Children of alumni no longer have admissions edge at Carnegie Mellon, Pitt • Hacker News Board

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

#391

Post by triceratops » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

thebradbain wrote: post #270

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?

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say an Olympiad 4.0 student — many of whom exist, I went to school with a few — has a much more promising academic career than someone who managed to get good-not-great grades and a single perfect test score. Aside from the dedication of waking up to practice a sport every morning, think of how much time and discipline is it takes to balance being an amazing athlete with being a great…

What's the difference between training for track meets and training for a standardized test? In either case the student is applying themselves to excellence in a very niche skill - running really fast, or taking a test.

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

#392

Post by onetimeusename » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 7:09 PM UTC

kevinventullo wrote: post #369

onetimeusename wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not necessarily. I am neutral on it. I see both sides of the argument. I do think legacy admissions should not be a strike against which seems inevitable now to prevent lawsuits and bad press. I also think legacy admits shouldn't be tarred as less qualified (a polite way to say dumber), affirmative action beneficiaries for white people, and spoiled.

Now I feel like you’re making up strawmen. Literally no one is saying anything about legacy status counting against applicants. Even if that was a concern, applicants could simply… not mention their legacy status? Or better yet, the application itself could just not collect that data?

I'd hope it's not a strawman.

I do think legacy admission status counts against now. The SFFA lawsuit accused Harvard of using legacy admissions of being a backdoor affirmative action for white people because the legacy admits were so disproportionately white. I think my point is that in a highly racial context, the facts are thrown out.

To your point, in California, there was a law that was passed in 2019 that requires reporting on legacy admissions now[1] so I think the school is obligated to collect this data (so idk what happens if an applicant omits it). And again, legacy admission status is accused of broadly being affirmative action for white people[2] without evidence.

The reason it counts against now is that if a qualified legacy student is accepted, the data on students must be made public, by law or by public interest. The higher the percent of legacy admits, the more the school is accused of letting unqualified people in, facts be damned. I think that is because of a highly tribal view of school admissions.

[1]: https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/california-lega...

[2]: https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/affirmative-action-white...

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

#393

Post by chaostheory » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 7:12 PM UTC

hunson_abadeer wrote: post #385

julienchastang wrote: post #187

Good. With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. [0] The number of kids entering elite universities via non-meritocratic avenues is incredible. > "[The researchers] examined four kinds of nonracial preferences—for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff. The researchers found that more than 43% of…

> With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. I've heard this repeated nearly verbatim in a couple of places, and it's such a puzzling framing. Why was this practice any less ethically challenged prior to the SCOTUS decision?

Not sure why this wasn't mentioned more often but it's because of donor money. Donor money that funds things like new cafeterias and other facilities ultimately benefits everyone at school and helps keep tuition prices in check, also complicates the ethics ie if they didn't have enough donors, then tuition will go up and it'll be even less affordable

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

#394

Post by dionidium » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 7:12 PM UTC

julienchastang wrote: post #187

Good. With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. [0] The number of kids entering elite universities via non-meritocratic avenues is incredible. > "[The researchers] examined four kinds of nonracial preferences—for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff. The researchers found that more than 43% of…

> With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify.

I just don't see this. In our society we believe it to be illegitimate to discriminate on the basis of race. We believe that to be a special kind of uniquely harmful prejudice, one that fractures the deepest structures of society, and that it therefore clears the very high bar required for limiting freedom of association. That is what is at issue in the case of affirmative action, the elimination of which was not a broad referendum on the right to form elite social clubs.

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

#395

Post by chaostheory » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

kelipso wrote: post #378

philwelch wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a huge fan of the NCAA system myself. A lot of universities don’t have major sports programs, and that’s a respectable choice on their part. But NCAA sports are tremendously profitable for the universities that invest in them. No Division I school would actually save money, in the long run, by defunding their football and basketball teams. And when it comes to side businesses, sports pale in comparison to end…

Who cares about making money or not, plenty of ways to make money, but that's not the purpose of a non-profit organization dedicated to education.

Less revenue for the school means higher tuition costs for everyone and less scholarships.

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

#396

Post by largeluke » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

importantbrian wrote: post #330

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's kind of begging the question to assume multigenerational family ties to a university are "not merit" when a big part of a university's value proposition is social networking: One doesn't go to Harvard just to take courses; one goes to Harvard to bump shoulders with the scions of dictators / diplomats / "captains of industry" etc. Personally I didn't understand that at the time, would have rejected the notion on…

Yeah, I think part of the problem is that people don't really understand this. I have taken classes at a community college, a directional state school, an R1 and my master's degree is from a highly selective school. My n=1 experience is that the coursework from any accredited program is largely the same. The professors at the state school were actually better than at any of the other schools from a pure teaching pers…

I did both community college and Harvard undergrad. My experience is that while some intro classes were similarly structured, Harvard offered far more accelerated options for people who are prepared for it. You're right that the student body is a huge difference though.

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

#397

Post by bumby » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 7:15 PM UTC

doctorpangloss wrote: post #338

bumby wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article clearly says there's no evidence of a "casual relationship between legacy preference policies and total alumni giving." Can you explain your point further? Maybe you are aware of better data than what was used in the cited study?

> better data I am personally aware of a very large donation to MIT with the express purpose of admitting the high schooler, and I am less acquainted with a similar situation at Harvard. I have personally seen another alumni development quid pro quo, not a monetary donation, at MIT. Honestly it seems like common sense that the two are related. The mistake from a scientific point of view is how to define legacy prefer…

At the risk of sounding glib, I was asking for data and not anecdotes.

>The mistake from a scientific point of view is how to define legacy preferences and how to measure such impacts.

The paper looked to define legacy preferences using multiple datasets where the school measured the importance of alumni relations in admissions. The datasets had to agree for a legacy admission classification (e.g., both say that alumni relations are "very important" regarding admissions). The measure used in the studies that showed no evidence was the level of alumni donations. It's pretty easily quantifiable. Other studies cited show that when legacy admissions were abolished there was not a statistically significant change in alumni donations.

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

#398

Post by Given_47 » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 7:18 PM UTC

w0m wrote: post #188

LegitShady wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a little bit ridiculous. There is no connection between alumni donations and capital investments except decisions that university leadership chooses to make. The issue isn't the donations, its the university leadership thats choosing to make large capital expenditures. The donations could go to other things and do go to other things. Any blame you're putting on the donations actually belongs to the people run…

> There is no connection between alumni donations and capital investments except decisions that university leadership chooses to make. Not (always) true. Direct example with Carnegie Mellon - David Tepper was upset the business school (his alma mater) was appearing to fall behind in recruiting, so he donated ~100m but tied it to the business school getting a new building/quad. Total cost to the university was well no…

Now also called the Tepper School of Business!

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

#399

Post by psychlops » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 7:19 PM UTC

Brusco_RF wrote: post #296

ethbr0 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US federal government should do the same thing to public universities (US definition) that they did to insurance companies via the ACA -- cap administrative overhead. For every dollar in tuition, >Y% must be spent on qualifying direct educational expenses. E.g. teaching faculty salary, etc. If a college fails to meet that threshold, and spends too much on non-qualifying costs, they are required to rebate the diff…

I stopped reading after the first sentence. Our current health insurance laws should NOT be a model for anything, ever!

You made it past "The US federal government should"?

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

#400

Post by sterlind » Wed, Jul 19, 2023, 7:19 PM UTC

xkcd-sucks wrote: post #285

julienchastang wrote: post #187

Good. With the end of affirmative action, legacy status in admissions becomes much harder to justify. [0] The number of kids entering elite universities via non-meritocratic avenues is incredible. > "[The researchers] examined four kinds of nonracial preferences—for recruited athletes, and for children of Harvard graduates, financial donors and members of faculty and staff. The researchers found that more than 43% of…

It's kind of begging the question to assume multigenerational family ties to a university are "not merit" when a big part of a university's value proposition is social networking: One doesn't go to Harvard just to take courses; one goes to Harvard to bump shoulders with the scions of dictators / diplomats / "captains of industry" etc. Personally I didn't understand that at the time, would have rejected the notion on…

on the other hand, people go to MIT to interact with brilliant classmates and faculty. MIT's value proposition is that the smartest people are there, and funding will find those people (and vice versa) on the merits of their intellectual abilities.

On the other hand,

> One doesn't go to Harvard just to take courses; one goes to Harvard to bump shoulders with the scions of dictators / diplomats / "captains of industry" etc

is correct about Harvard. Harvard is much more about elitism-qua-elitism. Sure it's academically selective (if you're not from a political dynasty), but that's just because the intellectual elite is only one of many kinds of elite they carry about.

I think this is a true insight about Harvard, and the other ivies that give a "Gentleman's C" to plutocrats' children, but I think it deserves to be destroyed. I'd prefer Lincoln Lab to the Skull and Bones.