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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)

#121

Post by xienze »

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…

> That's not the right comparison. You compare white people to another ethnicity, not to a program.

Yes it is, because the entire point of showing these statistics about white legacy students is to “shut up” people arguing against affirmative action by going “see, white people get their own form of preferential treatment too!”

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

#122

Post by tnecniv »

Barrin92 wrote: post #32
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?

> So what? they're funnels for the political and judicial elite. Eight out of nine of the current supreme court judges graduated from Harvard or Yale. A country being run by nepo babies rather than the most capable is kind of concerning

Does that count both undergrad and law school or are you just looking at their undergrad education? Because Harvard and Yale also have two of the top law schools, so it’s not surprising the lawyers they produce tend to be in the upper echelon. It’s like how MIT grads are heavily represented in top tech positions.

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

#125

Post by jgwil2 »

thrill wrote: post #113
kemayo wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Article doesn't, but the study it's based on does. Recruited athletes are less-diverse than the general applicant pool: > For example, recruited athletes, legacies, and dean’s interest list applicants are all over 68% white, yet the share of non-ALDC applicants who are white is less than 41%. All other racial groups see higher representation among non-ALDC applicants and admits than in any of the corresponding ALDC a…

"For example, recruited athletes, legacies, and dean’s interest list applicants are all over 68% white" 75% of the US population is white, so it sounds like that group is underrepresented in athletic admissions. https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045222

The claim was made about the applicant pool, not the general population. The white population skews considerably older than other groups.

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

#126

Post by User23 »

ok123456 wrote: post #109
User23 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 immigr…

You're saying it shouldn't matter because legacy admits have a 'heritable trait' of educational attainment in one breath, then saying there's no way to compete with Chinese students in the next. Which one is it? Maybe it's not so heritable.

I understand where you’re coming from, but I think if you read what I wrote charitably you’ll find there’s no essential conflict.

One possible source of confusion is mistaking “heritable” for genetic. But a heritable trait can be cultural too. For example a child with Spanish speaking parents is considerably more likely to have the speaks Spanish trait. Similarly, Asian immigrants to the USA have an admirable cultural bias toward studying hard and their average test scores have skyrocketed over the past couple decades, far too quickly for it to be a genetic effect.

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

#127

Post by raincom »

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…

"On average, LDC applicants (that is, excluding athletes) are stronger than typical applicants. However, the average LDC admit is weaker than the average typical admit, suggesting an admissions advantage for LDC applicants." (p.3 of http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf )

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

#128

Post by marshray »

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?

Aside from the question of whether Harvard _can_ admit who they want, we get to express opinions on how they _should_ conduct admissions.

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

#129

Post by ok123456 »

User23 wrote: post #126
ok123456 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're saying it shouldn't matter because legacy admits have a 'heritable trait' of educational attainment in one breath, then saying there's no way to compete with Chinese students in the next. Which one is it? Maybe it's not so heritable.

I understand where you’re coming from, but I think if you read what I wrote charitably you’ll find there’s no essential conflict. One possible source of confusion is mistaking “heritable” for genetic. But a heritable trait can be cultural too. For example a child with Spanish speaking parents is considerably more likely to have the speaks Spanish trait. Similarly, Asian immigrants to the USA have an admirable cultura…

It would have to be read very charitably.

Now you're lumping Asians, who the admissions system has systematically and openly disadvantaged, with legacy admits by both calling their ability to attend a school as a heritable trait. Yet in one case it's actively discriminated against, and the other it's given preferential treatment. If the goal were to control against the 'heritability' of educational obtainment, wouldn't the primary factor in admissions be weighting parental educational obtainment negatively?

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

#130

Post by micromacrofoot »

ryan93 wrote: post #58
micromacrofoot wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

liberal in the harvard sense is often more like rich moderate conservative

there is basically no overlap between the people on admissions committees and conservatives. Look up on linkedin who does admissions at ivy league schools. Hint its not stuffy old white guys.

i’m the US most democrats have more overlap with republicans than liberals
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