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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

#561

Post by dbish »

rank0 wrote: post #552
screye wrote: post #179

Legacy admissions should not be legal in public universities. Massive public schools like UMass, Mich, StonyBrook, GATech, Minnesota, Penn State still take legacy admissions. It's nice to see CMU follow in the footsteps of other top private tech schools like MIT & Caltech that claim to not use legacy status. It's no surprise that Ivies, Stanford and most private colleges all heavily favor legacy. Afterall, a large pa…

I have a hard time defining my own stance on this point. For example, my alma mater GAtech allows for automatic admissions of my immediate relatives provided they reach some bar like 3.5 gpa + 1400 SAT (math+reading). Do you think this should be illegal? It’s quite clearly an attempt to create an enduring GT community. It’s also clearly not the same as racially discriminatory admissions. I do see the argument that it…

Yes, that should not be allowed. The best should get in, not a relative.

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

#562

Post by HDThoreaun »

Larrikin wrote: post #359
chmod600 wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“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?

Because they want to become a CEO and not a baseball player? Competing at athletics at the highest level is a good preparer for the executive world. Certainly having a high standardized test score doesn't make you a better CEO candidate.

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

#563

Post by dbish »

JoshTko wrote: post #509

Private colleges fundamentally drive inequality. Access to elite university is essentially pay to play because all admission criteria advantage the wealthy.

Not the Iveys. They have very large scholarships if your family can’t afford it and you get in.

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

#564

Post by kelnos »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #523
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Sins of the father isn't a popular position in this country. It's also a very hard way to get elected.

While we don't engage in mass slavery anymore (well, except for those who are incarcerated), there's still plenty of racial discrimination going on today. Even if we decide that we're not going to talk about reparations for slavery anymore, and things like that, there's still plenty that needs to be fixed that's going on right this minute.

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

#565

Post by belorn »

bilbo0s wrote: post #436
Larrikin wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Because money. Sorry. That's the reality that everyone fails to talk openly about when discussing athletics. It brings in a lot of money for the top schools like Stanford, Michigan, Texas, Alabama and so on. You find a way to replace that revenue, a lot of schools would be happy to get rid of it. But until then? I mean the B1G has a tv split of almost 100 million a year "per". Once all the former PAC12 schools unite…

Maybe they should open up a casino instead. That would bring in a lot more money without needing to the through hoops of using sports teams to finance higher education.

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

#566

Post by dbish »

efficax wrote: post #423

Admission for the children of faculty and staff (esp. if tuition is waived) is such an incredible benefit for the people that work at these institutions that I hope that is not also being abandoned. Legacies/big donors/alums sure, I don't care, but I'd hate to see university workers lose one of the best benefits they get.

They should get free tuition for their kids but that shouldn’t guarantee them a spot and take away a spot from someone more aligned to the school’s selectivity.

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

#567

Post by BryanBigs »

chmod600 wrote: post #377
Larrikin wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Why should a Political Science major take a spot at a college instead of joining a political group discussion on reddit? It’s not like it’s a real science and I don’t see any merit in it, nor what it contributes to college. I’d much rather have athletes on campus even though I am not one. At least it provides nice facilities for healthy recreation (a lot healthier than just drinking a lot).

Yeah I sure got to use the 75,000 seat football stadium a lot for pickup games when I was in school. It's not like you need 'athletes' on campus to build student rec facilities.

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

#568

Post by kelnos »

xdennis wrote: post #457
MisterBastahrd wrote: post #406

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 discrimin…

[flagged]

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

#569

Post by xp84 »

somethoughts wrote: post #551
kulahan wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Yes perhaps the unstated benefit of elite private schools is the long term relationships formed between children of legacy (i.e. generational wealth) and highly capable and hungry individuals who are getting in on merit alone. The two problems I see with legacy admissions is that: 1.) It has never been explicitly stated as a policy. If it were an upfront "get one admission for every 10 full price admissions/tuitions…

> every generation of graduates is likely to produce at least 2x increase in legacy admits.

If you're implying that people are having kids at the 2 per couple replacement rate, US is below that.

Also it's forgetting that each couple likely took up 2 ivy league seats during their college years, so even if mom went to Yale and Dad went to Harvard, but their 2 kids both go to Harvard, that would be consuming 2 "legacy admit" seats which is 1x the number of seats from last generation.

My hypothesis is disproven though, if it is super common that ivy leaguers very frequently marry outside the ivy league, then 1 becoming 2+ with each generation would be a problem.

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

#570

Post by CraigRo »

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…

This statement is a bit misleading, as the criteria get to be hair-splittingly narrow when you are talking about a school with a sub 5% acceptance rate -- you could fill the whole class with valedictorians. Nevertheless, my experience is that in terms of finding a 'better' candidate:

Legacy -- legacy preference is pitched as a tiebreaker. Most of the legacies are actually quite good, and many are exceptional, so perhaps 30-50% got in over some 'better' kid. But in many cases, those slots represent something like geographic diversity, or a legacy kid of a minority or a kid of some famous person, and they generally don't take dolts. So this is not a huge tip.

FacBrat -- The kids of professors tend to be extremely and sometimes extraordinarily good -- their parents are Harvard professors, and that tends to rub off. Staff members less so, but it is politically hard to reject them if you want to keep their parents. There are more in the second category than in the first. So perhaps 60% of the kids get in based on this tip.

Donor -- Not a lot of these that I know of. Even in the 1930s, the son of the President of IBM got rejected from Harvard and Princeton because he was a goof off. I seriously doubt that there are more than 10-20 kids/year who get in this way who wouldn't otherwise.

Athlete -- This is where very few of these kids would get in if they were in the general pool -- 10% max I'd guess. A lot of them are very good, but that level of dedication to sport tends to eat time that could have been used for academics or other worthwhile pursuits.

I've always been amazed that they recruit for Golf, Squash, Crew, Fencing, Diving, Tennis, Lax, and Water Polo... these sports are limited to prep schools and rich suburban districts ... not exactly equitable.

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