4 ms·

I got into an Ivy on merit. White male, not legacy, not an athlete, not rich. Just good grades, good SAT score, and luck. I promise you the _vast_ majority of s

I got into an Ivy on merit. White male, not legacy, not an athlete, not rich. Just good grades, good SAT score, and luck. I promise you the _vast_ majority of students I met who didn’t deserve to be at my school (academically speaking) were domestic legacies or athletes. Can’t imagine my undergrad, first job out, or grad school without the many international students I made friends and worked with. Part of educating a successful workforce is teaching us how to work and collaborate with people from other backgrounds. Hard to do that if everyone’s from Newton or Westchester

mc32 6y ago
I agree. We have tons of kids in the San Joaquin Valley , Montana plains, Eastern Washington, inner LA, etc who should have a chance... but they don’t bring the same money.
- cauthon 6y ago
  It's complicated. The kids whose parents pay for full tuition (or for a new building) subsidize the cost of attendance for the rest of us. I definitely couldn't have afforded to go without my financial aid package. And that's supposedly part of the value proposition of elite schools - mix wealthy and connected students with bright students with ideas. There's plenty of international students on financial aid too, I think it's doing them a disservice to say they're only being admitted for the revenue. Maybe at larger public institutions with tens of thousands of students, but I don't think that's generally the case at the smaller elite schools we're talking about
- dandanqu82 6y ago
  The admission lawsuit against Harvard revealed that they do have quotas for U.S. states to ensure that every state is represented in each admitted class. The university even lowers SAT/ACT and GPA requirements to ensure students from these less populous (Montana, Iowa, Dakotas,Idaho etc) and sometimes lower quality school systems (Mississippi) can get into the school and have a chance against applicants from California, Texas, New York etc.
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mc32 6y ago

I agree. We have tons of kids in the San Joaquin Valley , Montana plains, Eastern Washington, inner LA, etc who should have a chance... but they don’t bring the same money.

cauthon 6y ago
It's complicated. The kids whose parents pay for full tuition (or for a new building) subsidize the cost of attendance for the rest of us. I definitely couldn't have afforded to go without my financial aid package. And that's supposedly part of the value proposition of elite schools - mix wealthy and connected students with bright students with ideas. There's plenty of international students on financial aid too, I think it's doing them a disservice to say they're only being admitted for the revenue. Maybe at larger public institutions with tens of thousands of students, but I don't think that's generally the case at the smaller elite schools we're talking about
dandanqu82 6y ago
The admission lawsuit against Harvard revealed that they do have quotas for U.S. states to ensure that every state is represented in each admitted class. The university even lowers SAT/ACT and GPA requirements to ensure students from these less populous (Montana, Iowa, Dakotas,Idaho etc) and sometimes lower quality school systems (Mississippi) can get into the school and have a chance against applicants from California, Texas, New York etc.

deleted 6y ago

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