181–190 of 456 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where on earth do you think inner city kids are playing water polo and golf? Just because golf courses aren't that expensive to play on doesn't mean they're accessible to poor people (plus there's the cost of clubs, obviously). And water polo... even if there are public pools near you, they probably aren't dedicating space for competitive water polo.
I played water polo at my public high school and only had to buy a swimsuit?
Meanwhile, the same California government is trying to legalize discriminatory race-based admissions.
And then we have google which likes to only hire from 'top tier schools' and then everyone else follows along. Believe me I've noticed how THAT has changed tech culture in the bay area.
Rather than claim that students are admitted based on test scores and grades alone, why don't universities simply say that admissions are also based on factors such as how influential or wealthy the parents are? Doing so would not be a problem, the only problem is not being transparent about it. Stanford is very clear about the fact that "legacy" applicants (meaning their parents or siblings are at Stanford and presu…
Better idea, let's outlaw legacy admissions.
I have not attended an american school. People seem to want robotic admission standards. Is there no room for circumstance? Does a donation to the school that helps improve the quality of the school and the research need to come without strings attached? Should the rich be required to have such purity of intention? Or should they only donate to private schools where they can legally have influence? By being the child…
"BOARS’s guidance provides recommended reasons for considering an applicant for admission by exception. These include the applicants having overcome personal challenges, having had limited or nontraditional educational opportunities, having special talents, or having academic achievements equivalent to the eligibility requirements."
The report takes no issue with such a system, just the one where people pay for their special exception.
Meanwhile, the same California government is trying to legalize discriminatory race-based admissions.
re-leaglize. It was legal until the 90s. When it became illegal, the diversity on campus dropped significantly. There is an argument to be made that the race-based admissions help make up for prior injustices.
A good "Church of Satan" reaction to these policies in California would be a university that set the bar higher for Black applicants, with the justification that other policies have in fact over-corrected for past injustices, and now the injustice of that over-correction must be righted.
The thing to keep in mind is that the justification for some of the worst racism in history has been injustice or past injustices. We should learn from history and pre-commit as a society to react hyper-negatively to any policy that involves racial discrimination. Get it the hell out of the Overton window.
I have failed to be outraged. 1/3 of them were admitted as student athletes. Everyone knows that it is official policy at most schools to accept people with athletic ability who would not qualify academically. Why? Because those athletic programs make the university a lot of money! How is admitting someone because their family gave a lot of money any different in principle? It is just a question of reducing how many…
In any case, it might be negatively impacting the school's athletic program because real athletes have spots taken by opportunists.
I thought this was common practice in US universities, in the form of so called 'legacy admissions' [1]? [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences
Goverment-run universities presumably have slightly less ludicrously corruption-condoning rules in place.
I was in graduate school when I first learned that writing good grant proposals (and other skills related to acquiring large quantities of money) was arguably more valuable than doing good science.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> But who decides what merit is, and who deserves it? Academic merit, evaluated by testing.
What you're proposing is testocracy. Which has a storied history, being the primary means of governance of China for millennia. But to call it meritocracy, we must do two things: elide the correlation between tested excellence and academic performance, which correlation is strong but not perfect, and then conflate academic merit with meritoriousness generally, which I firmly reject. Call it what it is: testocracy. A…
I wonder how this comment section would look if it was revealed that people from a low income background had hacked the admissions system to gain entry. I expect the tone would be much more critical, calling for prosecutions and sanctions, and lamenting the sheer unfairness of it. I'm pretty sure it would be in stark contrast to all the bribery apologism we can see in these threads.
People are always going to use their money to buy status. So as long as these college offer prestige & status, people with money are going to use it to get in. Much like doping in sports, you have two paths you can take: try to combat cheating, or accept the cheating as part of the game. I think these universities should accept that they are providing an education, but they are selling prestige, and split their admis…
I'm generally opposed to this kind of acceptance-of-bad-things but in this case I kinda agree. If people are willing to pay millions to go to college, that's potentially a great advantage to students who otherwise have trouble affording it -- let the rich kids subsidize it for everyone else. By not funneling the donations through weird under-the-table transactions it can be more directly used for a net good for the s…
The state schools already do this. It's called "out of state tuition". For example, UC Berkeley charges California residents $14k/yr tuition while everyone else pays $44k/yr. Not surprisingly, the number of out of state students admitted to the UC system is increasing every year. [0]
[0]https://www.ucop.edu/institutional-research-academic-plannin...