation burden” reported by pupils. classs earned by pupils through the terminal of their sophomore twelvemonth. and the likeliness of pupils dropping out of school by spring of their junior twelvemonth. The survey concluded that bequests who were given a greater admittances bonus earned lower classs one time admitted. a fact which surprised many. including some admittances functionaries. ( 99-117 )

However. although affirmatory action and bequest intervention are both found to be big non-academic factors in the college admittances procedure. athletic accomplishment is one frequently overlooked and non discussed. It is common cognition that the figure of pupils who excel in both faculty members and sports is excessively little for schools to make full musca volitanss with lone pupil jocks who meet usual admittances criterions. Athletes were shown to hold had a 48 % better opportunity of admittance than regular pupils with similar academic accomplishments in high school and similar standardised trial mark in surveies done during 1999. In comparing. “legacies. ” bore merely a 25 % better opportunity of admittance and minorities stood merely an 18 % better opportunity of admittance. ( Ferris. Finster. and McDonald 555-575 )

The simplest method to see the different criterions used for recruited jocks is to admit the statistics of Division I athletes in “high profile” athleticss. such as football and hoops at public universities. These pupils have SAT tonss that average about 250 points than their non-athletic opposite numbers. While non as extreme. jocks take parting in other athleticss such as golf. tennis. and liquid norm about 100 points less than regular pupils on standardised trial tonss. ( Dolinsky ) The manner that a bulk of these pupil athletes gain admittances is through “special admit” plans designed by the school to accept a group of appliers who do non run into the standard standards.

From 2003 to 2006. more than half of the “special admits” scholarship athletes at San Diego State University had lower standardised trial tonss and high school GPAs than other admitted pupils. In the San Diego State admittances procedure. pupils with deficient certificates may be accepted based on other factors such as socioeconomic background. local residence. and other particular endowments. However. between autumn 2003 and jumping 2006. of the 248 “special admit” pupils admitted by San Diego State. merely 105 were given admittance deliberately. The remainder of the pupils granted admittance had been the consequence of assorted treating mistakes and of those 105 that were given knowing admittance. they were all jocks. ( Ferris. Finster. and McDonald 555-575 )

If there is one thing that is clear. it is that the discriminatory intervention given to jocks in the admittances procedure does hold its effects. One possible effect of acknowledging pupil jocks with academic certificates below their equals is the hazard of academic underperformance by these jocks. ( Dolinsky ) Similar to those shown with pupils of affirmatory action. statistics are clear in showcasing that jocks are underachieving one time they arrive on college campuses. Recently. as more jocks got into schools through advantages in the admittances procedure. their collegial GPAs began to endure. with a bulk of jocks puting in the bottom one-fourth of their categories. In contrast. merely 9 % of jocks finish in the top tierce of their category. ( Espenshade. Chung. and Walling 1422–1446 )

To further exhibit the correlativity between discriminatory intervention in the admittances procedure and academic underperformance. a survey shows that pupil jocks by and large choose alleged “easy” majors—such as societal sciences—rather than the “harder” big leagues such as math. scientific discipline. and technology. One statement for explicating academic underperformance. other than the fact that athletes arrive at college with perceptibly lower academic certificates. is that pupil jocks face the asperities and duties of playing a athletics. practicing. and seeking to split clip between sports and faculty members. However. this statement may hold small virtue as statistics show that an correspondent group to pupil athletes—students who participate in several extracurricular activities—do non underperform at the degree of pupil jocks. ( Dolinsky )

Although this analogy may non account for different types of pupils who are jocks as compared to those pupils who are to a great extent involved on campus. the comparing tends to demo that the clip that athletes spend with their several athleticss does non turn out. in itself. to be a clear ground for academic underperformance. Additionally student jocks already receive a battalion of benefits non given to normal pupils. Often times. they are given precedence enrollment. excess tutoring. and even separate lodging. With the benefit of these excess luxuries. jocks should be able to properly their pull off their clip to equilibrate faculty members and their athletics.

It is non hard to see the correlativity between underperformance at the high school degree and underperformance at the college degree. Nor is it hard to see the correlativity between the admittance of jocks holding below-average trial tonss and high school GPAs and underperformance at the college degree. Possibly this is an unjust stereotype. but there is a ground that this stereotype exists and there is grounds to endorse it up. What is the monetary value that is paid? One illustration is Dexter Manley. former professional football participant for the Washington Redskins. Manley testified in forepart of the United States Senate that he could non read. despite being admitted and remaining at Oklahoma State University for four old ages. ( Espenshade. Chung. and Walling 1422–1446 ) By acknowledging pupils who are non qualified to manage the work load of an undergraduate establishment. the 1s that are hurt the most are some of the 1s who “benefit. ”

Through each of these policies. certain pupils are given a “pull” in the college admittances office over other pupils. In comparing. these three plans are really similar in how they offer pupils an advantage in the system. Each plan requires that you fulfill a certain demand. which is the footing for their policy. They are all affirmatory action policies that factor in something non-academic into your rejection or credence.

With racial affirmatory action being the most controversial and widely discussed. it has seemed that the other two have slipped underneath the radio detection and ranging. All three contribute to a disagreement in the pupil organic structure that will go on to turn unless consciousness is created. Although in a perfect universe. pupils wouldn’t have to worry about such factors. we live in a society where the slightest differences can do or interrupt you. Whatever the effects of af?rmative action in raising or take downing the odds of academic success. the pupils should be cognizant and cognize precisely what they are traveling to acquire themselves into.

Plants Cited
Dolinsky. Anna. “Affirmative Action for Athletes? Jan 12. 2001. ” The Yale Herald. Web. 18 Nov. 2011. & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //yaleherald. com/archive/xxxi/2001. 01. 12/sports/p29. hypertext markup language & gt ; . Espenshade. Thomas J. . Chung. Chang Y. and Walling. Joan L. . Admission Preferences for Minority Students. Athletes. and Legacies at Elite Universities. Social Science Quarterly. No. 85 ( 2004 ) : 1422–1446.

Ferris. Eric. Finster. Mark and McDonald. David. “Academic Fit of Student-Athletes: An Analysis of Ncaa Division I-A Graduation Rates. ” Research in Higher Education Vol. 45. No. 6 ( Sep. . 2004 ) : pp. 555-575. Fletcher. Michael A. “Washingtonpost. com: Affirmative Action Special Report. ” Washington Post: Breaking News. World. US. DC News & A ; Analysis. The Washington Post. 18 June 1998. Web. 18 Nov. 2011. & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. washingtonpost. com/wp-srv/politics/special/affirm/stories/affi
rm062198. htm & gt ; . Golden. Daniel. “The Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition. ” CLassroomEdition. com. The Wall Street Journal. Apr. 2003. Web. 18 Nov. 2011.

& lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //www. wsjclassroomedition. com/archive/03apr/EDUC_legacy. htm & gt ; . Howell. Cameron. and Turner. Sarah E. “Legacies in Black and White: The Racial Composition of the Legacy Pool. ” Research in Higher Education Vol. 45. No. 4 ( Jun. . 2004 ) : pp. 325-351 Massey. Douglas S. . and Mooney. Margarita. “The Effects of America’s Three Affirmative Action Programs on Academic Performance. ” Social Problems Vol. 54. No. 1 ( February 2007 ) : pp. 99-117 Steinberg. Jacques. “‘Affirmative Action for the Rich’ – NYTimes. com. ” College Admissions Advice – The Choice Blog – NYTimes. com. The New York Times. 23 Sept. 2011. Web. 18 Nov. 2011. & lt ; hypertext transfer protocol: //thechoice. web logs. nytimes. com/2010/09/23/legacy/ & gt ; .