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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

#651

Post by rank0 »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #636
rank0 wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. The US is hundreds of times larger than those countries. It does t even have to be about the US… Do you really think it’s reasonable to compare Luxembourg with its 600k population to a country like Germany which has 84M citizens?

This sort of rationale would seem to suggest that you also cannot take examples of bits and pieces of the USA and compare them with the country as a whole.

Yes I agree with that! It makes no sense to compare Beverly Hills to the state of Oklahoma.

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

#652

Post by JoshTko »

dbish wrote: post #621
JoshTko wrote: post #576

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That’s why you base it on SAT and the like, and drop the other stuff. Studying for the SAT doesn’t have a huge impact

That would be great. And given that Ivys use a wide range of other criteria, mostly subjective, means that the wealthy kids have a massive advantage. SATs are probably the least differentiating criteria for Ivys as everyone is already at 1450+.

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

#653

Post by grogenaut »

Carnagie is the worst. We beat them at football and others sports most of the time. They're not even cool enough to have the first nuclear pile like UoC even if chicago can barely field a team. Tho chicago does have a mean scavenger hunt.

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

#654

Post by alephnerd »

numbers_guy wrote: post #596
elteto wrote: post #559

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You obviously got it wrong. The parent commenter explained that there is no elitism in Germany, because a professor said it in an interview, in German. Don't you know that Germany is the sacred, holy land, unique amongst all other lands on Earth, where elitism doesn't exist? You must have confused them with Austrians.

The children of the elite are not studying CS at TUM. The parent commentator made a good point that gymnasiums is where a lot of elitism happens, but I was talking about universities and I do not think we were talking about the same "elite" demographics. Moreover, my OP was about how having a culture with elitist elements can provide a ladder for talented but not connected individuals, which is lacking in Germany, be…

Yep. You weren't denying that there is elitism in Germany, and I definetly wouldn't be surprised by old money types sending kids abroad to the US to study. The same thing happens in Canada as well - they all send their kids to Ivy Leagues if they can

> children of the elite are not studying CS at TUM

It was an an Eng Grad Student thing, so not just CS@Stanford, so it was mostly TUM Mgmt Majors -> McK -> Stanford MS&E or Visiting Student Researchers from TUM's MBA or Masters of Mgmt

I'd disagree that these kids weren't the children of the elite. Being the child of a doctor, lawyer, or businessperson definetly places you in the elite (aka top 5% net worth) anywhere.

> educated middle class professions are the truly wealth capital owners in this land

I can definetly see that, but people who were Doctors, Lawyers, or Small Businessowners in West Germany (almost everyone at the event was probably born between 1990-2000, so their parents started their careers in West Germany) will probably have the tools to accumulate net worth and become "New Money" (as most HNers inevitably are as well despite what they say).

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

#655

Post by rank0 »

conjecTech wrote: post #650
rank0 wrote: post #552

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I wish _all_ students with that profile were automatically accepted. I went to GT and while I guess it's nice in some ways that its now considered an elite university, I much preferred the persona of admitting everyone and weeding out people out so that they could give kids without stellar resumes a chance.

Me too! Unfortunately the only way to do that at tech is to aggressively expand student body size.

> I much preferred the persona of giving everyone a chance and weeding out people out so that they could give kids without stellar resumes a chance.

FWIW, idk when you got out but I graduated in 2018 and the professor’s love for low GPAs was still around in full force.

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

#656

Post by psychlops »

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

So, the wealthy ruling class will seize money from the wealthy merchant class and (checks notes) give it to the poor?

I'd suggest they would use the new windfall of (never to be seen) money to launch another useless war.

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

#657

Post by enragedcacti »

tivert wrote: post #513
yannyu wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then we might as well admit that "merit" is heavily influenced by starting conditions instead of pretending that everyone has "equal opportunity". How many times have I heard from people that the USA is about "equality of opportunity" and not "equality of outcome"? Legacy admissions is directly contrary to equality of opportunity, and undermines the idea of meritocracy in university admissions that people have been c…

> How many times have I heard from people that the USA is about "equality of opportunity" and not "equality of outcome"? Legacy admissions is directly contrary to equality of opportunity, and undermines the idea of meritocracy in university admissions... Understanding "equality of opportunity" to be literal and absolute is nonsense, because to do so would require hobbling people with natural talent (for instance), si…

I don't think you do remember correctly, and equating the ideal of equality of opportunity to Harrison Bergeron is silly. Feel free to peruse any one of this to get an idea of the common usage the term.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal_opportunity

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/equal-opportunity/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/equal-opportunity

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

#658

Post by whimsicalism »

meetingthrower wrote: post #618
whimsicalism wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is pretty spot on about the admission dynamics. > Legacy I think it is more of a tip than you are making it out to be simply due to yield farming - the smart kid who has a Harvard parent is more likely to go to Harvard over Yale than a generic smart kid, so if you want to keep your admission rates as low as possible you tip legacy. > 10-20 kids/year who get in this way who wouldn't otherwise. They certai…

Hah just heard that come up in another context. Confirmed. Heard the price tag was $3m and you have to take a gap year.

I don’t know what the price tag is but the gap year thing is true, the people I was familiar with had billionaires as parents.

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

#659

Post by onetimeusename »

kevinventullo wrote: post #637
onetimeusename wrote: post #581

Earlier quoted context omitted.

but then don’t cite a single hard fact which remotely suggest anyone wants legacy status to count against. Accusing it of being affirmative action for white people or for "the rich" pretty clearly means people want it to count against. I think you are deliberately ignoring that the SFFA lawsuit said this, politicians said this, and even people ITT said this and clearly these things reflect poorly on the university. T…

Harvard likewise To be clear, you are claiming that Harvard explicitly does not consider legacy status when deciding on admissions? So, when a student is considered being cut in the final stage of the admissions process, i.e. on the “lop list”, and decision makers are provided with only four pieces of information: legacy status, athlete status, financial aid eligibility, and race; you are claiming that legacy status…

To be clear, you are claiming that Harvard explicitly does not consider legacy status when deciding on admissions?

ya. Well... I think it's unlikely. There might be cases, I went through some math on this once and concluded that maybe 2% of the incoming class at Harvard could be unqualified legacy admits based on the total pool and the SAT std dev, etc. but even that I doubt. I think legacies probably are qualified based on what I have seen but the main reason I think this is more because admissions are hyper scrutinized now (for the past 10-20 years and they've been publishing student body stats) so if there is a way for Harvard to let in unqualified people it will be noticed and the public would not accept legacy admissions(SFFA lawsuit began almost a decade now). The athletic one is a different beast.

you are claiming that legacy status is included for… what

Possibly a tactic to raise more money because alumni are somewhat tricked into thinking making donations increases the odds their children are accepted. I don't know for sure and they probably should not include it on the application.

Also, you’re moving the goalposts from “legacy-based admissions are okay” to “actually, legacy-based admissions don’t exist.”

haha. Well if a school came out and said we allow some legacy admissions because it raises more money from donors and we need the money (and that wasn't a lie) I think that raises an interesting question about admissions I don't have an answer to. Most schools probably don't need the money now, I don't know where the money goes though. But I don't know what to think about admissions; not convinced there is a perfect formula. I'm not in favor of one group monopolizing schools though.

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

#660

Post by alex_young »

rank0 wrote: post #607
alex_young wrote: post #590

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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:…

Let's look at France then. They have lower numbers on paper when you look at things like per capita GDP, but they live longer lives, work about half the hours we do, take a full month of vacation, have access to free higher education and healthcare, etc. The estimates for their overall wellbeing are very similar to ours [0].

At to income distribution - in France the lowest quintile controls 8% of incomes [1], while in the US that number is less than 3% [2]. In fact, the second quintile in the US controls only 8%, which means that for the bottom 40% of income earners, one is very likely to be better off living in France.

Income inequality does indeed matter when you have many millions of people living in abject poverty, and it is a very relevant thing to consider when comparing economies.

[0] http://klenow.com/Jones_Klenow.pdf [1] https://www.indexmundi.com/facts/france/income-distribution [2] https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/income-p...

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