• lily33@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    Why? Colleges can still give preference to students who live in poor neighborhoods or bad school districts. What’s the problem with that approach?

    • fart@sh.itjust.worksOP
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      1 year ago

      my understanding was that affirmative action is about creating a diverse student body

      • lily33@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        I see it as compensating for disadvantages people have. So, if one student has lower test scores, but achieved them despite going to an underfunded school and having a part-time job, then that student scores are actually more impressive than someone else who scored better, but had private tutors throughout high school. Once you account for people’s disadvantages, you should naturally get more diverse student body.

        And of course minority students have disadvantages that should be accounted for. But they don’t affect everyone the same, and racial quotas is a very lazy way to do this. Instead, admissions should look at the individual circumstances of each student.

        • assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          It’s also worth pointing out, high flying students will do fine wherever they go. Cream rises to the top. They’ll be fine no matter where they go.

      • Derproid@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Diversity of opinion, background, and perspective is important. Diversity of skin color is meaningless on it’s own.

      • dustojnikhummer@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        And in the real world it goes against them. What prevents someone from thinking “why should I trust your degree when you had easier time getting in?”, same with all diversity quotas