34% of White applicants lied about race to improve acceptance chances.
Recently 1250 White applicants were polled and more than 1/3 revealed they lied on their college application about race to improve their chances of getting admitted. 75% of those who lied matriculated into their college of choice where they lied. White males lied 3 times more than White females. Nearly 50% said they were part Native American/Indigenous, 10% lied about being AIPI Asian Indigenous Pacific Islander. 81% said they did it to increase their chances of getting and 50% said they hoped to get a better Finaid package. I'm curious as to what you think about this? Please vote on the poll.
The fact that more than 5% of you CollegeVine members think this is no big deal is the most shocking thing about this poll thus far. How can you be an ally or the best version of yourself if you turn a blind eye to this and even advocate this? Where is your moral compass people?
The problem is that a lot of them aren't allies in the first place.
Allies to what?
Personally, I believe that your ancestry or even the social construct of "race" does not affect your ability to study and pass tests.
Many esteemed educators would not take your view whatsoever. There is countless research that standardized tests for instance mirror and maintain racial inequality in America. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/12/01/sat-math-scores-mirror-and-maintain-racial-inequity/
So you are saying that asking 671/4 on the test is racist? I am not quite sure what you are suggesting. And additionally, esteemed educators are perfectly entitled to their opinions, but that does not make them right. I just merely mean to say that skin color on a general basis will not affect your skill at filling in the right bubble for the problem 671/4.
And also if a "black" student has less education then should their score be boosted above the "white" student that also had little education?
I would rather want to see White applicants appreciate other cultures and take chances to learn about them than use others' disadvantage for their own gain. This is disturbing.
My dad pointed out this movie called "Soul Man" from 1986 where a White college student goes full "Black Face" in order to reduce the $10,000 Tuition, Room and Board at Harvard Law School. Now it's $104,200 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2zMrjBLwn8
Here is the link to the new article covering this discovery.
https://news.yahoo.com/survey-34-white-college-students-173329031.html
I guess I shouldn't be shocked that 7% of CV members are willing to game the system and take the chance of getting their admission rescinded for blatantly lying. The whole Varsity Blues scandal makes perfect sense since there are so many people that want access to the inner circle that they are willing to commit a crime for it and possibly have their admission revoked and put on a black list. This makes me SAD people.
So something to note is in texas ~70% of people self identify as white but census says ethnically only 50% of texans are white. So yes some Hispanics view themselves as white. I still belive it should be considered lying until an appeal is made.
This is a controversial topic which does need discussion. So thanks @CameronBameron for bringing this up.
This is disgusting, all the privileges white people, especially men have and they do this?
?
Why are you confused? You don’t think white people have a better advantage than POC? Yes schools are trying to accept as many as POC but that’s one of the few advantages POC get compared to white people.
All right. What are some of the "privileges" that white males have?
White males tend to get better jobs, better pay, and more respect. And before recent times, more likely to get into college.
Ok first no company would ever pay a white male more than an equally skilled african american. That would be suicide. As far as better jobs, that depends on what they like to do or what they are good at.
Check out this article https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/racial-wage-gaps-persistence-poses-challenge.aspx
ok so how exactly are you going to measure "equal" work? Also you said that they get better jobs. Where is your source for that?
Also you just took away your argument's validity right there. We are not talking about "racial" advantage, we are talking about school acceptance. And you just admitted that "POCs" have a better chance of acceptance. Case closed.
Sorry about the confusion. When this post was downvoted is was moved away from the post I was replying to. "Why are you confused? You don’t think white people have a better advantage than POC? Yes schools are trying to accept as many as POC but that’s one of the few advantages POC get compared to white people."
Can I ask what the purpose of this poll is? It seems that, while of course I never think lying about yourself is ok, a system that is developed that would encourage lying about your ancestry to gain better admission chances would be the problem.
@CameronBameron could you answer my question? It seems that we can discuss this all day without any apparent purpose if we don't know what the point of this poll is.
I think the only reason people have to lie on these applications is because of the system itself favoring minorities. This will make people that aren't minorities want to also enjoy the benefits of being a minority and lie and claim they are a minority. If we get rid of this system and be Color Blind (Race Blind) and just accept students based on their merits and not their race or social positioning, people would hopefully stop pretending to be something they're not and enjoy the benefits of fairness and colleges would get the students of the merits they want.
This will not work because there is systemic racism in our federal, state, municipal govt, law enforcement, education, and both private and publicly owned businesses. If you make applications "race-blind" then all those who benefit from this system get in while BIPOC marginalized people who do not have good schools, technology, family support and money to compete with White and Asian families will forever be oppressed. You need to do more reading because this solution in 2021 America is not possible.
While that is true, the only other way to prevent White applicants from claiming to be BIPOC is to run ancestry and DNA tests which is much more work and may be impossible for many colleges and universities to do. The easiest way to prevent them from doing so is to remove the incentive to do so. The rapidly rising price of attending college is another problem that creates an incentive but that is an issue that colleges and universities are usually unwilling to tackle since they will profit less than they already are.
I agree entirely. The fact that this post was downvoted because the commenter was stating that a merit-based recruiting system should be merit-based is really quite perplexing.
What are you saying the solution is?
I have been thinking about this for many days and still have not been able to come up with a proper solution. I am at a loss trying to come up with a solution that makes everybody happy.
Yes, there is really no solution to this. I am completely against lying on application forms, but honestly I do want people to be informed.
It's quite unnacceptable and I don't think they know this but affirmative action primarily helps white women, barely even minorities. The average college in the U.S has a 40% or more white student population many of those same colleges having less than 30% minority student populations and specifically having even less than 5% black student populations. So consider a hypothetical school with 50% white students and 3% black students (a very real and possible percentage that I've seen in most schools I would've applied to) a diversity admission would most likely raise the 3% to a 5% and the 50% white student population would be maintained. Nobody considers these things when they complain about racial equity admissions. Colleges have been more concerned about their male population, primarily seeking out white male candidates anyways. It's the affirmative action loophole. So, the notion that they would have a better chance of getting in because they are a minority is ridiculous. Let's not even get into what the college environment is like for minority students at PWIs (Predominately White Institutions). There are less than 300 universities with higher minority populations than white out of the nearly 5,300+ colleges in the whole country. (I'm specifically using black and white students as an example because those two groups have the most educational desparities)
If you are going to quote figures as facts, please name your sources. Also, keep in mind that many elite private colleges like the Ivys have more diversity on campus than public colleges. I think Princeton this past cycle admitted 68% BIPOC students, a record. https://www.princeton.edu/news/2021/04/06/extraordinary-year-princeton-offers-admission-1498-students-class-2025
I don't know what college you are talking about, perhaps BYU Brigham Young U. in Ogden Utah where most students are Mormon.
https://www.theladders.com/career-advice/the-most-diverse-public-universities-in-the-u-s
"The diversity index of total undergraduate enrollment across all four-year public universities is 63.36, based on the following racial/ethnic breakdown: white (54.4 percent), Hispanic (16.2 percent), black (10.5 percent), Asian (7.3 percent), nonresident (4.5 percent), and other races (6.5 percent)."
https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/hq9511.html
"Today, there are 107 HBCUs with more than 228,000 students enrolled. Fifty-six institutions are under private control, and 51 are public colleges and universities. The public institutions account for more than two-thirds of the students in historically black institutions. Most (87) of the institutions are four-year colleges or universities, and 20 are two-year institutions."
https://www.doi.gov/pmb/eeo/doi-minority-serving-institutions-program
"HSIs included four-year and two-year, public and private educational institutions. HSIs enroll 40% of all Hispanic-American students of higher education. There are 274 institutions of higher education defined as HSIs using the criteria defined by the White House Initiative and the Department of Education."
Now a point of correction on my part, it's not less than 300 it's slightly more than 300 (around 360) but you get the gist of course. Another point that I didn't mention in my initial reply was legacy admissions and from this I present a question to you, which do you think is worse? Students getting into schools, both without merit, but one student getting in because his great-great grandfather got in 50 years ago, and his dad, his dad's dad and so on or another student from a disenfranchised group getting in to balance opportunity (affirmative action)?
And also, there are a fair share of students who get into colleges because their parents donate thousands to those institutions and some even have entire buildings under their families name.
Legacy admissions to highly selective schools are much worse than affirmative action. Your assumption that both are "without merit" is far overreaching since neither applicant from either group is ever auto-admitted based on Legacy or Race. The college that uses legacy and/or races still applies those criteria on a holistic basis. So if you do not meet the minimum academic threshold for GPA and Test Scores etc, you are not going to get into an Ivy League school no matter who you are. Ivy's typically rejects 70-75% of legacy applicants and that number is higher for BIPOC applicants.
BTW, none of your sources support anything you are stating in your response. What's the point of sharing the breakdown of US census data? What does that have to do with your statements? What wrong with Historically Black colleges? Are you a racist who doesn't understand the meaning of marginalized populations like Blacks and Hispanics who live in impoverished zip codes without the same access to education, housing and food, and employment opportunities? It's all just a bunch of gobblygook without facts.
By my definition, a racist is someone that defines people based on skin color and believes in races that diverge from the human race. Also, there is nothing wrong with Historically Black colleges, if you just understand that if people say that your skin color is white then you can't get in...but just understand that if there were Historically White colleges they would be denounced as racist.
And they should by all means. By precedent, all oppressors who have harmed people based on their race are racist so 99% of colleges in America were founded on the principle of racism. Plus the principles of sexism, genderism, and religious righteousness. Harvard, the oldest college in America only had White wealthy students for 236 years. Then in 1870 Harvard admitted its first Black student and around the same time, 2 Japanese students earned law degrees. Now Boston has a Chinese Mayor so times are changing.
Hold on! Woah. I think you're misinterpreting me a lot here. We're on the same side here. I'm literally agreeing with you. I was trying to say that more students get in based on their wealth and status than students who get in based on race based application. That's what I've been saying this whole time. What have YOU been reading?
All colleges that are not HBCUs are historically white colleges if you knew literally anything about what those words mean.
I never said that. Please append, "Do not take my words out of context," to the beginning of all of my statements. What I actually said was if there were Historically White colleges then crusaders everywhere would freak out.
The point is that you're trying to pull a false equivalence to HBCUs and a hypothetical HBWI
Ok, what is the difference? If you are so sure of my "false equivalence" then elaborate.
HBCUs were historically, schools made for black students when they weren't allowed into white institutions. To this day, as a result of this legacy, black students are drawn to HBCUs and the campus culture is very black centered, a direct contrast to the sometimes more unfriendly environment that some PWIs have toward black students. If white institutions weren't all ready discriminating toward black students HBCUs wouldn't exist so for you to try to make it seem like anything else is a miseducation on your part.
So you're saying that it's ok to have HBCUs because it is historic? I still feel like we must be having crossed wires somewhere, because what I said was, "if there were Historically White colleges then crusaders everywhere would freak out." So how is your explanation of what a HBCU is, which yes, I already know, going to change that?
To make myself more clear, if the hypothetical HWCU would, just like an HBCU, only welcome "white" students, then crusaders everywhere would freak out. I know that students of another ethnicity than African-American can get in to HBCUs, but we both know it is not welcomed there.
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