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

#191

Post by Brusco_RF » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #153

Brusco_RF wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Interviews, transcripts, (optional) test scores, letter of recommendation, a set of common essays across all schools, and an optional supplemental section or portfolio to showcase any personal achievements not covered by the other standard categories. Oh wait! That exists — it’s called the Common App, and it’s what most private colleges today use, from the Ivies to elite tiny liberal arts colleges with the largest sh…

They use it because it allows them to ignore standardized test scores and just do admissions based on their own preferences. They used less merit-based metrics because they don't WANT a meritocracy.

Question. Which tells you more about a student:

1. An essay that was probably written by chatGPT then edited by the students parents

2. A test taken in a supervised, controlled, timed environment

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

#192

Post by underlipton » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:58 PM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #115

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.

Except for, you know, Letters of Recommendation, which at top schools are often the deciding factor. All else being near-equal (or not), a letter from a Kennedy is going to get you into Brown versus say, a regular high school teacher that many of comfortable-but-not-connected suburban students applying to college will be using. Maybe a local lawyer, if you’re special. Those are who families who scream “meritocracy” s…

The answer has always been to close the delta between the value of a Harvard degree and wherever else your kid can actually get into. The unspoken (or uncomfortable) aspect of that is that Harvard et al. receive outsize prestige because they're associated with outsize wealth, and access to that wealth through the personal and professional connections one can garner there.

Wealth concentration in society is the fundamental issue. When median wealth is higher and the range smaller, influential families will have less with which to "bid up" a spot at Harvard. They might choose another institution, that "wherever else" we mentioned earlier. So now your kids are friends. Or maybe not (it's not such a big deal, since they're not THAT much wealthier than you are). This becomes the dominant paradigm.

Decentralize education, as it were.

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

#193

Post by lotsofpulp » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #174

lotsofpulp wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 meritocrac…

> Why are the reward ratios in professional sports relevant to other occupations in society? My whole point is that the hollowing out of the middle class and the huge growth in objective measures of inequality in the US are precisely because many other occupations are looking more and more like "sports star" economies. E.g. just look at how the former "main streets" of many smaller towns in the US have been decimated…

That is true, but I do not see the connection with meritocracy. I see “winner take all” dynamics to be a property of economies of scale, which technological advances and computing have greatly enhanced.

One might say meritocracy might lead to technological advances leading to economies of scale, but the solution to an increasing income/wealth gap would not be getting rid of meritocracy, but rather redistributing some of the wealth so as to provide a floor for quality of life and quality of opportunities (I would hope).

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

#194

Post by nancyhn » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #91

noobermin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fundamentally do not understand why merit is something you should focus on when it comes to admission into a university. The entire point of an education is to learn, may be you need the bare minimum to enroll but universities shouldn't be chasing the brightest students, they need an education the least. Just because thats how it should work in some people's heads as the ideal doesn't mean it makes any actual sense…

Perhaps it’s politically incorrect to say, but students learn best when they’re around students that are of similar intelligence and motivation to succeed. Taking a brilliant kid and putting them around underachievers doesn’t do anyone any good.

Conversely, putting someone who isn't well suited to that environment is setting them up for failure.

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

#195

Post by ghaff » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 4:59 PM UTC

evancox100 wrote: post #119

1234letshaveatw wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about smaller, recurring donations? Does that increase the cost?

Probably not, because they don’t come with the string attached that “you must build a new building and name it after me to receive this donation”.

Yeah. Even if a modest donation is earmarked to, say, the athletic department, the school has a lot of flexibility to move unrestricted money from one pocket to the other. For significant even if not huge donations though, schools really would like unrestricted gifts in general.

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

#196

Post by hnboredhn » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

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.

I'd actually love to see more data on this. My cynical take is that now people donate to schools they didn't even go to - and are concentrated anyways in a few big donations a year. So banning legacies could still just allow wealthier people to buy their in, even if not their own former college.

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

#197

Post by laverya » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #153

Brusco_RF wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Interviews, transcripts, (optional) test scores, letter of recommendation, a set of common essays across all schools, and an optional supplemental section or portfolio to showcase any personal achievements not covered by the other standard categories. Oh wait! That exists — it’s called the Common App, and it’s what most private colleges today use, from the Ivies to elite tiny liberal arts colleges with the largest sh…

Essays are incredibly biased though! Do you really think that for some reason essays actually have to be written by the person applying, and can't be gamed with money? That an overworked public school teacher is going to write a better letter of recommendation than a private school teacher? That a rich kid is going to have worse extracurriculars, portfolio or achievements?

The Common App is great, but it's not magically less open to bias than standardized test scores.

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

#198

Post by indymike » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

nostromo wrote: post #91

noobermin wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fundamentally do not understand why merit is something you should focus on when it comes to admission into a university. The entire point of an education is to learn, may be you need the bare minimum to enroll but universities shouldn't be chasing the brightest students, they need an education the least. Just because thats how it should work in some people's heads as the ideal doesn't mean it makes any actual sense…

Perhaps it’s politically incorrect to say, but students learn best when they’re around students that are of similar intelligence and motivation to succeed. Taking a brilliant kid and putting them around underachievers doesn’t do anyone any good.

> Taking a brilliant kid and putting them around underachievers doesn’t do anyone any good.

In a meritocracy, those that do not achieve do not advance, so this is not a problem after a time. I was in the US Navy's Nuclear Propulsion program. It was the closest thing to a pure meritocracy. You didn't pass a test, do the work, or behave in line with expectations you were sent to the fleet. After a few months, only the capable and motivated were left. It was completely colorblind, completely free of social agenda. You could either do the job well enough or not.

I watched a lot of wash outs where there someone would find a way to tip the scales in college to keep them passing along. I watched the following wash out: the son of a Navy Captain, a congressman's kid, a couple of sons of really rich parents.

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

#199

Post by JumpCrisscross » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #153

Brusco_RF wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Interviews, transcripts, (optional) test scores, letter of recommendation, a set of common essays across all schools, and an optional supplemental section or portfolio to showcase any personal achievements not covered by the other standard categories. Oh wait! That exists — it’s called the Common App, and it’s what most private colleges today use, from the Ivies to elite tiny liberal arts colleges with the largest sh…

> letter of recommendation

We've gone full circle.

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

#200

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:00 PM UTC

LatteLazy wrote: post #142

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.

Now we just need widely agreed, easily measurable, non game-able definition of "merit". :)

[deleted]