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

#601

Post by whimsicalism » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:16 PM UTC

tssva wrote: post #387

ecshafer wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The track star olympiad sounds like they have a bright career in track. I don't see what that has to do with academics.

A track star olympiad sounds like someone that has a sense of dedication and a work ethic that will serve them well in academics. A person who has scored well on a single test they had a long time to prep for but displays no other outstanding qualities seems like someone that might be overwhelmed and not able to keep up with the academic requirements of university.

definitely doesn't play out that way at top schools lol

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

#602

Post by kelipso » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:18 PM UTC

chaostheory wrote: post #395

kelipso wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who cares about making money or not, plenty of ways to make money, but that's not the purpose of a non-profit organization dedicated to education.

Less revenue for the school means higher tuition costs for everyone and less scholarships.

No, more revenue means that revenue goes to paying for non educational stuff, admin bloat, etc.

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

#603

Post by kypro » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:18 PM UTC

_cenw wrote: post #524

kypro wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> likely not because that’ll cause a big drop in gifts and donations. This is a topic that I haven't had much interest in so sorry if I'm being dumb here, but I struggle to see how this could be a good thing? I guess the way I'm seeing this is that if you're too not smart enough to get into these universities but are lucky enough to have parents with lots of money, you can basically bribe your way in. While this seem…

or we could just… tax the rich instead? the not stupid ones too?

Pragmatically speaking "tax the rich" isn't going to happen and these kind of de facto "wealth taxes" are far easier to implement.

Here in the UK we have a problem with public health care funding and I have no idea why we don't simply offer priority service for rich people who are willing to pay stupid amounts of money for priority service. In doing we could redirect that extra funding to those who need it most but can't afford private health care.

I guess exploiting the stupidity and vanity of rich people seems like a much more pragmatic (and arguably fairer) solution than trying to implement wealth taxes or 70% income taxes.

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

#604

Post by whimsicalism » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:22 PM UTC

gnicholas wrote: post #429

Admissions rates for legacy students are much higher than for the general applicant pool, sometimes by an order of magnitude. But that raw comparison doesn’t shed much light on how much the legacy status actually helps, as opposed to the differences among legacy applicants and the general applicant pool. Is there any data that shows how these students compare to other students who are comparable in terms of family in…

I've seen it before and IIRC the SAT for athletes is terrible and the SAT for legacy is not that worse than average white admission. Can't find that source right now, but here is another one showing identical SAT between legacy and non-legacy. [0]

I am biased to this hypothesis probably as a legacy who also had higher test scores than the average admit, went to a shitty public school, etc. Another underdiscussed motivation for legacy admissions is that schools view it as a signal that you are more likely to attend so if they admit you they can keep their admission percentages lower.

[0]: https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-why-elite-colleges-...

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

#605

Post by rufus_foreman » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:24 PM UTC

digging wrote: post #459

randyrand wrote: post #437

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

>> gerrymandered district maps can get struck down on the basis of racial discrimination

Under current interpretation of civil rights laws, district maps can get struck down on the basis of racial discrimination if they are not sufficiently gerrymandered.

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

#606

Post by xp84 » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:25 PM UTC

bradleyjg wrote: post #521

kaibee wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It seems like your model here is that we eliminate alumni preferences at Harvard, rich kids stop getting in but that has no impact on their future elite status. The smart kids miss out on connecting with them and end up the only real losers in the change. I think you should consider another possibility—-that things like getting into Harvard is how rich kids end up being elite. Take those things away from them and man…

> wealthy but they won’t be elite. They’ll be the guy working a mid level job (or none at all)

I think a super rich kid who can't quite get into say, Harvard, but instead goes to some other school, is not going to be unemployed or pushing paper in middle management, they're still going to work for the family firm, start a business with family money, or cross-pollinate among the other elite families.

Furthermore, if the would-be legacies can't get into Harvard and Yale, the most likely outcome I foresee is that they start to cluster at other schools (say Amherst, Tufts, BU[1]), gradually shifting the character and reputations of those schools and getting us right back where we came from.

I don't really think that is a bad thing, and think it's probably best to stop doing legacy admissions. But I think there's no way this will result in reshaping of class in our society to where the elites are usurped by a bunch of smart, diverse (merit-admitted) kids from the wrong side of the tracks. Best case it gives a boost to the best non-Ivy schools at attracting the descendants of the Harvard and Yale set, potentially to the point of altering society's definition of which schools are the most elite.

[1] forgive any errors in my choice of schools – I just googled top universities in New England and skipped over ones I know are Ivies.

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

#607

Post by rank0 » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:28 PM UTC

alex_young wrote: post #590

rank0 wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enlighten me. Which G20 nation has better economic conditions than the United States? According to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average... The PPP adjusted median income is highest in the US (not counting Iceland/Luxembourg for obvious reasons). And as a follow up, how stable is the government in your example countries? The US has the worlds oldest document-based government. The rest of…

I think it's worth pointing out that income inequality is much worse in the US; the Wikipedia page you referenced reflects this somewhat: "2020 average wage in the United States was $53,383, while the 2020 median wage was $34,612." If you define 'better economic conditions' as meaning more wealth in total, sure, the US is at or near the top. But however, if you're interested in knowing how most people are doing, the…

Median (not average) PPP income is highest in the US. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income

While it’s true our income inequality is larger, the fact still remains that the median American makes more money than the median European (or any other comparable region).

Ask yourself: Is it better for everyone to be richer and have high inequality? Or is it better for everyone to be poorer but more equal?

EDIT: Switzerland is a good point. They are a prosperous and highly educated society! It’s just tough to compare in my mind because the US or EU is hundreds of times larger.

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

#608

Post by sib » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:29 PM UTC

Shacklz wrote: post #463

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…

> This is, in effect, one of the most common ways wealth is redistributed in the US. Why is it so bad? Because the government could simply tax those with wealth more and use taxation as a means of redistribution. Like most western countries do. Anand Giridharadas dissects this topic rather convincingly in his "Winners Take All", see also his infamous google talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM

>> the government could simply tax those with wealth more...Like most western countries do

Not sure where you're getting your data, but, looking at Europe as a proxy for "western countries" not including the US, in 1990, 12 countries in Europe had a wealth tax, while, as of 2019, only 3 did. Weather taxes were generally considered a failure.

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

#609

Post by lmm » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:29 PM UTC

rank0 wrote: post #538

Shacklz wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is, in effect, one of the most common ways wealth is redistributed in the US. Why is it so bad? Because the government could simply tax those with wealth more and use taxation as a means of redistribution. Like most western countries do. Anand Giridharadas dissects this topic rather convincingly in his "Winners Take All", see also his infamous google talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_zt3kGW1NM

Enlighten me. Which G20 nation has better economic conditions than the United States? According to this: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average... The PPP adjusted median income is highest in the US (not counting Iceland/Luxembourg for obvious reasons). And as a follow up, how stable is the government in your example countries? The US has the worlds oldest document-based government. The rest of…

> counting Iceland/Luxembourg for obvious reasons

Obviously you wouldn't want to count any cases that contradict your claims.

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

#610

Post by luxuryballs » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 10:30 PM UTC

dionidium wrote: post #394

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…

> 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…

“However, we will sabotage our own elite social clubs as part of compliance with the new ruling with the hope that they will associate the pain with the current Supreme Court and thus hate them as much as we do.”