4 ms·

The point of an elite school is that it's meant to be 'elite', i.e. selective. The more dumb rich kids get in, the more the value of the school's degree decline

The point of an elite school is that it's meant to be 'elite', i.e. selective. The more dumb rich kids get in, the more the value of the school's degree declines. This deal has always been bent at the high end ('buy us a new library wing and we'll ignore that little Timmy has a room temp IQ') but not overtly broken, which is what this proposal (and the behavior that people are being prosecuted for) amounts to.

darawk 7y ago
> The point of an elite school is that it's meant to be 'elite', i.e. selective. The more dumb rich kids get in, the more the value of the school's degree declines. If that had any truth to it then affirmative action wouldn't work.
- wahern 7y ago
  Has it? At the margins, but I don't think it's even come close to achieving the type of societal transformations envisioned. The percentage of African Americans at Harvard this past year was only 15%, roughly comparable to the overall population demographics (~%12 black, ~14% mixed). I suspect Harvard is average or above average in this regard. It's not saying much that the rich are okay with going to historically elite schools with the same demographic ratio as the country-wide general population. And before anybody brings up Asians as the exception, don't forget that smaller liberal arts colleges and less well known tier-1 private universities (e.g. George Washington) are still very popular with the wealthy, and those colleges are much whiter and richer. Even on HN you still see the trope about how Americans are more "creative" than the Chinese, and someone who claims that such sentiments don't at least partially reflect prejudices against American Asians and don't color college preferences are fooling themselves. I mean, if you don't get into Berkeley you can just wave it off with the observation that it's mostly Asian anyhow--i.e. you didn't really have a fair chance to get in and/or it's somehow less desirable than historically.
- glangdale 7y ago
  It's pretty wild that you think that providing preference to the most able people who have typically come from disadvantaged backgrounds (i.e. affirmative action) is equivalent to providing preference to insanely rich people who are vastly underperforming their privileged cohort.

darawk 7y ago

> The point of an elite school is that it's meant to be 'elite', i.e. selective. The more dumb rich kids get in, the more the value of the school's degree declines. If that had any truth to it then affirmative action wouldn't work.

wahern 7y ago
Has it? At the margins, but I don't think it's even come close to achieving the type of societal transformations envisioned. The percentage of African Americans at Harvard this past year was only 15%, roughly comparable to the overall population demographics (~%12 black, ~14% mixed). I suspect Harvard is average or above average in this regard. It's not saying much that the rich are okay with going to historically elite schools with the same demographic ratio as the country-wide general population. And before anybody brings up Asians as the exception, don't forget that smaller liberal arts colleges and less well known tier-1 private universities (e.g. George Washington) are still very popular with the wealthy, and those colleges are much whiter and richer. Even on HN you still see the trope about how Americans are more "creative" than the Chinese, and someone who claims that such sentiments don't at least partially reflect prejudices against American Asians and don't color college preferences are fooling themselves. I mean, if you don't get into Berkeley you can just wave it off with the observation that it's mostly Asian anyhow--i.e. you didn't really have a fair chance to get in and/or it's somehow less desirable than historically.
glangdale 7y ago
It's pretty wild that you think that providing preference to the most able people who have typically come from disadvantaged backgrounds (i.e. affirmative action) is equivalent to providing preference to insanely rich people who are vastly underperforming their privileged cohort.