4 ms·

Geography and parental income would be good proxies.

by HWR_14 4y ago

giraffe_lady 4y ago
Anything else those would be good proxies for themselves?
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- HWR_14 4y ago
  I assume you have something in mind.
anonporridge 4y ago
Unfortunately, parental income can be a terrible proxy. High income doesn't necessarily indicate wealth or high class. It usually indicates highly educated, high level working class, like doctors and software engineers. Families with generational wealth often have very little direct income. All wealth is in assets that they borrow against, which doesn't count as income. Even when they take income or realize capital gains, they often do it erratically, so it can be fairly easy to game a university admission that looks at parental income by avoiding income for the years universities request.
- heavyset_go 4y ago
  I grew up with kids of wealthy families that were able to get student aid based on their parents' incomes, which were low to non-existent.
  - anonporridge 4y ago
    Meanwhile, I know people whose parents had very high incomes, but didn't actually have any real, accessible wealth saved, didn't save for their children's education, and had slept walked into too expensive of a lifestyle to divert any of their income. Because their parents made too much, they got zero financial aid and ended up covered in mountains of loans because their parents didn't actually have the money to give them. To be fair though, the fault in this case lies exclusively on the irresponsible parents who had the option to provide for their children's education, but opted to leave them to the wolves.
- andirk 4y ago
  Parental income is a terrible proxy? The abilities of ones guardians growing up is a huge factor in what opportunities someone is offered and a lot of that is dictated by how much money is available for the child. Other aspects like the intelligence, love, care, wit of the parents and child may be larger factors, but that's not something one can quantify on a form.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    My oldest will be applying to college in 2027. If it would maximize their chances of admission, I could arrange for my 2026 income tax return to show any 5 or most 6 figure sums that I needed. If I really needed to, I could do the same for 2025 as well. Showing a household income of $75K in that year/those years won't change the more comfortable financial situation they grew up in.
  - closeparen 4y ago
    Brilliant and accomplished people don't always pursue wealth. In certain subcultures it's crass, uncouth, one might even say low class to pursue something too practical or employable, to be too interested in material things and conspicuous consumption. These people aren't rich on paper but they are rich in genetics, habits, attitudes, values, vocabularies, media diets - and they raise brilliant, accomplished kids. Affirmative action for high academic performers subject to low family income would be an almost perfectly tailored handout for this cohort. Filtering on parental education level might knock most of them out & get better at targeting kids who outperformed their circumstances in more surprising ways. But is the legibility or surprisingness of the kid's outperformance really the point? I think maybe what you'd want to do is give some slots in the meritocracy to kids who are not outperformers at all, but chosen randomly, without regard to academic performance.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      Is a random selection without regard to academic performance really a "[slot] in the meritocracy"?
  - PeterisP 4y ago
- HWR_14 4y ago
  I assumed by class they were speaking about the delta between doctors/software engineers at Amazon and warehouse workers at Amazon. I assume generationally wealthy families applying to colleges are already identified by admission departments and their less qualified children's admission is (and would remain) predicated on donating to the library fund.
closeparen 4y ago
That's a great way to get a class full of front-line gentrifier families whose breadwinners are academics, journalists, artists, nonprofit staffers, political aides, social workers, etc. Class is not income, and finding the highest-performing kids from lower-earning families and neighborhoods is an almost perfect strategy for demonstrating the gaps. Of course that's my own background, so I'd take it!
- HWR_14 4y ago
  Those of course aren't perfect proxies! We can add more factors to account for that. But it's a start.
  - closeparen 4y ago
    Parental education level would be much better.
    - HWR_14 4y ago
      That adds another datapoint. And the schools attended. A lawyer with a JD from Yale and an undergrad from Harvard is in a different class from someone from a low-tier lawschool.

Geography and parental income would be good proxies.

by HWR_14 4y ago

Geography and parental income would be good proxies.

giraffe_lady 4y ago

Anything else those would be good proxies for themselves?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
HWR_14 4y ago
I assume you have something in mind.

anonporridge 4y ago

Unfortunately, parental income can be a terrible proxy. High income doesn't necessarily indicate wealth or high class. It usually indicates highly educated, high level working class, like doctors and software engineers. Families with generational wealth often have very little direct income. All wealth is in assets that they borrow against, which doesn't count as income. Even when they take income or realize capital gains, they often do it erratically, so it can be fairly easy to game a university admission that looks at parental income by avoiding income for the years universities request.

heavyset_go 4y ago
I grew up with kids of wealthy families that were able to get student aid based on their parents' incomes, which were low to non-existent.
- anonporridge 4y ago
  Meanwhile, I know people whose parents had very high incomes, but didn't actually have any real, accessible wealth saved, didn't save for their children's education, and had slept walked into too expensive of a lifestyle to divert any of their income. Because their parents made too much, they got zero financial aid and ended up covered in mountains of loans because their parents didn't actually have the money to give them. To be fair though, the fault in this case lies exclusively on the irresponsible parents who had the option to provide for their children's education, but opted to leave them to the wolves.
andirk 4y ago
Parental income is a terrible proxy? The abilities of ones guardians growing up is a huge factor in what opportunities someone is offered and a lot of that is dictated by how much money is available for the child. Other aspects like the intelligence, love, care, wit of the parents and child may be larger factors, but that's not something one can quantify on a form.
- sokoloff 4y ago
  My oldest will be applying to college in 2027. If it would maximize their chances of admission, I could arrange for my 2026 income tax return to show any 5 or most 6 figure sums that I needed. If I really needed to, I could do the same for 2025 as well. Showing a household income of $75K in that year/those years won't change the more comfortable financial situation they grew up in.
- closeparen 4y ago
  Brilliant and accomplished people don't always pursue wealth. In certain subcultures it's crass, uncouth, one might even say low class to pursue something too practical or employable, to be too interested in material things and conspicuous consumption. These people aren't rich on paper but they are rich in genetics, habits, attitudes, values, vocabularies, media diets - and they raise brilliant, accomplished kids. Affirmative action for high academic performers subject to low family income would be an almost perfectly tailored handout for this cohort. Filtering on parental education level might knock most of them out & get better at targeting kids who outperformed their circumstances in more surprising ways. But is the legibility or surprisingness of the kid's outperformance really the point? I think maybe what you'd want to do is give some slots in the meritocracy to kids who are not outperformers at all, but chosen randomly, without regard to academic performance.
  - sokoloff 4y ago
    Is a random selection without regard to academic performance really a "[slot] in the meritocracy"?
- PeterisP 4y ago
HWR_14 4y ago
I assumed by class they were speaking about the delta between doctors/software engineers at Amazon and warehouse workers at Amazon. I assume generationally wealthy families applying to colleges are already identified by admission departments and their less qualified children's admission is (and would remain) predicated on donating to the library fund.

closeparen 4y ago

That's a great way to get a class full of front-line gentrifier families whose breadwinners are academics, journalists, artists, nonprofit staffers, political aides, social workers, etc. Class is not income, and finding the highest-performing kids from lower-earning families and neighborhoods is an almost perfect strategy for demonstrating the gaps. Of course that's my own background, so I'd take it!

HWR_14 4y ago
Those of course aren't perfect proxies! We can add more factors to account for that. But it's a start.
- closeparen 4y ago
  Parental education level would be much better.
  - HWR_14 4y ago
    That adds another datapoint. And the schools attended. A lawyer with a JD from Yale and an undergrad from Harvard is in a different class from someone from a low-tier lawschool.