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43% of white Harvard students are legacy, athlete, or donor/staff related (2019)

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Re: 43% of white Harvard students are legacy, athlete, or donor/staff related (2019)

#71

Post by CHSbeachbum420 »

hgdfhgfdhgdf wrote: post #56

The article doesn't mention the grades and test scores of legacy students are as strong as non-legacy admitted students. "Among the admitted legacies, grades and test scores were indistinguishable from non-legacy students. Both groups had an average SAT score that surpassed 1430. Once on campus, legacy students tended to have slightly higher college grades, but their involvement in campus activities, merit awards, ac…

Of course the legacy student test well, they have had access to amazing resources their entire lives.

This isn't about test scores, it's about the opportunity for lower class advancement rather than perpetuating existing wealth

Re: 43% of white Harvard students are legacy, athlete, or donor/staff related (2019)

#72

Post by e1g »

hgdfhgfdhgdf wrote: post #56

The article doesn't mention the grades and test scores of legacy students are as strong as non-legacy admitted students. "Among the admitted legacies, grades and test scores were indistinguishable from non-legacy students. Both groups had an average SAT score that surpassed 1430. Once on campus, legacy students tended to have slightly higher college grades, but their involvement in campus activities, merit awards, ac…

The original study does address whether ALDC applicants are "as good" as typical applicants -

> Overall, our results show that only one-quarter of white ALDC admits would have been admitted if they had been treated as a typical applicant.

And on athletes -

> Being a recruited athlete essentially guarantees admission even for the least-qualified applicants. An athlete who has an 86% probability of admission—the average rate among athletes—would have only a 0.1% chance of admission absent the athlete tip

Re: 43% of white Harvard students are legacy, athlete, or donor/staff related (2019)

#74

Post by User23 »

ok123456 wrote: post #23
pbj1968 wrote: post #4

Is Harvard not allowed to admit the students they want? It’s the same situation in my local prestige college… very disproportionately slanted towards local kids that have been attending summer programs and the children of staff and faculty. So what?

They were using racial quotas on general admission to try to correct for the fact their legacy admits were overwhelmingly not representative and not based on merit. Their stated goals of diversity and inclusion are a fiction meant to preserve a classist institution.

I would expect the children of Harvard students to perform above the general average academically and the children of faculty even moreso. Educational attainment is very much an heritable trait. On any practicable merit based admissions system there are still going to be considerably more applicants than open spots.

Harvard also doesn’t want to become a school exclusively for the children of successful Chinese immigrants which is what it would be if it went strictly by test scores and GPA. And for what it’s worth, those Chinese parents don’t want it to be either. As others have noted one of if not the main advantage of attending an ivy is networking with the kind of people whose families can ensure them a spot at Harvard and beyond.

Re: 43% of white Harvard students are legacy, athlete, or donor/staff related (2019)

#76

Post by simonster »

User23 wrote: post #41
mdorazio wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities like Harvard typically like to market themselves as being the height of meritocracy, going so far as to proudly declare their miniscule acceptance rates. It's hard to square that with a very obvious preference for students from a specific background regardless of merit.

One reason that Harvard and the other ivies like legacy students is that they’re who grow up to be big donors. Edit: I’m willing to assume that Harvard’s admissions and development offices know what they’re doing, considering that they’ve been wildly successful for centuries.

If this is true (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences#Economic_im... suggests it's disputed), the effect is probably marginal, and in any case, Harvard has the largest academic endowment in the world. It seems unlikely that it needs legacy admissions to stay afloat.

Re: 43% of white Harvard students are legacy, athlete, or donor/staff related (2019)

#77

Post by pessimizer »

pbj1968 wrote: post #4

Is Harvard not allowed to admit the students they want? It’s the same situation in my local prestige college… very disproportionately slanted towards local kids that have been attending summer programs and the children of staff and faculty. So what?

> Is Harvard not allowed to admit the students they want?

No, they are not allowed to use racial preferences to make up for historical (and experiential) racism, even through they would prefer to.

Clarence Thomas seemed to be making the argument that the reason they are not allowed is because a racial categorization is just racism, but also seemed to indicate that considering the actual harms of slavery and Jim Crow wouldn't be racism. That would indicate that he would uphold legacy admissions if they had to decide it, because they're specific, instead of racist. But that would be about the descendants of slaves, not "minorities" or "people of color."

Re: 43% of white Harvard students are legacy, athlete, or donor/staff related (2019)

#78

Post by MilnerRoute »

rungood wrote: post #10

> The study also found that roughly 75 percent of the white students admitted from those four categories, labeled 'ALDCs' in the study, “would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs,” the study said.

The A stands for "athletic recruits". It's weird that it's grouped together with the other three categories. (Relatives of alumni/major donors, and the children of faculty.)

But I Googled how much of Harvard's funding comes from donations by alumni, and it's 26%.[1] So maybe the real problem is the admissions office is almost certainly, at some point, making a calculation about how likely a prospective student is to graduate and then gratefully make donations.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2019/02/11/harvar...

Re: 43% of white Harvard students are legacy, athlete, or donor/staff related (2019)

#79

Post by petre »

zug_zug wrote: post #15
pbj1968 wrote: post #4

Is Harvard not allowed to admit the students they want? It’s the same situation in my local prestige college… very disproportionately slanted towards local kids that have been attending summer programs and the children of staff and faculty. So what?

They are allowed to, but I think it's great to get this news out there. The prestige of Harvard mostly comes from the selectivity, but understanding what traits they are selecting for may change the perceived value of such a degree (i.e. is this because you know somebody who works there, or because you are in the top .01% of academics)

I wonder how Obama got in, but I can see why. He's a skilled peson and I can't fault his presidency too much. So they probably select the right people? Maybd ALCDs are just generaly better prepared specifically for Harvard?

Re: 43% of white Harvard students are legacy, athlete, or donor/staff related (2019)

#80

Post by germandiago »

pessimizer wrote: post #62
xienze wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And 100% of affirmative action students would have been rejected otherwise. So this cohort is doing a little better by that standard.

That's not the right comparison. You compare white people to another ethnicity, not to a program. 100% of white legacies that got in because they were legacies got in because they were legacies. That represents 75% of the people who are white legacies, and 31% of white Harvard students. So the comparison is between e.g. black Harvard students and white Harvard students - would more than 69% of black Harvard students…

I am the only one who thinks doing identity policies is harmful? For every person that you do not base stuff exclusively in their performance someone is out.
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