Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by 1234letshaveatw » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

lozenge wrote: post #97

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.

What's the point of the donations to maintain an institution, if the institution's effect is to further entrench the advantages held by the already well-off and well-connected legacy admissions?

Please do tell- which institutions effect is as you describe?

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

#122

Post by Brusco_RF » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

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...

Yeah the SAT is the worst admissions metric, besides all the other ones.

What would you use in its place? You think grades don't have bias?

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

#123

Post by nluken » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

philip1209 wrote: post #20

Next step: Ending use of athletic ability in admissions.

I go back and forth on this. Athletics definitely have outsize influence on college admissions that should be diminished, but surely it should still count for something, right? Most people wouldn’t argue against considering artists’ portfolios and musicians’ performances in admissions. What makes athletics a less important pursuit?

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

#124

Post by jcranmer » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #40

philip1209 wrote: post #20

Next step: Ending use of athletic ability in admissions.

Sports programs at university pay for themselves. They pay for themselves because people buy tickets to games, which they do to see exceptional athletes.

Football and (men's) basketball pay for themselves. The other sports do not. At many smaller universities, not even football and basketball can achieve net revenue for sports.

Source: look at databases like https://www.sportico.com/business/commerce/2021/college-spor...

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

#125

Post by LegitShady » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:40 PM UTC

ahi wrote: post #73

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.

Large alumni donations can and often do increase the cost of education of all the other students. They frequently lead to large capital investments that then have uncovered operational costs. I used to work for one of the wealthiest universities with 100s of millions in capital improvements annually that couldn't provide functional HVAC and a fresh coat of paint to the buildings it had.

This is a little bit ridiculous. There is no connection between alumni donations and capital investments except decisions that university leadership chooses to make. The issue isn't the donations, its the university leadership thats choosing to make large capital expenditures. The donations could go to other things and do go to other things. Any blame you're putting on the donations actually belongs to the people running the university. Blaming unwise spending on donations without mentioning who is making those decisions as the root of the issue is ridiculous.

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

#126

Post by meroes » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

LanceH wrote: post #108

haroldp wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

They love to tell this story. It's absolutely laughable how limited scholarships are for actual academic performance.

Just trying to gauge opinions. Is roughly half off tuition for 3.5+ GPA acceptable? That’s been the most generous I’ve seen

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

#127

Post by kevinventullo » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

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…

Harvard recently reported that legacies actually had higher SAT scores than non-legacy admits…

So you agree that Harvard shouldn’t need to factor in legacy status and instead use fairer metrics like SAT scores?

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

#128

Post by darth_avocado » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

ahi wrote: post #73

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.

Large alumni donations can and often do increase the cost of education of all the other students. They frequently lead to large capital investments that then have uncovered operational costs. I used to work for one of the wealthiest universities with 100s of millions in capital improvements annually that couldn't provide functional HVAC and a fresh coat of paint to the buildings it had.

That’s because the money goes to everything except education. The “admin” is a curse to everything it gets involved with. I went to a public university and I remember our CS classes over subscribed because the UnI wouldn’t fund two additional TAs, meanwhile our Chancellor got a 300k fence to prevent protesters from getting close to his university funded house protesting “his mismanagement of funds and corruption”.

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

#129

Post by Brusco_RF » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

OkayPhysicist wrote: post #40

philip1209 wrote: post #20

Next step: Ending use of athletic ability in admissions.

Sports programs at university pay for themselves. They pay for themselves because people buy tickets to games, which they do to see exceptional athletes.

I get that. I just never really understood why higher education and semi-pro athletics are so deeply linked together. They are totally different things!

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

#130

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:41 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #70

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.

I agree with you that the end of legacy and race-based admissions is a good thing. I think it's dangerous to think that a meritocracy always leads to good outcomes when there is huge inequality. This best analogy I can give is the "sports stars" analogy. Professional sports is probably the most even playing field I can imagine - there is such a huge incentive to win games that pretty much all else besides skills on t…

Why are the reward ratios in professional sports relevant to other occupations in society?

> But what it results in is a teeny tiny elite making millions, and nearly everyone else barely making enough to get by.

That is because a very small number of people can satiate the demand for almost all of the world’s people for entertainment from watching sports. Simple supply and demand.

It has nothing to do with meritocracy or how meritocracy distributed rewards. Making sure doctors/lawyers/engineers are appropriately qualified is not going to result in only a few getting the rewards, because their work does not scale as much (for the most part).