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Really happy to hear this. As someone who went to Hopkins I would fully encourage my children to apply (I had a great time and got an amazing education). But th

by rm999 7y ago

Really happy to hear this. As someone who went to Hopkins I would fully encourage my children to apply (I had a great time and got an amazing education). But the idea that I spent a few years of my life there 40 years ago feels irrelevant to the admissions process. Any advantage given would be counterproductive in several ways: 1. It would coddle the child at a time in their life when it's essential to learn independence. This can't be good for the values they are developing. 2. It has no correlation to their success at the school. Getting admitted to a tough school like Hopkins if they are not prepared would be incredibly stressful and would probably be negatively correlated to their future success. I saw a few students who got special admissions crash and burn their freshman year and transfer out. 3. The article goes into this a lot, but it's not good for equality and encourages stratification. This isn't good for society. And it decreases diversity which is probably bad for the university.

_jasper 7y ago
With you on 1 and 3 and I'm curious how this decision polls with other stakeholders (i.e. alumni with college-age children whom they want the best for). Your #2 is basically a restatement of mismatch theory[1] which has generated tremendous controversy when applied to the affirmative action debate. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/the-needlessly-polarized-mismatch-theory-debate/420321/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/the-nee...
- zdragnar 7y ago
  Mismatch is a very real thing, at least at the extremes. My friend was a teacher at a private technical school (for manufacturing, electrician work etc) that started having revenue problems. The attempted fix was to lower the bar of candidates they took in and pushed them through more and more remedial classes, including basic maths. Their graduation rate plummeted, enrollment kept shrinking, and they went under. I also saw a less extreme version of this in college and university while I was a student. Kids were being accepted well below standard, then pushed through remedial (aka developmental) courses to get them up to par on reading / writing / maths. The graduation rate for these students was far lower than those who didn't take the courses. Mind you, this isn't (or at least, just because of) affirmative action. The state in question had a massive gap between what high school students graduated knowing, and what colleges required, and so was a systemic issue that affected all races. Since then, common core was supposedly attempted, and colleges were banned from testing students into remedial courses if they met certain conditions. The end result is fewer students spending money without earning credit (remedial courses didn't count towards a degree) but it has been too recent to know whether it has had a positive impact on graduation rates or if the students who would have been forced to take them but now aren't are floundering.
- xvector 7y ago
  Talking about affirmative action, what a horrible system. If you're unlucky enough to be born Asian, your difficulty of getting into college has just been doubled. It baffles me that such racist policies are so prominent at some of the best universities in the world. "Personality scores" too. What an inane cover-up for rejecting people and races you don't like. While we're at it, lets get rid of legacy admissions too. In college admissions, a student's name, race, and background should be obfuscated. Test scores and rhetorical skills should be the sole measure of a student. Maybe a boolean telling us if a student was below the poverty line or not. It's not perfect, but this would be far better than what we have today. At least California law prohibits affirmative action, and I was able to go to a fantastic university without having to worry about institutional racism.
  - _jasper 7y ago
    So I think it's possible for colleges to make progress on the legacy admissions front without even touching affirmative action. I would just hope the courts make the right decisions in the future. I doubt affirmative action is a solution that really makes anyone "happy", including the people it is intended to benefit.
susijdjdjxa 7y ago
I’m having a hard time squaring reasons 1 and 2. If legacy admits struggle, are they really being coddled? Personally, I didn’t apply to Hopkins because it sounded like boot camp. So your reason 2 seems a lot more plausible.
- pm90 7y ago
  The point is that the legacy admit will be coddled at the admission stage but will struggle once they’re in. Which, to be honest seems even worse: the kid was praised a year ago for getting into a good college but one year in they bomb out leading to a lot of stress for everyone.
cascom 7y ago
In the spirit of debate: 1. I wouldn’t call it coddling - going from say 5% chance to a 15% chance 2. I would hazard that the vast majority of legacy admissions are perfectly capable students - just as would have trouble telling the difference between the performance of the ~5% of applicants that got in, with the next 5% that didn’t 3. Equality of what?
- shkkmo 7y ago
  Equality of opportunity
asdff 7y ago
You'd be surprised, a lot of kids opt not to go the legacy route simply because that's where mom/dad went and they want to branch out. I'd say getting admitted has little correlation to success in school, anyway. Plenty of people fail out. To your last point, it would be nice if legacy/donor admits didn't cut into the number of offers extended to everyone else.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  > Plenty of people fail out. this is actually pretty rare at very selective institutions. Harvard has a graduation rate of about 96%. most elite schools tend to be in the mid to high nineties.

by rm999 7y ago

_jasper 7y ago

With you on 1 and 3 and I'm curious how this decision polls with other stakeholders (i.e. alumni with college-age children whom they want the best for). Your #2 is basically a restatement of mismatch theory[1] which has generated tremendous controversy when applied to the affirmative action debate. [1]: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/the-needlessly-polarized-mismatch-theory-debate/420321/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/12/the-nee...

zdragnar 7y ago
Mismatch is a very real thing, at least at the extremes. My friend was a teacher at a private technical school (for manufacturing, electrician work etc) that started having revenue problems. The attempted fix was to lower the bar of candidates they took in and pushed them through more and more remedial classes, including basic maths. Their graduation rate plummeted, enrollment kept shrinking, and they went under. I also saw a less extreme version of this in college and university while I was a student. Kids were being accepted well below standard, then pushed through remedial (aka developmental) courses to get them up to par on reading / writing / maths. The graduation rate for these students was far lower than those who didn't take the courses. Mind you, this isn't (or at least, just because of) affirmative action. The state in question had a massive gap between what high school students graduated knowing, and what colleges required, and so was a systemic issue that affected all races. Since then, common core was supposedly attempted, and colleges were banned from testing students into remedial courses if they met certain conditions. The end result is fewer students spending money without earning credit (remedial courses didn't count towards a degree) but it has been too recent to know whether it has had a positive impact on graduation rates or if the students who would have been forced to take them but now aren't are floundering.
xvector 7y ago
Talking about affirmative action, what a horrible system. If you're unlucky enough to be born Asian, your difficulty of getting into college has just been doubled. It baffles me that such racist policies are so prominent at some of the best universities in the world. "Personality scores" too. What an inane cover-up for rejecting people and races you don't like. While we're at it, lets get rid of legacy admissions too. In college admissions, a student's name, race, and background should be obfuscated. Test scores and rhetorical skills should be the sole measure of a student. Maybe a boolean telling us if a student was below the poverty line or not. It's not perfect, but this would be far better than what we have today. At least California law prohibits affirmative action, and I was able to go to a fantastic university without having to worry about institutional racism.
- _jasper 7y ago
  So I think it's possible for colleges to make progress on the legacy admissions front without even touching affirmative action. I would just hope the courts make the right decisions in the future. I doubt affirmative action is a solution that really makes anyone "happy", including the people it is intended to benefit.

susijdjdjxa 7y ago

I’m having a hard time squaring reasons 1 and 2. If legacy admits struggle, are they really being coddled? Personally, I didn’t apply to Hopkins because it sounded like boot camp. So your reason 2 seems a lot more plausible.

pm90 7y ago
The point is that the legacy admit will be coddled at the admission stage but will struggle once they’re in. Which, to be honest seems even worse: the kid was praised a year ago for getting into a good college but one year in they bomb out leading to a lot of stress for everyone.

cascom 7y ago

In the spirit of debate: 1. I wouldn’t call it coddling - going from say 5% chance to a 15% chance 2. I would hazard that the vast majority of legacy admissions are perfectly capable students - just as would have trouble telling the difference between the performance of the ~5% of applicants that got in, with the next 5% that didn’t 3. Equality of what?

shkkmo 7y ago
Equality of opportunity

asdff 7y ago

You'd be surprised, a lot of kids opt not to go the legacy route simply because that's where mom/dad went and they want to branch out. I'd say getting admitted has little correlation to success in school, anyway. Plenty of people fail out. To your last point, it would be nice if legacy/donor admits didn't cut into the number of offers extended to everyone else.

leetcrew 7y ago
> Plenty of people fail out. this is actually pretty rare at very selective institutions. Harvard has a graduation rate of about 96%. most elite schools tend to be in the mid to high nineties.