A Different Opinion

Okay I am ready to write this blog. I have been doing hours of research. I was doing a project for school project on freshman entering college, but as I was doing research for that something deeper peaked my interest. The Advanced Placement system, a system used on high school campuses to help students get a head start on college work. A student takes a class with an accompanying test, if they pass the test they will receive college credit which looks great on college applications and can help save money to be used on college tuition. This system can give an unfair advantage to Caucasian students. Even though the main opinion in this article is one against this unfair advantage, I myself have taken the maximum of AP classes offered throughout my education which is a mediocre number of four, despite this I will present both sides to this situation. The UC system is the most prestigious name is public universities. So, after the elimination of affirmative action in 1998 underrepresented minority applicants enroll at a UC at considerably lower rates than others students, and the gap has widened noticeably in these 5 years. Now since the removal of affirmative action UCLA and UCB have enacted a holistic approach to getting pass the restriction and admit more minority students. It used to be one admission representative would look at one part of an application now all admission representatives look at the entire application which helps admissions officers to see the "whole person". I wonder if this is because of the well publicized scandal with UCLA and UC Berkeley not having enough African-American students or do these universities really want more diversity at their campus. One part of unfair advantage that has not been acknowledged by UCs are the flaws in the AP system. About 60% of high school students are minority, but only 30% taking AP exams are students of color. What really astonished me while I continued to research was that there were lawsuits against Berkeley and College Board.College Board is such a huge business is education; they have sort of a monopoly on high school students. To hear that their validity and credibility were being questioned was amazing! The plaintiffs argued that giving extra points to AP classes was not fair because it gives an unfair advantage to white students because they are the ones who predominantly take AP classes. Even if you want to take a AP class you may not be able to because not enough of the students at your underprivileged school may not be qualified. Each high school in the San Francisco district is allocated the resources to offer two AP classes each year if it chooses, according to district spokeswoman Elaine Koury. If a school wants to offer more, at least 20 interested students are needed for the creation of each additional class.``It's not an issue of `Here are our AP resources and we're giving them all to (a few) schools,'' said San Francisco school board member Jill Wynns. ``If you have eligible kids who want to take AP and you have enough of them, your school gets AP resources.''The number of AP classes offered by San Francisco's high schools vary widely. At academically rigorous Lowell High School, the combination of a large student body and hundreds of students hungry for AP credit means the school offers dozens of AP courses each year. Having Advanced Placement credit is something that is considered as an extra asset to an college application not a necessity.Though, at schools like Berkeley your application won't even be seriously considered if you have no AP credit. Now if you want to take the AP test without the valuable accompanying AP class you may, but only a very small percentage pass the AP test when doing that, which means alot of wasted time and effort."Such students can still take honors courses and try to pass the AP exams, but without formal class preparation, passing the tests can be harder. During the 1997-98 academic year, according to state records, 32 AP exams were taken at Balboa, even though the school offered no AP classes. Ten of the test-takers received a score high enough to qualify for college credit. At Lowell, 1,613 AP exams were taken, and 1,463 received a score high enough to earn college credit.I myself took a AP test without taking the class, I did not pass. I can only wonder if all this trouble has been brought on by the so-called "reverse discrimination" lawsuit. This was a lawsuit in 1978 against Regents of the University of California by Bakke. This man had been rejected my UC Davis' medical school on three occasions.He claimed that he was more qualified than the minorities that had been admitted for quotas in his place and suffered reverse discrimination. My question is how did he know that if there were no quotas for minority students would he have been admitted then? For that matter on what basis was he denied and after the lawsuit was he then admitted?

In conclusion, of course I believe affirmative as it was originally but it should be based on economic class or acknowledgement of hardship.It should not be based on hardship because there are advantaged and disadvantaged people in every race.There should be a reason other than race that a person receive extra help like a notable setback.

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