5 ms·

If you had asked me yesterday what percent of students I thought got into UC schools due to personal connection or wealth, I would have estimated between 10-20%

If you had asked me yesterday what percent of students I thought got into UC schools due to personal connection or wealth, I would have estimated between 10-20%. But this report seems to suggest otherwise: > In Violation of University Policy, the Campuses We Reviewed Admitted 64 Applicants Because of Their Families’ Donations and Connections > UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted 42 other applicants the UC schools as a whole have ~226K students, and at Berkeley, it's ~17,000. I'm very surprised that the corresponding fractions are so small. Then again, if you get recruited to play a sport that is all-but-exclusively a rich person's leisure activity -- Water Polo, Crew, Golf, Volleyball, and Beach volleyball are all played at Berkeley -- and recruiting gave you an edge in admissions, does that count as "inappropriate?" I would say so, but I doubt this report would. The line between corruption and "that's just how we do things around here" is not self-evident to me here.

MiroF 6y ago
> If you had asked me yesterday what percent of students I thought got into UC schools due to personal connection or wealth, I would have estimated between 10-20% I don't think it's in the double digits for any school. You need large amounts of wealth to donate your way in.
jbullock35 6y ago
> if you get recruited to play Water Polo, Crew, Golf, Volleyball, or Beach volleyball at UC Berkeley, and ~95% of kids who play those sports come from wealthy families, and recruiting gave them an edge in admissions, does that count as "inappropriate?" I would say so, but I doubt this report would. The report comes close: "the average grade point average for the bottom quartile of applicants whom UCLA admitted for academic year 2019–20 was 4.15, but the average grade point average for its admitted student athletes was 3.74. Similarly, two‑thirds of the admitted student athletes whom UC Berkeley evaluated through its holistic review process for academic years 2017–18 through 2019–20 received the lowest possible rating from its application readers—which is equivalent to a recommendation that the applicant be denied admission."
- setgree 6y ago
  > the average grade point average for the bottom quartile of applicants whom UCLA admitted for academic year 2019–20 was 4.15, but the average grade point average for its admitted student athletes was 3.74 So the student athletes averaged halfway between an A and an A-? So did I in HS, 15 years ago, and I was a pretty good student! GPAs are really hard to make sense of with all the AP bonuses and whatnot. Standardized test scores strike me as providing a more apples-to-apples comparison. Of course that’s increasingly difficult to do in a test-optional world. (My recollection from an article about ‘The Chosen’ in 2005 is that recruited athletes tend to score 100-200 points lower on the SAT, on average, at Ivy League schools. I would double-check had I not exceeded my monthly free New Yorker quota: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in/amp https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in/amp)
  - leapis 6y ago
    The way I've seen it calculated is this: For regular classes, A: 4.0, B: 3.0, C: 2.0, D: 1.0 (with some variance depending on + or - grades offered). For Honors/AP classes, every grade is essentially bumped up 1.0 point. So yes, a 3.74 is around an A- average, but that's an A- average in less rigorous classes, without competition from top students. That's more of a B-/C+ average in AP/Honors classes (obviously the calculation is far from perfect, though, because every school has it's quirks- at mine, you couldn't get above a ~4.5 overall). For reference, I graduated high school with a 3.6 with multiple Cs and hardly any As, simply by virtue of taking the maximum number of AP/Honors classes. The point being, a 3.74 is not a terrible GPA, but good students are generally over a 4.0 these days.
    - Thorrez 6y ago
      Most schools do that, but not all. My school (a private school in the US) didn't bump up anything.
      - adjkant 6y ago
        Colleges recalculate GPA's by high school to compare apples to apples. So even if your school doesn't, many colleges will use this weighting system.
Balgair 6y ago
Since when were Water Polo, Golf, or Volleyball rich person sports? Costs are pretty cheap at public courses. Beach Volleyball, I guess, kinda, but sand is pretty cheap even in cold weather climates. Crew, sure. The 'field' is hard to get things to, typically. Lacrosse, well, maybe 20 years ago, but it's everywhere now. Now, (horse) Polo and Dressage. Those are rich people sports.
- awillen 6y ago
  Where on earth do you think inner city kids are playing water polo and golf? Just because golf courses aren't that expensive to play on doesn't mean they're accessible to poor people (plus there's the cost of clubs, obviously). And water polo... even if there are public pools near you, they probably aren't dedicating space for competitive water polo.
  - kevincrane 6y ago
    I played water polo at my public high school and only had to buy a swimsuit?
    - Balgair 6y ago
      Yeah, it's a pretty common HS sport on the west coast and in states that don't freeze. Any school with a pool nearby may have a team. My HS shared the pool with three other HS teams during after-school practice.
    - oh_sigh 6y ago
      Your public high school had a swimming pool?
      - kevincrane 6y ago
        In California (or at least my part of it) it's pretty common.
        6y ago
potatochup 6y ago
Side note, but why are water polo and volleyball considered upper-class sports in the USA? I understand regular polo, rowing, etc, because of the cost of equipment. But at my school (on the other side of the world), volleyball was for the islanders, and water polo was for the misfits who couldn't make it in a more popular sport. What sports in the USA are for the plebs? Baseball?
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  Water polo requires a pool, which is expensive. Baseball requires a large field, also expensive. I believe basketball is so popular in part because of the (relatively) low equipment/space cost.
- renewiltord 6y ago
  Basketball and football are for the plebs. You can usually detect which sports by taking Census race-income measures then comparing them against the visible racial demographic of participants in the sport. This works well as a heuristic because visible racial characteristics are visible and the rich don't usually want to play with the poor.
- Rebelgecko 6y ago
  >Side note, but why are water polo and volleyball considered upper-class sports in the USA? Beach volleyball is more common in areas close to the beach. Beach and indoor players are also significantly taller than the average person-- in the league that my college was a part of, the shortest woman playing middle blocker was still 185cm. Height and beach access both have correlations to socioeconomic factors. For various reasons, the US has huge racial disparities when it comes to swimming ability. Most African American and Hispanic children don't know how to swim. As others have mentioned, football, basketball and to a lesser extent soccer/baseball tend to be the "pleb" sports. But even within a sport, you'll see class and racial distinctions when you compare different positions. When you look at pros and college, the majority of quarterbacks and centers are white. QBs also tend to come from wealthier families. Meanwhile, wide receivers and running backs are mostly black. The defense is mostly black, and I don't think there's a single non-black cornerback in the NFL (unless you miscount Tre'Davious White)
inerte 6y ago
Even (some) test scores like the SAT are getting disfavored by some colleges. Rich kids have more support (private teachers, mentors, test preps), sometimes their parents have more free time.
peterhj 6y ago
Nitpick, but undergraduate enrollment is over 31,000 (as of fall '19 [1]). [1] https://opa.berkeley.edu/campus-data/uc-berkeley-quick-facts https://opa.berkeley.edu/campus-data/uc-berkeley-quick-facts
- setgree 6y ago
  Thanks, I was reading too fast and just took the first number I saw.
monoideism 6y ago
> what percent of students I thought got into UC schools due to personal connection or wealth, I would have estimated between 10-20%. But this report seems to suggest otherwise: It's among the private schools, such as the Ivies, where this really comes into play.
koheripbal 6y ago
This only includes those admitted from large donors. The number of students admitted for being friends/family of staff/administration/faculty is probably the highest percentage. When I worked for Stanford in admissions, it ended up making up about 10-15% of each incoming class. People on "the list" could still be denied, but the admissions officer would need to write a letter to the Dean explaining why - and that never happened. People think donating small amounts to the school or being a legacy student help admissions, but they absolutely do not have an impact. The most impactful variables to admission are grades, race/gender, test scores, and essays - roughly in that order.

MiroF 6y ago

> If you had asked me yesterday what percent of students I thought got into UC schools due to personal connection or wealth, I would have estimated between 10-20% I don't think it's in the double digits for any school. You need large amounts of wealth to donate your way in.

jbullock35 6y ago

> if you get recruited to play Water Polo, Crew, Golf, Volleyball, or Beach volleyball at UC Berkeley, and ~95% of kids who play those sports come from wealthy families, and recruiting gave them an edge in admissions, does that count as "inappropriate?" I would say so, but I doubt this report would. The report comes close: "the average grade point average for the bottom quartile of applicants whom UCLA admitted for academic year 2019–20 was 4.15, but the average grade point average for its admitted student athletes was 3.74. Similarly, two‑thirds of the admitted student athletes whom UC Berkeley evaluated through its holistic review process for academic years 2017–18 through 2019–20 received the lowest possible rating from its application readers—which is equivalent to a recommendation that the applicant be denied admission."

setgree 6y ago
> the average grade point average for the bottom quartile of applicants whom UCLA admitted for academic year 2019–20 was 4.15, but the average grade point average for its admitted student athletes was 3.74 So the student athletes averaged halfway between an A and an A-? So did I in HS, 15 years ago, and I was a pretty good student! GPAs are really hard to make sense of with all the AP bonuses and whatnot. Standardized test scores strike me as providing a more apples-to-apples comparison. Of course that’s increasingly difficult to do in a test-optional world. (My recollection from an article about ‘The Chosen’ in 2005 is that recruited athletes tend to score 100-200 points lower on the SAT, on average, at Ivy League schools. I would double-check had I not exceeded my monthly free New Yorker quota: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in/amp https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in/amp)
- leapis 6y ago
  The way I've seen it calculated is this: For regular classes, A: 4.0, B: 3.0, C: 2.0, D: 1.0 (with some variance depending on + or - grades offered). For Honors/AP classes, every grade is essentially bumped up 1.0 point. So yes, a 3.74 is around an A- average, but that's an A- average in less rigorous classes, without competition from top students. That's more of a B-/C+ average in AP/Honors classes (obviously the calculation is far from perfect, though, because every school has it's quirks- at mine, you couldn't get above a ~4.5 overall). For reference, I graduated high school with a 3.6 with multiple Cs and hardly any As, simply by virtue of taking the maximum number of AP/Honors classes. The point being, a 3.74 is not a terrible GPA, but good students are generally over a 4.0 these days.
  - Thorrez 6y ago
    Most schools do that, but not all. My school (a private school in the US) didn't bump up anything.
    - adjkant 6y ago
      Colleges recalculate GPA's by high school to compare apples to apples. So even if your school doesn't, many colleges will use this weighting system.

Balgair 6y ago

Since when were Water Polo, Golf, or Volleyball rich person sports? Costs are pretty cheap at public courses. Beach Volleyball, I guess, kinda, but sand is pretty cheap even in cold weather climates. Crew, sure. The 'field' is hard to get things to, typically. Lacrosse, well, maybe 20 years ago, but it's everywhere now. Now, (horse) Polo and Dressage. Those are rich people sports.

awillen 6y ago
Where on earth do you think inner city kids are playing water polo and golf? Just because golf courses aren't that expensive to play on doesn't mean they're accessible to poor people (plus there's the cost of clubs, obviously). And water polo... even if there are public pools near you, they probably aren't dedicating space for competitive water polo.
- kevincrane 6y ago
  I played water polo at my public high school and only had to buy a swimsuit?
  - Balgair 6y ago
    Yeah, it's a pretty common HS sport on the west coast and in states that don't freeze. Any school with a pool nearby may have a team. My HS shared the pool with three other HS teams during after-school practice.
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    Your public high school had a swimming pool?
    - kevincrane 6y ago
      In California (or at least my part of it) it's pretty common.
      - 6y ago

potatochup 6y ago

Side note, but why are water polo and volleyball considered upper-class sports in the USA? I understand regular polo, rowing, etc, because of the cost of equipment. But at my school (on the other side of the world), volleyball was for the islanders, and water polo was for the misfits who couldn't make it in a more popular sport. What sports in the USA are for the plebs? Baseball?

edmundsauto 6y ago
Water polo requires a pool, which is expensive. Baseball requires a large field, also expensive. I believe basketball is so popular in part because of the (relatively) low equipment/space cost.
renewiltord 6y ago
Basketball and football are for the plebs. You can usually detect which sports by taking Census race-income measures then comparing them against the visible racial demographic of participants in the sport. This works well as a heuristic because visible racial characteristics are visible and the rich don't usually want to play with the poor.
Rebelgecko 6y ago
>Side note, but why are water polo and volleyball considered upper-class sports in the USA? Beach volleyball is more common in areas close to the beach. Beach and indoor players are also significantly taller than the average person-- in the league that my college was a part of, the shortest woman playing middle blocker was still 185cm. Height and beach access both have correlations to socioeconomic factors. For various reasons, the US has huge racial disparities when it comes to swimming ability. Most African American and Hispanic children don't know how to swim. As others have mentioned, football, basketball and to a lesser extent soccer/baseball tend to be the "pleb" sports. But even within a sport, you'll see class and racial distinctions when you compare different positions. When you look at pros and college, the majority of quarterbacks and centers are white. QBs also tend to come from wealthier families. Meanwhile, wide receivers and running backs are mostly black. The defense is mostly black, and I don't think there's a single non-black cornerback in the NFL (unless you miscount Tre'Davious White)

inerte 6y ago

Even (some) test scores like the SAT are getting disfavored by some colleges. Rich kids have more support (private teachers, mentors, test preps), sometimes their parents have more free time.

peterhj 6y ago

Nitpick, but undergraduate enrollment is over 31,000 (as of fall '19 [1]). [1] https://opa.berkeley.edu/campus-data/uc-berkeley-quick-facts https://opa.berkeley.edu/campus-data/uc-berkeley-quick-facts

setgree 6y ago
Thanks, I was reading too fast and just took the first number I saw.

monoideism 6y ago

> what percent of students I thought got into UC schools due to personal connection or wealth, I would have estimated between 10-20%. But this report seems to suggest otherwise: It's among the private schools, such as the Ivies, where this really comes into play.

koheripbal 6y ago

This only includes those admitted from large donors. The number of students admitted for being friends/family of staff/administration/faculty is probably the highest percentage. When I worked for Stanford in admissions, it ended up making up about 10-15% of each incoming class. People on "the list" could still be denied, but the admissions officer would need to write a letter to the Dean explaining why - and that never happened. People think donating small amounts to the school or being a legacy student help admissions, but they absolutely do not have an impact. The most impactful variables to admission are grades, race/gender, test scores, and essays - roughly in that order.