response 134 of 232:

Jan 23 14:21 UTC 2003

Folks keep harping on the "20 points for being black" business, but 
there's arguably a lot more points for being white, under the UM system.

Take the miscellaneous category--which is where the "black points" come 
from, and under which category an applicant can get only one set of 
points (can't get 20 for black PLUS 20 for athlete).  There's 20 points 
for being poor--presumably most of these points go to poor white kids, 
since the minority kids already got their 20 (but eliminate the race 
points, and this would even out to a large degreee).  There's 5 points 
for a male entering the nursing program--presumably mostly 
middle-to-upper income white points, since the poor and minority kids 
would have taken the greater 20.  And of course, there's the 20 points 
"at the provost's discretion", which are almost certainly exclusively 
white points, for kids who don't get points under the other 
classifications, but bring some sort of otherwise-unclassifiable special 
quality to the table (like maybe a big donation from Daddy?).

The 4 legacy points have already been noted in other posts, but it 
should be pointed out that, as the overwhelming majority of alumni are 
white, legacy points will go mostly to white kids.  I wonder what the 
minority enrollment at UM was 20 or 40 years ago, when the current crop 
of students' parents were attending college (or even further back, when 
their grandparents [1 legacy point] attended)?

Then there's the geographical white points.  All state of Michigan 
applicants get a 10 point boost, but those from rural (aka 
disproportionally white) areas get an extra 6 points on top of that.

And there's even white points under the academic classifications.  
There's a total range of 22 points under "school factor" and "curriculum 
factor".  These points boil down to how good the school is, and how many 
 AP courses are offered/taken.  I wouldn't be telling tales out of 
school to note that kids who attend rich white private schools are going 
to get a lot more of these points than the kids stuck in broken down 
inner-city schools.

Perhaps the 20 black points simply attempt to even out all the extra 
white points.