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Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

theatlantic.com

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Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#91

Post by sweeneyrod »

rb808 wrote: post #41
sweeneyrod wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Harvard and the Ivies have been doing what they do for centuries and they're still successful. I'd suggest they know what they are doing when they let in privileged kids. If I could get into an Ivy I'd probably like to have some "thick" privileged kids in my class too to help fund my startup.

Oxbridge are centuries older and the idea of legacy admissions would be abhorrent to most people there.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#92

Post by leetcrew »

chadash wrote: post #72
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…

I once heard the dean of admissions at Columbia claim that they could get rid of the entire incoming class and replace them from kids in the applicant pool without suffering a decline in quality. I'm guessing this is mostly true, save for a few truly impressive students at the tippy top. Given the low number of spots compared to applicants, it's likely that you can fill an entire class with children of alumni without…

I think it's fair to assume that the "quality" of an applicant is some combination of innate ability (normally distributed) and the amount of resources that have already been invested in that student (exponentially distributed). this implies that the differences between students increase at the very high percentiles.

if the dean's claim is true, they are basically admitting that their admissions criteria sucks.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#93

Post by leetcrew »

geofft wrote: post #51
bradleyjg wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (ii) the university's endowments if alumni decrease their donations. The tax law says you aren't supposed to be able to deduct contributions to charitable organizations if you get something in return. Edit: Point being that this system is illegitimate in the first place, not that it doesn't happen.

Legacies are considered more favorably for admissions regardless of how much (or even whether) they donate, right? Or have I misunderstood the system? That is, the only thing that donations get you is the vague hope that your university will never make the decision Johns Hopkins just made, and it's a vague prisoner's dilemma - as long as enough alumni donate, legacy admissions stay around for all alumni.

my guess is that legacies are just a good proxy for donations in general. if someone encourages their child to apply to the same college they attended, they probably feel more connected to the institution than the average graduate (and have donated more accordingly). legacy admissions policies may also encourage people to donate more because they know their children will have a better chance of benefiting from the investment. it's likely a decent proxy for wealth, too; someone who graduated from an elite institution is probably well above the median income.

so basically it correlates with a lot of things that the institution wants, but doesn't want to state as an explicit policy.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#94

Post by leetcrew »

asdff wrote: post #82
rm999 wrote: post #32

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 independ…

You'd be surprised, a lot of kids opt not to go the legacy route simply because that's where mom/dad went and they want to branch out. I'd say getting admitted has little correlation to success in school, anyway. Plenty of people fail out. To your last point, it would be nice if legacy/donor admits didn't cut into the number of offers extended to everyone else.

> Plenty of people fail out.

this is actually pretty rare at very selective institutions. Harvard has a graduation rate of about 96%. most elite schools tend to be in the mid to high nineties.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#95

Post by leetcrew »

xnyan wrote: post #63
lgleason wrote: post #44

Admissions should be 100% merit based. No special favors for anybody.

That sounds very tidy, but reality is not that simple. Here is a very real situation many schools face: you have 100 slots in your school. You objectively determine that X skills are needed to do well in your school. 1000 applicants demonstrate meeting X level of skills. Some of the 1000 clearly show they have skills well above X, but most of the 1000 are roughly equivalent. Which 900 get turned away and how do you d…

the obvious question is why does X skills have to remain constant? if you have ten times as many qualified applicants as slots, why not increase the rigor of your program until the decision gets a bit easier?

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#96

Post by floatingatoll »

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…

There is a third group: (iii) individuals who hope that some sort of chance nepotism will benefit them someday and don’t want society to move away from it before it does.

If someone has to decide openly between allowing or denying an instance nepotism, based on a secretly-held belief that it’s acceptable because it could benefit them, then they are able to take the stance that “nepotism is bad, but anti-nepotism has gone too far” in order to extend the life of the benefit (and their chances of benefiting from it).

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#97

Post by motohagiography »

xnyan wrote: post #67
motohagiography wrote: post #35

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 af…

I am trying really hard to parse what you are saying. Please help. >Commenting to register disappointment at this outcome, but no point in arguing a forgone conclusion. Understood. It reads like you really want people to know you own a thesaurus, but register your forgones to your heart's content. >The opportunities this creates will be in how Huh? >to satiate the need for validatiom this new class of burghers. A new…

Indeed, your struggle is apparent.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#98

Post by chadash »

leetcrew wrote: post #92
chadash wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I once heard the dean of admissions at Columbia claim that they could get rid of the entire incoming class and replace them from kids in the applicant pool without suffering a decline in quality. I'm guessing this is mostly true, save for a few truly impressive students at the tippy top. Given the low number of spots compared to applicants, it's likely that you can fill an entire class with children of alumni without…

I think it's fair to assume that the "quality" of an applicant is some combination of innate ability (normally distributed) and the amount of resources that have already been invested in that student (exponentially distributed). this implies that the differences between students increase at the very high percentiles. if the dean's claim is true, they are basically admitting that their admissions criteria sucks.

I think the dean would freely admit this. If elite colleges had a perfect admissions process, they would never fail to admit people who go on to accomplish great things. But they do. All the time.

The issue is that they have a limited set of things to go on. And high school performance, test scores and extracurriculars just aren't a great predictor of success, but they certainly better than just picking students randomly.

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#99

Post by dang »

motohagiography wrote: post #97
xnyan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am trying really hard to parse what you are saying. Please help. >Commenting to register disappointment at this outcome, but no point in arguing a forgone conclusion. Understood. It reads like you really want people to know you own a thesaurus, but register your forgones to your heart's content. >The opportunities this creates will be in how Huh? >to satiate the need for validatiom this new class of burghers. A new…

Indeed, your struggle is apparent.

Personal attacks will get you banned here. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins

#100

Post by ponsin »

leetcrew wrote: post #95
xnyan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds very tidy, but reality is not that simple. Here is a very real situation many schools face: you have 100 slots in your school. You objectively determine that X skills are needed to do well in your school. 1000 applicants demonstrate meeting X level of skills. Some of the 1000 clearly show they have skills well above X, but most of the 1000 are roughly equivalent. Which 900 get turned away and how do you d…

the obvious question is why does X skills have to remain constant? if you have ten times as many qualified applicants as slots, why not increase the rigor of your program until the decision gets a bit easier?

Because the difference between scoring in the top 94% vs top 97% in the SAT does not correlate well with how good the student will be
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