General > General Technical Chat
Retracting my prior statements on "CTY", that CTY is gone
ebastler:
--- Quote from: Rick Law on July 28, 2020, 07:11:55 pm ---My reason to post was to retract my recommendations to fellow parents. My basis of recommendation was: Since CTY was pure merit base, it was an alternatives to those tons of other "academic honor/awards" that focused on everything else but merit. So, in that context, change or not wasn't even in my mind. Either way, the recommendation needs to be retracted. I was either wrong from the beginning (not a change), or it no longer apply for present-day (a change).
--- End quote ---
I still don't get what problem you see with this.
Yes, one can debate about CTY's criteria for scholarships (i.e. giving financial aid to students): Should they purely be based on finanical need, or is it justifiable to also favor "under-represented" groups? But as far as admission to their programs is concerned, that seems to still be based purely on merit/SAT scores/whatever your measure is in the US. Your claim that admision is based on "everything else but merit" is patently untrue; it is based only on merit.
So what is your concern? Those "other parents" to whom you have recommended CTY in the past can rest assured that their brilliant kids will only meet equally brilliant kids there.
DrG:
Beyond, "where did the money come from?", I think that they (whomever they are) can offer a scholarship for any legal reason. Now, if some of that money was mine, I want some say at least at some level. If not, what business is it of mine?
David Letterman still maintains a scholarship at his alma mater that explicitly does NOT consider GPA. Being a "C" student, he apparently recognizes the possibility of some level of creativity that may exist in the absence of top grades. https://www.bsu.edu/web/letterman/scholarship
tooki:
--- Quote from: EEVblog on July 28, 2020, 10:56:50 am ---
Unless you are a while male, right?
Come on, you know what what they mean here.
If you want do that and it's not public money, fine, do that. But don't pretend it's equally of opportunity because it is not.
Example: Two kids in the same poor street, with the same income levels, went to the same school. got the same grades, both want it the same etc. But one is black, the other is white. By the sounds of it the white kid can't even apply for this scholarship.
Heck, the two kids in this example could even be from the same home.
Whatever this is, it's not equally of opportunity by definition, it is deliberately excluding "overrepresented groups".
--- Quote from: EEVblog on July 28, 2020, 08:00:14 am ---
--- Quote ---
--- Quote ---I think you would find that you would get more under-represented groups if you did this - so there'd be more minorities and yes, poor white families too.
--- End quote ---
I'm pretty sure that if you are a poor white male, you don't meet the requirements of this scholarship. You don't even have a chance.
--- End quote ---
It could be. But since it seems there’s other financial aid types too (and that poor whites nonetheless do not share all the disadvantages that blacks and Native Americans have), I don’t think this is necessarily bad.
--- End quote ---
Yep, that's the way it sounds, white kids not eligible. Still think it's equality of opportunity?.
--- End quote ---
Dave, with all due respect, when it comes to issues like this, you have a privileged, myopic view. You don’t know anywhere near enough about how systemic racism in USA plays out to be able to defend the strong positions you hold.
The fact that you think the hypothetical black and white kids of equal incomes, location, backgrounds, motivation, and academic qualifications have the same opportunities (they don’t!) proves that you don’t understand all the factors at play nor the scope of the problem.
Bear in mind, until I moved to Baltimore (where I spent my entire 20s), I actually held views very much like yours. But living there, I saw up close how modern systemic racism, over the decades, shaped the city and its black residents in every way imaginable. (Including literally shaping the geography.) So given that AFAIK you’ve never lived in USA (and were never a scholar of sociology, the only other way I would think one could learn about it from afar), it’s totally understandable that you haven’t been sensitized to the problem. But I think you’d be wise to approach it with humility and an open mind, rather than arrogance, rigidity, and dismissiveness. Because you don’t have the full picture.
(And just to preempt any “whataboutism” from the peanut gallery: I’m not black, and thus I never have and never will live the black American experience. Compared to them, my knowledge of these issues is superficial. But I listen to what they say, and really try to take it in, as well as to learn the history to see what the long term effects have been.)
tooki:
--- Quote from: sokoloff on July 28, 2020, 07:22:25 pm ---It seems to me like the kerfuffle in this thread is entirely around an adjunct financial aid scholarship aspect to the program, having nothing to do with the core program itself.
--- End quote ---
Precisely.
--- Quote from: ebastler on July 28, 2020, 07:30:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: Rick Law on July 28, 2020, 07:11:55 pm ---My reason to post was to retract my recommendations to fellow parents. My basis of recommendation was: Since CTY was pure merit base, it was an alternatives to those tons of other "academic honor/awards" that focused on everything else but merit. So, in that context, change or not wasn't even in my mind. Either way, the recommendation needs to be retracted. I was either wrong from the beginning (not a change), or it no longer apply for present-day (a change).
--- End quote ---
I still don't get what problem you see with this.
Yes, one can debate about CTY's criteria for scholarships (i.e. giving financial aid to students): Should they purely be based on finanical need, or is it justifiable to also favor "under-represented" groups? But as far as admission to their programs is concerned, that seems to still be based purely on merit/SAT scores/whatever your measure is in the US. Your claim that admision is based on "everything else but merit" is patently untrue; it is based only on merit.
So what is your concern? Those "other parents" to whom you have recommended CTY in the past can rest assured that their brilliant kids will only meet equally brilliant kids there.
--- End quote ---
Exactly. I don’t think he really grasps this distinction. (Nor why support for disadvantaged kids is a good thing.)
Rick Law:
--- Quote from: tooki on July 28, 2020, 08:09:55 pm ---
--- Quote from: sokoloff on July 28, 2020, 07:22:25 pm ---It seems to me like the kerfuffle in this thread is entirely around an adjunct financial aid scholarship aspect to the program, having nothing to do with the core program itself.
--- End quote ---
Precisely.
--- Quote from: ebastler on July 28, 2020, 07:30:20 pm ---
--- Quote from: Rick Law on July 28, 2020, 07:11:55 pm ---My reason to post was to retract my recommendations to fellow parents. My basis of recommendation was: Since CTY was pure merit base, it was an alternatives to those tons of other "academic honor/awards" that focused on everything else but merit. So, in that context, change or not wasn't even in my mind. Either way, the recommendation needs to be retracted. I was either wrong from the beginning (not a change), or it no longer apply for present-day (a change).
--- End quote ---
I still don't get what problem you see with this.
Yes, one can debate about CTY's criteria for scholarships (i.e. giving financial aid to students): Should they purely be based on finanical need, or is it justifiable to also favor "under-represented" groups? But as far as admission to their programs is concerned, that seems to still be based purely on merit/SAT scores/whatever your measure is in the US. Your claim that admision is based on "everything else but merit" is patently untrue; it is based only on merit.
So what is your concern? Those "other parents" to whom you have recommended CTY in the past can rest assured that their brilliant kids will only meet equally brilliant kids there.
--- End quote ---
Exactly. I don’t think he really grasps this distinction. (Nor why support for disadvantaged kids is a good thing.)
--- End quote ---
tooki
Perhaps it is because I am a minority. I keenly understand that whenever judgement is made using factors other than merit, it leaves room for it to be unfair. What I like to see is: when only merit counts, than other factors by definition are excluded.
By the way, I wish you have lived in poor white neighborhood also. You will find the same problems you found in Baltimore. Drugs, single parent households, crime... It did happen to poor black neighborhoods earlier than it did to poor white neighborhoods, so it is more ingrained. I will grant you that. But it hardly matters to those living in it now. The hopelessness is the same.
ebastler
You probably missed my earlier replies. I recommend CTY when I thought it was "pure merit based" to those seeking an alternative to the tons of other diluted-down similar academic club/society/etc. So what kind of alternative would this be if it too is not "pure merit based."
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