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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

#731

Post by DominikPeters »

fritzo wrote: post #8

> “I do think there was a time when perhaps legacies needed a boost” -Dean Emeritus of Admission Mike Steidel Is there any way of charitably interpreting Mike Steidel's words? I have a tough time reading anything here but classist bigotry preserving the status quo :-/

His comments more broadly make no sense to me.

“Over time, the quality of the applicant pool increased to the point where we really didn’t have [give legacies a boost]” - how does that work? If the applicant pool gets better, then if anything privileged groups need a stronger boost.

"Steidel said the tipping point came perhaps three or four years ago as standardized testing became optional at many institutions, including Carnegie Mellon" - is this supposed to mean that they can now boost preferred groups more easily because they don't have to overcome the testing differential, so they actually might have stronger legacy preferences than before, but better hidden?

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

#732

Post by corimaith »

ves wrote: post #693
tekknik wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has to do with correcting specific and massive historical wrongs in which our government was complicit, not lifting up disadvantaged people generally. And I tuned out. I’m not paying for the sins of our fathers.

You’re definitely happily collecting the proceeds of those sins, though, I’m sure.

We can say that for just about everyone though.

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

#733

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #646
rayiner wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Here's an interesting defense of racial preferences a mutual acquaintance wrote on HN some years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4758529

A decade later, turns out I was wrong. Ironically, it’s because the racial identity politics of the last decade made me realize I’m not white, and that race is such a pernicious concept that even the good white people can’t be trusted with it.

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

#734

Post by CraigRo »

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.

One special gifts officer told me that the U had rejected a rather limited number of people whose families had 8 billion dollars.

3 million might get you into Brown, but it isn't going to get you into Harvard.

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

#735

Post by Timon3 »

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…

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

They put it in scare quotes because there is a big difference between "fairness" and fairness. You're not asking for actual fairness.

If there were two children, each who had a cookie, and one child steals the other child's cookie - nobody would say that a fair way to distribute the next cookie is to split it evenly between both children. But that's the kind of "fairness" you're asking for. It's fair in the most basic and childish sense. Once you stop ignoring what came before it's no longer fair.

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

#736

Post by 9dev »

janalsncm wrote: post #482
lisper wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are underestimating the extent to which standardized tests can be (and have been) biased. https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/racis...

The entire concept of an “admissions” department was based on the historical fact that too many Jews were being admitted and too few WASPs were. So they included a “character” criteria and fixed the problem. Now, too many Asians are being admitted based on test scores. Oh no! To fix this problem, Harvard consulted their history department and included a “personality traits” section. Is it any wonder that Asian studen…

Oh my. This obsession over race is so bewildering to foreigners like me.

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

#737

Post by alexeldeib »

abduhl wrote: post #679
kelnos wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary, when California enacted a ban on AA in university admissions in 1996, enrollment of minorities plummeted. Sure, maybe some of them would have dropped out, and some may have changed majors, but at least they would have had the opportunity, and certainly some would have been able to take advantage of it.

It seems that the only demographics that plummeted were whites and Native Americans per https://edsource.org/2020/freshmen-enrollment-csu-and-uc-by-...

It varies by school. https://www.npr.org/2023/06/27/1184461214/examining-the-impa...

> Berkeley and UCLA, the most selective public universities in the state, saw a declines in Black and Hispanic enrollment of about 40% immediately the year after the Proposition was implemented. There was no net change in black and Hispanic enrollment at less selective California universities because while some black and Hispanic students lost access to those schools because affirmative action ended, they also gained Black and Hispanic students from more selective schools like Berkeley and UCLA that those students could no longer get into.

> seems like these very selective public universities in California just provided greater value to relatively disadvantaged Black and Hispanic students who came from lower-income neighborhoods, had poorer job networks, relatively less access to otherwise successful peers, and who were thus able to better take advantage of the resources provided by these super selective universities than the white and Asian students who took their places.

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

#738

Post by belorn »

digging wrote: post #625
belorn wrote: post #529

Earlier quoted context omitted.

gerrymandered district maps can get struck down on the basis of intention of racial discrimination. Correlation and intent are two very different concepts, and it is very dangerous to assume that everything that correlates do so by intent.

> it is very dangerous to assume that everything that correlates do so by intent. Yes but it is much more dangerous to assume that correlation can't imply intent. Because sometimes it does.

Indeed. Once a situation is suspected to be done by criminal intent, investigators can interview personal, go through search histories, looking for text conversations and so on. Once collected a judge can look at it and determine if there is or isn't intent.

It is a costly, time consuming and cumbersome process, but the legal system is quite used to it since almost every single criminal case involve some aspects of establishing intent.

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

#739

Post by bumby »

lazyasciiart wrote: post #683
bumby wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't that still cause a correlation between schools that have legacy scholarships and alumni giving? In your lotto ticket example, there is a correlation between the jackpot and the number of tickets sold.

Yes, that was what I was saying. The "no evidence" comment is not made by the paper itself - it was made about a much weaker 2008 study. The linked paper actually claims that legacy admissions do increase alumni giving by implicitly favoring wealthier families. I think both papers have flaws.

The linked study literally says “our primary finding…is that there is no statistical evidence of a casual relationship.” It also controls for wealth: “after inclusion of appropriate controls, including wealth…”

Maybe we’re referencing different studies. Which are you specifically referencing?

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

#740

Post by School-Cotton »

dfadsadsf wrote: post #245
School-Cotton wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because universities are academic institutions, not track-and-field training facilities (or at least they are in countries that take education seriously, unlike the US). Who cares how boring it is?

With that, the US is widely recognized to have the best universities in the world. A lot of countries claim to take education seriously, but the result is often very mediocre. Very few people will pick IIT or Beijing University if they are offered spot at Harvard.

> the US is widely recognized to have the best universities in the world

Recognized by whom? I would certainly be more impressed if someone went to ENS Paris than Harvard.

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