4 ms·

Socially we are conditioned to not question legacy admissions, while being very critical of affirmative action. Your comment is an example of this. Consider: T

Socially we are conditioned to not question legacy admissions, while being very critical of affirmative action. Your comment is an example of this. Consider: Table 6, which you cited, shows that legacy dunces (3rd decile) have a better chance of getting into Harvard than academic toppers (top decile) who aren't legacies. Yet you chose to focus on the much smaller gap between admit rates of African Americans and Asian Americans.

nugget 7y ago
Doesn't legacy admissions have a racial impact since the racial mix of students has been changing so rapidly? That is, white applicants benefit the most simply because the % of white Harvard alums (relative to all alums) is greater than the % of white applicants (relative to all applicants)...but in a steady state system where race was the same over a couple generations, that impact would cease. I'm not a fan of legacy admissions in general but if you wanted to keep it in place, the fairest way might be to silo its impact within each racial group, so that a white legacy has an advantage over non-legacy whites but no advantage over non-legacy applicants of other races.
_edo 7y ago
Table 6. The numbers you pointed out: White LDC 3rd Decile: 16.67% White non-ALDC 10th Decile: 15.27% The "much smaller gap" that I chose to focus on: African American non-ALDC 4th Decile: 12.76% Asian American non-ALDC 10th Decile: 12.69% 3rd vs. 10th decile in one case is worth an academic paper with 3 authors collaborating from 3 different universities. Plus their associations with NBER and IZA. 4th vs 10th decile in the other case is something I was socially conditioned to see and is not worth focusing on at all. I think that if the study's authors had completely messed up a spreadsheet and replaced the numbers for the White LDC/White non-ALDC columns with the numbers from the African American non-ALDC/Asian American non-ALDC columns, you would suddenly find those numbers to be troubling.

nugget 7y ago

Doesn't legacy admissions have a racial impact since the racial mix of students has been changing so rapidly? That is, white applicants benefit the most simply because the % of white Harvard alums (relative to all alums) is greater than the % of white applicants (relative to all applicants)...but in a steady state system where race was the same over a couple generations, that impact would cease. I'm not a fan of legacy admissions in general but if you wanted to keep it in place, the fairest way might be to silo its impact within each racial group, so that a white legacy has an advantage over non-legacy whites but no advantage over non-legacy applicants of other races.

_edo 7y ago

Table 6. The numbers you pointed out: White LDC 3rd Decile: 16.67% White non-ALDC 10th Decile: 15.27% The "much smaller gap" that I chose to focus on: African American non-ALDC 4th Decile: 12.76% Asian American non-ALDC 10th Decile: 12.69% 3rd vs. 10th decile in one case is worth an academic paper with 3 authors collaborating from 3 different universities. Plus their associations with NBER and IZA. 4th vs 10th decile in the other case is something I was socially conditioned to see and is not worth focusing on at all. I think that if the study's authors had completely messed up a spreadsheet and replaced the numbers for the White LDC/White non-ALDC columns with the numbers from the African American non-ALDC/Asian American non-ALDC columns, you would suddenly find those numbers to be troubling.