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Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

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Re: Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

#121

Post by scythe »

kevinventullo wrote: post #29
pge wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The flaw with this statement is that the Ivies absolutely do recruit athletes and allow coaches to prioritize students for acceptance, just like other D1 schools. The only difference is that instead of putting scholarship money in front of them, they dangle an Ivy League degree. If Ivies removed coaches from the admissions process, they would have more integrity.

Honestly I’d prefer admission of an athlete who prioritizes an Ivy League degree over money to admission of one more silver-spoon legacy.

If you have a low money preference, chances are it's because you already have plenty.

Re: Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

#122

Post by oarabbus_ »

stale2002 wrote: post #112
oarabbus_ wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see how this clarifies that it's not a appropriate metaphor. There are hundreds of schools or more that _do_ compete for consumers in that way. Similarly, HOAs in some areas may restrict boat parking. Other HOAs however, will allow it. Why is the metaphor not appropriate?

The metaphor is not appropriate because a HOA isn't limiting competition in any meaningful or significant way. Whether or not a couple houses in a couple block area, or 1 apartment building all "collude" to do something has very little effect on the competitive market of the massive housing industry. But large, major players in the education space ( each of which enrolls thousands of students), all agreeing together…

>Whether or not a couple houses in a couple block area, or 1 apartment building all "collude" to do something has very little effect on the competitive market of the massive housing industry.

This is not correct. There are HOAs spanning dozens of miles, with and tens of thousands of homes.

>But large, major players in the education space (each of which enrolls thousands of students), all agreeing together to do something, has a much larger effect, in comparison.

The vast majority of universities offer athletic scholarships, this is not really true either.

Re: Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

#123

Post by oarabbus_ »

stale2002 wrote: post #114
oarabbus_ wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Because houses in the same HOA are literally right next to each other. Like a block away, whereas the same is not true for schools. There are HOAs with tens of thousands of homes, spanning dozens of miles, this is not true.

> There are HOAs with tens of thousands of homes, spanning dozens of miles Still has a significantly smaller effect on the market than a bunch of education institutions coming together to collude. The education systems aren't even next to each other either. They don't have any business controlling other schools. At least there is some nominal justification for a house to control their neighbors house, given that it i…

>Still has a significantly smaller effect on the market than a bunch of education institutions coming together to collude.

Citation needed. Again, the vast majority of Division 1 schools offer athletic scholarship. Where is this large collusion effect?

Re: Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

#124

Post by synergy20 »

This is how Ivy works the best:

    1. A group of smart people to sustain the academics and ranking.
    2. A group of elites to benefit from the brand mostly created by step 1.
    3. Adding some diversity to shut up complaints, for political correctness too.
This is called holistic strategy and has been working all the time.

After graduation they help each other to keep the brand, for those who become more "successful", they donate back to keep this pattern strong and probably feed their own next generations to step 2 above.

Re: Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

#125

Post by sandkoan »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #75
sandkoan wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Ivies and adjacent elite colleges are more than capable of giving out academic scholarships—they simply refuse to because that would lead to a race to the bottom in terms of how much money they'd be able to extract from top talent (who could easily negotiate colleges against each other for lower and lower tuition). And, from experience, Colubmia's defection hardly counts for much (which is why, I suspect, it's pe…

This is totally ridiculous; virtually all of the Ivies offer need-blind funding; if you're admitted, then you're going to get whatever amount of scholarship you need to go. You can look at Yale's details here: https://finaid.yale.edu/costs-affordability/affordability ... e.g. virtually all families earning less than $75K per year will get a full-ride plus a $2,000 grant in the first year. Are you seriously criticizin…

No, I'm criticizing their decision to only offer need-based scholarships when they could just as well provide both—if they really cared about academic strength, then they could put their money where their mouth is, and provide meaningful merit-based scholarships.

Princeton, for instance, is capable of letting in every student for free, and still not dipping into their endowment [0]. Why don't they do so? Because it would lead to lower tuitions across the board, and that's intolerable.

> if you're admitted, then you're going to get whatever amount of scholarship you need to go.

No, you get whatever amount of scholarship they think you need to go. Their understanding of your financial situation will be unsurprisingly self-serving.

[0] https://malcolmgladwell.bulletin.com/princeton-university-is...

Re: Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

#126

Post by fsckboy »

whakim wrote: post #58
jalla wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College in the UK admit students and provide benefits, scholarships and bursaries to people that are considered world class rowing talent, quietly and unofficially. Many European countries have special programs for sports talents to develop and receive economic benefits whilst serving military service and/or seeking higher education. Most people don't know anything about these programs…

Having competed in The Boat Race, this is unequivocally false at Oxford and Cambridge.

I know nothing about crew, who wins, etc. but:

it may be the case that the wealth and elitism of "growing up rowing", like "growing up sailing, horseback riding, and playing polo and squash" is sufficient to to keep out the riffraff and the highly athletic boats crewed with also academically gifted rowers; but humans both group identify and are athletically highly competitive, even as spectators, and there's no way you can have world class talent in a sport without either combing the hustings for talent, or keeping "those people" out altogether. Oxford and Cambridge are not magically different than every other place in the world, they are magically the same. If they are good at it, then there's an explanation for it, and it's not "being good at fluid dynamics turns out to make you a great rower".

For example, the Ivy League in American sports is not the elite level of sports in any sport that matters economically, but only because they're only willing to bend the academic rules so far and they restrict competition to other like minded opponents (but they do bend the rules because they care enough to do so).

So either: Oxford and Cambridge aren't world class at rowing; nobody rows outside Oxford Cambridge and some other similarly elitist schools; or they're bending some rules to obtain elite talent.

Re: Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

#127

Post by lofatdairy »

pinewurst wrote: post #90
lofatdairy wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do recommend the Third Reich in the Ivy League as a generally good read, which highlights the significantly more nazi-sympathetic student body at harvard with the more activist population at Columbia, largely in part due to the fact that Columbia failed to attract the white elites of NYC and had a larger Jewish population as a result. >The student athlete I knew, my roommate Tony Tomaska, was the son of a Chicago p…

FYI it’s “The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower”

Ah, that's right, apologies, I should have double checked the title before replying.

Re: Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

#128

Post by caddemon »

tophi wrote: post #97
coldtea wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lack of athletic scholarships are one of the few things they do absolutely right. The thing is that athletics are less, not more democratic as a distribution mechanism for admission slots A more basic problem with "athletic scholarships" is that being an athlete has absolutely nothing to do with being an academic/scholar/student of something else. It might be a good way to bring some publicity to the school, an…

A university is not just a place to go to learn anymore. It’s a big club that happens to be a place where you study. You bond and make lifelong friends. Also a great place to find a partner for life. Athletic departments are vital to the university system in American schools and their local economies.

I get the value of the major D1 college sports teams in the university experience, but honestly who gives a shit if Harvard is good at golf or not? I don't imagine anyone outside of people on the e.g. squash team are impacted by squash at Harvard. Same goes for non-elite (in the socioeconomic sense) sports like track and field.

I love sports and I think we need more opportunities for recreational play of sports after high school. But I just don't get the point of schools with middling varsity teams in unpopular sports continuing to pour resources into those teams.

I'd love to know if there are good reasons for it I'm missing though.

Re: Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

#129

Post by stale2002 »

oarabbus_ wrote: post #123
stale2002 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are HOAs with tens of thousands of homes, spanning dozens of miles Still has a significantly smaller effect on the market than a bunch of education institutions coming together to collude. The education systems aren't even next to each other either. They don't have any business controlling other schools. At least there is some nominal justification for a house to control their neighbors house, given that it i…

>Still has a significantly smaller effect on the market than a bunch of education institutions coming together to collude. Citation needed. Again, the vast majority of Division 1 schools offer athletic scholarship. Where is this large collusion effect?

> Citation needed.

I am not sure if you were aware, but there are a lot of houses in the world.

In comparison, there aren't nearly as many high end, elite educational institutions.

I think that you are more than capable of finding a citation yourself that proves that there are quite a lot more houses in the world, than there are top educational institutions.

Re: Ivy League Schools Sure Look Like a Cartel

#130

Post by slg »

Godel_unicode wrote: post #105
coldtea wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lack of athletic scholarships are one of the few things they do absolutely right. The thing is that athletics are less, not more democratic as a distribution mechanism for admission slots A more basic problem with "athletic scholarships" is that being an athlete has absolutely nothing to do with being an academic/scholar/student of something else. It might be a good way to bring some publicity to the school, an…

College athletes who are going pro are studying their chosen field just as studiously as any other field (and more than most business/communications majors). Athletes who aren’t going pro, which is most of them, do better than average academically. Being an athlete isn’t particularly different than getting a minor or a dual major. Just because there’s sweating involved doesn’t make it not a scholarly pursuit, we shou…

>Being an athlete isn’t particularly different than getting a minor or a dual major. Just because there’s sweating involved doesn’t make it not a scholarly pursuit, we should stop being such gatekeepers.

From a certain perspective there is little that separates sports from a lot of arts majors. Someone studying acting is very unlikely to turn that into a profession just like a football player. Why does running around on a field have less intellectual value than doing make believe on a stage? They are both glorified hobbies. If someone can study one as a major, why not the other?

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