On October 11 2012 08:56 Souma wrote: So the Supreme Court is set to rule on affirmative action. I'm curious, am I the only lefty here that believes affirmative action should not be based on race?
the girl who brought it up is an idiot...
she graduated from lsu, yet she's still dwelling on not getting accepted to UT Austin. did she take so little from her college years that she's unable to move on?
maybe i should go bitch to harvard for rejecting me. clearly they rejected me because there were people less qualified in all aspects except skin color. (sarcasm btw)
i think affirmative action is flawed, but i'm not sure if there's a better way to do it that isn't ridiculously time consuming. its also hard to evaluate every student's achievements in relation to each other... and of course there's people who just lie. i remember an article awhile ago about many asians (who eventually ended up HYPS) just not putting down their ethnicity on their apps. there's something wrong with that.
I don't know, I don't think basing it on economic status as opposed to race would be that much more time consuming.
yeah, people already lie about that enough as it is. if admission becomes weighted based on that, people are going to do all shorts of things to get into a good school.
I would suppose if it was based on economic status, anyone who would want the university to take it into consideration would have to send over copies of their parents' tax forms. They have to do that for financial aid anyway.
lol
people fake tax returns for school already. i picked emory because i got what i thought was a good bit of merit aid-- i dont qualify for any need-based stuff because we're well off enough. still, a girl i know went to wash u and got more money need-based than i did. she's a single child and both her parents work. i doubt my dad, who is just a researcher, makes more than her parents combined.
Maybe you're going to the wrong school or something? I know that at UC, if your family income is less than $80K you get full tuition covered + pell grant. I don't know how many people cheat the system, but I assume some do and they're a tiny minority. If anything the problem should be addressed but I don't think it should be a reason why affirmative action based on economic status should be scraped off the table.
idunno-- i applied to a lot of places, and emory gave me the most money. well, tulane gave me about the same, but hey, i wasn't going to choose tulane over emory. there were a slew of schools where i could have been essentially paid to go to, but i didn't think those places were good fits for me and didn't even bother applying.
UC system is broke though-- i've heard horror stories from friends who went there about class sizes and not being able to get into classes. besides, that's only in-state-- out of state you're paying ~50K a year (unless you're crazy poor). state schools are a good alternative, but only if your state has a good system.
i'm not sure how thoroughly they vet a lot of things in admissions honestly. people embellish their resumes, get help on essays, get people to take their SAT's and all sorts of things to increase their chances, and you only hear the odd story about this guy doing X. i'm a bit cynical, but i think a lot of schools turn a blind eye to that. theydo read your essay and look at your numbers and such, but they don't seem to check if those are a real measure of the applicant.
UC system is on the downfall but people are really over-exaggerating with their horror stories. Tuition's gone up, sure. Some facilities may be closed around campus, sure. If you're a freshman it may be hard to get into your preferred classes, but you're a freshman, upperclassmen should have priority. Overall it's still relatively quite cheap (for in-state students) and more than hospitable (of course, this is just what I know/hear from the top three, UCB/LA/SD).
Honestly I'm not sure how universities weigh things either, but economic status is comparatively straight forward. If people are cheating on their tax returns then, well, that's a problem for the IRS. I highly doubt it's that serious of a problem at the university level, but correct me if I'm wrong.
still, UC is a pretty special example of a good public university system. only flagship schools in other states can even compare to the UC's, and there's no system that's even close to as good.
for school, you do your CSS and FAFSA. yes you do look at your tax returns to put numbers on there, but they can change when you're moving them over if you get my drift.
financial aid is kind of a joke as it is-- i'm sure for some people its a great boon, but for a lot of people who just get loans (hey, you can pay more money later) its kind of a slap in the face. 100% financial need met, that's bullshit.
Yeah, true, the UC system is pretty much one-of-a-kind in America. We really do need more like it throughout the country.
Financial Aid could definitely be better, but we know how it is with education and money these days. At the very least, it really helps out a lot of the poorer/low-income families, so in my opinion it's nothing to scoff at.
On October 10 2012 19:08 Prime`Rib wrote: Honestly, who would save you from Alien Invasion if US decided to slow down their military advances? Russia? China? It is not farfetched that we gonna be attacked by aliens within 20 years.
To whatever extent you're serious... an alien species capable of interstellar travel would be thousands of years ahead of us in technology, it would be like matching a modern army with stealth bombers and ICBMs against an army from the Crusades. No contest.
Sci-Fi is unrealistic in that it allows modern humans to have any chance of repelling such invaders.
When we are capable of interstellar travel ourselves... maybe at the earliest when we've really mastered interplanetary travel in our own solar system and colonized most of it and set up some outposts outside it, we'd have some semblance of a chance against a species capable of coming here from another star.
On October 11 2012 05:51 jdseemoreglass wrote: New Obama administration strategy: Throw Charlene under the bus. Someone has to take the fall, and it can't be Obama.
I'm assuming it would be too much to ask for all those people who were harping on "fact checking" and calling Romney a liar throughout the entire debate to point out how much worse it actually is for a sitting administration to outright lie about the cause for an ambassador's death.
This a thousand times. The lies that the administration has been peddling about Libya are outrageous, and it even worse that so few people are aware of it. That's going to change, soon, and it will be hilarious to watch.
It wasn't a lie for goodness sake. The State Department made an announcement based on the information they had at the moment, which unfortunately was rather scarce, conflicting, and ultimately incorrect. As you very well know, a lie is deliberate. This was a mistake.
There were violent protests over an incendiary film. Using Occam's Razor, it was a pretty natural conclusion (without further information) that the Ambassador's death was due to the same thing rather than a convoluted terrorist plot to assassinate him.
This entire situation 1. sucks terribly bad and I feel for everyone who was affected, and 2. has been hyped by Republicans for their own political gain. Its almost as bad as when they tried to impeach Clinton, and I hope the American people see that.
This only holds up if you believe that they didn't have intelligence within 24 hours of the incident. It has been repeatedly reported and demonstrated that they did. They have been lying. There's no way around it.
Also, the latest news is that there were no protests during the day or at night in Benghazi . In fact, the streets were clear. Security cameras caught an infiltration into the embassy. Then terrorists ambushed the embassy with little warning using RPG's. These facts were known within 24 hours.
Using Occam Razor's, you would instantly assume a terrorist attack.
What's really fishy is why the UN ambassador would rush to every major network screaming her head off about a reaction to a video when there were no protests in Benghazi.
As I do believe the idea that this was a false flag is likely, many have asked for there to be proof it was but is there any proof there wasn't? Obviously in a normal argument the accusing must back with claims, which they haven't, but it would be nice to see some evidence supporting that the streets were "clear".
Fact: The streets were clear. State Department officials were also communicating in real time with our assets in Benghazi. They knew this the day of the attack.
Proof: State department officials testified under oath to Congress that this is true. Also, people in and near Benghazi the day of the attack testified that this is true. These hereing occured today btw
On October 11 2012 09:04 ticklishmusic wrote: [quote]
the girl who brought it up is an idiot...
she graduated from lsu, yet she's still dwelling on not getting accepted to UT Austin. did she take so little from her college years that she's unable to move on?
maybe i should go bitch to harvard for rejecting me. clearly they rejected me because there were people less qualified in all aspects except skin color. (sarcasm btw)
i think affirmative action is flawed, but i'm not sure if there's a better way to do it that isn't ridiculously time consuming. its also hard to evaluate every student's achievements in relation to each other... and of course there's people who just lie. i remember an article awhile ago about many asians (who eventually ended up HYPS) just not putting down their ethnicity on their apps. there's something wrong with that.
I don't know, I don't think basing it on economic status as opposed to race would be that much more time consuming.
yeah, people already lie about that enough as it is. if admission becomes weighted based on that, people are going to do all shorts of things to get into a good school.
I would suppose if it was based on economic status, anyone who would want the university to take it into consideration would have to send over copies of their parents' tax forms. They have to do that for financial aid anyway.
lol
people fake tax returns for school already. i picked emory because i got what i thought was a good bit of merit aid-- i dont qualify for any need-based stuff because we're well off enough. still, a girl i know went to wash u and got more money need-based than i did. she's a single child and both her parents work. i doubt my dad, who is just a researcher, makes more than her parents combined.
Maybe you're going to the wrong school or something? I know that at UC, if your family income is less than $80K you get full tuition covered + pell grant. I don't know how many people cheat the system, but I assume some do and they're a tiny minority. If anything the problem should be addressed but I don't think it should be a reason why affirmative action based on economic status should be scraped off the table.
idunno-- i applied to a lot of places, and emory gave me the most money. well, tulane gave me about the same, but hey, i wasn't going to choose tulane over emory. there were a slew of schools where i could have been essentially paid to go to, but i didn't think those places were good fits for me and didn't even bother applying.
UC system is broke though-- i've heard horror stories from friends who went there about class sizes and not being able to get into classes. besides, that's only in-state-- out of state you're paying ~50K a year (unless you're crazy poor). state schools are a good alternative, but only if your state has a good system.
i'm not sure how thoroughly they vet a lot of things in admissions honestly. people embellish their resumes, get help on essays, get people to take their SAT's and all sorts of things to increase their chances, and you only hear the odd story about this guy doing X. i'm a bit cynical, but i think a lot of schools turn a blind eye to that. theydo read your essay and look at your numbers and such, but they don't seem to check if those are a real measure of the applicant.
UC system is on the downfall but people are really over-exaggerating with their horror stories. Tuition's gone up, sure. Some facilities may be closed around campus, sure. If you're a freshman it may be hard to get into your preferred classes, but you're a freshman, upperclassmen should have priority. Overall it's still relatively quite cheap (for in-state students) and more than hospitable (of course, this is just what I know/hear from the top three, UCB/LA/SD).
Honestly I'm not sure how universities weigh things either, but economic status is comparatively straight forward. If people are cheating on their tax returns then, well, that's a problem for the IRS. I highly doubt it's that serious of a problem at the university level, but correct me if I'm wrong.
still, UC is a pretty special example of a good public university system. only flagship schools in other states can even compare to the UC's, and there's no system that's even close to as good.
for school, you do your CSS and FAFSA. yes you do look at your tax returns to put numbers on there, but they can change when you're moving them over if you get my drift.
financial aid is kind of a joke as it is-- i'm sure for some people its a great boon, but for a lot of people who just get loans (hey, you can pay more money later) its kind of a slap in the face. 100% financial need met, that's bullshit.
Yeah, true, the UC system is pretty much one-of-a-kind in America. We really do need more like it throughout the country.
Financial Aid could definitely be better, but we know how it is with education and money these days. At the very least, it really helps out a lot of the poorer/low-income families, so in my opinion it's nothing to scoff at.
I don't know, I don't think basing it on economic status as opposed to race would be that much more time consuming.
yeah, people already lie about that enough as it is. if admission becomes weighted based on that, people are going to do all shorts of things to get into a good school.
I would suppose if it was based on economic status, anyone who would want the university to take it into consideration would have to send over copies of their parents' tax forms. They have to do that for financial aid anyway.
lol
people fake tax returns for school already. i picked emory because i got what i thought was a good bit of merit aid-- i dont qualify for any need-based stuff because we're well off enough. still, a girl i know went to wash u and got more money need-based than i did. she's a single child and both her parents work. i doubt my dad, who is just a researcher, makes more than her parents combined.
Maybe you're going to the wrong school or something? I know that at UC, if your family income is less than $80K you get full tuition covered + pell grant. I don't know how many people cheat the system, but I assume some do and they're a tiny minority. If anything the problem should be addressed but I don't think it should be a reason why affirmative action based on economic status should be scraped off the table.
idunno-- i applied to a lot of places, and emory gave me the most money. well, tulane gave me about the same, but hey, i wasn't going to choose tulane over emory. there were a slew of schools where i could have been essentially paid to go to, but i didn't think those places were good fits for me and didn't even bother applying.
UC system is broke though-- i've heard horror stories from friends who went there about class sizes and not being able to get into classes. besides, that's only in-state-- out of state you're paying ~50K a year (unless you're crazy poor). state schools are a good alternative, but only if your state has a good system.
i'm not sure how thoroughly they vet a lot of things in admissions honestly. people embellish their resumes, get help on essays, get people to take their SAT's and all sorts of things to increase their chances, and you only hear the odd story about this guy doing X. i'm a bit cynical, but i think a lot of schools turn a blind eye to that. theydo read your essay and look at your numbers and such, but they don't seem to check if those are a real measure of the applicant.
UC system is on the downfall but people are really over-exaggerating with their horror stories. Tuition's gone up, sure. Some facilities may be closed around campus, sure. If you're a freshman it may be hard to get into your preferred classes, but you're a freshman, upperclassmen should have priority. Overall it's still relatively quite cheap (for in-state students) and more than hospitable (of course, this is just what I know/hear from the top three, UCB/LA/SD).
Honestly I'm not sure how universities weigh things either, but economic status is comparatively straight forward. If people are cheating on their tax returns then, well, that's a problem for the IRS. I highly doubt it's that serious of a problem at the university level, but correct me if I'm wrong.
still, UC is a pretty special example of a good public university system. only flagship schools in other states can even compare to the UC's, and there's no system that's even close to as good.
for school, you do your CSS and FAFSA. yes you do look at your tax returns to put numbers on there, but they can change when you're moving them over if you get my drift.
financial aid is kind of a joke as it is-- i'm sure for some people its a great boon, but for a lot of people who just get loans (hey, you can pay more money later) its kind of a slap in the face. 100% financial need met, that's bullshit.
Yeah, true, the UC system is pretty much one-of-a-kind in America. We really do need more like it throughout the country.
Financial Aid could definitely be better, but we know how it is with education and money these days. At the very least, it really helps out a lot of the poorer/low-income families, so in my opinion it's nothing to scoff at.
Isn't the UC system in serious debt?
It's been going downhill. They'll need to seriously patch it up before it gets destroyed. It's not just the UC system, it's all of California.
On October 11 2012 08:56 Souma wrote: So the Supreme Court is set to rule on affirmative action. I'm curious, am I the only lefty here that believes affirmative action should not be based on race?
On October 11 2012 09:40 xDaunt wrote: The Supreme Court has expressed increasing hostility towards affirmative action every time that it has been brought up. Basically, the Court wants to get rid of it and declare it unconstitutional, but it won't do so until enough members believe that the ills that affirmative action was enacted to remedy are no longer sufficiently present in society. I haven't looked at the specifics of this particular case, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Court comes down hard on affirmative action, particularly with the Court's current composition.
Justice Kagan recused herself so affirmative action has a good chance at being shot down. Three conservative justices (Roberts, Scalia, and Alito) have been openly against it. The three liberals (Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Breyer) are for it. Justice Thomas has had no public comment about it recently, but it's been known he's against it. Justice Kennedy opposed Grutter so it's likely we'll see the same trend here.
That's 5-3 with a slight chance that Justice Kennedy may uphold affirmative action, but I doubt it. If he does it'll be 4-4 and affirmative action would stay for the time being.
Thomas is very against AA. He's probably has the strongest opinion on it.
On October 11 2012 13:08 Souma wrote: Do you think Hillary will run in 2016 though? She's getting pretty old.
biden is older than hillary and he wants to run 2016, I for one am REALLY looking forward to seeing how the dems handle that. Who does obama back if he gets reelected? his vp or his sec of state, whos husband is a HUGE supporter and boost for him.
Unlike Hillary, Biden looks like he's still got quite a bit left in him. Hillary has been looking so old and tired lately that I really worry about her health. It's a good thing she'll be resting for four years after this election. Hopefully she finds a bit of her youth in that time.
But who knows, in four years Biden will be 73. He may be too old by that time too.
On October 11 2012 13:08 Souma wrote: Do you think Hillary will run in 2016 though? She's getting pretty old.
biden is older than hillary and he wants to run 2016, I for one am REALLY looking forward to seeing how the dems handle that. Who does obama back if he gets reelected? his vp or his sec of state, whos husband is a HUGE supporter and boost for him.
He probably wouldn't endorse either until after the primary is over. He'd be like "they are both great people blah blah blah"
And on the supreme court's affirmative action case, I also hope they decide to ban it. I'll quote Justice Roberts in saying "The best way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race", or something along those lines. Race-based affirmative action is literally nothing but pure racism. I don't know how anyone could see it any other way. I understand that the diversity argument is used, but is diversity of skin color on a college campus really so important that race needs to be factored into admissions?
On October 11 2012 08:56 Souma wrote: So the Supreme Court is set to rule on affirmative action. I'm curious, am I the only lefty here that believes affirmative action should not be based on race?
pretty much.
really? i think a lot of people on the left dont like AA, its a really unpopular program with the people i talk to
On October 11 2012 14:41 oneofthem wrote: aa is a complicated policy issue. repealing it requires another outcomes based test in place to level the playing field.
for some a class based rather than race based system also is ideologically abhorrent.
There already is income based affirmative action in place at many universities. That's not what the supreme court is ruling on so it's not going to play a part in this ruling.
On October 11 2012 14:41 oneofthem wrote: aa is a complicated policy issue. repealing it requires another outcomes based test in place to level the playing field.
for some a class based rather than race based system also is ideologically abhorrent.
There already is income based affirmative action in place at many universities. That's not what the supreme court is ruling on so it's not going to play a part in this ruling.
many factors go into a decision like this. the scope itself is the most contentious issue. but as we've repeatedly seen, when there's a policy issue you like, the law also tends to say that it is relevant.
So I recently came across an article titled "Obama and Romney: Where they stand on the issues", and thought to myself that this will be hilarious. Which Mitt Romney will the article talk about?
It turns out that the article talks about the policies of Mitt Romney the "severe conservative," not the moderate we saw in the debate.
EPT
I know that at UC, if your family income is less than $80K you get full tuition covered + pell grant. I don't know how many people cheat the system, but I assume some do and they're a tiny minority. If anything the problem should be addressed but I don't think it should be a reason why affirmative action based on economic status should be scraped off the table.
