Th Wednesday, September 6, 2000 - The Michigan Daily -- New Student Edition - 9B An early Whenever you walk through the Diag, it never fails that you'll find a collection of carefully cut, bright slips of paper being shoved in your open hand as you run late to class. Sometimes paper venders will even go so far as to place them at your seat if your class is in a big lec- ture hall. These slips of paper would be incredibly useful if you had some kinda of origami fetish - but to the general population, they are just dead neon trees. But I am not here to stop the handing out of paper slips - in fact some of them are actually informational. I just want to warn against these ads for the highly paid "Notetakers." Yes, you'll no doubt run into some obscure ad for a website that promis- ACTION Continued from Page 2B This is a poor substitute for the method it replaced because it leaves schools without the ability actually make any judgements about the ability of applicants. Factors such as an applicant's standardized test scores, any student leadership, com- munity service and other activities outside the classroom that can help demonstrate a student's skills have been taken off the table. Assessing the qualifications of an incredibly diverse group of applicants, with drastically different experiences, accomplishments and demonstrated levels of ability has been reduced to a one-size-fits-all solution. The result is more unfair than the com- plex admissions process that includ- ed consideration of race ever was. Many students that did little outside the classroom or did not take chal- lenging courses will be admitted over students who have demonstrat- ed attributes valued by colleges but did not fall in the top ten percent of their class. The ten percent system really will create situations where less qualified applicants are .accept- ed over more qualified ones, the usual, though incorrect claim made about the systems that consider race. This system is also totally unworkable for judging graduate and professional school applicants, which are also not allowed to con- sider race in many places. Achiev- *ing diversity is important, but doing it in such an arbitrary manner ignores the fact that students do not demonstrate their ability to succeed in college solely through high school grades. The ten percent sys- tern likely will ultimately be harm- ful to the educational environments of universities that use it because it will most likely lower the quality of their students. The admissions policies of the University as they currently exist may not be perfect, but they are as fair and effective as anyone knows how to make them and are vastly preferable to many other systems. These policies provide this universi- ty with a both a diverse and highly qualified student body. Neither goal is sacrificed for the other. The Uni- versity's use of race in its admis- sions decisions is necessary to *maintain the best academic environ- ment possible and it is nodiscrimi- natory. It merely acknowledges that race in this country affects what opportunities people have. That must be recognized for the best stu- dents to be found. If race is not con- sidered in the University's admissions process, many applicants who are qualified will be rejected sand the University's educational environment will be damaged for others throuch the admission of less well-qualified students. Ours is not a color-blind society and one's race makes a difference in how people live and what chances they get. For the University to be forced by the courts to shut its eyes to this reality would be a grave injustice and seriously harm its ability to effectively educate its *tudents. warning to students: nline notes are a scam! ' 'n,, class!!". You'll sign up for two classes and then go to Aca- pulco for Spring Break figuring you have it in your budget. (Or maybe that's Just what I did.) I mean, vou've Erin got an extra McQuinn S80() basically being handed to you for doing some- thing you already do! It just sounds wav too good to be true. And sadly THOMAs KULJURGIS enough, it is. )o here CMuf11 bisi t ting, in the middle of July, waitin for that very much-needed 800 bucks so you can pay of Your credit cards debt which is noww startin to look a lot like what You paid for your car. Somehow, it becomaes a lot easier to spend the mnoney if you never actually see it. You'll start telling Yourself, "Oh yeah, I can afford this, I've got S800 bucks comlin c!And You'll proceed to use that excuse, over and over agcain to VourselfI unil you've spent those S800 about 30 times over. This approach is espe- cially easy to use if' von char