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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

#171

Post by nhchris »

julienchastang wrote: post #58
q1w2 wrote: post #43

I used to work in the admissions office of a top 5 school in the US. I was naive and initially shocked by "the list" when I was told about it. A list of applicants who were the children of faculty, staff, very large benefactors, and politicians. They could NOT be denied by any admissions councilor without a very serious reason (eg. convicted of a violent crime). I raised an eyebrow. Then I discovered that that list a…

> Then I discovered that that list accounted for a full 25% of EVERY incoming class. This is open knowledge. From the WSJ, https://www.wsj.com/articles/to-get-into-the-ivy-league-extr... : ``` Nearly half of white students admitted to Harvard between 2009 and 2014 were recruited athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean’s interest list—applicants whose parents or relatives have donated…

> Nearly half of white students admitted to Harvard between 2009 and 2014 were recruited athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean’s interest list—applicants whose parents or relatives have donated to Harvard, according to a 2019 study published in the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Using just "white" is extremely misleading. Harvard undergraduates are already only 40% white [1], but 10% are Jewish [2] (despite being only 2% of the US population). Meaning non-Jewish whites, which are 56% of the US, are only 30% of Harvard undergraduates. For graduate students it's even more ridiculous - 53% Jewish, 28% non-Jewish white.

"White privilege" in action.

[1] https://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/harvard-university/s...

[2] https://www.hillel.org/college/harvard-university/

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

#172

Post by FrontierPsych »

They are private universities, why does it matter in the first place?

Should Catholic seminaries be forced to admit islamic students? Jeff Bezos has a $150 million house in Los Angeles, should he be forced to allow the homeless to live there?

There are a lot of other universities.

But if we are going to be strict about it, then it should be strict. We have to look at the exact makeup of every single group of people in the USA and make everything is exact. So that means Jewish students should make up only 2% of elite schools, Catholics should make up 22% of the student body, 1.1% should be muslims, 14% of students must be black, hispanics must be 18.7%, 58% must be white, 7.2% of students Asian and of course must divide it more and more. We have to figure out how many left handed students must be allowed to be in elite universities, how many with crooked vs straight teeth. This is all wonderful stuff.

Of course at universities, 50% should be men and 50% should be women. Right now, 60% of students are women and 40% are men, universities must stop admitting so many women, that is very clear. Universities should only allow 50/50.

At the premier public university of UC Berkeley, 36% are Asian and so that must be adjusted downwards to 7.2%. 23.8% of Cal Berkeley students are white, so of course, the white student population must be increased to 58%. A lot less Asians should be admitted.

At UCLA, 58.6% are women, so that has to come down so it is 50%. 28% of the student body are Asian, so that has to come down to 7.2%. White are 26.3% so that has to be adjusted up to 58%. Hispanics are 22.6%, that has to come down to 18.7%.

Of course, this must happen at every single university.

I am starting to see how this game should be played now.

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

#173

Post by yodsanklai »

FrontierPsych wrote: post #172

They are private universities, why does it matter in the first place? Should Catholic seminaries be forced to admit islamic students? Jeff Bezos has a $150 million house in Los Angeles, should he be forced to allow the homeless to live there? There are a lot of other universities. But if we are going to be strict about it, then it should be strict. We have to look at the exact makeup of every single group of people i…

> They are private universities, why does it matter in the first place?

It's not because something is private that suddenly no regulations apply. Regarding universities, I don't think the issue is that some category is over-represented, but the fairness of the admission process. That being said, with affirmative action, the admission process is already biased and isn't on academical merit alone.

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

#174

Post by yodsanklai »

xmddmx wrote: post #144

This is one of those complex topics which on HN, seesm to lead to "it's simple, do X" types of analyses, which tend to be simple, confident, and wrong. Some facts to consider: At Harvard, over 40% of non-minority students received special treatment for admissions (which includes factors such as being a legacy, athlete, or the 'dean's list' which was a list of high donating parents). 75% of those would not have been a…

> For those that argue "meritocracy" and that standardized testing is the answer: the SAT ...

Maybe other standardized tests are or could be better predictors. Some countries rely exclusively on them for admission (and if I'm not wrong, also the US is some specialized fields such as law or medicine).

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

#175

Post by neonsunset »

csa wrote: post #132
neonsunset wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Strongly agree with the sentiment. In fact, I alluded to this in the parent response by mentioning that SAT and most other testing systems will be always flawed. The question itself was posed with testing criteria issues notwithstanding.

With that said, I think modern education system can no longer scale and has outlived its usefulness. The future is with LLM-driven tutors which can somewhat alleviate the scaling issues inherent to "apprenticeship". Personally, as an ADHD individual it was always drastically easier to study under a person who gives you dedicated attention that for any of my peers. By a wide margin. And yet, studying for local SAT equivalent was an insurmountable task involving acquiring a lot of knowledge and skills that were useless outside of passing the test.

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

#176

Post by moonchrome »

busterarm wrote: post #88
moonchrome wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generalizing gambling anecdotes sounds like a huge leap.

Gambling shows you a person's true nature.

Generalizing from people playing at a high stakes poker game biases your sample a bit I'd say.

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

#177

Post by charlieyu1 »

fsckboy wrote: post #150
xmddmx wrote: post #144

This is one of those complex topics which on HN, seesm to lead to "it's simple, do X" types of analyses, which tend to be simple, confident, and wrong. Some facts to consider: At Harvard, over 40% of non-minority students received special treatment for admissions (which includes factors such as being a legacy, athlete, or the 'dean's list' which was a list of high donating parents). 75% of those would not have been a…

> 75% of those would not have been admitted w/o that help this not making a claim anywhere near as interesting as it pretends. Since you're using a %, what is the % difference in quality that admitting these 75% makes (assuming it's even true, considering I don't believe much from the Guardian) and how does that (what the author calls "affirmative action") compare with other affirmative actions taken to achieve a bal…

Grades are the only metric that is difficult to cheat even with wealth.

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

#178

Post by Ekaros »

ironSkillet wrote: post #91
janalsncm wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ironically present-day Chinese college admissions are arguably far more meritocratic than American college admissions. The main factor is performance on the Gaokao exam, an 8 hour test which dwarfs the SAT’s 3 hours.

The problem with any standardized test is that it can be gamed with enough practice/resources that poor people are way less likely to be able to access. So it's not a cure-all, there are tradeoffs.

But it is still the fairest option we have. Any other metric is usually much more gameable. Be it sports, essay writing, extra curriculars, volunteering?!?!? and so on.

Or maybe alternative is truly random or negative wealth scoring. That is only the poorest students get entry and everyone else will have to figure out something else.

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

#179

Post by Ekaros »

Glyptodon wrote: post #138
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…

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.

And why not fix this issue? There is multiple options. You could build something like large prisons somewhere. Ship all the kids there from age 6 to 18. And then shuffle them randomly around every 6 months. Thus ensuring everyone gets exactly same experience and education. Equity for everyone!

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

#180

Post by Ekaros »

rtpg wrote: post #111
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this will be very very good popcorn-munching drama. I mean, I do think that students getting in because daddy gives a couple million isn't the end of the world. The college I went to 20 years ago went away from need-blind admissions, which basically meant if you can pay you get some preference. Now THAT was bad, because it affected the general student population. If instead you have a reserved number of "bribe" s…

I don’t understand how being bought in with your parents money is ok yet an athelete actually doing a thing themselves with their own bodies shouldn’t “get a pass”. Especially given that they still have to, you know, pass classes! Let’s not pretend all those legacies are showing up to class and working hard.

Because sports have absolutely zero to do with education. Or even they should be considered negative thing. Taking time away from studying.
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