Quote:
Originally Posted by rubecube
You don't think there are reasons why an LGBTQ kid, or a kid with disabilities might perform worse during high school? Think about being a gay or transgender student living in a household or community where that might not be acceptable.
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This is a fair point. I do think we're doing much better at this now than we were when I was in high school, but it's not perfect. Obviously the better solution to this would be to actually attack the problem at its source in the schools the kids are actually
required to go to rather than in post-secondary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by opendoor
If someone can explain why their particular background would aid their teaching career and the education system, then it's a great idea to give that a lot of weight along with grades. And given that you need at least 3 years of post secondary education to even get into the education program at that university, I don't think it's too much to expect any worthy applicant to be able to articulate that as opposed to simply checking a box. And if you don't feel your student body is diverse enough then you can have your selection committee place more emphasis on the written portion, but to just have a quota seems exceptionally lazy to me.
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This makes a bunch of sense to me.
At the end of the day, I think what most people would agree on is that admissions should be based on
future potential, rather than past performance - past performance is only useful in so far as it
indicates future potential. It is useful for that, but there are other factors to be weighed. If you have some other reason why you'd make a good applicant beyond your grades, there's no reason that shouldn't be taken into account.
This policy, it seems to me, skips that step and simplistically assumes that there needs to be a handicap (in the metaphorical golf sense) to adjust for certain personal characteristics, and this doesn't seem realistically generalizable, even though in some cases it may well be true.