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【编者按： 本文由网友Lesly Francis翻译完成。多名义工对初稿进行了校对及部分更新。我们对所有的付出表示感谢！
请分享给你的孩子或母语不是中文的朋友，并在留言处分享他们的观点。谢谢。
The article was initially translated by Lesly Francis. Please share the article with your children or friends whose native language is not Chinese, and share their views in the comment section. Thank you.
中文原文：《AA影响你孩子爬藤但不影响前途》】
Affirmative Action (AA) Affects Your Children’s Admission to Ivy League Universities but Does Not Affect Their Future
By: Runtao Yan
Date: Feb. 21, 2019
Translated by: Lesly Francis
First, I want to make it clear that the Affirmative Action (AA) at prestigious universities, in general, is not the same as the Affirmative Action at higher educational universities. They are different concepts. For example, if Ivy League universities do not admit an individual, they still can apply to and attend other may be perceived less prestigious universities, such as a state university. It is not that they do not have a chance of attending universities after high school. Many universities do not implement the concept of AA. Even if a university has AA, it will not prevent students from attending a state university if the Ivy League universities reject them. If a state university does not admit the student, Ivy League universities would most likely reject the student as well, even without AA.
Regarding the skills taught in higher educational environments, scientific studies have proven that there is little difference between an Ivy League and a state university. One is not better than the other in terms of skills taught. In one study, those admitted by Harvard but decided to attend a state university instead, primarily because of scholarships, were compared with their cohort from Harvard ten years after graduation. Analysis showed there is little difference between the two groups regarding their income. In other words, if Harvard admitted a student, it makes no difference to one’s income, whether this student attended Harvard or not.
Let us look at other statistics. 34% of the Harvard undergraduate class of 2018 earned an annual salary of less than $50k for their first job, and 11% made less than $30k. Please do not take it as that Harvard graduates would prefer working as volunteers or in a non-profit organization without much pay. According to 2018 statistics, only 3.5% of the graduates took this type of job, which means another 7.5% had jobs that paid less than $30k. Not all Harvard graduates earn more than those from state universities. When IQ is held constant across comparisons, there is no difference in which university students attend. In fact, many Ivy League universities recruit students who transfer from community colleges. When a student attends and is successful at a community college, which is equivalent to a technical training school in China, they will still be able to transfer to an Ivy League university to continue their studies.
Affirmative Action (AA) does not significantly impact or influence a student’s future. Both Ivy League and other higher education institutions can provide all the courses students need. Even if students enroll in Ivy League universities, some of them can only get a job with an annual salary of less than $30k, as data shows, when they cannot make good grades. As long as they have high IQ scores and good grades, those who attend community colleges will likely find jobs that pay at least $80k. Those who think that Ivy League universities are the best and only path for students do not understand that the data show little difference between annual income of the two types of schools. I am not trying to comfort those who have not been admitted to Ivy League universities but stating the facts. Ivy League universities cannot improve students’ IQ and may even undermine students’ self-confidence when they are not academically successful. A nugget of gold shines no matter where it goes.
Are there advantages of attending Ivy League universities? Scientifically speaking, yes!
American history and world history have shown that intellectuals from prestigious schools have made monumental contributions to modern civilization and the evolution of humanity. Ivy League graduates demonstrate little degree of servile characteristics and seem to promote the rebellious spirit, reverse/alternative thinking, and critical reasoning. That is the reason these universities are labeled “bastions of left-liberalism.”
In other words, if you want your children to make contributions in leading future human civilization, Ivy League universities are the best place for them. If that is the case, you should train your children to think critically during their high school years instead of drilling them to do rote academic exercises. For example, you could have them point out ten significant mistakes the president, governor, or mayor makes in their administrative management and governing ideologies. That is how you develop independent and critical thinking and not be fans, flatterers, or trumpeters of those in power. This mindset aligns with Ivy League universities’ talent admission standards and training goals. After arriving at an Ivy League university, it is easier to follow human freedom footsteps and fight for a better world for all. In many cases, the civilization of American society is led by the Ivy League intellectuals. Your children can be one of them. If the people in power are moving against the trends of human freedom, they can apply the critical thoughts to discover and act accordingly. Ivy League universities are not a place that trains minions. Finding a high-paying job has nothing to do with which university you go to, as long as you are dedicated to the skill learning and training processes. Most universities provide the latest in scientific and technological knowledge.
It is not difficult to learn the content of undergraduate courses, even if self-study is the only option. However, attending college is a new stage of life experience for most young people. Students are placed into an environment where they can mingle together to promote society on the road for modern civilization and development. American higher education, particularly Ivy League universities, are where social elites are cultivated.
Ivy League schools cannot improve your innate IQ, nor can they improve your ability to make money in the future. Children of billionaires inherit fortunes, which have nothing to do with what school they attend. If a student wants to strive to understand modern civilization and achieve equal treatment of the poor and undocumented immigrants, Ivy League universities are a perfect fit for these individuals. However, if parents want their children to become followers of people with power or not to develop the ability to think independently; rather just want them to make more money to raise their families, an Ivy League university is not the right choice here.
Some Chinese families expect their children to earn more money, as the main indicator of their social status or success. They are against liberal ideologies based on liberty, freedom, and equal treatment of the poor and undocumented Hispanic immigrants. Attending an Ivy League university does not make any difference in these cases. This, of course, has nothing to do with whether Harvard has fair admission policies. Even if Harvard accepts your child to attend their school, your child really should not accept the offer because the ground is not sensible. Those who want to become followers of people with power or authority should attend Peking University or a university in North Korea. Ivy League universities are not the place to cultivate fans of people with power or authority. Again, this has nothing to do with whether Harvard has a fair admissions policy or not. If you believe in Buddhism, you should not be attending an Islamic mosque even if you are invited.
Some Chinese individuals with a high IQ do not fit well with the ideology of Ivy League universities. Conversely, Ivy League universities do not agree with some Chinese individuals with a high IQ doctrine. Some Chinese parents pass terrible culture genes down to their children such as lacking independent thinking and aspiring to be fans of people with power. At home, they do not nurture the rebellious spirit, the ideology of fighting for equality, freedom, equal treatment for the poor and undocumented immigrants, or the idea that all human beings are created equal. These tendencies are just the opposite of the doctrine of modern civilization endorsed by the liberal mindset. Many Chinese people have ideologies aligning with Peking or Tsinghua University’s. They view Ivy League universities as the equivalent organizations of Peking or Tsinghua University, therefore push their children to be admitted by these universities, who they deem the best.
Knowledge is power and an indispensable element to the development of skills and work abilities. People such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and relatively recent scholars such as Newton and Einstein, agree that imagination and independent thinking are more important than factual knowledge. Exam-oriented education in China improves knowledge proficiency, which helps enhance skills to repeat or copy things, like copycat products. It does not promote independent thinking, imagination, and creativity. On the contrary, it diminishes these qualities.
To get a perfect SAT score by repeating and drilling exercises has very little to do with one’s creative insight into understanding society and mankind, the ability to perceive people and affairs accurately, think independently, manage society, or communicate with others. Getting perfect scores by repetitively doing exercises is an effective way to train servile followers for those with power or authority. This kind of education system stems from a slave culture then strengthen each other.
No other ethnic group would show their utmost enthusiasm for the rich and powerful by renting airplanes to pull banners to cheer for them (an indication of servile culture). Why wouldn’t white Trump supporters imitate the behavior of Chinese Trump supporters? Is it because they do not have that kind of money? This type of behavior is indeed viewed as a joke in the modern history of humanity. Westerners have long abandoned the behavior of grossly flattering people with money or power.
If one wants to learn some skills and find a job that makes decent money, there is no difference between a State University and an Ivy League one. The income result of attending Harvard or not is pretty much the same. Instead, your child would not suffer in the Liberal educational environment unless your child wanted to be a liberal or not much sensitive to the environment around. Even if your child would not be that sensitive to the environment, there should be no reason or value to attend the Ivy League school, as Confucius said more than two thousand years ago – “Those whose courses are different cannot lay plans for one another.”
As I mentioned in my earlier articles, Chinese people in the United States have benefited from the African American civil rights movement. I also mentioned that the “Chinese Exclusion Act” was replaced by another bill. This bill only allowed 105 Chinese people to immigrate to the United States every year. Even if Chinese immigrants received citizenship, they could not own or purchase properties like land, cars, or houses. Although the 1897 California constitution prohibiting government and companies from hiring Chinese workers was repealed in 1952, it was not until 1965 that the law prohibiting Chinese people from purchasing private property was repealed. This is one example of legal discrimination cited by African Americans during the civil rights movement. By then, the black people’s civil rights movement had been in progress for a decade.
A clear note to be made – the civil rights movement was perceived to have started in 1955, but it started much earlier. To be scientifically accurate, the year 1955 is considered the beginning of the campaign when it spread to the whole country.
If not for the civil rights movement that abolished racial discrimination in law, it would still be illegal for the Chinese people to buy a car or a house in many of the states in the United States at present. Now, many new Chinese immigrants are breathtakingly ignorant and fearless. Some of them even wrote articles despising the Chinese in Chinatowns for not looking for work outside. They even expressed degrading remarks by stating that Chinese Americans were not trying hard enough to look for jobs. American law did not allow Chinese to own their property, including cars, and they could only live in Chinatowns. It was the black civil rights movement that saved the Chinese people living in America. This part of the history is clear to the scholars of U.S. Ivy League schools, who were quite confused when they saw some Chinese opposed the Ivy League’s support to black people. What needs to be pointed out here is that it would have been tough for the civil rights movement to succeed without the participation of the Jewish people behind the scenes. After World War II, the Jewish community almost took over the mainstream media in the United States. All three major television networks, eight of the nine Hollywood studios, and many major newspapers, including the New York Times and The Washington Post, were under Jewish control. They also gradually took control over the financial institutions.
