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Essay / Transparency and Accountability in the American College Admissions System and the Idea of Affirmative Action
A Call for Transparency in College Admissions “It's hard for an Asian to get into Stanford. » If I had a nickel for every time a sentence like that was thrown at me, maybe college tuition would become affordable. Unfortunately, my chances of getting into any university are shrouded in mystery due to unknown factors in the college admissions process. Affirmative action is the idea of considering race, gender, and economic factors during college admission in an effort to combat institutional oppression and effectively muddle the admissions process of mystery (“Positive action”). Recently, Abigail Fisher, a white woman, took her case against the University of Texas and affirmative action in general to the Supreme Court (Fuchs). This caused much controversy. Affirmative action should exist, but more transparency in university admissions is needed to ensure its proper application and to prevent further tensions from escalating. Say no to plagiarism. Get a custom essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayAffirmative action is recognized as a way to create racial diversity, but empirical evidence from TIME magazine shows that it is the white women who really attracted benefits (Kohn). Thus, supporters and opponents of affirmative action operate according to a misinformed paradigm. Studies show that 63% of Americans support affirmative action on college campuses, but 83% of them believe it concerns race, particularly African Americans or Hispanics (Drake). All of this makes the debate over affirmative action convoluted. The ideals surrounding affirmative action make sense because it is the only means by which inherently disadvantaged groups can overcome that disadvantage. However, massive confusion is causing a lot of angry speeches. Having more transparency within the college admissions system is the way to solve this problem, as it will allow people to see how much importance is actually placed on non-academic factors. This will also ensure that the ideal of affirmative action is properly implemented, as it is unfair for admissions officers to only act behind closed doors. Additionally, confusion surrounding affirmative action can lead to frivolous lawsuits that increase racial tensions. Currently, Abigail Fisher is suing the University of Texas at Austin for racism because she believes she was rejected in 2008 because of her race. His argument is that African-American and Hispanic students with lower scores than his were accepted. She was portrayed as a model student victim of racial bias in the widely publicized case. The publicity it has generated has led to the negative idea that many minority people do not deserve their position. This only increased the racial tensions that affirmative action sought to erase. Fisher's lawsuit ignores the fact that his GPA of 3.59 and SAT score of 1,180 out of 1,600 were only mediocre within UT's competitive applicant pool, and that several white students with scores higher than it were also rejected (Planas). Under a more transparent college admissions system, it would be clear that Fisher was rejected not for her race, but simply for a lack of exceptional accomplishments. However, due to the mystery of college admissions, his case was able to reach the Supreme Court and sparked a..