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UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors
201–210 of 456 posts
Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors
#202Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors
#203Earlier quoted context omitted.
I went to a boarding school in the UK that followed this model. Ultimately you lose the prestige. Not necessarily quickly enough for any individual to care. But that's the path. Lots of boys sitting in their rooms smoking weed and ordering pizza and having to be edged out over 2 or 3 years because their parents paid for a swimming pool...
Probably depends on the portion of donor vs. merit positions though doesn't it? As long as the overwhelming majority is merit-based, the academic reputation of the school should be maintained.
No, lots of things are maintained on a collective illusion. We pretend that you have to be smart to get into Yale but you could donate a building and get in. But if Yale put up a sign saying you can get in for the price of a building, now buying a building makes the admission worthless to you.
It needs plausible deniability to work.
Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors
#204Here's the real problem: Universities are expensive places to run and need huge resources to build buildings, hire and retain faculty, and other costly endeavors. Hence, the need for donors. Once you have donors, it is VERY hard to avoid this sort of tit-for-tat deal. The best way to get around the funny business: have a system where students are classified into bins. Be very clear with donors: if a student isn't in…
I can't speak for Cal schools, but for most private schools, this is already what happens. If you're not already competitive, the required donation is truly immense (think "Kenneth C Griffin Department of Economics" big).
Most donation-influenced admits are borderline to begin with - it just eliminates the randomness of the admissions process. The issue here is that Cal is public, and so more laws apply.
Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors
#205I have failed to be outraged. 1/3 of them were admitted as student athletes. Everyone knows that it is official policy at most schools to accept people with athletic ability who would not qualify academically. Why? Because those athletic programs make the university a lot of money! How is admitting someone because their family gave a lot of money any different in principle? It is just a question of reducing how many…
That's an excellent point. I'd be perfectly fine with eliminating both legacy admissions and athletic scholarships at public universities. It reminds me of the Lori Loughlin case, where she was arrested not because bribing a university to admit your child is unfair to other applicants and sullies the ideal of an academic meritocracy, but because she didn't follow the university's established process for bribery. (Mat…
I would as well. But if you accept the one, then it is inconsistent to object to the other.
Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cal doesn't have a "diversity quota."
Every competitive school has a diversity goal (though perhaps not outright quota) at some level for many dimensions of diversity. Many/most schools have academic floors but are then looking to blend in other factors other than pure academic achievement.
The UCs are prohibited from doing this by Prop 209. Prop 16 this year is an attempt to undo that https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_16,_Repeal_Pr...
Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors
#207Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors
#208If you had asked me yesterday what percent of students I thought got into UC schools due to personal connection or wealth, I would have estimated between 10-20%. But this report seems to suggest otherwise: > In Violation of University Policy, the Campuses We Reviewed Admitted 64 Applicants Because of Their Families’ Donations and Connections > UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted 42 other applicants the UC schools as…
Side note, but why are water polo and volleyball considered upper-class sports in the USA? I understand regular polo, rowing, etc, because of the cost of equipment. But at my school (on the other side of the world), volleyball was for the islanders, and water polo was for the misfits who couldn't make it in a more popular sport. What sports in the USA are for the plebs? Baseball?
Basketball and football are for the plebs. You can usually detect which sports by taking Census race-income measures then comparing them against the visible racial demographic of participants in the sport.
This works well as a heuristic because visible racial characteristics are visible and the rich don't usually want to play with the poor.
Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors
#209Can we stop foreign students too? They're effectively the same, paying above average fees is the main justification for allowing them to take places.
Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where on earth do you think inner city kids are playing water polo and golf? Just because golf courses aren't that expensive to play on doesn't mean they're accessible to poor people (plus there's the cost of clubs, obviously). And water polo... even if there are public pools near you, they probably aren't dedicating space for competitive water polo.
I played water polo at my public high school and only had to buy a swimsuit?
I think you'd know better than us, honestly. Did you play water polo in high school and only buy a swimsuit?