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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

#571

Post by joshuamorton »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #503
vkou wrote: post #470

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lying is the right, and truth is the wrong in your example. Lying is wrong! Except, according to you, when it leads to good outcomes! It sounds like outcome-driven morality is what you're pushing for..? Then what's the problem with AA? Not using it to compensate for structural disadvantages is being in the wrong in its case...

"Lying is wrong" is a non-sequitur - like West is to the left. It is morality for 5 year olds or Sam Harris. >Then what's the problem with AA? Not using it to compensate for structural disadvantages is being in the wrong in its case... AA fails on that criteria as well. It isn't compensating the people who were wronged and the burden falls on people didn't do the wrong. Poor asian immigrant gets kicked out so Harvard…

Do you have data to back up the implicit claim you're making that dropping affirmative action will, all else equal, result in a larger number of lower-income people attending schools, and that affirmative action policies weren't aiding non-immigrant Blacks?

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

#572

Post by DragonStrength »

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…

They should be allowed to behave however they want, but whether we consider that behavior sufficient for non-profit status and tax-exempt endowments should be on the table. Donations for admission of your kids feels especially gross when talking about granting tax-advantaged status to institutions. It's a change in how we view them, to be sure, but questioning our expectations of tax-exempt non-profits seems like exactly what we want the government doing.

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

#573

Post by kelnos »

dotnet00 wrote: post #492
wredue wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Whenever this obvious bs excuse is used, the glaring question becomes of why are Asians suppressed by it? If it's about classically suppressed races and systematic racism, it's pretty hypocritical to be penalizing Asians. Especially when recent years have also seen a surge in people pretending to care about racism against Asians.

Because racism can have different effects depending on who is perpetrating it.

The recent surge in racism against Asians has been mostly about verbal and physical violence directed against Asian people. For the most part, Asian people haven't been missing out on educational and professional opportunities because of it.

That's not been the case for other manifestations of racism. There's really no hypocrisy here; you just seem to have adopted this very narrow, binary view of racism's effects and what needs to be done to correct those effects.

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

#574

Post by nickff »

letrowekwel wrote: post #541

Admissions are easy to do right. Just give anyone with a valid educational background (like college/high school completed) a chance to participate in a strictly observed live exam, which is then graded anonymously. 100% fair, leaves no place for discrimination. This is how many countries do it in Europe and it just works. But what about economically disadvantaged minority groups? That's easy to fix too. Just give sch…

>"Just give schools in poorer areas lots of extra funding and resources, and their skills should improve, so that they do well in exams without any ridiculous "positive discrimination" based on skin color or ethnicity. As a bonus you also help poor people who may not belong to a disadvantaged ethnic minority, but still suffer from same lack of opportunities."

Many poorer areas already receive extra funding, but their SAT results are still well below those in richer areas with lower school funding. There are many examples of this, and a number of potential causes have been described (including selection bias, rich parents volunteering more, and others). One example of this is the District of Columbia.

https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2022/per-pupi...

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

#575

Post by Apocryphon »

MandieD wrote: post #508
Apocryphon wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren’t plenty of PISA high-ranking nations from the East Asian countries to Germany highly reliant upon placement examinations in student educational destinations? It might not feel very American, but it’s widely practiced.

In Germany, it's all about Abitur results: comprehensive exams and portfolio of work in a few subjects you've chosen to focus on, and really only for a few high-demand majors like medicine or law (everywhere) and computer science (at the top tech schools); for every other major, it's a matter of getting decent marks that prove you're likely prepared for university. Not picking mathematics as one of your major Abitur…

Thanks for the very comprehensive information. Curious what you think of this opinion about the lack of elite schools in Germany not being a good thing-

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789051

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

#576

Post by JoshTko »

dbish wrote: post #563
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.

I'm referring to admission. Athletic achievement, high impact volunteer work, high impact internships, high SAT score, number of AP, essay writing, all of these require $$$ to be compete at the top level. A poor kid that has to work summers and part time during the school year cannot compete.

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

#577

Post by bena »

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…

"Class" is often a way to discriminate by race without explicitly doing so. You can't enslave a people for generations then let them go and say "Our bad, I guess we're equal now, you're on your own now".

Like, they were exploited and nearly every free-person in the United States either directly or indirectly benefited from that exploitation. And after the practice was ended those who benefited, including a lot of those who benefited greatly, got to keep the spoils of that exploitation.

And you're right, ending affirmative action wasn't about meritocracy. Protecting legacy admissions serves the same purpose as ending affirmative action.

Personally, I believe that there's a way to do affirmative action without violating meritocracy. Just, all other things being roughly equal, make sure you're not picking all white dudes. Stop inventing excuses to exclude people who don't look exactly like you.

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

#578

Post by joshuamorton »

ARandumGuy wrote: post #141
ahi wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large alumni donations can and often do increase the cost of education of all the other students. They frequently lead to large capital investments that then have uncovered operational costs. I used to work for one of the wealthiest universities with 100s of millions in capital improvements annually that couldn't provide functional HVAC and a fresh coat of paint to the buildings it had.

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'…

> or flashy construction projects

My experience discussing this with some Deans of (large, top 10ish) institutions is that space and (qualified, tenure track) faculty are basically the hardest things to find, and space is probably harder. Lots of things require space (including, for example: student services), but space is limited, and classrooms and research and administrative space often take priority. And creating space is difficult, it takes years to build a building.

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

#579

Post by rank0 »

philip1209 wrote: post #20

Next step: Ending use of athletic ability in admissions.

The people receiving athletic scholarships to elite universities have accomplished something amazing. It requires extreme dedication, teamwork, sacrifice, and an understanding of competition/iterative improvement.

Applicants who are equally successful in other pursuits also get credit as they should. An elite artist/musician, community leader, or committed activists are valuable to society and universities should be free to encourage extracurricular excellence in their student body. They are also free to not hold those values and admit purely on test scores + gpa if they like.

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

#580

Post by kelnos »

CrampusDestrus wrote: post #497
wredue wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

False. We already know what happens when AA policies are banned from university admissions. California enacted such a ban in 1996, and "the percentage of Black, Hispanic and Native American students attending selective colleges in the state plummeted".[0]

[0] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/california-affirmative-a...

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