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  3. How Do Universities Deal With the Enrollment Law of Minority Preference?

How Do Universities Deal With the Enrollment Law of Minority Preference?

游客2024-10-15  14
问题         How Do Universities Deal With the Enrollment Law of Minority Preference?
    As students primp and preen to wow their favorite colleges, there’s one characteristic they can’t control: their race. That’s one reason voters, courts and politicians in six states have outlawed racial preferences in college admissions, while other colleges, fearful of lawsuits, play down their affirmative-action efforts these days. But make no mistake: race still matters. How much depends on the school and the state.
    In Texas, public universities have managed to counteract the effect of racial-preference bans by automatically admitting the top 10% of the graduating class of every high school, including those schools where most students are minorities. But Rice University in Houston, private and highly selective, has had to reinvent its admissions strategies to maintain the school’s minority enrollment. Each February, 80 to 90 black, Hispanic and Native American kids visit Rice on an expenses-paid trip. Rice urges counselors from high schools with large minority populations to nominate qualified students. And in the fall, Rice sends two recruiters on the road to find minority applicants; each recruiter visits about 80 predominantly black or Hispanic high schools. Two weeks ago, Rice recruiter Tamara Slier dropped in on Westlake High in Atlanta where 99% of the 1,296 students are black. Slier went bearing literature and advice, and though only two kids showed up, she said, "I’m pleased I got two."
    Rice has also resorted to some almost comical end-runs around the spirit of the law. The university used to award a yearly scholarship to a Mexican-American student; now it goes to a student who speaks Spanish really well. Admissions officers no longer know an applicant’s race. But a new essay question asks about each student’s "background" and "cultural traditions". When Rice officials read applications, they look for "diverse life experiences" and what they awkwardly call "overcome students", who have triumphed over hardship.
    Last spring, admissions readers came across a student whose SAT score was lower than 1,200 and who did not rank in the top 10 % of her class. Numerically speaking, she lagged far behind most accepted applicants. But her essay and recommendations indicated a strong interest in civil rights and personal experience with racial discrimination. She was admitted. "All the newspapers say affirmative action is done," says a veteran counselor at a large New York City high school. "But nothing has changed. I have a (minority) kid at Yale with an SAT score in the high 900s."
    While minority admissions at the University of California system overall have dipped only slightly since a ban on affirmative action took effect in 1998, they have plummeted at the most selective campuses. At Berkeley, for example, the class entering this fall included 608 Chicano students, vs. 1013 in 1997. In response, the elite schools have moved aggressively to recruit at minority high schools— and even to improve the performance of students who are graduating from them. This year the U. C. system will spend $ 250 million on outreach, from installing tutors at low-income schools to inviting high school teachers to summer calculus seminars. [br] Affirmative action is something______.
选项 A、that guarantees students of different races to be admitted equally
B、American citizens fight against because it discriminates minority students
C、colleges take to give preference to minority students in college admission
D、favored by American colleges yet unpopular with American public
答案 C
解析 事实细节题。根据第一段中的上下文，美国六个州制定法律，规定“racial preferences in college admissions”为非法，继而说美国的学校为了免于诉讼就减少了“affirmation action”的努力，可见“affirmation action”应该是指在大学入学方面给予少数民族学生的照顾政策。
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