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

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

#351

Post by janalsncm »

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…

Being able to sit down for dinner with a college professor is already a huge advantage. Those kids don’t need an additional boost.

Looking back, my dad was a mechanical engineer and it definitely helped me. Especially in math and science. He showed me the math he was doing and as a kid seeing math done at a professional level helped me appreciate what actually mattered. As a result I really cared about those subjects and I did well.

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

#353

Post by l33t233372 »

kiba wrote: post #326
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.

> Ideally, high quality education would be democratized and made accessible to anyone who want it

It pretty much is. Hardvard undergraduate classes aren’t substantially higher quality than at many other state schools.

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

#354

Post by kaibee »

bradleyjg wrote: post #349
xkcd-sucks wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The public makes a huge investment in Harvard, both directly through grants and indirectly through waived taxes. Is subsidizing social networking with and among the privileged a good use of public dollars?

Well, you get smart kids who actually earned their spot connected to the rich kids with money. The first group isn't as privileged as the second group. This certainly isn't the best system, but if it was removed, would something better naturally emerge, or would we just further reduce social mobility without any benefit?

/realpolitik

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

#355

Post by rafram »

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]

> A rather popular podcast

> Unsure if they said

> But either way, its quite astounding

You’re not making a terribly strong case here. What’s your source? What does “most disfavored” mean? Is there actually anything to show that Jewish students are favored in college admissions?

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

#356

Post by kelipso »

nova22033 wrote: post #68
onetimeusename wrote: post #54

Earlier 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…

actually had higher SAT scores than non-legacy admits Is the SAT score the only measure of merit? The non-legacies are going to miss on the chance to make social connections with legacy admits who have a lot of connections...and access to a lot of resources..

The legacy admits will just go to some other college where some other suckerfish can hop on to get access to a lot of resources..so what's the big difference socially.

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

#357

Post by Given_47 »

philwelch wrote: post #348
kelipso wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Universities shouldn't have side businesses, don't they have some non-profit status that's specific to education? They should be heavily restricted to education and research alone.

I’m not a huge fan of the NCAA system myself. A lot of universities don’t have major sports programs, and that’s a respectable choice on their part. But NCAA sports are tremendously profitable for the universities that invest in them. No Division I school would actually save money, in the long run, by defunding their football and basketball teams. And when it comes to side businesses, sports pale in comparison to end…

Yea same I’m a big hoop nerd but the mainstream collegiate sports especially basketball make my eyes bleed. Literally infuriating to watch idk how people do.

But something like Duke Basketball has been tremendously beneficial to Duke–in terms of brand awareness. Same with UT Austin and their football brand ($7mm on new locker room is insanity tho).

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

#358

Post by davewashere »

Brusco_RF wrote: post #307
pc86 wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it costs more than $60 million to build the stadium, sure. What good is a $60 million donation if it costs you $100 million on something you weren't going to buy in the first place?

Because now you have a $100M stadium that you only paid $40M for. That stadium generates revenue. You just need to make sure the numbers work

This is lower tier D1 baseball in the Northeast, so revenue is going to be minimal.

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

#359

Post by Larrikin »

chmod600 wrote: post #337
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…

“for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff“ Athletes have merit. Arguably more than some academic departments.

Why should a top high school baseball prospect take up a spot at a college instead of a spot on a local A league team?

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

#360

Post by balderdash »

This is not going to have the effect people think. My experience is that legacy admissions are more or less a tie breaker. Legacy candidates that gain admission due to their legacy status are well qualified candidates (+ you often get the added benefit of a higher yield).

HOWEVER, where less than qualified candidates do gain admission is when there is a significant donor involved (there is often a meaningful overlap with alumni for obvious reasons, but not necessarily). Getting rid of legacy admissions will not change this dynamic. So really the only people that are going to lose out are legacies that are “on the bubble” from a resume standpoint whose parents aren’t rich…

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