391–400 of 568 posts
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Money? Undergraduate attendance is typically a vastly larger revenue stream.
Most of Caltech's revenue is from government and private research grants, not tuition. They only raised it because they don't have economies of scale for their undergrad program and admissions wanted to keep up with the Joneses at Stanford and Princeton,
As an Asian who went to an Ivy, I welcome this change. Yes, it will mask a policy of keeping the proportion of Asians lower than a race neutral policy. Yes, it's racially discriminatory. Yes, it's somewhat unfair to Asians who are trying to get in. But no, being fair isn't the point of these schools. Nor is having the most academically excellent student population. If you want that, go to Berkeley or CalTech. The poi…
Us Asians are in a weird place, because as a statistic we're very successful, but also subject to a fairly wide range of discrimination inside and outside the workplace. We already a harder time breaking into "Good Old Boy" all-white institutions, and I have lost count of the number of casually racist anti-Asian things I have heard at my past few jobs.
> I wouldn't want to go to a college that is 50% Asian and 1% black over a college that reflected the demographics of the country.
I would disagree. IMO I'd rather see Harvard and the Ivies become 50% Asian, to drive home the point that there is nothing special about Harvard and it's just a name (as an example -- consider the other two schools you mentioned. Going to Berkeley or CalTech is still considered prestigious as hell). Life should be a holistic admission, but a lot of employers still use schools as a filter. So why should Asians be denied the opportunity to prove that that heuristic is imperfect?
Otherwise, Harvard will used as a filter that implicitly discriminates against Asians later in life. Think ”Oh he's from Harvard, good thing it's not one of those all-Asian colleges” which I'm sure is said behind closed doors in many rooms today and which you have perhaps benefited from.
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A very cynical answer to what's the logic here: objective measures get in the way of many non-academic college admission goals, so colleges want to do away with them. One of those goals is racial diversity, and that's the only one colleges openly talk about because it's the only one that can positively impact society. Other goals include raising more money by admitting the children of major donors, improving the pres…
>improving the prestige of the college by admitting top athletes What's the logic here? I'll admit I'm not a big fan of college sports myself, but who assesses the credibility of a college by their athletics program?
They also bring back older graduates for a piece of nostalgia and bit of donation.
As an Asian who went to an Ivy, I welcome this change. Yes, it will mask a policy of keeping the proportion of Asians lower than a race neutral policy. Yes, it's racially discriminatory. Yes, it's somewhat unfair to Asians who are trying to get in. But no, being fair isn't the point of these schools. Nor is having the most academically excellent student population. If you want that, go to Berkeley or CalTech. The poi…
Yep, Asians need to learn how to play the race politics card. All those white politicians didn't get into the white house because they had good grades, but because they knew how to play to the crowd. In a democratic society, if you don't know how to get others to like you you'll always be screwed by someone who does. Remember, the employee that gets promoted isn't the one that works the hardest, but the one that thei…
I remain skeptical that admissions committees can distinguish between great students and good students through their personal statements. (Not that the SAT would have helped there either)
The objective here isn't to identify good students. That's just the cover story. The objective is to select on criteria other than intelligence. For example, race.
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If the learning experience is simplified to listening to a lecture, either live or recorded, and all grading is done algorithmically, then yes, there is no scaling limitation. This would be considered a very poor learning experience though. Even in the School of Engineering at Harvard, even for the CS classes, very few use autograding. Students expect individual feedback on their work. They expect the ability to pers…
>Also worth noting that 20% of Harvard students pay 0 tuition, and more than 50% get needs-based scholarships. https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid . So if you're smart enough, and/or fit into the financial aid brackets, why not go to Harvard? Are you seriously suggesting that 50% the most talented students in the country have $313,000 for tuition? If financial aid and scholarships worked as advertised, Ivy Leag…
1. Legacy: If your parents went to Harvard, you're much more likely to get in. This allows the meritocratic wheel to keep turning, in theory, but in practice allows Harvard to let in many rich/privileged individuals who will not cost them and who may bring in big $$ donations over time.
2. Harvard brags about its myriad sports programs...WHY? If it's the best school in the world, why are they giving away 100's of seats to people who manipulate spherical objects adeptly? Their ability to manipulate objects or move their bodies skillfully has VERY LITTLE to do with progressing our civilization. Shouldn't those seats go to the next generation of brilliant minds, not brilliant bodies?
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>Harvard doesn't offer academic scholarships. OK, but there are other places that provide scholarships. >if your parents make less than 65,000 (20% of Harvard students) you don't pay anything. That's awesome for students from low-income families. I support it 100%! But let's be clear here, a family with a household income of $66k/year (up to, I don't know, $200k/year) cannot afford $85k/year tuition without the stude…
> But let's be clear here, a family with a household income of $66k/year (up to, I don't know, $200k/year) cannot afford $85k/year tuition without the student going into massive debt. Click the link - "Families with incomes between $65,000 and $150,000 will contribute from 0-10% of their income, and those with incomes above $150,000 will be asked to pay proportionately more than 10%, based on their individual circums…
Not in a braggy way, but I recently (okay, it's been a little bit) looked into which colleges would be the best for me and I was looking into high-end signalling locations before eventually deciding to go with a more frugal option.
Though I wouldn't give up the experiences I have if I had to do it again, I had literally no idea they structured like this and didn't even consider them because of my perception of the astronomical price.
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A very cynical answer to what's the logic here: objective measures get in the way of many non-academic college admission goals, so colleges want to do away with them. One of those goals is racial diversity, and that's the only one colleges openly talk about because it's the only one that can positively impact society. Other goals include raising more money by admitting the children of major donors, improving the pres…
>improving the prestige of the college by admitting top athletes What's the logic here? I'll admit I'm not a big fan of college sports myself, but who assesses the credibility of a college by their athletics program?
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> Test scores don’t prove much except who had the resources, time, and motivation to study the most. I was under the impression that SAT prep doesn't move the needle much. Am I mistaken?
Cramming for the test right at the end with SAT prep will add a few points but won’t do anything dramatic. But if you get put in the “honors” track of a lot of high schools where the name of the game is to teach material informed by the SAT, ACT, AP, and IB teats then you almost can’t help but do well since you’ve been cramming for 4 years.
That's not called cramming. It's called "learning". It means the test is working as intended.
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Harvard doesn't offer academic scholarships. If you can't afford Harvard tuition it's free - e.g. if your parents make less than 65,000 (20% of Harvard students) you don't pay anything. So yes, it's actually massively worth it if you can get in, because you graduate with no debt and have a name-brand diploma and access to an extremely well-connected group of people. It's the kids who go to second- and third-tier inst…
As someone who was accepted and got to see their financial aid package, I have to mention that it's extremely generous as well. They don't just cover room and board and tuition, there's an understanding that you're poorer than your peers at the university so there's general spending money, money to buy winter clothes, money to fly home 2x-3x a year. This is a rounding error for Harvard, but I didn't realize how limit…