Real purpose of STEM

[goldenlion]

DS and his friend both got into STEM this year. They are both white males. Don't know the stats on his friend, but my DS had a 36 English ACT score in 7th grade with a 32 composite. Quite a number of other poster who received acceptances are also Caucasian.

I don't think it is as much of a minority recruiting tool as the original poster believes. It may just be some of the minorities have phenomenal test scores like my sons. In our state, all those who make it to the state wide academic competitions are almost all minorities. They have earned their spot by not being a minority but by their intelligence/hard work.

 

[mdrob214]

Statistics can be played any way the mathematician wants

Not handouts, but preference.

That is a fact, not speculation not conjecture, but fact. Race is a preference factor at USNA.

The admissions statistics, pried from the USNA under the FOIA by Bruce Fleming, shows these facts clearly.

Ninety-one (91) percent of qualified African Americans and 82 percent of qualified Hispanics were offered seats in the Classes of 2012-2014, compared to 55 percent of qualified non-minorities.

That's almost a 50% difference. You can explain away 5%, or even 10%, as statistical anomalies, or sampling errors, etc - but there is only one explanation of a 50% difference - race preference.

If you are a qualified minority candidate, you have a 91% chance of being offered an USNA appointment.

If you are a qualified non-minority candidate, it's slightly better than a coin flip (55%).

Facts. Wrong or right, these are facts cannot be denied.

(There are a few threads from the last few years here with all the supporting documentation/links if anyone so chooses to search).

The statistics quoted are accurate, but you are only picking the numbers out to make your case USNA give preference to race. What you don't see in those numbers is the fact only a small fraction of the applicants from minorities are qualified. If I remember right it was less than 10%. What you also don't see is that maybe, just maybe, the academic records of those candidates were exceptional. You don't think there are highly qualified minority and female applicants? Also, take a look at the make up of the USNA Mids. While the advertised pictures show a lot of minorities, each class is still predominately white male.

You can whine all you want about the USNA isn't giving someone a chance because they are x race or female or whatever but in the end those who are selected are still high achievers. Get used to it. Most employers in any line of business are doing the same thing. My company actively recruits from schools traditionally producing top notch engineers and gears thier HR material toward women and minorites. Why? The white male already wants to work for them. White males are actually in the minority in a global company. My company wants to get the top 10% of everyone, not just white males. I am a white male and all that means is I have to actually be good at my job. Makes me better, the company better, we get more business becuase we can grow around the world, stock goes up, make more money.

This leads to the whole point of STEM in my view. The USNA wants, as does any employer, to pull the best and brightest from all walks of life. To increase the chances of getting the best they have to recruit from areas that are not traditionally aware of the USNA. STEM offers opportunities for students who never knew about USNA to be exposed. STEM and NASS are not for the USNA to evaluate candidates. They are to allow a student who has never considered a career in the Navy to evaluate USNA. USNA doesn't want only those students who have "dreamed of attending USNA" since they were three. They want varying views and backgrouds.

Bottomline on any of this "preference" concern. If you are top 5% in grades, class rank, ACT/SAT and all those other areas it doesn't matter. My DD worked her a$$ off for 4 years of HS and last year when USNA came into her view as what she might want she had positioned herself to be successful. Stop whining and take care of what you control.

 

[bgrant94]

The statistics quoted are accurate, but you are only picking the numbers out to make your case USNA give preference to race. What you don't see in those numbers is the fact only a small fraction of the applicants from minorities are qualified. If I remember right it was less than 10%. What you also don't see is that maybe, just maybe, the academic records of those candidates were exceptional. You don't think there are highly qualified minority and female applicants? Also, take a look at the make up of the USNA Mids. While the advertised pictures show a lot of minorities, each class is still predominately white male.

You can whine all you want about the USNA isn't giving someone a chance because they are x race or female or whatever but in the end those who are selected are still high achievers. Get used to it. Most employers in any line of business are doing the same thing. My company actively recruits from schools traditionally producing top notch engineers and gears thier HR material toward women and minorites. Why? The white male already wants to work for them. White males are actually in the minority in a global company. My company wants to get the top 10% of everyone, not just white males. I am a white male and all that means is I have to actually be good at my job. Makes me better, the company better, we get more business becuase we can grow around the world, stock goes up, make more money.

This leads to the whole point of STEM in my view. The USNA wants, as does any employer, to pull the best and brightest from all walks of life. To increase the chances of getting the best they have to recruit from areas that are not traditionally aware of the USNA. STEM offers opportunities for students who never knew about USNA to be exposed. STEM and NASS are not for the USNA to evaluate candidates. They are to allow a student who has never considered a career in the Navy to evaluate USNA. USNA doesn't want only those students who have "dreamed of attending USNA" since they were three. They want varying views and backgrouds.

Bottomline on any of this "preference" concern. If you are top 5% in grades, class rank, ACT/SAT and all those other areas it doesn't matter. My DD worked her a$$ off for 4 years of HS and last year when USNA came into her view as what she might want she had positioned herself to be successful. Stop whining and take care of what you control.

THANK YOU!! Its funny how Luigi, who is so deeply in love with facts, somehow manages to leave half of them out every time...I was going to ask how he accounted for the fact that most of the student body are white males, and if he considered the fact that those percentages probably applied to the very small number of HIGHLY qualified minority applicants, but you beat me to it on all accounts. It's pretty pathetic seeing adults be so petty and dog out kids that they don't know anything about, how awesome their resume's are, or their leadership skills. Being captain or the best player on a team doesn't make automatically you a great leader. Just like how alot of people who are highly skilled with math are terrible math teachers. No one here has the power to change anything. These people can be as spiteful and talk as much as they want, but at the end of the day it's someone else's name on that appointment or scholarship. Get over it.

I've spent the large majority of my life proving wrong people (non-minorities and minorities) who said I wouldn't go far because of my race. I don't even know how many times I heard "You'll have to work twice as hard as your white counterparts, even then you'll still won't get a good job or make as much money." with varying syntax. Translation, no matter what you do, you'll always be inferior. What kind of thing is that to say to a child? Most of my peers believed it and said, why bother? Now that I have made high achievements, gotten several scholarships for writing(one of which was in 6th grade in a competition with high school kids. About a thousand applied, 3 got one, I was the only middle school kid), the first person in the family to go to college straight out of high school, let alone without incurring a debt, and just wrapped up my first year of college as a senior; those same people have all turned around and said that I got all that BECAUSE i'm black. Ha!! So if I fail or succeed it's all because of something I can't control instead of the person I am or the choices I've made? I've spent too much time trying to convince people who really don't matter that I've earned what I have. Some people believe me and respect me for it, and some don't. Somehow, I find myself not caring too much about it anymore. I know my worth. Everyone else should too. Many people of all walks of life have something that they've had to overcome that makes them special and shows their true character.

Congratulations on your daughter's accomplishments! This has been a very hard year for everyone which makes any success this year paramount in my opinon. I am very happy for you, you must be so proud. Tell her to relax and take it all in when she gets a moment. As for me, finals are done, this rollercoaster year has ended in great success, I'm going to kick back for a few days, try to lower my blood pressure, and pluck some newly formed grays before I get back into 5th gear

 

[Luigi59]

THANK YOU!! Its funny how Luigi, who is so deeply in love with facts, somehow manages to leave half of them out every time

The facts are there, the data is there. You can acknowledge it, whether you like it or not, you can justify it, or you can ignore it.

I suggest you study it, and this time try to comprehend it, then come back and tell me how two candidates with equal 500/500 SAT scores can be both academically qualified (minority) and academically not qualified (non minority) if race is not an admissions factor.

American Civil Rights Institute - USNA Professor Exposes Two-Tiered Admission System

“A vote of ‘qualified’ for a white applicant doesn’t mean s/he’s coming, only that he or she can compete to win the “slate” of up to 10 nominations that (most typically) a Congress(wo)man draws up. That means that nine ‘qualified’ white applicants are rejected. SAT scores below 600 or C grades almost always produce a vote of ‘not qualified’ for white applicants.

“Not so for an applicant who self-identifies as one of the minorities who are our ‘number one priority.’ For them, another set of rules apply. Their cases are briefed separately to the board, and SAT scores to the mid-500s with quite a few Cs in classes (and no visible athletics or leadership) typically produce a vote of “qualified” for them, with direct admission to Annapolis. They’re in, and are given a pro forma nomination to make it legit.”

Read it again, and understand what’s going on. This is not affirmative action. This separate-track admissions practice is how colleges and universities across the country achieve skin deep-only diversity. Admitting students without regard to race would produce a freshman class of too few blacks, how ever these schools define “too few blacks.” To overcome this “embarrassing” obstacle, they assess blacks students against one another, not against the general pool of applicants. Consequently, black students generally are admitted with lower grades and scores than whites and Asians.

It’s patently unfair, but that’s how it works.

Anyway, this topic has been beaten to death, it is what it is, neither viewpoint is going to change it.

Your posts seem to say that you accept the current discrimination, as it is now practiced.

Conversely, I would rather see a race-blind admissions policy, a little closer to MLK's dream where we would be judged by the content of our character rather than the color of our skin.

I'm done, you can research all the posts here over the last few years to get both sides of the debate, your posts are nothing new, just the same old excuse for a racial based admissions policy.