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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

#81

Post by JKCalhoun »

onetimeusename wrote: post #54
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.

We're not, we're heading towards tribalism. The concern about legacy admissions is more that the legacies may be disproportionately white more so than anything else. With limited data on other schools, Harvard recently reported that legacies actually had higher SAT scores than non-legacy admits.[1] That didn't stop people who wanted an alleged merit based admissions policy from continuing to call it a racist backdoor…

> The concern about legacy admissions is more that the legacies may be disproportionately white

Disproportionally rich is my problem with legacy admissions.

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

#82

Post by gizmo686 »

mason55 wrote: post #50
noobermin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 sp…

Why tie it to legacy though?

The university could just offer a secondary admissions pool with a higher tuiting cost.

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

#83

Post by haroldp »

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.

This is the way many public universities without legacy admissions actually function as well. They have a high published tuition, but if you are a half decent student, there are many discounts and scholarships that can reduce it significantly. Only less qualified students pay full price.

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

#84

Post by honkycat »

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.

Merit isn't enough.

I went to a po-dunk school in rural Missouri. I would never be able to I compete with kids from a rich Chicago/NY school. In the same way a black kid from a poor inner city wouldn't be able to.

This is part of the problem. The world isn't egalitarian. The poor will continue to get poorer, the rich will get richer.

Solution? Lottery? Don't have a great one.

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

#85

Post by ghaff »

laiejtli wrote: post #17

I went to a second-tier public school that never had legacy admissions. Is it really a big deal? Or is this largely symbolic? Do you see kids in your classes who are rich and visibly a level below everyone else intellectually or emotionally? (I did meet a few students who were born rich and enrolled in my second-tier university after failing out of first-tier universities, so that might be my exposure to the practice…

>Is it really a big deal?

Probably not in general. At least outside of a relatively small number of schools. IMO, what you're seeing is a bunch of schools that really don't take legacies much into account (if at all) all coming out of the woodwork to put themselves on the side of the angels without having to actually change any of their policies.

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

#86

Post by nancyhn »

lisper wrote: post #76
boeingUH60 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s as if you’re trying to make perfect the enemy of good. Standardized tests aren’t perfect but they give less privileged kids the best choice at attending a good college. The kids of the upper class and the rich will always have an upper hand compared to the poor. However, standardized tests limit how wide the upper hand is. An upper class kid still has to study and pass the test, and the poor kid can also do that…

I think you are underestimating the extent to which standardized tests can be (and have been) biased. https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/racis...

That's soft bigotry of low expecations. All you have to do is look at data that includes Asian Americans, which is always conveniently omitted from these racist narratives. Even non-Americans routinely do better on American standardized tests.

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

#87

Post by sebmellen »

VoodooJuJu wrote: post #71
causi wrote: post #3

I'm amazed it was ever legal in the first place. It's open nepotism.

There's no need to be antisemitic, but I get what you're saying.

For much of their history, legacy admissions were a tool to keep out less desirable Jewish/Catholic/non-WASP applicants [0][1]

[0]: https://www.jstor.org/stable/23055549

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/13/us/legacy-admissions-coll...

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

#89

Post by clnq »

pessimizer wrote: post #23
reaperducer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the private sector. In many governments, it is quite illegal.

Making a distinction about the "private sector," but being vague for some reason about the country we're discussing?

The US. There is no other country.

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

#90

Post by geodel »

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.

Well they've gotten enough money now to appear virtuous onwards.
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