January 26, 2008

Affirmative action's a weird name. What's so "affirmative"? Anyways...

Affirmative action hurts because you get rejected for reasons you might not comprehend. You may work your heine off during high school, get involved with everything imaginable within earth's gravitational field, be a valedictorian, etc. but still get rejected from that dream school. Conventional justice would say, "I worked my tail off. Shouldn't I go to the school that I worked my tail off for? Well...

Suppose you are the admissions director for Harvard, and you are charged with admitting 1,000 students. Now, you can't admit ALL U.S. citizens. I mean, what if there's this super-genius from Malawi who, at his/her tender age, is on the verge of discovering scaled Nash equilibrium? You're gonna turn him/her down? So let's say you admit 5% international students. That leaves 950 students from the U.S. Now, heed the following:

* In Illinois alone, there are over 500 high schools. Suppose each state has 500 schools. That's 25,000 high schools. Let's add 1,000 private schools to the count. Now, there are 26,000 high schools in the United States. Each school has a valedictorian. Since not all valedictorians go to Harvard, let's include salutorians (2nd place). So now, there are 52,000 potential Harvard students.

Okay, most of these high schools don't know what they're doing. So let's just care about the top 1,000 high schools (according to Newsweek). So, there are 2,000 potential high school students who can come to Harvard.

BUT, you need to have preference for alumni children. Just the way it is. So, suppose there are 510 alumni children applying and all get in (none of them are in the top 10, let's just say). Now, you have 440 spaces to fill. 2,000 students to fit into 440 spaces. Good luck.

Now, here's where affirmative action comes in. What if the top 450 students are white? If you admit them all, you face allegations of racism. You can defend it, but in a civil jury, you're screwed. So, you have to admit some from a few races. Let's say you divide it equally between 4 races: black, white, Asian, and Latino. Now, from the pool of 2,000 top students, you have to find 110 of each race.

Asians have generally homogenous grades and activites across the board. Let's be honest-- percentage-wise, almost every Asian does well in school. What are you going to do about that? You can elect to just eeny-meeny-miney-moe and leave it to God to decide who the 110 are. Or, you can find the ones that stand out. Suppose every Asian gets a 5.0 GPA, 2400 SAT, 5 average on AP exam, and average of 5 extracurricular activites. What might distinguish one person from another?

I've always told Doulos people that Doulos will not help you get into the elite schools for one reason-- many Christian applicants will have that on their application. However, suppose someone actually did original research with a research team at Argonne National Laboratory. That's different. Suppose someone's dad is Chinese president Hu Jintao. That's very different. Suppose someone's mom is J-Lo. Not many people have those things that differentiate the average great student from the unique great student. But as an admissions person, you want the UNIQUE great student.

I had a friend who went to Harvard, and Harvard is blessed to have her as a member of their ranks. Was she a valedictorian? No. She probably is top 10 though. Was she heavily involved with extracurricular activites? Not really. Does she know anybody from Harvard? I don't think so. But guess what she has? She has a spirit of rising to the challenge. She ran for freshman class council without much success, but she tried. She later was a member of the school's news team. Indeed, Harvard needs people like her-- people who are willing to dare things that defy conventionality.

My only tip for going into the dream school, and this is from a very secular point of view, is to define yourself. What do you stand for that others don't? Are you a definer or are you one who is defined?

As Christians, we need to get our mindset out of the paradigm of our lives being 0-70+ years. We spend 70+ years of our life on this Earth, but there is an after-life! In that after-life, your PhD, MD, JD, random D, Harvard degree, whatever is MEANINGLESS. Sorry to prove your parents wrong-- but it's MEANINGLESS. Many of you are market-conscious. When you invest in stocks/bonds/equities/etc. you invest LONG-TERM. If you are an absolute nerd, type AAA, and have absolutely no life, then you would invest short term, buying and then selling as soon as it yields a profit. You invest long term because you know your stocks will grow much bigger then. Sure, in the short run, they might drop. But the drop is so miniscule compared to the 10% growth rate that will come in the long term! Think of it! If you started with 1,000,000, you can end up with 1,010,000 than if you sold it once it earned $1 profit.

So invest in your life with a LONG-TERM perspective. You know you're heaven-bound, so go to the college that would best serve God's purpose for you in your 70+ years on this earth. If God called you to be an engineer, go to the best engineering school you can go to. If God called you to be a theologian, go to Yale, Duke, or Chicago (but not Harvard-- they're unitarian). If God called you to be a businessman, go to Chicago (not Harvard-- very poor ethical training. Plus, why go to Harvard when Chicago has more economics Nobel laureates?). Most importantly, know that for a greater part of your life, you will be going to heaven and doing the heavenly work of worshipping God.

I want to go to heaven and hear God say, "Henri, great job. If you thought your time on earth was great, you saw nothing yet!" I don't want to hear, "Man, let me show you what I had planned for you. Look at what you missed out." or worse, "Do I even KNOW you? Everything I asked you to do, you did the opposite!" The tragedy, though, is that so many Christians are settling to just go to heaven. They don't care what God has to say-- just get me through the golden gates, and I'm a cool cucumber. That's VERY tragic. All you care is heaven, not God. You go to heaven to save your own butt, not because you love God.

I hope to go to heaven and see every one of my friends there. I know it's a pipe dream, because not every Christian friend I know will finish the race. They leave for the things of this world. It's a sad predicament, but it's the reality. I know a friend or two who used to be strong in the faith-- and they left. But what can I do? My friends are all grown up (or growing up). They are their own masters. I can only say, "Based on my own knowledge and experience, that's not the best way forward." but the final decision is theirs to make. So I hope all of you will make good decisions. Use your economics and think about the benefits of loving God against the costs of following Him. The costs are high. You may not get into the college of your choice. You might not get your dream job. But the benefit of eternal fellowship with God on High-- if that's not priceless, I don't know what is.