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UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

auditor.ca.gov

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Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#401

Post by Galanwe »

MiroF wrote: post #369
Galanwe wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's different, though maybe native English speakers will struggle because there is no equivalent of "é". "et", "è", "ai" are all pronounced the same. Similar to the "e" in "best". For "é" and "er" I struggle to find a definite English equivalent sound. Sometimes "a" is close, but it depends on the accent of the speaker. Maybe the best example is just the last "é" when pronouncing "Beyoncé" or "fiancée"

> "e" in "best". But I pronounce chachet nothing like the e in best. It seems much more similar to a french "é" This is how I pronounce it: https://www.google.com/search?q=cachet+pronunciation&oq=cach...

Then you don't pronounce it well :D The link you gave me looks like someone with a strong English accent trying to pronounce French (which make sense for an AI)

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#402

Post by kingkawn »

mywittyname wrote: post #89

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…

Once you choose to sell off your prestige you’ve no longer got it to sell

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#403

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

sprafa wrote: post #384
woodruffw wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who went to one of those “pure test based” NYC schools: this is not the testament that you think it is. The number of Black and Hispanic students at Stuyvesant and Bronx Science was an order of magnitude higher in the 1970s; the current demographics are a consequence of paid preparation being a reliable way to score highly on the SHSAT.

It’s amazing that people don’t realise this. I always think back to the study that showed the amount of books in a household was a strong predictor for IQ. Background matters a whole lot, but high performance people don’t want to hear it, because they want to feel like it’s all their own credit. Nope. Just like money, there’s also an intellectual family bank that gets inherited. And it’s not genes, it’s access to kno…

It can be even more basic. Just having your own quiet space makes a huge difference to study outcomes. Someone living in a tiny apartment with a shared bedroom, the TV next door, and constant street noise is going to have a much harder time concentrating than someone with a private bedroom at the top of a detached house.

Of course genes play a part, but eugenics is mostly economic and political discrimination, not objective assessment of absolute potential.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#404

Post by hombre_fatal »

saagarjha wrote: post #330
analog31 wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I suspect the schools are trying to curate their student body so it doesn't turn into a freak show, which would itself reduce prestige. It would be like a zoo that contains exactly one species of animal. This is the dilemma. Taking the top 1000 scorers on some particularly difficult exam, and putting them all together in one place, would be a freak show. Not because they are freaks per se , but because any monocultur…

Perfect students are not “freaks”.

On the other hand, a Mensa gathering (not a member, myself) is one of the few situations I've been in that was hard to characterize as anything other than freakshow on earth. Shows that you can maximize a single dimension so much that you are left with people incapable of communication.

Similarly, an organization of students maximizing academic performance has a certain vibe that definitely doesn't feel "perfect". It doesn't even seem like that useful of a skill, but I'd have to know the purpose of a uni to comment further.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#405

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

kmonsen wrote: post #291
_pd19 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that you can only sell prestige if there is strategic ambiguity between the two categories.

It’s like all the silly mobile games, you need a pool of cheap players so the rich people can feel accomplished when they spend money. This is similar, there needs to be enough for people being accepted to and graduating from a university so when the rich kids also does it people think that he is smart and accomplished.

The last thing you want is rich mediocre kids believing they're smart and accomplished when they aren't.

Some of them will go into politics and business, and their entitlement and delusionally rosy view of their talents will make them a national liability.

You really want to steer rich slackers towards wasting their lives with dumb hedonism, keeping them as far away as possible from any activity with strategic influence.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#406

Post by [deleted] »

Galanwe wrote: post #401
MiroF wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "e" in "best". But I pronounce chachet nothing like the e in best. It seems much more similar to a french "é" This is how I pronounce it: https://www.google.com/search?q=cachet+pronunciation&oq=cach...

Then you don't pronounce it well :D The link you gave me looks like someone with a strong English accent trying to pronounce French (which make sense for an AI)

[deleted]

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#407

Post by hombre_fatal »

Galanwe wrote: post #401
MiroF wrote: post #369

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "e" in "best". But I pronounce chachet nothing like the e in best. It seems much more similar to a french "é" This is how I pronounce it: https://www.google.com/search?q=cachet+pronunciation&oq=cach...

Then you don't pronounce it well :D The link you gave me looks like someone with a strong English accent trying to pronounce French (which make sense for an AI)

No, it's someone speaking the anglicised pronunciation which is correct in English just like for the other 1000s of borrowed French words in English.

Though you'll be happy to know that where I grew up in Texas, everyone tried to pronounce "croissant" the French way when (and only when) ordering one at a deli counter. But we weren't far from Paris, Texas.

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#408

Post by jboog »

darkwizard42 wrote: post #400
jboog wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think admitting legacies is morally and ethically wrong but the idea that what we need is another test even harder than the SATs to distinguish the "outstanding" is misguided. The difference between kid who gets a 1550 and a 1600 on the SAT is so marginal that calling one "outstanding" and one "merely very good" is just silly. Is that difference the extra $20,000 parents spent on tutoring? Or is that difference act…

I think what the parent comment is saying is that neither the 1550 or 1600 is "outstanding" and the SAT is a flawed exam that doesn't really get you the "genius" level kids

And my point is that no test exists which will determine who are the "genius" kids.

There are tens of thousands of adults all over the world who went to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford etc. that then went on to live completely mediocre middle class lives.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with that but my point is that how you do on a test at 16-17 years old does not make you a "genius", nor does scoring in the 99.999% ensure that a person will achieve academic or career outcomes superior than the person who scored 99.9%

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#409

Post by [deleted] »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #317
jrochkind1 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there are tons of people in this thread saying "it seems fine to me, of course wealthy people should get special treatment, that's fine." It was never a "meritocracy". Wealthy people and well-connected people have always had an advantage, and still do. This seems to me an argument for things like affirmative action. To try to balance the scales a bit. Not sure why you see it as an argument against.

> It was never a "meritocracy". Of course it wasn't meritocracy since it was cronyism and nepotism like what happens at Berkeley. But neither is "affirmative action", a racist policy which isn't going to end nepotism and cronyism, just make things even more arbitrary. No need to be an "athlete" now, just put "latino" or "black" on your registration form and don't forget the bribes. That's the system you are rooting f…

[deleted]

Re: UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

#410

Post by jrochkind1 »

throw_m239339 wrote: post #317
jrochkind1 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So there are tons of people in this thread saying "it seems fine to me, of course wealthy people should get special treatment, that's fine." It was never a "meritocracy". Wealthy people and well-connected people have always had an advantage, and still do. This seems to me an argument for things like affirmative action. To try to balance the scales a bit. Not sure why you see it as an argument against.

> It was never a "meritocracy". Of course it wasn't meritocracy since it was cronyism and nepotism like what happens at Berkeley. But neither is "affirmative action", a racist policy which isn't going to end nepotism and cronyism, just make things even more arbitrary. No need to be an "athlete" now, just put "latino" or "black" on your registration form and don't forget the bribes. That's the system you are rooting f…

Obviously "just putting latino or black on your registration" form does not in fact automatically get you into any university, you know you are exaggerating.

Then you add "and don't forget the bribes" -- you think most bribes come from Black and Latino people, or most people who are Black and Latino also bribe schools to get in? I don't think you actually think this, because it would be insane?

I find it disturbing that when confronted with information about how wealthy and socially connected people have long been able to use their wealth and social connections to get into universities -- you are less concerned about doing something about this, than you are concerned about programs meant to give some advantage to less wealthy and socially-connected people. It's like, you see bribery and special favors from the wealthy and socially-connected, and you somehow still find a way to blame the poor and not socially connected for this problem, to focus the discussion away from the misdeeds of the wealthy and socially-connected!

It really says something that this whole discussion is full of people saying "I don't see the problem with that, it seems fine" for wealthy and socially-connected people (who are mostly but not entirely white) to have advantages, and also comments like yours complaining about perceived advantages they think not white people have.

America really has done a number on us.

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