Four points was all it was that kept me from getting into my dream school. Baylor let someone with worse grades than me in because of their race! I know I worked harder than them and my grades and extra curricular activities showed it. I went straight to the Board of Admissions and talked with them about it. They said that they let other races in first because they might not have got the same opportunities as I did in school. Well that little part about “might” not have gotten the same chances as me is a big part of why I don’t believe in affirmative action. I am against affirmative action because race should not matter and should only be based on achievements.

Race should not matter! Rich minorities could be getting extra points for no reason at all and it could be pushing another kid who worked hard out of the way. The rich minority may have even gotten better chances than the kid who does not get the extra points and who worked a lot harder. Poor white kids do not get extra points because they are white. Rich kids of other races do. Say a rich minority had some of the best opportunities, but didn’t take advantage of it and did not do as well as he needed to, to get into the college he wants. Then there is a white kid who did not have the best of opportunities because his parents could not afford a good education, but he worked extremely hard and did as well as possible! Then they both decide to apply to the same college and the white kid with better grades and less opportunities gets rejected because a minority also applied even though his grades were lower. To me that does not make much sense at all. This could go either way. I don’t really care what race or ethnicity you are, but what matters to me is that you show that you want to do something and you make the best of the chances you get. Background is a huge part that I think should be considered here. Where you grow up and the environment around you plays a huge role on the chances you get to prove yourself. Anyone could grow up in poverty but it’s the ones that work hard to get out of it and strive to be the best they can possibly be that deserve those big chances. Its different if you are poor and all you do your whole life is feeling sorry for yourself and just tell yourself that you can’t fix it. You shouldn’t get any chances for that. You don’t deserve anything for doing nothing. Everything should depend on your work ethic. If you have a great work ethic and you try hard in everything you do and you still don’t have the best grades, well that’s not your fault but that should show a college that you are willing to work for what you want and you aren’t just going to give up. Work ethic has nothing to do with race or ethnicity. Extra curricular activities should play a role too. If a college sees that you are keeping your grades high and they also see that you are participating in other things at the same time then that should matter. When you participate in other activities, it’s going to take time away from your studies. This is where the hard work comes back into play. You have to work hard to keep your grades up if you are going to participate in other things as well as doing well in school. It shows colleges that you are dedicated to your studies as well as your commitment. Commitment and dedication are two important factors that I would look at in an applicant. I will give extra points to kids who will commit to something and stay with it even when they have other things that they are also dedicated to. The only time I could see race and ethnicity coming into the discussion or extra points would be if you came to America and did not know English, but you learned it and ended up making good grades and stayed dedicated to your school. Everything leads back to hard work though. The only way that will ever happen is if you work hard to learn the new language and then work even harder to apply what you are learning to your schoolwork. Affirmative Action is a dumb rule and should not be used in the process of accepting applicants to college. A better way of doing this is to just have a background check and look at all the achievements starting with where they grew up and the environment to extra curricular activities and to grades. Hard work is the key factor to look at when accepting applicants to college.

When arguing against someone who is for affirmative action, you might want to take into consideration what he or she will counter argue back at you with. They might say something about the hardships of coming from another country. Well if they were born in the United States they have no issue. Then if they are transferring from another country in the middle of their life, then that’s a different story. That’s hard to do and still make good grades to get into a great college. Discrimination against certain races is terrible, but it should not be reversed to give the discriminated races extra points. That’s not good either. Both giving extra points for nothing and discrimination is wrong and should be stopped. Getting into college should have nothing to do with race, which is just dumb! They will probably say that the kids of East St. Louis should get extra points when getting into college. Now that’s something I agree with, but again that had nothing to do with race, it has to do with background and how they grew up. The environment they live in does not give them a chance to do as well as kids who live a good life. Another reason someone would be for affirmative action is that it would diversify college campuses. Well honestly if these other races that get the extra points would just work hard and not rely on those extra points then the campuses would have diversity. Now that they know that they get extra points they just do the least they can do to get in because they know they can get in over others who work hard and make better grades than them just for their race. Some kids might have connections with maybe the board of admissions and they will get in over others and that is not fair. I totally agree with that, but that doesn’t push other races out of the way it pushes everyone out of the way. If my friend got in over me because of connections then that is just dumb. That is a white kid getting in over a white kid not a white kid getting in over another race. Well actually it’s a white kid getting in over everyone and every race but it doesn’t have anything to do with race.

I am against affirmative action because of race should not matter and should only be based on achievements. It just doesn’t make sense to do it any other way. Race has nothing to do with anything. You don’t get less of a chance for being another race. If we fix this it will fix the problem of racism in a way. It will be a big help and we can be more consistent when we let kids into college. The more consistent we can be, the better we can be as a country. Affirmative action forces racism and that’s not what we want!