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

#231

Post by lofatdairy » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:15 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #109

I recently came across a somewhat provocative defense of legacy admissions. The argument is that the iveys are great because they bring together the children of the rich and powerful (legacy admissions with connections) with really smart and hungry students (children of the middle class, mostly). It's arguably a good deal for both. Smart kids get access to wealth and power and they get to learn how the world works. T…

>It's arguably a good deal for both. Smart kids get access to wealth and power and they get to learn how the world works. This is the one thing they can't get anywhere else. And the legacy students get the prestige and credibility of having gone to a top school, as well as access to hungry students who are eager to take advantage of the opportunities that come their way.

I'm not 100% convinced by this argument, insofar as that kids with wealth and power will probably end up at Ivies anyways (and they tend to make up a large percentage of the students, legacy or not). They've had access to private tutors, went to private schools like Exeter or Andover (or usually at the very least a magnet), and grew up surrounded by other ambitious young people in major power centers like NYC, Boston, or DC.

The number of public school students you meet is just shocking low, even among non-legacies.

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

#232

Post by tough » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:16 PM UTC

at_a_remove wrote: post #157

ARandumGuy wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most universities have really messy financials. A lot of money gets spent on projects and programs that don't directly benefit the education students receive, or the research output of the university. Things like sports investments, ballooning administration staff, or flashy construction projects. At the same time, TAs, grad students, adjunct professors, and other staff are frequently underpaid and overworked. There'…

I only know a little dirt about the one I worked in and it was pretty bad. The redirection of funds, the word games, and so on ... I would have a better chance of making improvements I desired by making little paper airplanes out of hundred dollar bills and trying to hit areas I though needed help.

> I would have a better chance of making improvements I desired by making little paper airplanes out of hundred dollar bills and trying to hit areas I though needed help.

It was certainly an amusing visualisation lmao

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

#233

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

criddell wrote: post #230

Brusco_RF wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Why is SAT score a good way to decide which student is more deserving of a spot?

Name a better way.

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

#234

Post by HDThoreaun » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #109

I recently came across a somewhat provocative defense of legacy admissions. The argument is that the iveys are great because they bring together the children of the rich and powerful (legacy admissions with connections) with really smart and hungry students (children of the middle class, mostly). It's arguably a good deal for both. Smart kids get access to wealth and power and they get to learn how the world works. T…

This is definitely true, but we can go a step deeper. You have to think about what Harvard's goals are. Maximizing academic success is not very high on the list. The real goals are maximizing career success, donations, and cultural cachet/prestige. When legacies are considered with these goals in mind they make a lot of sense. Legacies are likely to have successful careers due to their parents resources and power, they're likely to donate too because of all the resources they have.

So yes, legacies are the main value add at Harvard type institutions for the non legacy students, but even if they weren't, admitting them aligns with the universities goals. If we're considering the "fairness" of admissions we have to look through the perspective of what admissions is trying to accomplish. We can get into equity vs equality, but at the end of the day accepting legacies does probably maximize Harvards chances of achieving its goals, and many would say that makes the process fair.

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

#235

Post by tough » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

LegitShady wrote: post #216

w0m wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There is no connection between alumni donations and capital investments except decisions that university leadership chooses to make. Not (always) true. Direct example with Carnegie Mellon - David Tepper was upset the business school (his alma mater) was appearing to fall behind in recruiting, so he donated ~100m but tied it to the business school getting a new building/quad. Total cost to the university was well no…

Those are all decisions the university leadership made. David Tepper (?) doesn't run the school - the university leadership decided to make those decisions to get the money. They could have said "this isn't sustainable", and their hands weren't tied. "Your $100m gift will cost us $200m, we can't accept it as currently stipulated". All university leadership decisions that they failed on.

yeah way easier to blame the donor for his pesky asks

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

#236

Post by caterpi11ar » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

criddell wrote: post #230

Brusco_RF wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

what are the other factors?

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

#237

Post by strikelaserclaw » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:21 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.

Most of these universities are already rich as hell, with their small class sizes they can easily support the current structure just off the interest on their endowments. Really, i think the current structure actually benefits rich legacies more than it does their much more talented poorer counter parts since the poorer counter parts can get VC funding much easier in todays climate if they demonstrate they have a great idea but this won't happen because most of the systems in America are rigged to make money flow upward.

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

#238

Post by dfadsadsf » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

ecshafer wrote: post #152

thebradbain wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

The problem with a single nationwide standardized test is that kids will spend an inordinate amount of time (and money) studying for it. Major downside is that time is mostly wasted learning tricks to answer questions instead of learning something valuable. People spend years studying for IIT exam in India and there is zero chance of scoring well on the test without prep.

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

#239

Post by infamouscow » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

nancyhn wrote: post #214

Brusco_RF wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Spot on. I don't see why this is so hard for people to comprehend and why they are fighting the obvious. That very basic level of nuance tends to be missing from these conversations.

> I don't see why this is so hard for people to comprehend and why they are fighting the obvious.

It's because these people only see the world through the one-dimensional lens of skin color.

Further, it's an attractive way to view the world when you're a complete idiot with nothing of substance to offer society. It leads these people to infecting society with parasitic and fallacious ideas that you see manifested in the extremes of both political parties.

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

#240

Post by tough » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 5:21 PM UTC

HeavenFox wrote: post #59

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.

AFAIK, legacy admission and donations are two separate "tracks", if you will. Donations are when the "donation office" giving a list to the admissions office. Legacy admission is when the student ticks a box on the application. The former is to recognize past contributions, where the latter is more for future contribution (if your whole family went to Harvard, presumably you will be more likely to give money to Harva…

> The former is to recognize past contributions, where the latter is more for future contribution (if your whole family went to Harvard, presumably you will be more likely to give money to Harvard)

So it's just a checkbox to say you're already on the sect