- University admission! Which race do you belong to?
- Posted By:
- Staff Admin
- Posted On:
- 18-Jul-2010
-
Colleges at this time of the year are gearing up for new admissions.
There is a crazy rush in the air and each university worth its salt
awaits the brightest and best students applying for college seats.
However, this year, surprisingly, the University of California
beat Harvard and Yale at the highest number admission applications.
Fifty seven thousand plus applications for freshman year were received
for courses in the fall of 2010. However, not many, in fact about a
quarter or so got in. on whole about a 1, 00,000 students applied for
university education this year in America.
However, there is a hitch. While the University of California should
be happy about receiving so many applicants, there is a problem of
maintaining the balance of diversity amongst the students. The college
is trying to ensure a holistic and a fair approach to review every
admission that comes their way.
An ideal situation for any university campus would be to aim for its
students represent the diverse makeup, both racially and socially, at
the university. But a recent seven-year long study revealed, the
social makeup of the college is skewed.
This is because it is seen that afro-American students who applied for the University of
California, the admit rates for these students has fallen by five
percent. This has been noted since 2003-04 academic year onwards.
However, the Latino students’ admit rate has gone up. This has also to
do with the vast and still growing Latino population in the state of
California.
Therefore, how much ever the university tries to maintain a balance
diverse campus makeup, its not working. In fact, the university has
fallen flat on its face.
So why is this happening? According to a professor at the university,
students should give up on the hate trend. Even though people are
trying, they are not trying hard enough to rid themselves of their
racial bias. This also holds true for the admission selection
committee, who on the surface claim that they are just being
selective.
It is easy for the selection committee to reject the students
belonging to the minority communities. This is because they can easily
state that they are just not good enough and think that no one is
going to question them. The professor further stated that no amount of
new strategy was going to help them in this case.
It would have to be much bigger where they could reach out to the
minority communities and let the deserving students hold a seat at the
university.
It is a shame that deserving students are still being judged on their
racial origins. Every legal citizen in the state of California in the
United States of America has equal rights where education is
concerned.
So why is this happening? How much difference is it going to make to
the university to take an African-American student who is brighter
than the rest? Finally, if he/she succeeds, the university’s flag will
only fly higher.