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"I have a very average girl in my town who got admitted to grad school at Harvard only because her dad is a law professor at Harvard." I'm not saying Harvard i
by pcurve 6y ago
"I have a very average girl in my town who got admitted to grad school at Harvard only because her dad is a law professor at Harvard."
I'm not saying Harvard isn't corrupt, but admitting professor's kid isn't really the best indicator of corruption. It's nothing unusual in many schools and they don't hide it.
- tinyhouse 6y agoNot hiding it doesn't mean it's OK. Maybe corrupt is not the right word but it's not that important. Things like this are exactly what people are talking about when they protest against privilege.
- Pfhreak 6y agoHarvard has 2400 professors and admits about 6000 students each year. Each professor might have a child that is at college age, but most won't. And parental admittance isn't a guarantee. We're talking about a negligible number of students on this path weighed against the employee happiness and retention.
- viklove 6y agoWe're talking about someone getting something they don't deserve due to their birth alone. That kind of injustice doesn't last long in society without someone calling it out.
- MengerSponge 6y agoHave you considered that a professor's kid just might have picked up how to talk in a way that other professors like? That they might have learned how to work that is highly prized by academics? Of course, none of this would be visible to a random dude from their hometown. Applications are never just a perfect copy of you. You get to pick who writes letters of recommendation, you get to write the essays that frame and contextualize your successes and failures. Applying for things is a skill, and like all skills, it can be learned and improved.
- viklove 6y agoThen quit it with the lie that any person in the US has the same chance of success. It's obvious that the only thing that matters is who your parents are and how much money they have, let's accept it for what it is and stop praising success like it means you're better than everyone else.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- r-zip 6y agoThe total undergrad population of Harvard isn't even 7,000, so I'm not sure where you pulled the 6,000 number from. A quick look at their website will show you they admit around 2,000 per year.
- Pfhreak 6y agoI divided the total enrollment number from Google by 4. My investigation was not super thorough, I'm happy to correct it, though I think the point still stands.
- js2 6y agoI can understand the employment perk of making tuition free for employees' kids, but I'm less sure about reserving a slot. If I can make an analogy: as an employee of Verizon, I get a 50% discount on service, but when a new iPhone comes out, I'm not allowed to purchase it until after it's widely available. I would think the child of a college professor likely already has an academic leg up on your average kid. Those kids maybe even more than others really should have to have the grades to get in.
- knolax 6y agoI think a better analogy would be like a world class chef not wanting to feed their kids McDonald's.