Sunday, October 12, 2008

My thoughts on Affirmative Action in Education

In my opinion Affirmative Action should be allowed in the college admission process. I feel that having people of different colors, religions, genders and races benefits the entire educational system. All to often we hear people site the above three cases, but these cases have to be more complicated than what can be conveyed in a few simple paragraphs.


It is always said that the minorities GPA's ,MCAT or LSAT scores were not as good as the white students, but as we all know colleges and universities look and more than just test scores and GPA's when admitting someone. For Undergraduate admissions they look at high school involvement and for graduate or professional school they look at undergraduate campus involvement.


For example say a white student has a 4.o GPA and an excellent ACT or SAT score, but does no activities in their high school, while a black student might have a 3.5 GPA and a decent but not stellar ACT or SAT score, however the black student plays two sports, is in the high school band, is in student government, has a summer job and volunteers at a local retirement home on weekends, which student would be an asset to the classroom?


Call me biased but I would say the student with the extracurricular activities and community involvement would be the better asset and not just because he or she is black.


For the facts about how Affirmative Action benefits women as well as people of color please follow this link to the National Organization of Women's Web site:http://www.now.org/issues/affirm/talking.html


After clicking the link and learning the truth about Affirmative Action, feel free to leave any comments or concerns: Do you agree or disagree with my opinion?
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2 comments:

S. Tebben said...

I like that you're really putting yourself out there for the public, so they have a straight view of who you. But when you say "it is always said" that minorities have lower GPAs and stuff, who says that? Maybe there's a news report or a study explaining that, or explaining the stereotype.
This is a really good idea though, I'm interested to see what else you do with it.

October 29, 2008 at 7:14 AM
Don Jason said...

I understand what you are saying. I tried to get as much information as I could, and I will try to dig for more information. However as a black male college student I have heard people make ignorant comments and generalizations about me and people who are at Ohio University on a diversity scholarship. I understand that my color played a role in getting me to OU however, it is my intelligence and willingness to work hard that has kept me here for almost three years.

A common reply to the issue of minorities and GPA’s and test scores is: “We need a study or some statically research” to prove my point is valid, however that is preaching to the choir or telling people something they already know is true. Common sense would tell anyone that if you go to an inadequate school with outdated textbooks, no technological access and no resources financially or otherwise, GPA won’t be as high and scores on national Standardized tests will be lower. This goes for any student in school regardless of race, but who generally gets stuck in the poorly funded inner-city schools? Minorities, Black and Latino students because they live in the communities surrounding these schools. I come from Cincinnati Ohio and most of the inner-city high schools are filled with black students and the suburban schools are predominantly white. I ran track and did swimming in high school so I got to see many of the high schools in Cincinnati when I went to different meets and there was no comparison among the inner city schools and the suburban schools. The inner city schools were in disrepair and the Suburban schools were new and state-of –the art. So we can either sit around waiting for a study to state the obvious or we can talk about the real issue at hand?

November 2, 2008 at 7:41 PM

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