4 ms·

Harvard could admit only valedictorians. It could admit only those with perfect scores on the SAT. It doesn't do either of those things. Rather it spends a lot

Harvard could admit only valedictorians. It could admit only those with perfect scores on the SAT. It doesn't do either of those things. Rather it spends a lot of time and energy putting together a class that it thinks will be greater than the sum of its parts. As a private organization it is perfectly entitled to pick and choose what matters to it. In that light, why not consider the character of the people it decides to bring into its community? And once it has decided to consider character, what justification can their be for limiting themselves to only considering manicured (and sometimes manufactured) personal statements and letters of recommendation rather than available data that might have a chance of being actually revealing? Would you object to the Catholic Church looking into the social media histories of candidates for the priesthood?

throwanem 9y ago
No, but on the other hand, membership in the priesthood implies a direct responsibility for the wellbeing of those in your pastoral care, and a degree of authority, derived from one's position, which can be abused to do great harm. I'm not really sure what there is about being a freshman at Harvard that merits the same extent of scrutiny.
- kbenson 9y ago
  Every Harvard student has a shared responsibility with every other student for the quality and tone of the community as a whole. Harvard cultivates a very specific type of community. These candidates signaled to Harvard through their actions that they are not conducive to the community Harvard is trying to cultivate (whether true or not).
  - NotSammyHagar 9y ago
    But I think this behavior is nothing new. It is just revealed in a persistent form when you put it on a chatroom with your name next to it. One hears about this kind of stuff everywhere, all over the world. It fits the stereotype of the entitled rich white guys from the ivy league, but it's also not that uncommon in the non-ivyleague world. Yes, its unacceptable to share this publically, or with coworkers. But that's a pretty huge penalty. High school kids do stupid shit. There are some people there who lost their admission who probably were very lucky to get into harvard, who don't have 10 other ivy league schools to go to.
    - kbenson 9y ago
      > But I think this behavior is nothing new. And neither is schools denying access for those they deem undesirable. Fifty years ago, if information about a candidate participating in unsavory activities reached the admissions office in some manner and they were able to verify it (or not, it's really up to them whether the rumors themselves are bad enough), they could, and I'm sure did, use that to deny admission to candidates. > But that's a pretty huge penalty. That happens all the time. Life isn't fair, and Harvard admissions certainly aren't "fair", by whatever standard you can come up with. They specifically admit candidates on a very diverse set of criteria, which includes things such as the promotion of multiculturalism, because it's believed that exposure to different types of people provides an overall benefit to the student body. It should come as no surprise that if they are willing to admit otherwise lesser scholastically qualified candidates to promote this facet of the Harvard experience, they would be just as willing to reject people on the same grounds. Put simple, grades and SAT scores are not all that matters, and just as a college may reject you after admission has been granted if your last semester of High School has horrible grades, they may reject you if they discover evidence that they think you are not the type of student they want attending. > There are some people there who lost their admission who probably were very lucky to get into Harvard, who don't have 10 other ivy league schools to go to. Nobody has to go to an Ivy league school. In the same way you can screw up a big test and get a bad grade in High School, you can screw up your image and how you are perceived morally. They screwed up, and at least one avenue was closed to them. Their life may be different, but it's not like they are being jailed. They can go to some other school. I'm positive people have been rejected and even expelled for Harvard with less evidence. Their life will go on, and if they were able to get accepted to Harvard I'm sure they'll do okay going somewhere else, as long as they can curb whatever impulse caused this incident (whether it be ignorance of how it would be perceived, too much acceptance of peer pressure, or actual racism. I'm sure it was slightly different for each of them).
geebee 9y ago
<As a private organization it is perfectly entitled to pick and choose what matters to it.> This is an aside, but I don't entirely agree. The tax exemption Harvard receives on its massive endowment is, per undergraduate, worth much more than the direct government subsidy public universities receive per student. UC Berkeley alone enrolls more low income students than the entire Ivy League combined (this is true of several UCs). Harvard also gets a monumental amount of funding directly from the federal government, and while much of this is in the form of research grants, it is allowed to redirect a substantial portion of this to operating costs. Harvard gets this government favored status (in many ways, far more favored by the government than a "public" university, which has many more obligations) precisely because it is ostensibly acting in the public interest.
- bradleyjg 9y ago
  I have some sympathy with this position, but de facto governments, state and federal, impose very very few restrictions on charities and non profits. As long as they aren't outright scams they can mostly do what they like. Even outright scams can skate along for a while. There are two ways to fix this problem--assuming one thinks it's a problem. One would be to leverage the myriad benefits we provide to do more to ensure that these organizations are acting in the public interest. That's a pretty tall order though. We'd be looking at a ton of new laws/regulations/bureaucracies to make tens of thousands of determinations. In this particular case, it's not clear to me that Harvard isn't at least not acting against the public interest. The other way would be to eliminate the tax advantages and let the chips fall where they may. Again, assuming one thinks there is a problem, that seems the preferable solution to me.
- somecontext 9y ago
  > UC Berkeley alone enrolls more low income students than the entire Ivy League combined (this is true of several UCs). Some context for those interested: Berkeley enrolls approximately 30k undergraduates; the Ivy League combined enrolls approximately 60k. The most commonly cited cutoff for "low income students" is recipients of federal Pell grants, which are (roughly speaking) available to US citizen or permanent resident undergraduates with a family AGI of <$50k. According to https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/economic-diversity-among-top-ranked-schools https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-unive... from US News, 34% of Berkeley undergraduates receive Pell Grants. (Berkeley's own website claims 32%.) This is the second-highest of the top 25 national universities, behind only UCLA at 38%. As a result, there are approximately 10k students receiving Pell grants at Berkeley. According to the same source, the percent of recipients in the Ivy league ranges from 31% at Columbia to 13% at Yale. Overall across the eight schools, it appears to be approximately 18% and slightly shy of 11k students. From a preliminary examination, it appears that the claim is indeed true for other UC campuses (of which only UCLA is a top 25 university) but not Berkeley as stated. The UC system makes the claim about five campuses other than Berkeley: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/half-new-uc-students-are-first-generation-college-students https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/half-new-uc-stud... The claim may have been true five years ago, as reported here: http://news.berkeley.edu/2012/01/17/freshman-apps/ http://news.berkeley.edu/2012/01/17/freshman-apps/

throwanem 9y ago

No, but on the other hand, membership in the priesthood implies a direct responsibility for the wellbeing of those in your pastoral care, and a degree of authority, derived from one's position, which can be abused to do great harm. I'm not really sure what there is about being a freshman at Harvard that merits the same extent of scrutiny.

kbenson 9y ago
Every Harvard student has a shared responsibility with every other student for the quality and tone of the community as a whole. Harvard cultivates a very specific type of community. These candidates signaled to Harvard through their actions that they are not conducive to the community Harvard is trying to cultivate (whether true or not).
- NotSammyHagar 9y ago
  But I think this behavior is nothing new. It is just revealed in a persistent form when you put it on a chatroom with your name next to it. One hears about this kind of stuff everywhere, all over the world. It fits the stereotype of the entitled rich white guys from the ivy league, but it's also not that uncommon in the non-ivyleague world. Yes, its unacceptable to share this publically, or with coworkers. But that's a pretty huge penalty. High school kids do stupid shit. There are some people there who lost their admission who probably were very lucky to get into harvard, who don't have 10 other ivy league schools to go to.
  - kbenson 9y ago
    > But I think this behavior is nothing new. And neither is schools denying access for those they deem undesirable. Fifty years ago, if information about a candidate participating in unsavory activities reached the admissions office in some manner and they were able to verify it (or not, it's really up to them whether the rumors themselves are bad enough), they could, and I'm sure did, use that to deny admission to candidates. > But that's a pretty huge penalty. That happens all the time. Life isn't fair, and Harvard admissions certainly aren't "fair", by whatever standard you can come up with. They specifically admit candidates on a very diverse set of criteria, which includes things such as the promotion of multiculturalism, because it's believed that exposure to different types of people provides an overall benefit to the student body. It should come as no surprise that if they are willing to admit otherwise lesser scholastically qualified candidates to promote this facet of the Harvard experience, they would be just as willing to reject people on the same grounds. Put simple, grades and SAT scores are not all that matters, and just as a college may reject you after admission has been granted if your last semester of High School has horrible grades, they may reject you if they discover evidence that they think you are not the type of student they want attending. > There are some people there who lost their admission who probably were very lucky to get into Harvard, who don't have 10 other ivy league schools to go to. Nobody has to go to an Ivy league school. In the same way you can screw up a big test and get a bad grade in High School, you can screw up your image and how you are perceived morally. They screwed up, and at least one avenue was closed to them. Their life may be different, but it's not like they are being jailed. They can go to some other school. I'm positive people have been rejected and even expelled for Harvard with less evidence. Their life will go on, and if they were able to get accepted to Harvard I'm sure they'll do okay going somewhere else, as long as they can curb whatever impulse caused this incident (whether it be ignorance of how it would be perceived, too much acceptance of peer pressure, or actual racism. I'm sure it was slightly different for each of them).

geebee 9y ago

<As a private organization it is perfectly entitled to pick and choose what matters to it.> This is an aside, but I don't entirely agree. The tax exemption Harvard receives on its massive endowment is, per undergraduate, worth much more than the direct government subsidy public universities receive per student. UC Berkeley alone enrolls more low income students than the entire Ivy League combined (this is true of several UCs). Harvard also gets a monumental amount of funding directly from the federal government, and while much of this is in the form of research grants, it is allowed to redirect a substantial portion of this to operating costs. Harvard gets this government favored status (in many ways, far more favored by the government than a "public" university, which has many more obligations) precisely because it is ostensibly acting in the public interest.

bradleyjg 9y ago
I have some sympathy with this position, but de facto governments, state and federal, impose very very few restrictions on charities and non profits. As long as they aren't outright scams they can mostly do what they like. Even outright scams can skate along for a while. There are two ways to fix this problem--assuming one thinks it's a problem. One would be to leverage the myriad benefits we provide to do more to ensure that these organizations are acting in the public interest. That's a pretty tall order though. We'd be looking at a ton of new laws/regulations/bureaucracies to make tens of thousands of determinations. In this particular case, it's not clear to me that Harvard isn't at least not acting against the public interest. The other way would be to eliminate the tax advantages and let the chips fall where they may. Again, assuming one thinks there is a problem, that seems the preferable solution to me.
somecontext 9y ago
> UC Berkeley alone enrolls more low income students than the entire Ivy League combined (this is true of several UCs). Some context for those interested: Berkeley enrolls approximately 30k undergraduates; the Ivy League combined enrolls approximately 60k. The most commonly cited cutoff for "low income students" is recipients of federal Pell grants, which are (roughly speaking) available to US citizen or permanent resident undergraduates with a family AGI of <$50k. According to https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/economic-diversity-among-top-ranked-schools https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-unive... from US News, 34% of Berkeley undergraduates receive Pell Grants. (Berkeley's own website claims 32%.) This is the second-highest of the top 25 national universities, behind only UCLA at 38%. As a result, there are approximately 10k students receiving Pell grants at Berkeley. According to the same source, the percent of recipients in the Ivy league ranges from 31% at Columbia to 13% at Yale. Overall across the eight schools, it appears to be approximately 18% and slightly shy of 11k students. From a preliminary examination, it appears that the claim is indeed true for other UC campuses (of which only UCLA is a top 25 university) but not Berkeley as stated. The UC system makes the claim about five campuses other than Berkeley: https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/half-new-uc-students-are-first-generation-college-students https://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/half-new-uc-stud... The claim may have been true five years ago, as reported here: http://news.berkeley.edu/2012/01/17/freshman-apps/ http://news.berkeley.edu/2012/01/17/freshman-apps/