Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

triblive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 815 posts

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

#321

Post by eniotna »

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…

What you're paying for is essentially to signal to employer that you've been able to make it into a very select club which is in turn acting as a proxy for intelligence/conscientiousness. As long as the seats are be limited, it will be worth the cost.

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

#322

Post by Brusco_RF »

ethbr0 wrote: post #304
Brusco_RF wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I stopped reading after the first sentence. Our current health insurance laws should NOT be a model for anything, ever!

What would you have done differently, in an attempt to evolve a complex, layered, and ossified industry that absolutely cannot stop providing service for even a day?

I'd start by removing the subsidies and special rules around student loans. That makes colleges compete on price again which puts downward pressure on tuition.

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

#323

Post by doctorpangloss »

IG_Semmelweiss wrote: post #294
julienchastang wrote: post #187

Good. With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. [0] The number of kids entering elite universities via non-meritocratic avenues is incredible. > "[The researchers] examined four kinds of nonracial preferences—for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff. The researchers found that more than 43% of…

[flagged]

While I believe you are trying to make a good faith insight porn comment and I don’t think you should be (inevitably) downvoted, I am skeptical of the methods of the “rather popular podcast” that led them to make such a claim.

Also, I’m not sure if it’s the gotcha you think it is. If I were you, I would take a long hard look at claims like these, and how even when they are not true, well, an item that says “So and so claim turns out to be not true” is itself propagating the untrue claim. It will illuminate for you the true way Reddit is quite toxic, and why among many reasons content moderation and publishing are hard.

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

#324

Post by HDThoreaun »

ben7799 wrote: post #308
HDThoreaun wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the skill becomes functionally useless once you enter the workforce. This is laughably false and makes me think you've either never participated in organized athletics or have never had a job. The most important trait for success in the workforce is grit. The same is true for athletics at the highest level. Yes, some of the athletes made it on genetics alone but the vast majority had to work incredibly hard to beco…

This is the standard justification sales and MBA types use. They are missing that it takes grit to get through a lot of tough degree programs as well. People in those degree programs constantly talk about those who move over to easier degrees in business as lacking grit. Sports is mostly used as an in-club in the workplace. If you work in an engineering first company it's crazy to see the dichotomy from how sales val…

> it takes grit to get through a lot of tough degree programs as well.

We're talking about college admissions here though. How can you tell if a high schooler has grit? I can tell you that academic success is not the only answer. I got a perfect 36 ACT, 1600 SAT, and a high GPA and completely lack grit. I just succeeded in school by doing the bare minimum and having a high IQ. Should these schools just be trying to accept the people with the highest IQ? Searching for people who are the absolute best at what they do seems to be a much better measure of grit to me.

And your sales analogy seems a bit flawed. Why is it strange that different segments of the business value different things? Sales is mostly about just cold calling potential clients until someone bites. It makes tons of sense that the org values the grit and teamwork that organized sports builds more than the R&D org does.

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

#326

Post by kiba »

julienchastang wrote: post #187

Good. With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. [0] The number of kids entering elite universities via non-meritocratic avenues is incredible. > "[The researchers] examined four kinds of nonracial preferences—for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff. The researchers found that more than 43% of…

We're still creating a meritocratic elite, based on capacity limit and price of admission. Not everybody get to have an elite education, or afford such an opportunity.

Ideally, high quality education would be democratized and made accessible to anyone who want it regardless of their means to pay.

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

#327

Post by Brusco_RF »

dropofwill wrote: post #291
Brusco_RF wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

SAT score floor + lottery?

What makes you think that is better?

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

#328

Post by worrycue »

noobermin wrote: post #37
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 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…

> universities shouldn't be chasing the brightest students, they need an education the least.

Or it can be seen as give education to the students that will make the best use of it maximizing value to society.

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

#329

Post by petesergeant »

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…

I read the same argument, but that sounds like a much better argument for donation-led places (which is also a thing), rather than hoping for the knock-on effect of legacies.

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

#330

Post by importantbrian »

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #285
julienchastang wrote: post #187

Good. With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. [0] The number of kids entering elite universities via non-meritocratic avenues is incredible. > "[The researchers] examined four kinds of nonracial preferences—for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff. The researchers found that more than 43% of…

It's kind of begging the question to assume multigenerational family ties to a university are "not merit" when a big part of a university's value proposition is social networking: One doesn't go to Harvard just to take courses; one goes to Harvard to bump shoulders with the scions of dictators / diplomats / "captains of industry" etc. Personally I didn't understand that at the time, would have rejected the notion on…

Yeah, I think part of the problem is that people don't really understand this. I have taken classes at a community college, a directional state school, an R1 and my master's degree is from a highly selective school. My n=1 experience is that the coursework from any accredited program is largely the same. The professors at the state school were actually better than at any of the other schools from a pure teaching perspective. The biggest difference between them was the profile of my classmates. The entire value that Harvard et al. provide is the name brand and the alumni network. The education itself you can get anywhere.
Post reply on HN