Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court • Hacker News Board

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#31

Post by ssttoo » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:12 AM UTC

bilbo0s wrote: post #20

lazyant wrote: post #13

If it was up to me, for university admissions there would be a public clear and objective scoring system, based for example only on grades and then use a lottery system weighted inversely by income. No more essays and subjective values, silly extracurriculars or race involved (it's already somehow accounted for in the income).

Not sure you want that, because then you end up with something like the Iowa system. (Basically, everyone is admitted, because every school optimizes for getting the required score. It's nigh impossible to graduate high school in Iowa WITHOUT the required 245 points for the Iowa schools.) Giving an explicit formula for scoring, along with a required score, has historically been the same as letting everyone in, becaus…

Here’s how it was in the old country:

Score = (score from exam at the school you want to go to * 2 + GPA + high school Math grade) / 4

That’s for engineering school. Every school has a different formula and holds its own exams. But the formula is public.

Sort all candidates, draw a line. When some of the selected people chose different schools, draw another line after a month.

We didn’t have an equivalent of SAT. But it can easily be plugged in a formula like this. There’s no studying to the test, since every school has a different test.

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#32

Post by munchbunny » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:14 AM UTC

lazyant wrote: post #13

If it was up to me, for university admissions there would be a public clear and objective scoring system, based for example only on grades and then use a lottery system weighted inversely by income. No more essays and subjective values, silly extracurriculars or race involved (it's already somehow accounted for in the income).

This is how you end up with China's system, which... has its own plethora of problems.

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#33

Post by blazespin » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:15 AM UTC

cpr wrote: post #3

The "secret" (at least for me back in 1972 ;-) was to be in a far-flung location (San Diego for me) where there's slim pickin's. ;-) Seriously, I'm sure the decision process has quantitative elements, but it's got to still be 70% intuition. And the "legacy" applicants most definitely get a big bump.

Yeah, I think the legacy crap is the real crime.

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#34

Post by mj_olnir » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:16 AM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #19

lazyant wrote: post #13

If it was up to me, for university admissions there would be a public clear and objective scoring system, based for example only on grades and then use a lottery system weighted inversely by income. No more essays and subjective values, silly extracurriculars or race involved (it's already somehow accounted for in the income).

That's why it's not up to you and Harvard has a $40B endowment ;) But more seriously, grades do not correlate across schools in the slightest. The rigor of a public school in rural Kansas vs. a private school in NY could be wildly different. AP scores and SATs correlate well (same test for everyone that takes it), but normal grades do not And good grades are already a prerequisite for admission, you generally need to…

AP scores might, but class rank is a far better correlator than SAT scores [1].

Although I couldn't find any research on it for overall collegiate performance, the only research i could find in a short Google Scholar search found slight correlations between SAT performance and freshman year performance (but not overall).

[1] http://www.psych.upenn.edu/~norman/SAT.pdf

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#35

Post by zone411 » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:16 AM UTC

There is some more information in this document: https://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-... One interesting thing I saw in there was the huge advantage that the legacy applicants and the kids of the staff get https://twitter.com/LechMazur/status/1053290170315927552. The exact racial advantages/disadvantages are also calculated - they are large (Table 5.1N but it doesn't include Asian applicants).

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#36

Post by nilkn » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:16 AM UTC

imranq wrote: post #17

Why should anyone care what Harvard does? Isn’t it a private university, and shouldn’t they be able to choose who they want? The whole thing strikes me as presumptuous and entitled.

So if they just decided not to admit a certain race of students entirely, that’d be okay because they’re a private institution?

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#37

Post by blazespin » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:17 AM UTC

ssttoo wrote: post #31

bilbo0s wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure you want that, because then you end up with something like the Iowa system. (Basically, everyone is admitted, because every school optimizes for getting the required score. It's nigh impossible to graduate high school in Iowa WITHOUT the required 245 points for the Iowa schools.) Giving an explicit formula for scoring, along with a required score, has historically been the same as letting everyone in, becaus…

Here’s how it was in the old country: Score = (score from exam at the school you want to go to * 2 + GPA + high school Math grade) / 4 That’s for engineering school. Every school has a different formula and holds its own exams. But the formula is public. Sort all candidates, draw a line. When some of the selected people chose different schools, draw another line after a month. We didn’t have an equivalent of SAT. But…

Juking the stats is pretty trivial.

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#38

Post by thrwawy12 » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:19 AM UTC

roymurdock wrote: post #19

lazyant wrote: post #13

If it was up to me, for university admissions there would be a public clear and objective scoring system, based for example only on grades and then use a lottery system weighted inversely by income. No more essays and subjective values, silly extracurriculars or race involved (it's already somehow accounted for in the income).

That's why it's not up to you and Harvard has a $40B endowment ;) But more seriously, grades do not correlate across schools in the slightest. The rigor of a public school in rural Kansas vs. a private school in NY could be wildly different. AP scores and SATs correlate well (same test for everyone that takes it), but normal grades do not And good grades are already a prerequisite for admission, you generally need to…

> The rigor of a public school in rural Kansas vs. a private school in NY could be wildly different. AP scores and SATs correlate well (same test for everyone that takes it), but normal grades do not.

That assumes students in rural Kansas have the same AP & SAT preparation as students in the elite NY private schools. The income disaparity between the two schools is probably quite noticable with one having more access to elite college prep than the other. By focusing purely on SAT scores and ignoring economic advantages you are discriminating against those from poor places without access to college prep. It's easy to be blind to that when you fall into the "elite NY private school" camp and have no idea how bad educational resources are in rural Kansas. It is a process of the elite admitting the elite and excluding the poor. You can tout how "fair" SAT scores are and how they equalize talent while conveniently ignoring you are just using it as a filter to keep out poor folks. The elite private NY school may send dozens of kids to HYP every year. The rural Kansas school may never send anyone to elite college in its entire existence. And it would be questionable if that rural Kansas school never had at least one student that would have excelled at an ivy (if given the same opportunities as students in the elite NY private school). Take the kids from the elite NY private school, strip them of their high parential income, put them into the rural Kansas school and take the kids in the rural Kansas school and put them into the elite NY private school with high parential income. Now see how many from each get admitted where.There are students at Harvard that have parential income of over $500,000. It wouldn't be unusual to find not one kid with the same parential income in the rural Kansas school.

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#39

Post by mothers » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:25 AM UTC

To those who have a problem with Harvard's alleged discrimination. Do you think female-only schools should exist? In addition, would you agree with an admission policy that only uses SAT and AP scores? Grades inherently are subjective and can unfairly be given on the basis of race on the K-12 level, so that's helpful.

Harvard should just model China and make the SAT the only criterion. If there are too many people with a perfect school, use randomization accordingly. Of course, the typical Harvard admit won't like this since it'll mean their private school boost won't mean anything, nor will the fact that they come from a feeder school.

Re: Harvard’s Admissions Process, Once Secret, Is Unveiled in Federal Court

#40

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 20, 2018, 2:28 AM UTC

friedman23 wrote: post #16

throwaway333444 wrote: post #10

> Harvard has testified that race, when considered in admissions, can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in. So if your race matches their preference they improve your odds of admittance. Since the number of admissions is fixed this reduces the odds of those who have a race that doesn’t match their preference. IANAL but it sounds like Harvard just admitted that they were guilty.

> can only help, not hurt, a student’s chances of getting in. Ok, can someone explain to me if this distinction even matters effectively? If every group is getting a bonus and one group is not doesn't that effectively mean that one group is being penalized?

[deleted]