Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins • Hacker News Board

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#31

Post by JumpCrisscross » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #30

I think legacy admissions are a good thing for the organization and the other students who go there. People in the US have a close attachment to their university, they would like their children to go there and they donate a lot of money. Take away legacy admissions and you just get people who want to go there for the reputation and endowment. The endowment quickly fades because people are less likely to donate, and w…

> People in the US have a close attachment to their university, they would like their children to go there and they donate a lot of money

Why link first two to the last?

Pride in one’s alma mater, and encouragement towards one’s children to attend, can remain without a codified edge in admissions.

There are numerous advantages a parent familiar with the process and people at an institution can give their kids. Adding to that edge is superfluous.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#32

Post by rm999 » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:43 PM UTC

Really happy to hear this. As someone who went to Hopkins I would fully encourage my children to apply (I had a great time and got an amazing education). But the idea that I spent a few years of my life there 40 years ago feels irrelevant to the admissions process. Any advantage given would be counterproductive in several ways:

1. It would coddle the child at a time in their life when it's essential to learn independence. This can't be good for the values they are developing.

2. It has no correlation to their success at the school. Getting admitted to a tough school like Hopkins if they are not prepared would be incredibly stressful and would probably be negatively correlated to their future success. I saw a few students who got special admissions crash and burn their freshman year and transfer out.

3. The article goes into this a lot, but it's not good for equality and encourages stratification. This isn't good for society. And it decreases diversity which is probably bad for the university.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#33

Post by rayiner » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #30

I think legacy admissions are a good thing for the organization and the other students who go there. People in the US have a close attachment to their university, they would like their children to go there and they donate a lot of money. Take away legacy admissions and you just get people who want to go there for the reputation and endowment. The endowment quickly fades because people are less likely to donate, and w…

Endowments and reputation fading is a good thing. One of the things that drives up cost of college is the competition among universities. If we are going to publicly subsidize higher education, through loans or otherwise, we need to reduce differentiation. Obviously there will be better or worse ones still, but going across the country to attend a “top 50 school” is not something we should be encouraging. (And that phenomenon is much less common in Europe, where going to a local school is typical even for good students.)

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#34

Post by wbl » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #30

I think legacy admissions are a good thing for the organization and the other students who go there. People in the US have a close attachment to their university, they would like their children to go there and they donate a lot of money. Take away legacy admissions and you just get people who want to go there for the reputation and endowment. The endowment quickly fades because people are less likely to donate, and w…

Caltech doesn't have legacy admits. They have a top notch reputation while Harvard somewhat unfairly has a reputation of being easy.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#35

Post by motohagiography » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

Commenting to register disappointment at this outcome, but no point in arguing a forgone conclusion. The opportunities this creates will be in how to satiate the need for validation for this new class of burghers. Imposter syndrome is a trillion dollar opportunity.

Surely there is some new thing we can invent for them to take pictures of themselves with?

Edit: the author is using the Atlantic to take a victory lap after having infiltrated, destroyed and dismantled something. Their cant deserves scorn.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#36

Post by sweeneyrod » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 9:59 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #30

I think legacy admissions are a good thing for the organization and the other students who go there. People in the US have a close attachment to their university, they would like their children to go there and they donate a lot of money. Take away legacy admissions and you just get people who want to go there for the reputation and endowment. The endowment quickly fades because people are less likely to donate, and w…

I'm sure Harvard's reputation would be fine without admitting a load of thick kids who happen to come from privileged backgrounds (the smart ones would get in anyway). Maybe their endowment would suffer, but since they currently have about as much money as the whole of Latvia I expect they'd survive.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#37

Post by jostmey » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 10:25 PM UTC

virtuous_signal wrote: post #4

>The year I arrived, Hopkins had more legacy students in its freshman class (12.5 percent) than students who were eligible for Pell Grants (9 percent). Now those numbers are reversed—3.5 percent of students in this year’s freshman class have a legacy connection to the university, and 19.1 percent are Pell-eligible This change happened in five years . Such a policy change would be extremely popular. For proponents of…

Another way to look at it: The number of legacy students has fallen almost to zero, so now Johns Hopkins announces they are getting rid of legacy students, not before.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#38

Post by peterwwillis » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 10:27 PM UTC

There's huge waiting lists for international students to get into Hopkins. What this will probably result in is that it makes headroom for more international students to get in (because if you're sourcing "qualified and promising students from all backgrounds" there's probably gonna be more of those across the whole globe rather than locally).

Also, the Pell Grant averages just over $4K, going up to about $6K. The tuition for JHU is about $52K, but with room and board, books, and other misc living expenses this goes up to $69K.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#39

Post by akhilcacharya » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 10:32 PM UTC

rb808 wrote: post #30

I think legacy admissions are a good thing for the organization and the other students who go there. People in the US have a close attachment to their university, they would like their children to go there and they donate a lot of money. Take away legacy admissions and you just get people who want to go there for the reputation and endowment. The endowment quickly fades because people are less likely to donate, and w…

> The endowment quickly fades because people are less likely to donate, and when your reputation slips suddenly your students dry up and there is no loyal customer base of families who are committed.

This is great! I hope more elite universities follow suit (or preferably are forced to) if that’s the case.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#40

Post by nugget » Sat, Jan 18, 2020, 10:37 PM UTC

jostmey wrote: post #37

virtuous_signal wrote: post #4

>The year I arrived, Hopkins had more legacy students in its freshman class (12.5 percent) than students who were eligible for Pell Grants (9 percent). Now those numbers are reversed—3.5 percent of students in this year’s freshman class have a legacy connection to the university, and 19.1 percent are Pell-eligible This change happened in five years . Such a policy change would be extremely popular. For proponents of…

Another way to look at it: The number of legacy students has fallen almost to zero, so now Johns Hopkins announces they are getting rid of legacy students, not before.

Yes this seems more like an attempt to capitalize on a negative trend (legacies no longer applying and matriculating) to achieve positive brand association (Hopkins is now leading the way towards a meritocratic future). I'd be curious what led to the fall in legacy students in the first place.