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Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard (2019)
- Geekette 6y agoNon paywall access: https://sci-hub.se/10.3386/w26316 https://sci-hub.se/10.3386/w26316
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- deogeo 6y agoIt's illuminating to also compare Harvard demographics vs the US. Sorted by most to least represented: Jewish: 14.0% vs 2.6% (5.38x) Asian American: 25.3% vs 5.3% (4.77x) Native Hawaiian: 0.6% vs 0.2% (3.00x) Native American: 1.8% vs 0.7% (2.57x) African American: 14.3% vs 12.7% (1.13x) Hispanic or Latino: 12.2% vs 17.6% (0.69x) non-Jewish white: 33.0% vs 58.9% (0.56x) Sources: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics from 2019 https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-many-jewish-undergraduates/ https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-many-jewish-undergraduat... https://features.thecrimson.com/2016/freshman-survey/lifestyle/ https://features.thecrimson.com/2016/freshman-survey/lifesty... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews, upper estimate used
- vanusa 6y ago[snarky retort redacted] I do apologize, and I appreciate the helpful clarifications.
- nouveau0 6y agoIllumination
- avancemos 6y agonon-jewish whites are the most underrepresented group at harvard. paradox.
- eruci 6y agoAffirmative Action.
- Melchizedek 6y agoThat non-Jewish whites are the most under-represented group at Harvard, despite many of them being "legacy, athletes, staff/donor relatives". Whereas this submission would seem to suggest that whites are being unfairly admitted to the detriment of other groups. In reality, it's the other way around. And the fact that almost half of the few whites that do get in do so through some loophole almost makes it worse -- it means a white kid who is a brilliant student but isn't born into the right family or is an athlete has almost no chance of being admitted.
- derefr 6y agoIs there a reason to compare the demographics to those of the US, when many Harvard students aren’t US citizens? I have a feeling the stats make a bit more sense if you just assume Harvard is country-of-origin blind, and so compare Harvard admissions to the racial make-up of the entire global population (perhaps weighted by how much of each country’s population declares intent to attend a university.)
- TulliusCicero 6y agoSure: it's still a school in the US. Many employees of US companies are not US citizens, but that doesn't stop people from evaluating Google or FB or whoever that way.
- deogeo 6y agoOnly 12% of Harvard students are international: https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics
- djohnston 6y agoFor there to be a representation disparity you need a baseline. You could choose a different population as your baseline, but usually when talking about racial disparities in American institutions they use the American population
- aatharuv 6y agoAsian Americans are Americans. It makes perfect to compare Asian American admits to Asian Americans in the American population
- jariel 6y ago" if you just assume anyone from anywhere in the world has an equal chance of getting into Harvard" is just not true really. It's fundamentally an American school. 20% foreign students.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoThe better numbers (assuming that's not what these are already) would be the statistics for Harvard students who are from the US, because the international numbers are obviously going to be confounded by the demographics of the non-uniform source countries. Nobody's going to be enlightened by the revelation that substantially all of the admissions from Asia are Asian.
- kbenson 6y agoI assume that's Harvard vs US population demographics and not US college demographics? Both would be interesting as comparisons, and interesting in relation to each other. Edit: To provide a little myself: “In 2017, only about half (49.9 percent) of elementary school students and 54.7 percent of college students were non-Hispanic white,” said Kurt Bauman, Chief, Education and Social Stratification Branch.[1] So Harvard seems to be more diverse than other colleges, at least slightly. I suspect the census is combining the Jewish population into the non-hispanic white category, but haven't looked close enough to know. Even with that, Harvard is slightly more diverse than the average. 1: https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/school-enrollment.html https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2018/school-e...
- deogeo 6y agoThat is correct.
- vmception 6y agoThat is very helpful, a lot of inclusivity discussions are undermined because many people feel intentionally excluded, while the historically disenfranchised groups feel like they are only just gaining proportional representation. This leaves people very confused to what is going on, if they are not familiar with the historically disenfranchised group's perspectives and get blindsided by something that doesn't match their worldview and personal experience of struggle. So in this case, white hispanic and non-Jewish white majority (which can be one in the same, to some of the people self identifying) do feel short changed and this can be accurate in this case, if they are not "legacy, athletes, staff/donors". Obtaining support and resources for a more productive and inclusive society would need to not marginalize the power group capable of changing it.
- TulliusCicero 6y agoI remember reading somewhere that Harvard had a ton of black international students, so "African American" may not be accurate in that case.
- wendyshu 6y agoNot very many international Harvard College students and I'm not sure their race is even included in the statistics
- skadamou 6y agoIt looks like 24% of Harvard undergrads are international students. https://datausa.io/profile/university/harvard-university https://datausa.io/profile/university/harvard-university
- wendyshu 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23764630 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23764630
- mellowdream 6y agoYou didn't make any value statements with this data, but it should be noted that disparities in representation have nothing to do with whether or not groups should or deserve to be represented more or less.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoThe combination of these numbers and the article produce an interesting conclusion: The non-Jewish non-ALDC white population is the most impacted by the over-representation of ALDC students (followed by Hispanics/Latinos). The original implication was ALDC white kids getting in at the expense of minorities, but what appears to be really happening is ALDC white kids getting in at the expense of non-ALDC white kids, who were significantly under-represented to begin with.
- hcurtiss 6y agoWhy is this comment being downvoted?
- mellosouls 6y agoWrongThink.
- mellosouls 6y agoVery interesting - it would be even more so to understand the financial/class background within those groups.
- gentleman11 6y agoDo we really need to include race in our analysis? Why not look at all Harvard students?
- darwinwhy 6y agoDid you open the link? There's only 5 sentences: "Among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each."
- microcolonel 6y agoBecause the priority is not to make it fairer, it is to add new benefits for some special interest. Race-based affirmative action misbehaves in exactly the ways its critics predict, but is still wildly popular because of how it feels to white liberals.
- microtherion 6y agoRace-based affirmative action is under regular legal attack: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/affirmative-action-supreme-court.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/us/affirmative-action-sup... As far as I know, legacy admissions have never been challenged before the SCOTUS. Furthermore, legacy admissions tend to reward underachieving students from privileged families, while affirmative action intends to reward overachieving students from underprivileged circumstances (e.g. programs admitting the top N% of graduates from every high school help good students who went to bad schools).
- microcolonel 6y agoBeing admitted to a school whose standards you do not meet is not a reward, but the first step toward creating the circumstances to argue that the means of evaluation is racist. Bad schools hurt, but discriminating by race at matriculation is about the most hamfisted imaginable way to achieve the outcome you're talking about. If the goal is to find and admit students whose worst academic years are behind them, overadmitting 1st generation Nigerian Americans because they look similar to African Americans is not the way. P.S. it seems you switch from "tend" to "intend" mid sentence, so I don't grasp what comparison you're trying to draw, maybe give that another shot.
- murgindrag 6y agoWhat's interesting are the odds of non-ALDC whites being admitted.
- catalogia 6y ago> ALDC What does this mean? Athlete, legacy, donor, ...C? Celebrity?
- apsec112 6y agoChildren of the faculty.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- arcticbull 6y agoBased on my research the term “ALDC” refers to “recruited Athletes, Legacies, those on the Dean’s interest list, and Children of faculty and staff.”
- renewiltord 6y agoAmused by "based on my research" being "I read the linked abstract". Not hating, just amused at what appears to be a euphemistic response.
- catalogia 6y agoSorry, the original title of the post used the word "Staff" so I suppose I was primed for "ALD - Staff" and missed "ALD - [Children of] Staff"
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- NickLamp 6y agoChildren of the faculty
- medee 6y agoAnother interesting stat- 55% of Harvard graduate students are Jewish. https://www.hillel.org/college-guide/list/record/harvard-university https://www.hillel.org/college-guide/list/record/harvard-uni...
- TulliusCicero 6y agoThat sounds implausibly high. The disclaimer on the data says it's just an estimate, it's not from an official record, so I guess the real number isn't known.
- deogeo 6y agoWhile still greatly over-represented (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23764422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23764422), Hillel tends to over-count Jewish students, according to https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-many-jewish-undergraduates/ https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-many-jewish-undergraduat...
- psychometry 6y agoThat stat is worthless. They don't even define the population.
- wendyshu 6y agoIt says there that the denominator (total number of graduate students) is 4577 when Wikipedia says it's 14,215.
- anticonformist 6y ago
- ykevinator 6y agoShocking
- _sbrk 6y agoWhy is this news? Flagged.
- JumpCrisscross 6y agoAlways found the combination of non-profit status and legacy or donor-enhanced admissions to be odd bedfellows.
- thegreyone 6y agoIncluding jews with white? Make them seperate, and watch as these figures halve, easily.
- thegreyone 6y agoDoes "white" include jews? Make em seperate, and watch that percentage halve, at least.
- maerF0x0 6y agoI've often found it confusing why we look at African Americans as a separate group, but then group so many as "White" or "Asian"? Why not just separate people by their majority national heritage?
- whymauri 6y agoWhile I agree with your first sentence, separation by national heritage is impossible for many demographics in the U.S., including both white and black Americans. But yeah, I think abstracting 60% of the world population as a monolithic "Asian" category is disingenuous and betrays the lived experiences of Asians from historically disadvantaged and poor countries. I think the Gates Foundation is on a good track by considering Asian students for their full ride scholarship, alongside Native American, Hispanic, and Black peers, by analyzing the specific lived experience of the applicant (a Southeast Asian refugee has lived a different life than the "steretypical" Asian American applicant).
- maerF0x0 6y agoMany white subgroups have been historically disadvantages (albeit not specifically within US policy) eg: Scottish, Irish, Jewish people immediately come to mind Personally I think it'd be better to avoid using skin color/race as an indicator of need and instead just look at need in isolation. A poor person needs help paying for school regardless of their skin color.
- whymauri 6y agoI agree, it's just that for many Americans, including white Americans from disadvantaged groups, tracing national heritage is hard. Need and class-based considerations make sense to me, though. I think that starts getting on the right track. Anthony Jack from Harvard argues a similar framework would actually assist in advancing racially-discriminated groups like black Americans in his work on "the privileged poor" and class-blind racial affirmative action. I recommend reading his work.
- usaar333 6y agoALDC (or at least LDC) preferences remain the most unjust (elitist) aspects of college admissions. Sadly, there seems to be limited political pressure to ban them (by which I mean extending various civil rights acts to ban institutions receiving federal funding from preferring LDC status). A cynic would even point out that Ivy League schools heavily use race-based affirmative action to change the narrative and appear diverse. Sadly, no one looks at how poorly they look in terms of socio-economic diversity - typically around 15% of students receive Pell Grants compared to 30% at the top UCs that don't practice LDC preferences (https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/economic-diversity-among-top-ranked-schools https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-unive...)
- ck425 6y agoI was shocked when I first learned what legacy students were. Everyone talks about the uk bring super classist but legacy students would never fly over here. The US seems to have some seriously blatant classism. The other obvious one is the teeth obsession.
- zozbot234 6y ago> I was shocked when I first learned what legacy students were. Also known as "grandfathered" students. Meaning, if your grandpa went to Harvard, you can apply to Harvard as a legacy student and get a way lower bar on the literacy test.
- raincom 6y agoThat's because America has a better propaganda or PR department: no classes in America, just hard work alone!!
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- ghshephard 6y agoWell, the feeder schools are pretty classist. I went to Jr. High School in '81 (in Canada, no less) with a student who had a spot reserved for him at Eton (from birth - Apparently by being a descendant of Lord Cecil Martin), which has a high transfer rate to the big colleges in England.
- war1025 6y ago> The US seems to have some seriously blatant classism. We just like to dress it up and call it "Meritocracy". Nevermind that your merits are that you were born into a wealthy, well-connected family.
- AnthonyMouse 6y agoAnybody who calls legacy admissions "meritocracy" is just lying. Proponents of meritocracy take it as a design goal, not a normative description of all existing systems. If you want meritocracy then you want to get rid of legacy admissions.
- LudwigNagasena 6y agoAnd when Harvard puts quotas for "minorities", it doesn't limit offers for these people, it limits them for the other 57%.
- DataSciGuy_401 6y agoI'd need to know what the percentage of ALDC students across races and across the total population is in order to interpret this statistic
- scott_s 6y agoFrom the abstract: > Among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each.
- david927 6y agoMix the smart and the rich paints and call it one color.
- pcurve 6y agoI hate to say stuff like this, but the more I learn about Harvard, the more I think it exists to sustain itself so that it can serve the interest of handful. Education is just a byproduct.
- kyleblarson 6y agoWith the size of its endowment Harvard is often called a hedge fund with a small school attached to it.
- mennis16 6y agoI'm no defender of Harvard but I can guarantee you that most "elite" schools do this, including the whole Ivy league- and there are definitely other Ivies that are worse offenders. Harvard is just in the spotlight. Not that this changes the criticism of Harvard necessarily, but there are system-wide problems here.
- raincom 6y agoI know of a professor, who used to be at MIT, then Microsoft research. He joined Harvard a few years ago; one of the side benefits is to secure admission for his progeny.
- drfuchs 6y agoSome universities automatically admit children of faculty, but Harvard is not among them. Source: Me, DP of Harvard faculty member. See also https://hr.harvard.edu/faculty https://hr.harvard.edu/faculty
- dang 6y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21037400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21037400
- Udik 6y agoA dupe from 9 months ago?
- twsttest 6y agoA race baiting flame war from 9 months ago that really has no place on HN.
- dang 6y agoOf course, this is standard moderation. When a story has had significant attention in the last year or so, we bury reposts as duplicates. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html
- conjecTech 6y agoDaniel, calling this a duplicate when the original post is 9 months old seems really questionable.
- war1025 6y agoI don't think he posts the links because it's a duplicate post. He posts them when there is interesting and relevant conversation from that last time it was posted. Edit: I see now that the post itself is tagged with [dupe]
- dang 6y agoOn HN the cutoff date for reposts is about a year. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html. Btw, it was part of how pg trained me to moderate HN back in 2012, so I assume it was always the policy.
- 6y ago
- twsttest 6y agoStudents whose parents went to Harvard tend to grow up aiming for Harvard themselves. It's likely that a high percentage of the Harvard applicant pool are legacies in the first place. If their stats are as good or better than the average of the admitted class, then what's the problem? Is there clear evidence that legacies have an easier time getting in on a per case basis compared to a similar student without that that designation, as is the case for applicants with the URM designation?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- mennis16 6y agoI have a question about the abstract for anyone that looked deeper at the paper- does the following statement take into account rejected student stats or only those of accepted students? Because it seems plausible to me that white students "on the cusp" are more likely to get rejected to "make room" for ALDCs. Meaning that removing this preference may actually benefit a typical white applicant more than others. I could of course also imagine that not being the case though. "Removing preferences for athletes and legacies would significantly alter the racial distribution of admitted students, with the share of white admits falling and all other groups rising or remaining unchanged." I do recall the popular line about how everyone at orientation could be replaced with a new cohort that has similar academic profile, which implies that there is quite a bit of judgement call going on. Overall, it is unsurprising yet disappointing that they estimate ~3/4 of ALDCs would not get admitted without that status. This system is probably a big reason that most elite schools have ~15% of their students from the top 1%, while MIT is closer to 5%. MIT definitely does not do legacies and of course gives little weight to athletics. I am not sure about children of faculty though.
- cameldrv 6y agoThe numbers wind up pretty grim. 43% of white students are legacy or athletic, 3/4 of those are otherwise inadmissible, so that's 32% of white students ALDC and inadmissible otherwise. Harvard is 44% white, so it's 30% (academically) competitively chosen white. That compares to 58% of the overall college population in the U.S.
- mennis16 6y agoBut at whose expense are ALDCs chosen? I suppose we cannot know, but are there rejected non-ALDC white students that could fill those spots who the model would consider deserving to be there? FWIW MIT is ~40% white without AL(DC?) [0], so that is closer to H's current distribution. The whole admissions situation is of course an opaque, handwavy, crapshoot. But I am just curious in practice what would happen to the distribution if Harvard decided to drop say legacy status. [0] https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/profile/ https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/profile/