Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

auditor.ca.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 456 posts

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#241

Post by cultus »

kevincrane wrote: post #161
awillen wrote: post #154

Earlier 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?

The vast majority of high schools where I'm from don't have public pools. Pools have also been less available historically to Blacks.

After segregation ended, many jurisdictions defunded public pools rather than fund desegregated pools. Instead, wealthier whites used private ones. For a brief history:

https://www.utoronto.ca/news/u-t-expert-troubled-history-bla...

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#242

Post by leoc »

rhizome wrote: post #195
_pd19 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you can only sell prestige if there is strategic ambiguity between the two categories.

And that ambiguity is an economy: the rich slackers are seen as smart by association with the achievements of (past) students admitted by merit, and the rabble students acquire aristocratic social cache by the same token. I'm not an economist, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is a self-powering machine.

This is "the right mix".

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#243

Post by samatman »

beervirus wrote: post #188
samatman wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're proposing is testocracy. Which has a storied history, being the primary means of governance of China for millennia. But to call it meritocracy, we must do two things: elide the correlation between tested excellence and academic performance, which correlation is strong but not perfect, and then conflate academic merit with meritoriousness generally, which I firmly reject. Call it what it is: testocracy. A…

College is an academic pursuit. What other type of "merit" besides academic merit could possibly be relevant when we're talking about college admissions? I mean maybe alcohol tolerance, but...

You're affirming the consequent. If college were a merely academic pursuit, and if standardized testing were a perfect proxy for academic achievement, then yes, we could collapse testing into academic merit, and academic merit into merit, and voila! Meritocracy.

But college is not merely an academic pursuit. I would argue it isn't even centrally an academic pursuit. Instead, it is a gatekeeper to the higher echelons of society. The -cracy refers to ruling, let us keep in mind.

You propose rule by those who are best at standardized testing, and wish to pass that off as some sort of merit. Basta.

I reject any sort of one-size-fits-all criterion for admission. If a college wishes to be testocratic, as CalTech is, so be it. If they wish to strongly favor black people, as the historically black colleges do, fine. This sort of localism is more robust and flexible, and I think this leads to better outcomes.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#244

Post by jmoss20 »

TedShiller wrote: post #56

Rather than claim that students are admitted based on test scores and grades alone, why don't universities simply say that admissions are also based on factors such as how influential or wealthy the parents are? Doing so would not be a problem, the only problem is not being transparent about it. Stanford is very clear about the fact that "legacy" applicants (meaning their parents or siblings are at Stanford and presu…

At least one reason: universities are overwhelmingly funded by public money. Perhaps (/perhaps/) private institutions should be allowed to explicitly advantage wealthy applicants, but forcing all of us fund institutions that advantage the wealthy is perverse.

Note, even "private" universities (eg not the UC school discussed here) receive tremendous amounts of public money, as well as tax-exempt status. See, for e.x. [1]: the Ivy league received >$40B in public money and benefits from 2010-2015.

IIRC, research at MIT is >66% funded by federal grants.

[1] https://www.openthebooks.com/ivy_league_inc/

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#245

Post by yakz »

mywittyname wrote: post #89

People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admis…

Why not just let students sell their slots? Sell at any time, but any earned credits are forfeited and they can't be re-accepted to the institution for some number of years.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#246

Post by MiroF »

closeparen wrote: post #238
rhizome wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that ambiguity is an economy: the rich slackers are seen as smart by association with the achievements of (past) students admitted by merit, and the rabble students acquire aristocratic social cache by the same token. I'm not an economist, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is a self-powering machine.

Sufficiently prestigious schools are drowning in perfect applicants. You don’t even need to admit any rich slackers. Just let some of the qualified substitute money for luck.

There are certainly some rich slacker/less talented people at prestigious schools, though I agree with the main thrust of your argument.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#247

Post by solveit »

closeparen wrote: post #238
rhizome wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that ambiguity is an economy: the rich slackers are seen as smart by association with the achievements of (past) students admitted by merit, and the rabble students acquire aristocratic social cache by the same token. I'm not an economist, but I wouldn't be surprised if this is a self-powering machine.

Sufficiently prestigious schools are drowning in perfect applicants. You don’t even need to admit any rich slackers. Just let some of the qualified substitute money for luck.

> Sufficiently prestigious schools are drowning in perfect applicants.

This is by design. There exist tests that can distinguish between the merely very good and the outstanding. Elite US universities go out of their ways to not use them, precisely so they can admit the merely very good legacies.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#248

Post by manfredo »

mywittyname wrote: post #89

People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admis…

I think this is largely how it works, but it's not explicitly separated into two pots. Rather, things like legacy status and family donors are factors in a multifaceted admissions process. Someone who donated twice as much might not have their kid get admitted if academics and test scores are bad, whereas someone who didn't donate as much might get in with good grades and test scores.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#249

Post by MiroF »

solveit wrote: post #247
closeparen wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sufficiently prestigious schools are drowning in perfect applicants. You don’t even need to admit any rich slackers. Just let some of the qualified substitute money for luck.

> Sufficiently prestigious schools are drowning in perfect applicants. This is by design. There exist tests that can distinguish between the merely very good and the outstanding. Elite US universities go out of their ways to not use them, precisely so they can admit the merely very good legacies.

Elite schools don't use them at least partially so they can take the same tests as every other school.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#250

Post by inerte »

setgree wrote: post #84

If 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…

Even (some) test scores like the SAT are getting disfavored by some colleges. Rich kids have more support (private teachers, mentors, test preps), sometimes their parents have more free time.
Post reply on HN