Hard to believe legacy admissions are legal anywhere. An obvious injustice--and efficiency drain--on society.
Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
221–230 of 815 posts
Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Not necessarily. I am neutral on it. I see both sides of the argument.
I do think legacy admissions should not be a strike against which seems inevitable now to prevent lawsuits and bad press. I also think legacy admits shouldn't be tarred as less qualified (a polite way to say dumber), affirmative action beneficiaries for white people, and spoiled.
Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 magica…
Not only that, but the person reading the essay is also biased and will select for students who align with their bias. It is a terrible admission metric.
Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
#224I hope this continues. Then, we will see legislation pass to re-classify endowment funds as hedge funds. CMU has $3 Billion of assets in its endowment portfolio. Endowments have been getting a free ride in terms of tax treatment, disclosure, and other activities that are regulated for hedge funds. Now that they're upsetting the elite class, the class will respond by re-classifying endowments as hedge funds. Affirmati…
Endowments let institutions weather out political mood swings and changes in enrollment. Any institution that serves a purpose besides "being a branch of the government" needs a war chest of some kind, and if they can use the proceeds to make student lives better, why not have a large endowment?
Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
#225Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're assuming that everyone is on an equal starting point. Wealthy people will be able to favor their kids.
That is exactly my motivation to become wealthy. I don't need a nice number with lots of zeros. I need to secure my children's future, including their prospects for higher education. I see no problem with those who have amassed significant resources, being afforded use of those resources to their childrens' advantage.
I'm not disagreeing with you and I'm actively doing the same; however, I wouldn't say that our children gaining advantages would be considered "Merit-Based"
Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
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”.
Go bears!
Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
#227Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
1. Would absolutely not get you in anywhere selective
2. Would absolutely not either
I believe the whole concept of “meritocracy” for purpose of admissions is a lie— choosing the criteria to measure against is itself a subjective act.
Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
I want to get rid of letters of recommendation as well. I would personally like to go off of only a single nationwide standardized test.
I personally could not think of a more boring way to curate a student body, but even more so than that, I think that’s completely unfair to the many, many way-more interesting people who make up top schools’ student bodies: why does Jimmy Also-Ran with the perfect score on a single test and nothing else get to go to college while track-star Olympiad with a 4.0 doesn’t?
Because universities are academic institutions, not track-and-field training facilities (or at least they are in countries that take education seriously, unlike the US). Who cares how boring it is?
Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
#229The 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…
> So if the rest of the economy was like the sports stars world (and more and more of it is leaning that way), what reason do the rest of the 99.99% have to support this meritocracy?
Pretty sure a big fraction of that 99.99% love the top sports stars.
For example, major league baseball games have higher attendance than Single-A games.
Re: Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt
#230Earlier 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…
Yeah I see this take all the time. Admissions offices are allowed to take a student's means into account! So in deciding between two students with equal SAT scores, one from a Greenwich private school and one from South Tucson, the one from Tucson is the more impressive student. Affirmative action was misguided because it assumed that because one student was Korean and the other Mexican, the Mexican kid must be disad…
Why is SAT score a good way to decide which student is more deserving of a spot?
There should be some SAT score floor. But beyond that other factors should take over. If the floor is at n and two applicants appear - one with a score of 1.1n and the other 1.2n, I don’t think that’s enough information to decide who should get the spot.