Con: University of Michigan’s point system gives an unfair advantage to minority groups.
By John Adams
Staff Writer
War with Iraq, nuclear weapons in North Korea, al-Qaida, the University of Michigan point system? What? How can one be concerned with an admissions system at the University of Michigan while threats of global destruction and certain doom dominate the headlines? Don’t we have more pressing issues to discuss?
Yet the issues enveloped in the previously inconsequential University of Michigan admissions board should strike a chord with every student and faculty member at Pepperdine University and the citizenry of the United States. Racial politics, reverse discrimination, a flawed admissions process, a country divided and George W. Bush. Sound interesting? Let the argument begin.
Place yourself into the following (hypothetical) scenario: You are a senior in high school, applying for admission to the University of Michigan College of Literature, Science and the Arts. The school is perfect for you and you are certain you will be accepted; after all you do have a high grade point average, good Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and wrote a superb essay. Your friend also applied to the same school but is substantially less qualified. You receive a letter from the University of Michigan, and proceed to tear it open with great fervor. You scan the letter, your jaw drops, cold sweat seeps from your pores. You were rejected.
All of these emotions are intensified when you find out your less qualified friend was accepted to the school. How can this be? Your friend is an underrepresented minority and you are not. That’s it, that is the only reason. Grades do not matter, SAT scores are insignificant, and your essay is a minor factor. What matters to the University of Michigan is you are white and your friend is a minority. Is this right? Of course not. Infuriating? Yes. But, unfortunately, this is how the admissions process at the University of Michigan works.
At the University of Michigan, the undergraduate admissions system is based on a scale of 150 points and the law school system is based on a 100-point scale. Minority applicants receive a 20-point bonus solely on the basis of race. To put this in perspective, the essay required for admission to the school is worth only three points in the scale.
To further undermine the efforts of studious individuals, the university uses two different grids to determine a student’s potential at the university.
There is one grid for white applicants and another grid for minority applicants. The minority grid is easier on the applicants than the grid used for white applicants, thus providing minorities with another unfair advantage in the application process.
Reverse discrimination permeates the University of Michigan. When did a check mark in a minority box guarantee an education? For 19 years, I have been taught that education is synonymous with effort.
Success is measured by the work one does to clear the bar, not by lowering the bar to ensure equality of success. Nothing comes easy in life, especially acceptance to a university.
Apparently this is not true at the University of Michigan, where a minority student can be accepted for … well, being a minority. How will equality of results be achieved if the process is flawed? If a minority high school student realizes they can coast through their high school education with minimal effort, graduate, apply to U of M, receive a 20-point bonus for being a minority, then consequently be accepted to the school, does the system in place actually increase opportunity for minorities?
A system of acceptance based entirely on merit would do much more for the minority community than the current system that simply gives them a free pass to the world of higher education.
Granted, America is not the land of equal opportunity, much less equality of results. However, this issue should be corrected at the source of the problem not at a university 18 years ex post facto. Inner city schools do not have the same funding as private schools populated by a majority of white students or public schools in affluent areas.
School systems are funded by taxes, schools in areas of high-tax brackets often receive more funding than schools in low-income areas. The 20-point gift at the University of Michigan should not be a substitute for constructing an environment conducive to learning that would better prepare a person of any color for the regiments of a higher education.
Thus more money should be poured into low-income areas for better teachers, books and classrooms so every student would have the same chance, equal opportunity, to succeed in the university system.
This would render the point system obsolete, increase opportunity for minorities, as well as bolster the will to gain knowledge.
In an ideal educational system, effort equals acceptance, admissions are colorblind and the ones who benefit are the ones that have worked hard enough to deserve a college education.
January 23, 2003