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

#451

Post by kulahan » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:24 PM UTC

s17n wrote: post #438

dionidium wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. I just don't see this. In our society we believe it to be illegitimate to discriminate on the basis of race. We believe that to be a special kind of uniquely harmful prejudice, one that fractures the deepest structures of society, and that it therefore clears the very high bar required for limiting freedom of association…

The point is that legacy admissions have always been an egregious injustice. One effect of affirmative action was to (partially and imperfectly) ameliorate the admissions situation. Now that's gone. As far as the freedom of association goes, that's not an argument in favor of legacy admissions but it is possibly an argument that the government should stay out of it. Given the central role that universities play in ou…

I never really understood the complaint. Rich people spend massive amounts of money to send their kid to a school. That massive, completely unnecessary investment is then reinvested across the students attending the school, who come from all different backgrounds.

This is, in effect, one of the most common ways wealth is redistributed in the US. Why is it so bad? Maybe we should limit it, but the actual practice itself is probably more good than bad.

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

#452

Post by kulahan » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:26 PM UTC

xdennis wrote: post #442

ericmcer wrote: post #439

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did they lump athletes in with those other three groups. Athletics is the ultimate meritocracy. If athletes are a significant portion of that 43% it dilutes the whole argument. If 10% were alumni/donors/faculty it would still be outrageous, no need to pump up the numbers.

> Athletics is the ultimate meritocracy ...but not in education. The US system of making athletes waste time in university is quite unique and ridiculous.

I like that we still emphasize education even if you're going for a job that doesn't even require you to know how to read.

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

#453

Post by hotdogscout » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:26 PM UTC

az226 wrote: post #339

psychphysic wrote: post #215

It's weird to me that "stop being racist" some how has led to universities considering giving up legacies, "prestige"/donation based admissions and even athletic admissions. If it's the case that affirmative action was being used to mask other unfair practices that will be utterly ghastly.

It’s all about woke optics.

[flagged]

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

#454

Post by toast0 » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:27 PM UTC

tekla wrote: post #346

importantbrian wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pers…

Not necessarily true. The more prestigious schools have more budget to hire better professors, but more importantly, can fund top class research that costs ALOT of money. Your random college probably can't afford a research nuclear reactor, but MIT sure as hell can if they want. Getting a position as a undergrad on those research projects is incredibly competitive.

> more importantly, can fund top class research that costs ALOT of money.

That's important if you're at the college to do research; but many people attend college to get instruction. Top class research says nothing about top class instruction.

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

#455

Post by janalsncm » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:29 PM UTC

HDThoreaun wrote: post #234

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, th…

Ok, then why have classes at all? Why have any tests? If college is just a country club for young adults, just auction off seats to the highest bidder and be done with it. You’ll get an elite mix of those with the most “potential”. It also has the benefit of full transparency. A seat at Harvard costs $4 million cash. Don’t have it? Too bad you wanted an education but Harvard has to look out for their own interests.

Well, Harvard is going to look out for Harvard but Americans have to look out for our own country. And what is best for the country is not to have a snobby elite club, but to develop the minds of kids to solve the most pressing issues of the 21st century.

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

#456

Post by vkou » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:30 PM UTC

te_230349493 wrote: post #408

dionidium wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. I just don't see this. In our society we believe it to be illegitimate to discriminate on the basis of race. We believe that to be a special kind of uniquely harmful prejudice, one that fractures the deepest structures of society, and that it therefore clears the very high bar required for limiting freedom of association…

Legacy admissions discriminate by class (if you are well off to be part of a donor family, you get a leg up) or by birth right (if you were a lucky enough sperm to be part of the family of a prior attendee, you get a leg up). How is the principles of giving preference to a particular class or birth right any different than giving preference to race? All three fly in the face of meritocracy. Yet to not allow this mean…

> On the surface, this smacks of protection of elitism and a class based society, which pretty much nulls all commentary from various peanut galleries arguing that ending affirmative action is about meritocracy.

All this makes a lot more sense when we recognize that the push to end AA came from a political movement that is all about protection of elite privilege. It is fine with the deck being stacked in its favour, which is why it opposes any efforts to counterstack, and why it is very quiet on the subject of legacy admits.

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

#457

Post by xdennis » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:31 PM UTC

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #406

dionidium wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. I just don't see this. In our society we believe it to be illegitimate to discriminate on the basis of race. We believe that to be a special kind of uniquely harmful prejudice, one that fractures the deepest structures of society, and that it therefore clears the very high bar required for limiting freedom of association…

We do not live in a perfect world. Instead, we live in a world where a collection of individuals has had the fruits of their labor stolen from them for most of the past 400 years, served in wars where promises were made and not kept upon their return, and are still being discriminated against in representative democracy. And when someone enumerates all the reasons that these people have been harmed, financially, spir…

It's quite revealing when you say that "fairness" (scare quotes) is not important.

But that's not the only/main reason. The proponents of affirmative action are guilty of the very thing they say they're against: racism.

When individuals are victims there's a system to deal with that. But you can't have "justice" for people based on birth, skin color, &c. You would have to have the same baseless criteria for discriminating against people. But instead of separating into "inferior" and "superior" you want to separate into "victims" and "culprits".

The solution is to treat the shortcomings, not the people. If black people are doing less well in school, then it might be that the real reason is that poor people are doing less well in school, and the solution would be to deal with that, not based on race.

You say 400 years, but the United States didn't exist 400 years ago. Are the descendants of Greeks (in the US) enslaved by Greeks owed compensation? Are the descendants of Europeans enslaved by Africans owed compensation?

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

#458

Post by consp » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

kulahan wrote: post #451

s17n wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that legacy admissions have always been an egregious injustice. One effect of affirmative action was to (partially and imperfectly) ameliorate the admissions situation. Now that's gone. As far as the freedom of association goes, that's not an argument in favor of legacy admissions but it is possibly an argument that the government should stay out of it. Given the central role that universities play in ou…

I never really understood the complaint. Rich people spend massive amounts of money to send their kid to a school. That massive, completely unnecessary investment is then reinvested across the students attending the school, who come from all different backgrounds. This is, in effect, one of the most common ways wealth is redistributed in the US. Why is it so bad? Maybe we should limit it, but the actual practice itse…

You can do one without the other. The biggest problem in my oppinion is the lack of the mentioned redistribution for the first 18 years of the poor sob's life who lucks out since that's way more important than the extra money for the already extremely wealthy institutions.

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

#459

Post by digging » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:32 PM UTC

randyrand wrote: post #437

elil17 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But favoring legacy status in admissions is a form of racial discrimination because non-white people are much, much less likely to have legacy at elite institutions.

I don't think racial discrimination is the right term for discriminating based on things that happen to correlate with race. Everything correlates with race. Height, disease, money, eye color, divorce, number of pokemon cards, you name it. You may as well call it eye-color discrimination, height discrimination, pokemon card discrimination, etc, as well. It just makes no sense at that point. So what exactly is the poi…

> I don't think racial discrimination is the right term for discriminating based on things that happen to correlate with race.

Fortunately for people of color, it is. You don't have to say you're discriminating based on race in order to be doing so, and the law acknowledges this. That is how gerrymandered district maps can get struck down on the basis of racial discrimination. We do actually get to look at reality when we are deciding if an act is racist.

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

#460

Post by WillPostForFood » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 8:34 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #434

rayiner wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does legacy admissions being bad justify racial preferences? Two wrongs don’t make a right.

> Two wrongs don’t make a right. This is nonsense, in any moral framework worth its salt. Consider a simple situation: 1. Lying is wrong. 2. Someone's running from a mob that wants to kill them. They went right. 3. The mob stops, and asks you if the person in question went right. 4. Two wrongs don't make a right, so you tell the truth. Or don't say anything, and let the mob go off in the correct direction and chase t…

Your example is backwards. Lying is the right, and truth is the wrong in your example.

So in arguing for two wrongs are OK, you are suggesting you'd direct the mob to the person running away (maybe they were a person you didn't like, or were of privilege you resent).