7 ms·

Harvard wouldn't be in this mess if they just give up the bullshit myth that it is at all a meritocracy. They should just have a fixed admissions ratios: - X%

• djhartman 8y ago
  Is this something you could know for any university? I imagine most private ones anyway would be pretty secretive about how many positions they reserve for so-called "legacy" students.
• kornish 8y ago
  Without the perception of meritocracy, I think the brand does slip significantly and Harvard has created a bigger problem for itself. As soon as you formally acknowledge that you're letting some people in due to legacy or lottery, the value of the reputation diminishes because any given person may have been accepted on lottery. People know who's legacy and who's not, but the university can't acknowledge it publicly for that reason.
  • bilbo0s 8y ago
    It's more simple than that. They will never fully open the black box, because people will optimize for its contents. There is an UNBELIEVABLE amount of entitlement thinking and out and out attempts to cheat that go on at places like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, and Stanford. If no one knows what admissions is looking for other than straight A's, then you just get straight A's and do the extras that YOU think are important. (Which as it turns out, is what they really want to determine.)
    • AboutTheWhisles 8y ago
      If they haven't opened the black box, then how do you know what they really want to determine?
      • bilbo0s 8y ago
        That's the point, you don't. You have to do what YOU think is important. Maybe that is important to them, maybe it isn't. The benefit to Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, etc, is that they are presented with an application that outlays a profile more closely resembling the real you. Of course, only the school itself will know what they are looking for in prospective students. This is actually good, as it severely restricts the number of avenues available to prospective students, (and their parents), to game the system. And you better believe that students, and especially their parents, will try to game the system at a minimum. Again, many go beyond that with out and out attempts at fraud and cheating.
        • AboutTheWhisles 8y ago
          but you said you knew what they wanted: > do the extras that YOU think are important. (Which as it turns out, is what they really want to determine.)
    • csa 8y ago
      > They will never fully open the black box, because people will optimize for its contents. This is laughable. There are many, many people who have worked at admissions at elite schools, and they will tell you the contents of the "black box". What they would say goes something like this: 1. There are 10-30% of the entering class that we know we want. 2. The rest we have to fill with essentially clones (smart but unexceptional students). 3. We choose the clones that we think will make our school a better place in the short term and long term. Due to the multitude of variables that are introduced in selecting from the clones, it looks like our decisions are capricious. Maybe they are for the clones, but the clones aren't where we are looking to find our big winners in the admissions process. Read some of the stuff by Cal Newport. He's closer to the right track than anything else I've seen.
  • duxup 8y ago
    Is legacy really a mystery though? I think most people know that is a thing...
    • kornish 8y ago
      I'm not saying people don't know who gets in mostly due to legacy. I'm saying the university can't formally confirm.
      • duxup 8y ago
        I really think that kinda ruins the idea that it would tarnish their image if folks already know. Nobody would think differently if they said it.
        • edanm 8y ago
          Maybe, or maybe it's another case of a "common knowledge" phenomenon. Sure, theoretically everyone knows about legacies, but formally acknowledging it means you can't pretend not to know for specific purposes. (E.g. "everyone knows" is an invalid argument for court if someone brings up discrimination; "they admitted it in a public statement" is a totally valid argument.)
          • kornish 8y ago
            Exactly this (and well-phrased)!
    • somerandomness 8y ago
      K cough ushner
• fjsolwmv 8y ago
  Harvard has not perpetuated the myth of meritocracy in decades. That's what the whole lawsuit is about: trying to force the plaintiff's version of meritocracy. Do you have evidence to the contrary?
  • fatjokes 8y ago
    You know, I think you're right. I just went to their admissions page. They have no mention of "being the best", etc. It's all about affordability, diversity, inclusiveness, etc. I guess at this point the myth is self-perpetuating, and Harvard just lets it be. They could probably end the lawsuits in a minute if they just up and said "we're not the best and don't care about wanting the best."
  • wutangson1 8y ago
    Information to the contrary? Here ya go... https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/application-process/what-we-look https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/application-process/w...
• kelukelugames 8y ago
  Many big tech companies made their hiring processes more transparent. Partly because of the call for more diversity in tech. I hope colleges follow suit. Even if the formula is "Rich daddy" + "lacross".
  • slivym 8y ago
    With Tech the opening up actually comes partly as a response to universities. I worked quite closely with our HR team recruiting some grads and they had to explain "If you want to exclusively hire <insert very specific description> then recruit from <Y> university". Sure enough, roughly 30% of our office were from that university and it was incredible how well we'd managed to select for very specific, but technically irrelevant, characteristics.
    • kelukelugames 8y ago
      Well, tech is hiring from HBCUs now because 1) it's PR and 2) Stanford grads are a finite resource.
  • wishart_washy 8y ago
    It's "lacrosse"... which I guess proves your point
• deepnotderp 8y ago
  But then Harvard is no longer a perfect selector of the elite and a degree from Harvard no longer signals surefire intelligence. it never did top begin with, but that's beside the point, it's all about branding.
  • golemiprague 8y ago
    Elite is not necessarily correlated with surefire intelligence, there are other aspects like social skills, leadership capabilities, connections in the right places, drive, courage and a healthy sense of entitlement. When Harvard are picking their students they are looking into all those aspects and trying to find people with a combination of some of them, that's why so many Asians fail to get in, they don't have a lot of those characteristics. Most of them have the "hard worker" characteristic, it is not enough to become elite, in many cases it is exactly the opposite. That's the truth that nobody wants to say. They try to compare it to the old days when there was a cap on Jews, but Jews were on a different league when it came to creativity and courage to do new and interesting things and that what brought them into the elite. Granted there are some Asians who can be elite, but just having good marks gained by hard work is not always sufficient.
• limeblack 8y ago
  > Z% of seats by pure lottery. I wouldn't elect any political official or moderator by pure lottery.
  • Pfhreak 8y ago
    Are college students representing you? Or moderating something you participate in? I'm confused why those are relevant comparisons.
    • limeblack 8y ago
      No they are representing the university of those that work there and past alumni. I wouldn't approve my university randomly admitting students.
      • sin7 8y ago
        All the ones that can't make it will just drop out. And if any random can make it, then your school is not that special.
  • another-one-off 8y ago
    You might be doing yourself a disservice. There are a lot of people who would be extremely competent in practice who are put off by the dirt and competition of the election process. Choosing officials by lot is also extremely resistant to the money-in-politics problem and corruption amongst officials (it becomes easier to detect, and occasionally you get incorruptible people in the role). The ideal political system could well be random lot to determine a small pool of candidates (I think 3-4), then voters choose 1.
    • fooker 8y ago
      Who seeds the random number generator?
• NullPrefix 8y ago
  Open data style it could list your category on the diploma received. Harvard - X, Harvard - Y or Harvard - Z, that way any of those categories wouldn't be devaluating others.
• csa 8y ago
  I wonder what exactly you mean by "meritocracy". My take: - Lots of AP success, good grades, good recs, etc. are just table stakes for anyone who is seriously considering going to an elite school. If that's all an applicant is bringing to the table, they will basically be competing with 1000s of clones. This does not bode well for them unless they have something else that stands out. - Based on pure intellectual prowess, maybe ~30% of each Harvard class (less in other elite schools as prestige level decreases) is able to understand/identify/conceive of, work on, and solve interesting problems. The number of people who meet this standard and do not get into an elite school (typically the school of their choice -- they are aggressively courted) is very small, and it is usually due to some glaring error and/or omission in their application. - The rest of the class is filled up with solid-but-unexceptional intellectual clones (good grades, etc.) who are bringing something else to the table. This could be (using your order and adding some) child of wealthy alums, child of donors, talented athlete, possessor of social capital, racial diversity, geographic diversity, etc. First, note that "fairness" in terms of merit stops at 30% or less of the class. If one were to limit "fair" to actually being intellectually qualified, then the admissions would stop there. Is that fair? I don't know, but I am certain that almost no one wants that on either side of the fence. So the next question that the admissions group has to answer is "Well, how do we fill the rest of the spots. Hmmmm... we have a BUNCH of applicants that kind of look alike. How shall we prioritize them?" This is how we get groups that get an advantage. As said above, this could be a child of wealthy alums, a child of donors, a talented athlete, or a possessor of social capital. It could also be something like race (both for literal diversity of color, but also for diversity of life experiences) or geographic location. Are any of these "fair"? Some may be more fair than others (athletes, even at athletically-weak Ivies, develop social capital that stays with them after graduation that most non-athletes don't really appreciate), but at least they are a functioning heuristic that can arguably add something at a higher rate than "random". I would personally say that selecting for one or more of these groups may not be "fair" as in "choose from like group randomly", but I think it is probably much better for the ecology surrounding the school(s). Each of these groups leads to something positive for the school, while selecting at random means that the school will also benefit randomly (and probably less in the long run). These schools are at the top, and they want to stay there. Making admissions decisions that are likely to increase their financial and social capital is a good way to do that. > No more pretending to be fair and all that bullshit The best I can tell, elite schools are as fair as they can be for the truly strong/qualified applicants -- they all get admitted. After those are admitted, while staring into the face of a lot of academically similar applicants, the elite schools start making decisions that benefit and perpetuate their existence. To be fair, I am surprised that the paths that lead to these decisions generate as much interest as they do. It seems fairly natural to me.
• truthisunpc 8y ago
  Then Harvard public funding would be cut off and the elites wouldn't be able steal as much money from the public. The horror! Good thing the same people who attend harvard run the banks and courts and can easily find other ways to steal.