[{"msgID":"88","topic":"Affirmative Action","message":"I think is important for universities to have a positive discrimination in its admissions process. I think this is important for colleges as it creates a diverse community of students in their campus which provides a better learning and personal experience. It may be argued that it can be unfair to other highly qualified students, and this may be true, but I think universities should look for the personal aspect of each applicant as a person despite having a slightly lower test score, they can provide a lot of things to the enrichment of the experience of other students in a university. The first circumstances that made believe this was my acceptance to college and saw how diverse the community was and how that helped to have a much better experience. This is a completely personal and built by me experience. \/  \/ As an international student applying to the United States can be hard in terms of adapting and making new friends. The good thing about diversity in universities, is that many people are in the same position as you even if they are from the US as well. I felt that in a really diverse environment people are more open and more willing to share with you, maybe because they also feel that they need to adapt, but even if this is the case, I feel it is really good to have an environment like this. ","count":"6","completed":"5"},{"msgID":"384","topic":"Affirmative Action","message":"I do agree that universities should actively favor minority applicants in their application process as it speeds up the process of social integration and has a very strong knock-on effect in the generations to come for these families. That being said, the extent to which it is carried out can be somewhat extreme in my experience and simply completely demotivating for non-minority applicants. When I was applying to universities, I would always be faced with the statistics of how competitive it was without these aids and how if you were a middle-class white male, you would have to work immensely hard to distinguish yourself more than a minority applicant would. This is negative for two reasons: firstly, it is very hard for students who have already worked hard enough to even be considered. Secondly, while as I said before, some bias is great for the minority communities, too much bias can mean that the university simply doesn't accept the best candidates.","count":"6","completed":"5"},{"msgID":"228","topic":"Affirmative Action","message":"I believe that University admissions should not take into account gender or racial characteristics of the students applying. What I mean by this is that someone should not be admitted solely because of their gender or race, but rather because of their accomplishments. As a current college freshman, I understand the college admissions process and how flawed the system is. In a business school that is predominately male, it is clear that gender is a problem in the admissions process. This is why I believe that University admissions should not even be able to see an applicant's gender or racial identity. During my freshman year in college, I wrote a paper on implicit biases, and this research has greatly contributed to my current beliefs. People have implicit biases towards certain groups of people, so even if University admissions believes that they are not biased towards certain groups, they most likely are simply due to these implicit biases that they might not be aware of. Thus, in order to select the most qualified students for admission to a university, gender and race should not be seen so that students are judged based on their accomplishments rather than their gender or race.","count":"6","completed":"5"},{"msgID":"298","topic":"Affirmative Action","message":"My belief regarding this topic is that University admissions should never take into account gender or racial characteristics of the students that are applying for admission. I believe that gender and race do not have anything to do with the admissions criteria for a student that is applying to a certain university or school and should be taken solely by their merits and academic\/extracurricular achievements. I believe that diversity is important, but we do not want to only admit those individuals who are diverse and give non-importance to those who do not fit under these categories. After hearing about processes that limit the amount of kids that get into a school with a certain background, such as less Asians getting into UCLA, I believe that this should not occur and should not be allowed, and should base admissions decisions solely upon the merits of the student in their application and interview. Also hearing from family members and their experiences with diversity in the admissions process shaped the way that I felt about the entire process as well and how heavily Universities emphasize diversity in the admissions process.","count":"6","completed":"4"}]