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Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

reuters.com

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Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#181

Post by defrost »

Ekaros wrote: post #179
Glyptodon wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sad thing is that students from poorer and racially segregated areas are paying for 18 years of falling behind by the time it comes to college. When some high schools have barely literate graduates betrayed by adverse conditions their whole life, it's hardly shocking that it results in college admission readiness being grossly skewed. Not that I want to oversimplify.

And why not fix this issue? There is multiple options. You could build something like large prisons somewhere. Ship all the kids there from age 6 to 18. And then shuffle them randomly around every 6 months. Thus ensuring everyone gets exactly same experience and education. Equity for everyone!

This is a delibrately ridiculous suggestion.

It would be more constructive to improve teacher education, wages, and standards to create a more productive and better resourced education system.

You could look to countries such as Finland et al for a model rather than drawing upon satirical dystopian ankle deep in thought Harrison Bergeron scenarios.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#182

Post by swarnie »

yesenadam wrote: post #97
swarnie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends how you want to define "cancel culture" I can think of a few notable examples from arguably the highest ranked university, Oxford.

Could you write them or link to them too? Thanks.

Removal of the Queen's portrait

> Postgraduate students at Magdalen College have voted to remove a portrait of the monarch based on a photograph by Dorothy Wilding, taken in 1952, at the time she was crowned.

> The portrait, purchased in 2013 by students to decorate the Middle Common Room (MCR), the room that houses them, has been removed because it was an unwelcoming symbol of the UK's "recent colonial history".

Something about slavery, idk

> An Oxford University college has decided to keep its statue of a Barbados-born slave owner.

> All Souls College has dropped the name Christopher Codrington from its library

The concept of audible clapping

> Representatives from the Student Union (SU) passed a motion last week to replace clapping with “jazz hands” in hopes that this will make events “more inclusive” and “accessible” for those with the mental health condition.

> This comes after the University of Manchester made international headlines for passing a similar motion in September 2018.

In general it seems we import a lot of cultural nonsense from other Anglo countries even if its not quite relevant.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#183

Post by jonstewart »

AlbertCory wrote: post #152
jonstewart wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Discovery happens before a trial. The plaintiff gets to ask the defendant for relevant documents. This can be clearly weaponized—the plaintiff can request everything and make the defendant spend a lot of time and money on it. A common recourse is for the defense to argue the initial discovery request is overbroad and burdensome. Often there’s some negotiation but of course the judge makes the ultimate call. I won’t o…

You're certainly right about the routine. If they dumped all the donors over $50,000 for the last 10 years, even on paper, I can't believe it would be that much to go through.

A nice curated authoritative spreadsheet/database wouldn’t be so much data.

What if such a data set doesn’t exist? What if it’s all in the email and word docs for these collegiate development and admissions departments over a decade? How do you tell it apart?

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#184

Post by Tozen »

xmddmx wrote: post #144

This is one of those complex topics which on HN, seesm to lead to "it's simple, do X" types of analyses, which tend to be simple, confident, and wrong. Some facts to consider: At Harvard, over 40% of non-minority students received special treatment for admissions (which includes factors such as being a legacy, athlete, or the 'dean's list' which was a list of high donating parents). 75% of those would not have been a…

Seems like you are going down the path of presenting the reality, where a lot of people will ignore "wealth favoritism", cronyism, nepotism, etc... But mention affirmative action, specifically minorities of color as oppose to women of a certain persuasion (also ignored or given a pass), and things can get real hot and tribalistic, real fast.

Well sir/madam, good luck with your arguments and evidence. At the very least, as it's doubtful such biases or prejudices that protects systematic advantages and socioeconomic position will be altered, it will make for a good popcorn read.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#185

Post by antegamisou »

tdehnel wrote: post #164
antegamisou wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have the opportunity to meet people who can invest in your ventures. and who are also completely lacking empathy for the financially challenged at best, disregard and look down upon the less privileged at worst. Both may lead to social isolation of persons with different socioeconomic background attending said schools.

Oh knock it off. I’m not wealthy but I’m sick of this trope where we assume rich people are jerks. It’s a lazy, unintelligent critique, and what’s more, your comment shows that even non-wealthy people can be jerks too.

It’s an empirically sound assumption to make, especially when it comes to people who are products of wealthy lineage a few generations back and have barely worked.

> It’s a lazy, unintelligent critique

I think this is what a subset of people belonging to lower socioeconomic classes tell themselves, and sometimes have heard it from their “superiors”, to better cope with their financial struggle. The poor people are just lazy is the motto of the privileged and is also a safe assumption to make for a rich person to have.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#186

Post by antegamisou »

yodsanklai wrote: post #81
antegamisou wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have the opportunity to meet people who can invest in your ventures. and who are also completely lacking empathy for the financially challenged at best, disregard and look down upon the less privileged at worst. Both may lead to social isolation of persons with different socioeconomic background attending said schools.

I attended an elite institution in my country. My experience: - people from less privileged background didn't need empathy. By being there, they were bound to have a successful career - students tend to get along better with people from similar background/interest but there were enough diversity so that nobody felt they didn't belong, and nobody was looked down. That being said, we don't have as much inequalities as…

I can relate to your experience and the reason is

> Everybody who was there passed the same selective anonymous exams

My comment was targeted to the US university system where getting born in the “right”family is all you need to have access to elite education.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#187

Post by nytesky »

angmarsbane wrote: post #35

Isn’t part of the benefit of getting into these universities the fact that you get to interact with people from a wealthier economic class? You have the opportunity to meet people who can invest in your ventures or who can introduce you to people who can.

My experience as a very poor student at elite university is that the classes don’t mix much, though there maybe exceptions for a standout athlete on a team sport.

Part of it is logistics: wealthy had money for weekend ski trips, cars, didn’t have to work student jobs so had more free time.

Maybe it’s changed? I was there over a decade ago.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#188

Post by Eumenes »

dumbotron wrote: post #115

This is a problem markets can fix. The only way you get into an elite school is you donate a lot of money, you were admitted for color, or you know how to play the game. None of these abilities are things businesses should value, and I'd rather take a top student from a top state school because they're competent at the right things.

Is 'play the game' = be a good student?

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#189

Post by mmarq »

rtpg wrote: post #111
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this will be very very good popcorn-munching drama. I mean, I do think that students getting in because daddy gives a couple million isn't the end of the world. The college I went to 20 years ago went away from need-blind admissions, which basically meant if you can pay you get some preference. Now THAT was bad, because it affected the general student population. If instead you have a reserved number of "bribe" s…

I don’t understand how being bought in with your parents money is ok yet an athelete actually doing a thing themselves with their own bodies shouldn’t “get a pass”. Especially given that they still have to, you know, pass classes! Let’s not pretend all those legacies are showing up to class and working hard.

I think for the same weird reason why people tend to be OK with top athletes making billions while they are upset at Gates and Bezos. Don’t ask me what it is.

Re: Students suing elite U.S. colleges seek 'wealth favoritism' information

#190

Post by juve1996 »

twblalock wrote: post #160
juve1996 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's ludicrous to suggest that this is an easy outcome. If it were, you wouldn't be making 300k TC.

I know quite a few people who went to various California public colleges and universities and earn that much. In tech, it's the choice of major, not the university, that really matters -- and even companies that have policies of only hiring from certain universities tend to apply that only to new grads. I know several people who have succeeded in tech in staff+/leadership roles without any college degree at all! In l…

Of course its possible. The path exists. The problem is many can't take the path to begin with.

Just look at the numbers. If it was so easy, again, everyone would do it. It's not.

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