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Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

reuters.com

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Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#131

Post by latency-guy2 »

leereeves wrote: post #90
latency-guy2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you have been led to believe any of those things were popular. Occupy Wall Street had participants that counted at most 30,000 cumulatively across demonstrations in NY and surrounding areas. Impressive number? Not in my opinion. Admittedly, I have no idea what the hell 'Piketty's tome' is, so I won't talk about it, seems like its related to a few books that sold 1.5m copies, pretty successful, that's it from…

43% of the vote in democratic primaries is quite popular. And Bernie is a great example because identity politics was specifically used against him; his supporters were derided as mostly white male "Bernie Bros". Sounds like exactly what GP was talking about: steering conversations to race and sex to avoid talking about economic inequality.

Sure, 43% seems popular. Until you compare it to 55%.

> And Bernie is a great example because identity politics was specifically used against him; his supporters were derided as mostly white male "Bernie Bros".

Really? I thought "Bernie Bros" were deemed the 'working class' as proclaimed by Bernie style 'Socialists' that model their economic ideals based on a fictional EU. This seems like it's rewriting history.

> Sounds like exactly what GP was talking about: steering conversations to race and sex to avoid talking about economic inequality.

Sure, which is what you did, on your own, through your own comment, I talked about popularity, you're in some weird area where you are vaguely on the same topic as I am but pretending like it is towards the point.

Bernie had no shot. Both times. If he runs again in 2024, which will be hilarious if he does, it will simply be to raise money for the DNC, just like he did the last 2 times. No refunds. Look at that, did not mention a single demographic other than 'he' in these short 2 sentences, maybe you're onto something with 'Bernie Bros'.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#132

Post by csa »

neonsunset wrote: post #54
jedberg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how University of California admissions used to work for the most part. The formula was: Weighted GPA * 1000 + SAT Score + SAT II English + SAT II Math + max(remaining SAT II scores) Then they ordered everyone by that number, and if say they were offering 5000 kids admission, the top 2500 would automatically get an offer letter. Then they would work their way down the list reading essays and adding bonuses for…

This was going so well until the pivot in the last two paragraphs. Is admitting the most capable students unfair? It is inherently discriminatory based on their knowledge and ability, which seems is what people want, but it also means that having more resources to be better equipped aka better nurture, which tends to positively influence individual's prospects, is suddenly something many are not okay with? Obviously,…

> Is admitting the most capable students unfair?

Grades and standardized test scores might be one of the least interesting and almost definitely one of the less effective ways to classify the “most capable” students.

If I’m optimizing for students who do cool stuff, force marching them into relatively banal optimization tasks is counterproductive.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#133

Post by smrtinsert »

guywithahat wrote: post #121

Part of the issue with this is that wealthy people are often wealthy because they're very smart, and being smart is in part due to genetics. So it follows that smart children will disproportionately have wealthy parents, and that will lead to more children of wealthy parents in high ranking colleges. This has been proven many times, most famously in the NLSY which surveyed thousands of kids over the course of their l…

Before you posted this, did you ask yourself what evidence might be used to counter your argument, as a way strengthen your position? If you were correct in your analysis, what evidence do you have as proof?

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#134

Post by true_religion »

ameister14 wrote: post #60
dismantlethesun wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you dont give the wealthy an unfair seat then they will not be in that university. Instead they will be forced to go to another private school which will receive their endowments, and soon grow to the point they can compete with elite schools. Harvard, et all will still be good schools but not the "best" schools that people die to get into.

While the universities can completely do that, they can't get an antitrust exception while they do. That's the issue here, I think. The universities are colluding with one another as regards pricing and financial aid. This was allowed under an exception to antitrust law so long as financial aid played no role in admissions. The group is alleging that financial aid, or the lack of it, plays a role in admitting rich st…

I didn’t think universities were excepted from anti trust laws. Do you have any idea why this was permitted?

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#135

Post by TeMPOraL »

AlbertCory wrote: post #102

> Lawyers for the schools said in a court filing that the "plaintiffs' goal in pursuing such discovery is to harass and embarrass, rather than because it is relevant to their actual antitrust claim." > The defense lawyers also called the demand for admissions and development records "intrusive and burdensome." Prediction: the schools lose, and have to turn over the data. Maybe if their argument was on privacy of the…

I guess the ace in their sleeve is that "harass and embarrass" rhymes. It sticks in your mind and will draw your attention every time you see or hear it being used. That's an easy 10x multiplier to the strength of the argument :).

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#136

Post by linhvn »

janalsncm wrote: post #74
thesausageking wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be a lot worse. Harvard could fill its classes 4x over with students with perfect SATs and GPAs. They would miss out on the ones who published ground breaking biology papers, wrote code for important open source projects, etc. It would also put a ton of pressure on high school students to get perfect scores, creating a ton more stress than they already have. And at the expense of much more valuable things th…

This suggests to me that the SAT isn’t hard enough then. That many students should not be able to get perfect scores. The number of high school or undergrads who wrote groundbreaking biology papers is vanishingly small, but you do raise a good point. There’s a chicken and egg problem. Because schools aren’t just weighting test scores (because the score is flawed) there is incentive to work on other, more subjective t…

Yes it is small, but you want to incentivize that, because someone smart enough will make it happen. Or you can be smart enough to do both.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#137

Post by [deleted] »

dismantlethesun wrote: post #49
peacefulhat wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not if they took your seat

If you dont give the wealthy an unfair seat then they will not be in that university. Instead they will be forced to go to another private school which will receive their endowments, and soon grow to the point they can compete with elite schools. Harvard, et all will still be good schools but not the "best" schools that people die to get into.

[deleted]

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#138

Post by Glyptodon »

jedberg wrote: post #51
Telemakhos wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine what would happen if colleges fired their admissions departments, set aside all considerations of wealth and race, and had a database admit students with a single query on a result of standardized test results ordered from highest score to lowest, accepting students in that order until the year's class was filled.

That's how University of California admissions used to work for the most part. The formula was: Weighted GPA * 1000 + SAT Score + SAT II English + SAT II Math + max(remaining SAT II scores) Then they ordered everyone by that number, and if say they were offering 5000 kids admission, the top 2500 would automatically get an offer letter. Then they would work their way down the list reading essays and adding bonuses for…

The sad thing is that students from poorer and racially segregated areas are paying for 18 years of falling behind by the time it comes to college. When some high schools have barely literate graduates betrayed by adverse conditions their whole life, it's hardly shocking that it results in college admission readiness being grossly skewed. Not that I want to oversimplify.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#139

Post by Retric »

angmarsbane wrote: post #35

Isn’t part of the benefit of getting into these universities the fact that you get to interact with people from a wealthier economic class? You have the opportunity to meet people who can invest in your ventures or who can introduce you to people who can.

Not really, wealthy students alone don’t make or break elite schools. Yale for example doesn’t have nearly the reputation of Harvard even though 5 presidents went to Yale etc.

In the end it’s the non wealthy students that make or break a schools reputation which is why schools give out scholarships etc. It’s a pure transaction your future achievements aid us and our reputation and resources aid you.

Schools also specialize so Harvard doesn’t have nearly the reputation in say animation as CalArts etc.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#140

Post by QuarterReptile »

rayiner wrote: post #108
angmarsbane wrote: post #35

Isn’t part of the benefit of getting into these universities the fact that you get to interact with people from a wealthier economic class? You have the opportunity to meet people who can invest in your ventures or who can introduce you to people who can.

Yes, elite institutions are designed to help perpetuate class hierarchies. Why is this a "benefit" that society should tolerate?

Seems like a pretty crappy design if the goal is to 'perpetuate class hierarchies', considering that they replace nepotism as a system for filling important roles in society. Hard to be more insular than that.
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