Like many of our peers, we supported the CAP report's call for vigorous recruitment of "talented students from less-affluent backgrounds." The view of the College's future as painted by "Campus Revolutionary," however, was not one that we could endorse. Fortunately, it now appears that much of BusinessWeek's take was an embellished version of President Marx's intentions. While we certainly understand the urge to embellish the facts to make a story more interesting, we wish Symonds would have avoided the temptation. Nonetheless, we are excited by the scope of student commentary on the article and hope that when the sensationalism subsides the dialogue will continue. We feel there will still be plenty to discuss.
Though we wholeheartedly endorse increased socioeconomic diversity on campus, the road to this destination worries us. After all, reaching out to less-affluent high school students across the country is just one of the CAP's 21 recommendations, and many of the rest deal with improving the way we educate current students who are already under-prepared. The addition of 120 low-income students with qualifications below current Amherst standards as described by BusinessWeek was a fallacy. But we are still concerned by the prospect of bringing more students from poor secondary schools to the College at a time when the College community is still trying to decide how to deal with students who are not ready to utilize an Amherst education. Although students from non-affluent upbringings are not automatically under-prepared, it is undeniable that statistically speaking, low-income students do poorer on the SAT through no fault of their own.
The American educational system is infested with deplorable inequities which must be combated, but the College must be careful not to fight the deep-seeded discrimination in a way that could actually hinder Amherst's ability to fight the great socioeconomic divide in this country. We agree with Professor of Economics Geoffrey Woglom who told BusinessWeek, "I want to make sure we're doing a good job with the diversity we already have."
We hope that the administration will take advantage of the sharp increase in student interest in the CAP report's findings. While there's no such thing as bad press, the sensationalism in the BusinessWeek article will only carry the attention of the College community for so long. We hope that the administration will clarify its position and make a renewed effort to foster dialogue by more directly addressing and engaging its students.