[259] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Affirmative action
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Victoria K. Anderson)
Fri Apr 27 22:49:43 2001
Message-Id: <200104280244.WAA28481@melbourne-city-street.mit.edu>
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2001 22:44:31 -0400
To: mit-talk@MIT.EDU
From: "Victoria K. Anderson" <vkanders@MIT.EDU>
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There's one part of this that I think some people are missing, and that is
that (in my opinion) affirmative action stands to benefit the entire MIT
community. Regardless of any argument regarding who "deserves" to be here,
we all benefit from having a more diverse community. Suppose we did, as
many people suggest we should, simply take the most academically qualified
applicants without looking at the overall demographic makeup of our
community. What purpose would that serve? So we admit the top GPA's and SAT
scores without thinking about anything else. Maybe what we end up with is
what we have now, which is completely passable. Or maybe what we end up
with in our next class is say, 20 fewer underrepresented minorities and 20
people with an SAT score 10 or 20 points higher than the underrepresented
minorities who we would admit with our current method. (from what Jimmy
said in his description of the admissions process, it sounds like this is
what might happen)
WOW. That would sure do a lot for the community (note sarcasm). We would
have a less diverse student body and we would have a few people who scored
*marginally* better on a test that some argue has little meaning. Is that
really what you want out of the community where you are supposed to become
educated and transition into an independent adult?
MIT does turn away a lot of deserving and qualified applicants. And there
are two approaches we could take to deciding how to turn people away. One
is the individually-focused approach, to admit the students deemed "most
deserving" of those who are qualified to attend i.e. highest academic
rankings. The other is the community focused approach, to admit only those
who are deserving and qualified students and from the group of deserving
and qualified students, choose those students who will best create a
community of scholars *together*. In other words, affirmative action does
not necessarily compromise the academic integrity of MIT, since we already
turn away many qualified applicants of all races and both genders, but it
does ensure that we have a diverse academic community. In my opinion, that
type of community is essential for us to see as many viewpoints as possible
and become prepared to work in a world full of diverse communities.
Just my viewpoint on the subject
-Victoria
**********************
Victoria Anderson
MIT Undergraduate Association
Co-Chair, Student Committee on Educational Policy
500 Memorial Drive #428
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 225-8828
