[257] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: MIT admissions system [was: Re: extropians]
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jimmy_B,MajMoola,MechWarrior,etc._)
Fri Apr 27 20:18:22 2001
Message-Id: <200104280019.UAA07728@MECHWARRIOR.MIT.EDU>
To: Liana Lareau <fyfer@MIT.EDU>
cc: mit-talk@MIT.EDU, spa-discuss@MIT.EDU
In-reply-to: Your message of "Fri, 27 Apr 2001 19:40:25 EDT."
<200104272340.TAA26405@multics.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 20:19:55 EDT
From: "Jimmy_B,MajMoola,MechWarrior,etc._Chien-ta Wu" <jimmbswu@MIT.EDU>
Since there appears to be some confusion, it would be nice if someone with
authority, (perhaps Justin or Zhe), can illuminate us on exactly what is the MIT
system.
And it appears that there is a consensus that everyone here at MIT have what it
takes to succeed, but then, there are also a lot of people rejected from MIT who
also have what it takes. [strictly in the academic area] The debate here is,
should MIT evaluate and accept students based on criteria in addition to
academic ability, or should MIT accept students solely based on academic merit
[Accepting only the best of the best of the best].
Now, Marilee Jones has claimed that MIT only has affirmative recruiting for
underrepresented minority and females, and that MIT does not have affirmative
action for either of these groups. But some of the anti-extropian emails seem
to imply that there does exist an affirmative action type of program for
admissions, for underrepresented minorities, if not a straight out quota. If
that is true, then Marilee's claim that there is only affirmative recruiting for
females becomes suspect.
So that was that,
B, the Defender of Status Quo
ps: I happen to believe that, at this point of our society's evolution, it is
possible to satisfy diversity criterion without resorting to affirmative action
type programs. A race- and sex-blind application form can allow MIT to be just
as diverse as it has been.
If we really do care about solving society's problems, we should banish
affirmative action and instead pour massive funding into making high schools
more rigorous and challenging all across the nation. Affirmative action is the
"quick fix", and continuing to allow affirmative action would allow our
politicians to say, "See, I'm protecting affirmative action, and that is enough
for my constituents." The past 200 years have taught us that, if given the
chance, our politicians will take the easiest way and most popular way to
address the problem, but only rarely will they ever attempt to "solve" the
problem with long-term processes. In order to solve this social problem of
academic performance, we should take away all of the "quick fixes" from our
politicians, and that means opposing affirmative action.
> I was told the same thing, about affirmative recruiting but
> not affirmative action for women. I've always thought that
> was a fairly reasonable approach - if you assume that there
> are still societal gender biases towards choice of field, it
> may be helpful to convince people to go against the bias.
-----------
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But in ourselves, that we are underlings [or losers]"
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In Memory of Michele Micheletti'00, MIT
(She's my camp counselor...)
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