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Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

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Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#41

Post by nashashmi »

CSMastermind wrote: post #16

Don't legacy admissions often mean that their parents have donated significantly to the University? In a sense wouldn't that just mean that those students are essentially paying a very high premium to attend there and subsidizing the education of all the other students? I'm not against abolishing them but I do wonder if this will have any impact on alumni donations.

They do not have an outsized impact to admissions. What has an outsized impact is the connections a person has with the university. And those connections can come from significant contributions.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#42

Post by lisper »

endtime wrote: post #34
lisper wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate to burst your bubble but unfortunately this just kicks the can down the road. How do you measure merit? Because [EDIT] many measures of "merit" (was: standardized testing) can be (and often are) biased by race, cultural background, and economic status. For example: Student 1 has built a fully automated chip manufacturing line in his basement. Student 2 has build a robot that solves a maze in fifteen minutes (a…

How is that an example of standardized testing?

Good point. I've edited my comment.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#43

Post by waswaswas »

CSMastermind wrote: post #16

Don't legacy admissions often mean that their parents have donated significantly to the University? In a sense wouldn't that just mean that those students are essentially paying a very high premium to attend there and subsidizing the education of all the other students? I'm not against abolishing them but I do wonder if this will have any impact on alumni donations.

It doesn't even have to be large sums, but the existence of legacy admissions creates goodwill between the university and its alums that broadly motivates consistent, modest donations.

Legacy admissions are also a way to increase yield (percentage of students enrolled versus accepted) which is one of the many ranking-driven stat games.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#44

Post by ghaff »

philip1209 wrote: post #20

Next step: Ending use of athletic ability in admissions.

Why should athletics be uniquely disadvantaged among activities that aren't exclusively academic? Perhaps you think that a test result is all that should count though in which case we'll have to agree to disagree.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#45

Post by AlbertCory »

They WERE, essentially, letting people buy their kid's admission. Maybe not directly, but if you're a rich alumnus, you have to suspect that your donation history will figure into your kid's admission or not.

Even if the school says it doesn't, they could be lying.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#46

Post by [deleted] »

abirch wrote: post #27
nancyhn wrote: post #4

The end of both legacy admissions and race-based admissions makes me feel hopeful that we're finally pivoting to a productive, merit-based approach.

You're assuming that everyone is on an equal starting point. Wealthy people will be able to favor their kids.

[deleted]

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#47

Post by its_ethan »

fritzo wrote: post #8

> “I do think there was a time when perhaps legacies needed a boost” -Dean Emeritus of Admission Mike Steidel Is there any way of charitably interpreting Mike Steidel's words? I have a tough time reading anything here but classist bigotry preserving the status quo :-/

I mean he's speaking about the past - so he's saying perhaps sometime in the past it was maybe needed, but he's saying that it's not needed anymore.

It's just a way to not have to specifically say something negative about the college, even if it's about the college's past. He's not preserving bigotry, he's just trying to not tarnish the brand.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#48

Post by unethical_ban »

fritzo wrote: post #8

> “I do think there was a time when perhaps legacies needed a boost” -Dean Emeritus of Admission Mike Steidel Is there any way of charitably interpreting Mike Steidel's words? I have a tough time reading anything here but classist bigotry preserving the status quo :-/

Status quo, maybe, not not explicitly bigoted. Building a culture through generations, a sense of loyalty to an institution and a lifelong interest in seeing that institution flourish (and be funded) is a reasonable goal of a University.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#49

Post by kradroy »

CSMastermind wrote: post #16

Don't legacy admissions often mean that their parents have donated significantly to the University? In a sense wouldn't that just mean that those students are essentially paying a very high premium to attend there and subsidizing the education of all the other students? I'm not against abolishing them but I do wonder if this will have any impact on alumni donations.

In the article: > “The pros are certainly fundraising development. I think people like to think that if they give a lot of money to a university, their children will get special preference,” he said. “I can sort of understand the other side saying it’s unfair to other applicants.”

The quoted person doesn't deny it helps, but people like to think it helps.

Also, please don't donate to your university. You paid them for an education, food and housing. You don't owe them anything else. Compound interest on their takings is your contribution.

Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt

#50

Post by mason55 »

noobermin wrote: post #22
CSMastermind wrote: post #16

Don't legacy admissions often mean that their parents have donated significantly to the University? In a sense wouldn't that just mean that those students are essentially paying a very high premium to attend there and subsidizing the education of all the other students? I'm not against abolishing them but I do wonder if this will have any impact on alumni donations.

Honestly, relying on donations doesn't seem tenable without discrimination. The only way out is to treat it as a public good and fund it as one.

I think the question is whether the donations create more resources than what is used up by a legacy admission.

For example, imagine I donate $1B to the university, with two stipulations. First, they admit my child to the CS program. Second, they use the money to perpetually expand the size of every incoming CS class by 10 students.

In that respect, the legacy admission is a net good. Yes, for four years there's a spot that's used up by my kid, but even during those four years there are 10 additional people got into the program who wouldn't have otherwise.

I realize it's not that easy, it doesn't work like that, and the size of classes at places like Harvard are not limited by the how much money Harvard has. But it seems like there could be ways to keep some kind of legacy admission program which also create a net good.

Maybe every legacy admission should be required to fund a perpetual scholarship for one financially disadvantaged student? That's both expensive enough to be rare and beneficial enough to be hard to argue with.

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