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‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

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Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#201

Post by Bartweiss »

lsc wrote: post #37
speedplane wrote: post #23

I understand the outrage of racial discrimination in this case, but I'm saddened over the lack of outrage over Harvard's self-described "Z-List" students who get into the school solely based on their family's money and power. No one is suing Harvard over the fact that you can buy your way in. We've come to accept that money and legacy power provides access and opportunity regardless of merit. If that more fundamental…

I always thought that historically, the elite schools were for the children of the elite; the idea behind letting "scholarship students" in is that if the children of the elite are going to run the world (and they always have in the past) it's really in everyone's best interest if we set them up so that they build relationships with some people who are competent and will have to work. I think the fact that there does…

> the idea behind letting "scholarship students" in is that if the children of the elite are going to run the world (and they always have in the past) it's really in everyone's best interest if we set them up so that they build relationships with some people who are competent

This has always been the reason I'm not as eager as lots of people to smash universities and elitist admissions. The children of the rich and powerful took the reins without trouble before widespread university attendance, and they'll probably keep doing so after it declines.

In this narrative, the breakthrough of the last ~70 years is running a whole bunch of highly-qualified non-elites through what are effectively elite finishing schools, introducing them to the existing elite and in many cases giving them the shared experiences and cultural habits to enter the halls of power. It's not a great system, it leaves people trying to hide their lack of a Vineyard summer home from their classmates, but it's far better than a lot of older systems like "anyone who has to work for their money can't be an elite" or "if you don't learn Latin you can't go to college".

I certainly think this is a major flaw in the grand hopes for MOOCs; the aspirational Ivy League and top 20 experiences are the part of college they're least capable of replacing.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#202

Post by teslabox »

lsc wrote: post #37
speedplane wrote: post #23

I understand the outrage of racial discrimination in this case, but I'm saddened over the lack of outrage over Harvard's self-described "Z-List" students who get into the school solely based on their family's money and power. No one is suing Harvard over the fact that you can buy your way in. We've come to accept that money and legacy power provides access and opportunity regardless of merit. If that more fundamental…

I always thought that historically, the elite schools were for the children of the elite; the idea behind letting "scholarship students" in is that if the children of the elite are going to run the world (and they always have in the past) it's really in everyone's best interest if we set them up so that they build relationships with some people who are competent and will have to work. I think the fact that there does…

> I always thought that historically, the elite schools were for the children of the elite;

Parents of means sent their children to College so they'd have a leg up on the under-class. The Screwing Of The Average Man [0] pointed this out to me. It additionally pointed out that college was subsidized for returning WWII soldiers so they'd have something to do that didn't involve fighting, via the GI Bill [1]. This had the effect of causing college costs to spiral out of control.

My dad's parents both went to college before WWII. My grandfather's mother had played Prohibition well (legally), and sent all four of her children to college. My grandmother was an only child, and her parents had the means to pay for college for her.

My mom's father was relatively old by the time he was released from the army, and didn't take advantage of the GI bill. My grandmother said he really should have - that they probably would have greatly benefited financially from it.

Education is an industry whose purpose is mostly to keep people out of the workforce for as long as possible. Some people get a lot out of their degree programs, but mostly school is just a distraction.

I wonder if there's a way to gracefully reform K-12 & post-secondary education so that it better serves the needs of the students.

[0] https://books.google.com/books?id=-PJ0DLVOIXcC [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G.I._Bill

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#203

Post by echion »

jessaustin wrote: post #150
paidleaf wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you think that? Stereotyping perhaps? Look at the quasi racist stuff this guy wrote. He obviously doesn't like asians for some reason. "Harvard and the other Ivies don't want to keep out asian people. They want to keep out boring, myopic applicants who spend all day studying to achieve the grades and scores they have and show little sign of interest in contributing to the outside world beyond getting a w…

I think he might have fit in at Dartmouth?

Fighting stereotypical prejudice with...a stereotype? Dartmouth is around the mean in Asian-American student body according to https://blog.collegevine.com/the-demographics-of-the-ivy-lea... .

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#204

Post by Spooky23 »

drawnwren wrote: post #77
zimablue wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Extracurriculars have been moved away from in the UK because you're basically discriminating on class. I went to a uni much like the one you describe, Imperial College London. It has it's problems but I wouldn't have traded all the engineers and scientists for lit students. Pretty sure we produce our share of investment bankers. A uni discriminating on extracurriculars and perceived sociability is insane. We're suppo…

Keep in mind that top 5 US schools are taking a much smaller percentage of a much larger population. They simply can't differentiate on academic performance alone. They generally admit somewhere around 5% of their applicants. Keeping in mind that those applicants are self-selecting, to some degree, thanks to the previously known admit rates and high application fees -- they have to use something else. A professor of…

Just do a random lottery, assign points for objective achievements, whether academic or extracurricular. Pick some low (say 5%) percentage of admissions subject to discretion.

The legacy/z-list stuff demonstrates that the curation/engineering of the student body aspect of the process is bullshit. Kids who are marginally qualified and have rich parents seem to be able to make it.

Introducing a lottery system would eliminate the injustice and resentment where some admission officer is applying a "cool filter" to determine whether chinese/korean/indian people are worthy, or creating the assumption that other minorities were somehow unworthy of their opportunity.

I'm just an idiot who went to a SUNY school. In the 90s, if you met an SAT threshold and were a B-ish student you were in. We used to joke that we were the 13th grade of Massapequa high school -- there was no curation of the social skills of the student body. That said, we had a fine social life, and in rigorous subjects the dopiest idiots were filtered out. Computer Science 201 was a lecture hall with 800 students, and about 40-50% of the population was culled each year. About 40-50 students graduated. It was no Harvard, but we seemed to muddle though.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#205

Post by forapurpose »

tomp wrote: post #142
reitzensteinm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making an argument of rational self interest, which doesn't at all speak to morality. Imagine a company that maintains a culture of grooming executives through the ranks. After reviewing their data, they find that more women than men leave to start families. Are they then justified to hire only men, or more subtly divert resources to only groom male junior employees? OK, so an Ivy League school wants to contin…

> they find that more women than men leave to start families They're definitely justified in filtering out people (men and women) who are more likely to leave to start familier, and prefer those who won't. This is of course a bad outcome for society, but that's how capitalism works - and if we want companies to optimize for/prefer families, then we should structure the societal incentives such.

> This is of course a bad outcome for society, but that's how capitalism works - and if we want companies to optimize for/prefer families, then we should structure the societal incentives such.

There's a premise here (and in many similar arguments) that the capitalists and their decision-makers (the managers) can only follow financial incentives; they are almost victims of circumstance with no agency of their own.

Markets and financial incentives are useful tools, but very imperfect. To keep society functioning and to do good and do well, we all must sacrifice some financial benefits. What is the financial incentive for soldiers, as a simple example, or for nurses who serve in Ebola zones? For Albert Einstein? 'The market made me do it' is not a defense; there are financial incentives for murder too; we must make our own decisions and we are responsible for the consequences.

From another perspective, it's ironic that capitalists, traditionally more conservative, take on this structuralist argument, usually abhorred by the right. If we say the system makes minorities and women poor, they say it's nonsense. If we say the system makes capitalists do evil, well what else could they do?

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#206

Post by IvyAdmisions »

IvyAdmisions wrote: post #108
fmajid wrote: post #94

They just repurposed a system that was designed in the 1930s to keep Jews out, to keeping Asians out. The smoking gun is how the admissions committee's ratings for “personality” differ so much from alumni volunteer interviewers.

Agreed and for similar reasons imo, to guard against admiting too many students with no ambition beyond a comfy middle class lifestyle.

Lots of downvotes. To clarify my point: The elite schools only want to admit so many future doctor/lawyer/engineers. Today, the way they limit those numbers hits asian applicants disproportionately hard. 80 years ago, jewish applicants were hit disproportionately hard. There was racism mixed in then as there is now, but having read a bit about those policies and experienced the current ones, I think the main thrust was the same: managing the large number of applicants looking for a ticket to the upper middle class.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#207

Post by totalZero »

speedplane wrote: post #23

I understand the outrage of racial discrimination in this case, but I'm saddened over the lack of outrage over Harvard's self-described "Z-List" students who get into the school solely based on their family's money and power. No one is suing Harvard over the fact that you can buy your way in. We've come to accept that money and legacy power provides access and opportunity regardless of merit. If that more fundamental…

> We've come to accept that money and legacy power provides access and opportunity regardless of merit.

Nah, because such an admissions policy impacts reputation. All else being equal, you probably wouldn't hire a civil engineer with a BS from Harvard over one from MIT.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#208

Post by IvyAdmisions »

brians wrote: post #169
paidleaf wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What makes you think that? Stereotyping perhaps? Look at the quasi racist stuff this guy wrote. He obviously doesn't like asians for some reason. "Harvard and the other Ivies don't want to keep out asian people. They want to keep out boring, myopic applicants who spend all day studying to achieve the grades and scores they have and show little sign of interest in contributing to the outside world beyond getting a w…

I've had an admissions officer at MIT scream at me--handing out leaflets at a protest--that MIT "doesn't admit people like me any more." I think he meant to communicate that they were aiming at more complacent people who would participate on the rails--as admissions officers of his era imagined Millenials to be. "Whoops" He's out of admissions and lecturing physics at U Kentucky now, which seems a fair result. But an…

Just remember that the heads of admissions are the ones coming up with these policies (in tandem with other university leaders) and personally reviewing all the applicants in the end to make sure they're carried out.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#209

Post by totalZero »

forapurpose wrote: post #195
privateSFacct wrote: post #14

The stats on how they scored asians were pretty incredible. Asian personalities were only 2 or better at the top decile (top 10%), african-americans scored 2 or better 8 deciles in (top 80%, only the worst 20% didn't score 2 or better). Personalities were scored on: likability, helpfulness, courage, kindness, positive personality, people like to be around them, the person is widely respected. Harvard insists this was…

Any bias against Asian people has nothing to do with African-American people. Let's leave the racial competition off HN.

Hey man, race is the topic of this conversation. No disrespect but if there is a place to have this slightly sensitive discussion politely on HN, it's in threads like this.

Re: ‘Lopping,’ ‘Tips’ and the ‘Z-List’: Bias Lawsuit Explores Harvard’s Admissions

#210

Post by ghein »

bytematic wrote: post #184

When will people understand that “We do have some very affirmative goals though that I think are important to understand. That when we talk about diversity of backgrounds and experiences, it includes different academic interests. It includes different occupations of parents. It includes socioeconomic differences. It includes different viewpoints on issues.” is a good thing. This always gets me a negative reaction, pe…

It's because the language and approach with respect to Asians (and specifically Chinese, Korean, Japanese backgrounds) echoes the explicitly racist efforts of top universities, especially Harvard, in the early 20th Century against Jews. Holistic applications in the Ivy League were created solely to keep the Jewish population to a manageable level.

This for people who relatively recently experienced severe racist treatment by the government, currently experience racist treatment in pop culture (Lauryn Hill's racist treatment of Koreans in Doo Wop for example, or Spike Lee's movies), and see local governments creating intentionally racist policies (Philadelphia's attempt to ban security glass in liquor stores).

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