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The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own

by whack 4y ago

The following paragraphs were especially powerful: > The chattering class is using poor kids as pawns to eliminate standardized testing. Which helps their own kids. Rich kids who “don’t test well.” But they know how to strategically boost their GPAs, get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” > Applicants from the most affluent families excel at these games. A study at Stanford found that family income is more highly correlated with admissions essay content than with SAT scores. Applicants from well-to-do backgrounds are especially adept at crafting their essays in ways that please admissions committees. If equity is so important, why not grant preferential treatment to all children coming from families that aren't upper-middle-class? Or ban legacy preferences at the very least? This is a simple and effective way of achieving the goals they claim to be championing. The author hit the nail on the head. Every other metric used for admissions is far more easily gamed by rich families. Hence why they are being preserved. Standardized test scores are the hardest metric to game, and hence, are most under attack. All this talk about equity is the most convenient and cost-effective way to eliminate the one barrier that most vexes rich parents.

tikiman163 4y ago
A big part of the problem is that means testing is largely a waste of time. If you boost people based on income you end up wasting a huge amount of time trying to figure out where the income line should be. Even if you can find a good point to put that line, the "rich kids who just didn't test well enough" will sue because they think college admissions should be a meritocracy, and bossing anyone for any reasons is somehow descrimination. They recently won a significant court case with that exact logic. My next statement will be controversial, and is largely anecdotal, but there is very little to no research that contradicts my opinion, so I'm going to say it anyway. Smart, capable people who simply "don't test well" are almost non-existent. Even if they did, you can't accurately identify who doesn't test well except by giving them a job and letting them prove they were capable when they aren't under testing pressure. I have met hundreds of people who claimed they simply didn't test well, and only one of them later proved it by being genuinely capable and competent. The thing that pisses me off the most about this whole debate, is that it only really matters if you think it matters whether you went to one of the top 10 universities available to you. Frankly, most employers will throw out your application if it says Harvard School of Business. The number of management jobs that want Harvard graduates is less than half the graduating class, and Business majors have it easier than most of the engineering degrees in that respect. If you're an electrical engineer, there are fewer than 100 jobs Nation wide, and they are already occupied. If you want to be a civil engineer, straight up forget about it. The medical and legal schools are the only exception, and those are graduate schools only. There is far too much focus on whether the top 10 university admissions are fair and equitable, and far too little focus on whether we have affordable universities that meet decent educational standards for everyone who could reasonably earn a useful degree. We definitely shouldn't be trying to get rid of standardized tests. There are arguments that can be made about their content, especially historically, but they have merit in showing whether a student is ready for certain classes. At a normal university, they use SAT and ACT scores to decide if you can skip algebra and go straight to calculus, or if you need to take even more basic classes before algebra, and they do this for science and English courses as well. Having such a laser focus on how the top 10 or top 50 schools that actually turn away applicants because they're at capacity is a massive failure to see the actual big picture when it comes to education.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
Standardized tests are much easier to prep for than GPA and extracurriculars. I don’t get where the statement “rich kids don’t test well” actually comes from, and it wasn’t just made up to argue a point. Perhaps if you had state sponsored test prep like in China (you spend the last two years of high school just prepping for the test), but high school isn’t compulsory and many poor kids don’t even attend.
- Clubber 4y ago
  >I don’t get where the statement “rich kids don’t test well” actually comes from, and it wasn’t just made up to argue a point. When I read what you said and thought the same thing. I then looked up what the author wrote: Rich kids who “don’t test well.” He's just saying if you have a kid that doesn't test well (I am one of those) and happen to be wealthy, the rich have options that poor kids don't. He isn't saying rich kids don't tend to test well. I'm not sure that premise is 100% accurate either. My parents were teachers and we didn't have extravagant lives, but my parents knew the value of an education and forced me to do test prep 6 days a week the summer after my Junior year. I ended up improving my scores and getting into a good state university and subsequently have a good career 25+ years and still going strong. I think edge case success (students that don't test well) boils down more to parents giving a shit than anything else. It's not easy, that's for sure, even if you are moderately wealthy.
- AbrahamParangi 4y ago
  GPA and extracurriculars are so much easier to game than standardized tests, it's not even close. Moreover, this is what all the research on the topic suggests.
- Jensson 4y ago
  > Standardized tests are much easier to prep for than GPA and extracurriculars And that makes them perfect for poor kids who don't have much time or money, they can easily get similar levels of test prep as rich kid with little effort. GPA or extracurriculars however, no chance, those are much more dependent on home environment and wealth.
  - 4y ago
_mh56 4y ago
Here in India, we have quotas for different kinds of people. There's caste based, Gender based and finally EWS (Economically Weaker Section) Quota. Overall 60% of total seats are reserved for these people. My friend who's ultra rich was selected in EWS Quota. His father who runs his own company took Zero pay for the last two years so he qualified for the benefits. Meanwhile people who actually deserved this had to compete for the non reserved seats. The point is you can't just give preference based on income as its incredibly easy to fudge.
- civilized 4y ago
  Wouldn't any metric be gamed? Why single out income for criticism? At least favoring lower income is going directly at the problem.
- jakeinspace 4y ago
  This is off topic, but do you find it difficult seeing this friend the same way while knowing that they and their father gamed the system like that? If I learned this about somebody I knew it would seriously hurt their image in my eyes.
  - photonbucket 4y ago
    People will do what they can to make their children's lives better. It just means the system was poorly designed
  - DSingularity 4y ago
    Well he is still his “friend”. Perhaps he has repented and paid for the education of a number of people who would otherwise not be able to afford it.
  - ab0aa907 4y ago
    Coming from other side of border but with similar culture and attitudes, corruption is so common in that part of the world that most of the people don’t even see it. They would consider it smart to game the system. Only way I can explain this attitude is to compare it tax loopholes in the west. It is very hard for many Americans to see loopholes in tax codes as unethical. Like using mega-backdoor-ira loophole to bypass income limits for contributing to IRA. (Personally, I am not saying that tax loopholes are ethical or unethical, just something that can be seen both ways.)
commandlinefan 4y ago
> If equity is so important Because equity is about keeping people down, not lifting people up.
- JohnDoe_f9t40e 4y ago
  100% correct
pmoriarty 4y ago
"Or ban legacy preferences at the very least" It would be interesting if there was a rule that forbid you from attending the same school as your parents.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  This would be unfair for exactly the same reason that legacy preferences are, just in the opposite direction.
- orthoxerox 4y ago
  The USSR under Khruschev tried something similar: they were worried that people were becoming stratified: university-educated people would send their children into universities, factory workers would send their children into technical schools. Surely in a perfect world the demographics of university students should reflect the demographics of their parents' generation? So, a lot of restrictions and quotas were added to get these working-class children into universities. A couple of years after the first batch graduated the program was rolled back. Soviet scientists started to complain, because diversity and equity be damned, the quality of the graduates cratered. If you want to be able to rain nuclear fire on the USA, you need the best and the brightest working in your research institutes.
  - hijghula 4y ago
    They were not just researching "how to rain nuclear fire on the US" but also how to send the first satellite into space, send a probe on Venus, put the first man in orbit, etc.
- wheelinsupial 4y ago
  They could just implement a reciprocal legacy status instead for your children.
wernercd 4y ago
I bet "why not ban legacy" is answered with "legacy donations mean two things: No chance". https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-why-elite-colleges-cant-give-up-legacy-admissions/ https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-why-elite-colleges-... "To find out why elite colleges love legacies, two business school professors were granted access to 16 years of admissions data at one elite Northeastern college. The upshot: it’s in this school’s clear self-interest to take them. Alumni children who received offers matriculated at much higher rates, giving the school more certainty in their future enrollment numbers. And these loyal families with multi-generational ties to the college were far more likely to donate funds, money that the school needs, in part, to offer scholarships to others." Colleges want to look good... but no chance in hell they'll give up consistent students of families who donate. Cost effective? not when it'll cost them millions or billions in kick backs.
- wldcordeiro 4y ago
  Yeah it's like they've never walked around a college campus and noticed that every other building is named after some alumni that has made large donations.
cma 4y ago
> Standardized test scores are the hardest metric to game Learning disabilities give unlimited time on the tests. That means you can slowly use brute force on the math section to check each alternative one by one instead of needing to be good at other techniques. Harvard had something like 25% of admitted students do this. Does it sound plausible that 25% of Harvard students need unlimited time on the test due to a learning disability and that lower tier schools have lower rates of learning disabilities, or more plausible that Harvard students have more access to sympathic doctors (through family relations, upper/upper midle class organization connections) and savvy admissions advisers? https://www.wsj.com/articles/colleges-bend-the-rules-for-more-students-give-them-extra-help-1527154200 https://www.wsj.com/articles/colleges-bend-the-rules-for-mor... https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/how-some-las-privileged-kids-fake-disability-cheat-system-1195212/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/h...
- throwaway1851 4y ago
  I actually think this suggests it would be beneficial to just eliminate time limits on standardized tests. There is no inherent need to make time pressure the hard part of the exam. I’ve always thought it reflects a kind of laziness in the test design, and establishes a metric (thinking fast/under pressure) that isn’t really well aligned with the traits that help the most in real academic pursuits.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  The system of accommodating learning disabilities is a grift, I had a few while always being a strong tester who tended to finish tests early. The “accommodation” I always got was extra time which was extremely baffling. Extra time in particular was given out like candy for no reason. Harvard students having learning disabilities that warrant extra time on tests is a fucking joke, how delusional must one be to think that those admitted into Harvard are MORE disabled than most students at learning? Why is somebody deemed somebody to have a weakness in learning in one particular area that makes them “learning disabled”? Why aren’t students who just aren’t as smart as other students considered “learning disabled” and given extra time on tests? But if you’re called dyslexic or dysgraphic or have dyscalculia you’re disabled and deserve not just accommodations (Which I wouldn’t be opposed to on balance) but extra time on every test even if on the whole you smoke the other students? They are beyond questioning and any teacher who does is likely to have their heads chopped off for hating and not believing disabled people despite not being an expert in disability. Which pretends these accommodations were given out in the first place due to some rigorous criteria by experts in disability.
chaostheory 4y ago
If you ban legacy, then you lose needed donations. If you lose donations, then costs go up for everyone else. There is a net benefit for everyone when there are academically challenged wealthy children. Just keep standardized testing to prevent mass arbitrary admissions that will inevitably become racist. https://priceonomics.com/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-against-asians/ https://priceonomics.com/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-agai... It’s happened in the past to Jewish people and it’s now happening with Asians. It’s routine to hear admissions officers say that Asians are boring. If the end goal is to eliminate any sign of a meritocracy, they are well on their way to achieving it.
- yakireev 4y ago
  > If you lose donations, then costs go up for everyone else. Aren't costs going up for everyone else anyway? Hot take: instead of hoping that rich alumni would donate to universities, the nation could tax these folks properly instead, and use that money make public education free/cheap. There are quite a few countries in the world doing this, not all of them rich.
  - chaostheory 4y ago
    That would help public universities, but many universities are private
    - yakireev 4y ago
      In many countries with a single-payer health system all or some of the hospitals providing care are private. One could imagine a similar single-payer education system where some of institutions providing education are private too.
- CrazyStat 4y ago
  > If you ban legacy, then you lose needed donations. If you lose donations, then costs go up for everyone else. Or the universities could spend a bit less money. Most donations go to things that aren't exactly central to the supposed mission of a university, like football fields or $90 million dining halls [1]. The explosion of administrative staff over the last couple decades also doesn't help. [1] https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/real-estate/2016/08/inside-duke-university-s-west-union-after-90.html https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/real-estate/2016/0...
paleotrope 4y ago
Once a school is all lower class people it will stop being a high class product. Part of the value of these institutions is in reinforcing and renewing class solidarity.
rayiner 4y ago
I'm experiencing this first hand. My family immigrated here from Bangladesh. Unlike much of my family, my dad had a college-degree required job lined up, and we ended up pretty comfortable with him on a GS-scale job and my mom selling furniture. Thanks to the SATs, my brother and I both ended up breaking into industries (banking, law) that until relatively recently were good old boy's clubs. Now that I have kids at in private school, I have a totally different perception of the cultural capital these families have that we didn't. We have a second winter break for ski holiday. My daughter asked me why we don't ever go to Aspen. When we were kids, we didn't know anyone, we didn't know what to write in admissions essays. We had enough money to do test prep, but that's incredibly cheap in comparison. I'm not concerned about my kids if we move to a subjective admissions system. We'll send my daughter to Bangladesh to do some gold-star project and hire an admissions coach to wring my dad's story of growing up in a third world village for all its worth. But if I was a recent immigrant, or a lower middle class kid in Iowa, I'd be pretty outraged about this.
- throwaway894345 4y ago
  > But if I was ... a lower middle class kid in Iowa, I'd be pretty outraged about this. Of course, no one cares about these kids (least of all the elites and their cadre), and any outrage from lower middle class Iowans is already explained away as racism (never mind that Iowa, like much of the rest of middle America, went to Obama in 2008 and 2012).
  - the_third_wave 4y ago
    ...and anyone mentioning this is voted down by the chattering class of HN. Predictable yet still disappointing.
  - msrenee 4y ago
    What's happening to lower middle class kids in Iowa? I'm honestly just confused here. To my knowledge, they're getting decent lower middle class jobs and doing fine. Maybe going off to college and moving to the coast, probably not unless they want to leave. I don't think of that particular group of individuals as disadvantaged, at least not in the context of getting into a good college.
LightHugger 4y ago
Then what do you do for children coming from wealthy families who don't support them? Just because the parents have money doesn't mean they spend any of it or time on their kid, and with your system, those kids get screwed. It's difficult.
lordnacho 4y ago
I used to think standardized tests were the way to go, but... My kid recently went through another testing gauntlet, which is the 11+ test. For those who aren't in the Southeast corner of the UK, this is a multiple choice type test that looks a lot like an IQ test in some ways. It's a single sitting and determines whether you are allowed into something called a Grammar School, which is just a selective school, and the test is taken the year the kid turns 11. So the thing about this test is that nobody will admit to it, but everyone in the middle class will hire tutors to help their kids pass the test. Furthermore, private primary schools will spend a lot of time prepping for this test in the two years before the kids take the test. Plenty of people do both: send their kids to a fee-paying primary school, and pay for tutors. Guess what, the pass rate for fee-paying (aka independent) schools is way higher than for state schools. It's hard to break down which parents went for state + tutoring, but it's not exactly a stretch to suppose those kids did better than state school kids with no tutoring. Furthermore state schools that do well tend to be in certain wealthy areas. If you have a look at one of these tests, it's pretty clear you benefit from practicing. Like just about any test, if you've done it before you are at an advantage, the more the better. I don't see how this isn't gaming the test. The idea with a test is to uncover which kids will get the most out of the selective school, but how is that going to work when a select few are prepped for the test? Now just for the record I did the SAT back when I was a kid. It's pretty much the same as the 11+, for a slightly older age group. Again, it doesn't make any sense to say it's hard to game. People are gaming it as we speak. I think what might actually be hard to game is teacher recommendations. After all these people have been with the kid for a long time and know what they can do. They also tend to be distanced enough that they don't have to say good things about every kid.
- thegrim22 4y ago
  How is hiring a tutor "gaming" it? They spend extra time learning, and as a result they do better. It's not like the tutors secretly give them a cheat sheet list of all the test answers; they still have to answer the questions the same as everyone else. If somebody puts more time into studying, whether on their own or with a tutor or with their parents, they'll do better than somebody who didn't.
908B64B197 4y ago
>> They have “polish.” > Standardized test scores are the hardest metric to game, and hence, are most under attack. All this talk about equity is the most convenient and cost-effective way to eliminate the one barrier that most vexes rich parents. It's also a good way to sneak in affirmative action (racial discrimination really) in places where voters and taxpayers repeatedly said no, like in the UC system, since it removes an objective measure and leaves more "holistic" criterions an admission committee can use to accept or deny (without giving out any explanation) a candidate. [0] [0] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harberson-asian-american-admission-rates-20150609-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harberson-asian-...
bnralt 4y ago
> This is a simple and effective way of achieving the goals they claim to be championing. And what are the real goals of these institutions? The whole approach of having artificially limited education where people are sifted into higher and lower status classes based upon judgements made when they're teenagers is premised on elitism, not equity. That's the purpose of these institutions - not to education as many people as possible, but to restrict education to a privileged few in order to increase their own worth. Saying they're concerned about equity is like the casinos that put up signs saying they're concerned about gambling addiction. There's a reason why Harvard is happy to take people's money and give them an education in the Harvard Extension School, but why they firmly tell those people they can't call themselves Harvard graduates. Contrast this with OMSCS, where they firmly say an in-person degree and an online degree will be the same thing.
- Glyptodon 4y ago
  That public funds can go to private schools like Harvard is such a joke.
  - torstenvl 4y ago
    Okay. Why? Some of the public funds come by way of Pell Grants. What's so terrible about poor kids getting a top-tier education? Other mechanisms are research grants. You don't think it's in the public's interest to incentivize graduate students at top institutions to do socially beneficial research? Help me understand what your objection is to federal policy, and what you wish federal policy were instead.
    - docandrew 4y ago
      Harvard has an endowment worth more than $50B. Harvard grads are the ruling class of our nation, and their system of legacy admissions mean it’s essentially a hereditary system of nobility. This endowment isn’t taxed, and generates huge returns. Its one thing to defend poor kids getting a leg up with federal grants, but I’m not sure the ones who pay for it are the same ones who benefit, and the system seems to be enormously profitable for the private universities.
AtlasBarfed 4y ago
Allowing Rich kids in. THISSSSSSS!!!! is what it was always about. It amazes me how corrupt higher education is now. It is AMAZINGLY corrupt. There is this thing with getting old (I'm in late 40s now) where you think the world is going to hell, but really what is happening is that you are figuring out EXACTLY how fucked up everything is. However, sometimes things really are going to hell (increasing rich/poor divide, environment/global warming, vast increase in higher ed/healthcare/housing relative to inflation). Anyway, in this case, I still am trying to gauge if my fondness for the general institution of higher education circa late 1990s was actually still somewhat deserved at the time and it has _truly_ fallen apart in the next 25-30 years, or if it was this bad for the last 40-50 (I can argue there's a good chance it was a great institution in the 1960s fresh after post-WWII investment in higher ed by the gubberment). Anyone have thoughts? I personally think it is ACTUALLY worse, that the rise of the huge administrator/MBAs in higher ed has led to do-anything-for-a-buck, and it REALLY is this bad. Signs that it actually is bad: - the stupendous rise in cost / that little student loan crisis we have - the stupendous rise in Div I coaching salaries and facilities - the amount of frivolous facilities built - the rise of the minimum wage adjunct professor - the decline of import of tenure (revenue/publishing/research is now everything) - the decline of humanities. I still as a science guy look down at them, but they are historically important (as in over 1000s of years) to educational institutions. - grade inflation, it is pay for degree even in some Ivies it appears now
- lordnacho 4y ago
  > There is this thing with getting old (I'm in late 40s now) where you think the world is going to hell, but really what is happening is that you are figuring out EXACTLY how fucked up everything is. This is so true. When I was younger I thought "oh what a cynical thought, I should cheer up and be less gloomy". Now I realize I was right. The sheer amount of waste arising from badly managed orgs with wrong incentives is just enormous. This is why we don't have flying cars and teleporters. If you consider that universities these days let in a lot more people, it's inevitable that the academic level is lower. Back in the day someone doing a phd had a reasonable chance of becoming a professor. Now there's so many people the university is not really for producing knowledge, that's just a side business to giving a stamp of approval to your average middle class kid who is not gonna be doing research.
ww520 4y ago
Legacy admission should have been abolished long time ago. It’s systematic racism. Legacy admission has been part of the official admission system for the longest time. It's a system to favor the incumbents, the riches, the powerful, and the non-minority. It's used to ensure to give the elites are systematic unfair advantage.
s1artibartfast 4y ago
The core problem is that merit-based entrance is inherently at odds with equality of outcome. Families that are better off rais more capable children on average
- Glyptodon 4y ago
  I think they raise children who are more effectively socialized and protected more so than more capable. I've known very capable people who don't have the status to refuse to kiss rings and they always get screwed in public schools. The kids with sufficiently "decent" parents get handled with kid gloves and rule adherence, everyone else gets punched down with half-assery even when if they're experiencing injustice and unfairness. Have known so many bright kids who get nowhere because of schools.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    I'm not sure I follow everything you wrote. Are you saying that poverty produces children and individuals more capable of driving and succeeding in society?
    - Glyptodon 4y ago
      No. That if one kid is poor or minority or unstable background, etc., and a bit of a loose cannon, they'll get graded lower for the same answers, punished or dismissed if they question anything, not going to be able or willing to check in before school or after class for more help, etc., meanwhile goody two shoes daughter of the town dentists will give the same answers, socialize better with the teacher, who knows the parent's status, and likes the kid, give her points back, and by the end of the semester they'll both be just as smart, but one will have an A- and the other a C+. Basically kids having the "right" kind of parents and community connections and behavioral signifiers is at least ~1 letter grade overall regardless of students and ability.
wefarrell 4y ago
Wouldn’t rank within their school be the hardest metric to game, since schools tend to be fairly segregated with respect to income levels? The only way to game that metric would be for the wealthy to send their kids to schools that perform worse, which would wind up driving more resources to those schools.
nradov 4y ago
The admissions essays show polish because they are written (or at least heavily edited) by parents and paid consultants.
setgree 4y ago
Banning legacy admissions is a coordination problem. Try to eliminate it at one school and parents (re: donors) will raise an uproar. It would need to be eliminated at the whole cohort of peer schools to eliminate parents’ exit option. Semi-related anecdote: my alma mater got huge pushback from donors when it tried to eliminate its football team [0], which was legendarily bad and a recruiting nightmare to boot (apparently football rosters can be 100+, though Swarthmore’s was ~53). So there was about as clear a case for elimination as you could hope for, and still it was a big controversy that impacted the school where administrators tend to notice — its endowment. So when we talk about eliminating legacy admissions, I picture that, but just a thousand times worse. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/05/sports/football-no-more-football-lots-of-questions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/05/sports/football-no-more-f...
tomp 4y ago
This is a general question for the whole "social justice" movement. If you're concerned about the wellbeing of black people, and you justify your concern with statistics pointing out that they're disproportionately poor, why not, instead of instituting preferential treatment for black people (which, btw, is racist), you support preferential treatment for poor people instead? That way, you are more efficient (e.g. your resources aren't wasted on Obama's daughters, who are certainly sufficiently privileged already), while also helping people who weren't captured by your superficial assessment ("black <==> poor").
- erikpukinskis 4y ago
  The basic hypotheses for the pro-affirmative action crowd are: 1) Black people are not actually less “good at stuff”, we just have a habit of defining “stuff” in a way that excludes the things that black people are more likely to excel at. And, 2) Where black people do statistically worse, it’s not due to any innate difference, it’s because socially accepted “normal” support systems are more useful for people with challenges more common in white populations than challenges common in black populations. So the idea is, if you change the support systems and measures of success to be more universal, the differences will go away. And then the metric for whether administrative bodies have succeeded in this is “equal outcomes”. What you call “racism”. But the inferences on which this affirmative action position are based make rational sense. There’s no logical flaw. There’s no conclusive evidence for these hypothesis either, but they are logically plausible. The opposite perspective is the same: rational, yet lacking any basis in evidence. That is the perspective that black people, through biology, socialization, and/or culture, are actually “worse at stuff”. And the support systems and performance metrics are fair. There’s no way to prove something is “fair” or “not fair” in the face of “unequal outcomes”. It just comes down to what you want to believe. There’s no rational basis to come to one conclusion or the other. I choose to believe that all of the big categories of people are pretty similarly “good at things” but I can acknowledge that belief is a leap of faith. The truth is unknowable.
  - paulolc 4y ago
    No. The truth is not unknowable. Some truth is unknowable, though.
User23 4y ago
> If equity is so important, why not grant preferential treatment to all children coming from families that aren't upper-middle-class? Or ban legacy preferences at the very least? Because the equity that the school cares about above all else is its endowment, and rich family legacies give more than anyone else by far.
morelandjs 4y ago
This is an interesting idea. You could stratify the admissions process by family income level, and set bars for admission at each level that ensure an equal distribution of admissions relative to the population distribution of income.
kodah 4y ago
All of these takes ignore the fact that college shouldn't be a privilege. As long as we keep to the point that only a select few can go to college then we'll keep fighting over scraps. Nobody in this debate wants a meritocracy because implementing one would harm their interests.
kwhitefoot 4y ago
> legacy preferences Why does this even exist?
- pjscott 4y ago
  There's a market for getting underqualified students into fancy universities via legalized semi-bribery, but it would be bad for their image if they openly admitted to it. Hence the obfuscation.
- wheelinsupial 4y ago
  "In the United States, legacy admissions in universities date back to the 1920s. Elite schools used legacy admissions to maintain spots for Anglo-Protestants amid fears that Jews, Catholics, and Asians were increasingly taking spots at the schools.[7][8]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences
- twiddling 4y ago
  How do you think some of those fancy new wings/building get their names?
  - kwhitefoot 4y ago
    Where I come from some are named for illustrious alumni, some of whom financed the building. But as far as I know it didn't give their offspring an easier way to get accepted as students.
indymike 4y ago
> If equity is so important, why not grant preferential treatment to all children coming from families that aren't upper-middle-class? College education has always been sold as a way to keep your children elite, and to the less well-to-do, as a golden ticket to being elite. The issue with education is that it has been marketed as the ultimate wealth signal: "My daughter is attending ______." (too bad for your daughter who is at ______ State) > Standardized test scores are the hardest metric to game, and hence, are most under attack. While this is true, standardized tests tend to favor children from more stable family situations and higher levels of wealth. The attack on the SAT is usually from the side favoring evening the odds for less financially advantaged groups.
dgs_sgd 4y ago
Equity is not actually important, and the author said it saliently in this paragraph > Elite colleges are eliminating standardized tests before they eliminate legacy admissions. Tells you all you need to know.
cm2187 4y ago
That sounds like conspiracy theory. I think it is more likely the combination of ordinary racism with woke militantism. They think certain minorities aren't smart enough to pass SAT standards so the solution to get more of them in, is to not test for SAT. It's the same stupidity that leads well-thinking liberals to bring their kids to drag strip shows because in their little mind "trans = gogo dancers in gay clubs".
roland35 4y ago
Interestingly I feel the same way about coding interviews, which HN seems to hate. I feel like studying and doing well on my coding interviews helped me get into top companies that otherwise would probably pass over my decidedly non-elite resume.
cactus2093 4y ago
I have a really hard time believing this is being actively driven by collusion among rich families who know they could game non-SAT metrics. It would require a huge organizational effort, and for what? It's still not going to be a sure thing to get their kids in, there's gonna be even more randomness in the process after this change than there is now. And sending your kids to elite an school doesn't even buy them that much anyway if you're already rich & influential, you can pull strings to get them a job after they graduate from a mediocre school. It's much easier to believe that this is being driven by college administrators who know that the way to advance their careers in the current climate is by passing radical social justice changes, and this particular idea is simply an organically popular fad among social justice influencers so it's the one they've latched onto.
andrepd 4y ago
I've made this proposal several times: judge an applicant by his/her delta relative to their cohort. For example (highly simplified) a kid from a wealthy family in a nice neighbourhood statistically scores 70% on average, if he scores 80 that's a +10. A kid from a poor single-parent household going to a dilapidated school where scores are 40% on average, if he scores 70 that's a +30. Very rough example but the idea is this. Philosophically/ethically, it seems better. But practically as well: you want to admit the students most likely to excel if given the high quality resources at your university. Among a kid with all the comforts and private tutoring and all that, and a kid who rose way above his shitty lot in life, wouldn't the latter fit that description better?
- Gunax 4y ago
  There is always a way to manipulate it. In this case, one would seek to downplay their own cohort.
berjin 4y ago
I've seen this play out in a non-US country. My friend with wealthier parents got his loans paid because his parents didn't earn an 'income' and thus the state interpreted them as being poor. In reality they were fairly well off business owners who had a good accountant who channeled the cash flows through the lowest taxed entities.
77pt77 4y ago
> get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” Or they just completely fake it, like a few cases that were discovered a few years ago. [1] Let's be honest though. Those with less "polish" that would be admitted on purely objective/anonymous merit might even excel academically at the university, but they would be excluded by the very same social games being played here. Sometimes they might even be told that explicitly but usually an excuse will be concocted. The real question should be: > What is more cruel, excluding them early on or allowing them to "win" but then ignore them completely when the benefits of that are to be distributed? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal
dan-robertson 4y ago
I wonder if it would be better to just have a system where there are some number of elite university places set aside at some very high price for the rich. Perhaps the problem is the price would be too high / number of places too small that there would still be an incentive to try to get in through the ‘normal’ route. Plenty of top schools already set tuition prices based on family income. It should satisfy people who want elite universities to be places to rub shoulders with other elites. My hope is that such a policy would reduce the incentive to game the ordinary system by throwing money at it. But I guess the whole thing feels terribly unegalitarian and so couldn’t happen. Perhaps an easier improvement would be if enrolment could be massively (say >2x) increased at elite schools.
leishman 4y ago
If legacy wealthy kids can’t go to elite schools then the schools will not be elite. The schools the elite’s children go to are, by definition, the elite schools.
cyanydeez 4y ago
Meh, meaningless. Those kids get in regardless. The SAT has flaws, like AIs trained on criminal records has flaws. Getting rid of a flawed test won't suddenly make rich privilege suddenly increase
- mseidl 4y ago
  The SAT was designed as a general intelligence test. But the fact you can study for it and improve your score made that false. Zoe Bee did a good video on grades... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe-SZ_FPZew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe-SZ_FPZew

by whack 4y ago

tikiman163 4y ago

A big part of the problem is that means testing is largely a waste of time. If you boost people based on income you end up wasting a huge amount of time trying to figure out where the income line should be. Even if you can find a good point to put that line, the "rich kids who just didn't test well enough" will sue because they think college admissions should be a meritocracy, and bossing anyone for any reasons is somehow descrimination. They recently won a significant court case with that exact logic. My next statement will be controversial, and is largely anecdotal, but there is very little to no research that contradicts my opinion, so I'm going to say it anyway. Smart, capable people who simply "don't test well" are almost non-existent. Even if they did, you can't accurately identify who doesn't test well except by giving them a job and letting them prove they were capable when they aren't under testing pressure. I have met hundreds of people who claimed they simply didn't test well, and only one of them later proved it by being genuinely capable and competent. The thing that pisses me off the most about this whole debate, is that it only really matters if you think it matters whether you went to one of the top 10 universities available to you. Frankly, most employers will throw out your application if it says Harvard School of Business. The number of management jobs that want Harvard graduates is less than half the graduating class, and Business majors have it easier than most of the engineering degrees in that respect. If you're an electrical engineer, there are fewer than 100 jobs Nation wide, and they are already occupied. If you want to be a civil engineer, straight up forget about it. The medical and legal schools are the only exception, and those are graduate schools only. There is far too much focus on whether the top 10 university admissions are fair and equitable, and far too little focus on whether we have affordable universities that meet decent educational standards for everyone who could reasonably earn a useful degree. We definitely shouldn't be trying to get rid of standardized tests. There are arguments that can be made about their content, especially historically, but they have merit in showing whether a student is ready for certain classes. At a normal university, they use SAT and ACT scores to decide if you can skip algebra and go straight to calculus, or if you need to take even more basic classes before algebra, and they do this for science and English courses as well. Having such a laser focus on how the top 10 or top 50 schools that actually turn away applicants because they're at capacity is a massive failure to see the actual big picture when it comes to education.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

Standardized tests are much easier to prep for than GPA and extracurriculars. I don’t get where the statement “rich kids don’t test well” actually comes from, and it wasn’t just made up to argue a point. Perhaps if you had state sponsored test prep like in China (you spend the last two years of high school just prepping for the test), but high school isn’t compulsory and many poor kids don’t even attend.

Clubber 4y ago
>I don’t get where the statement “rich kids don’t test well” actually comes from, and it wasn’t just made up to argue a point. When I read what you said and thought the same thing. I then looked up what the author wrote: Rich kids who “don’t test well.” He's just saying if you have a kid that doesn't test well (I am one of those) and happen to be wealthy, the rich have options that poor kids don't. He isn't saying rich kids don't tend to test well. I'm not sure that premise is 100% accurate either. My parents were teachers and we didn't have extravagant lives, but my parents knew the value of an education and forced me to do test prep 6 days a week the summer after my Junior year. I ended up improving my scores and getting into a good state university and subsequently have a good career 25+ years and still going strong. I think edge case success (students that don't test well) boils down more to parents giving a shit than anything else. It's not easy, that's for sure, even if you are moderately wealthy.
AbrahamParangi 4y ago
GPA and extracurriculars are so much easier to game than standardized tests, it's not even close. Moreover, this is what all the research on the topic suggests.
Jensson 4y ago
> Standardized tests are much easier to prep for than GPA and extracurriculars And that makes them perfect for poor kids who don't have much time or money, they can easily get similar levels of test prep as rich kid with little effort. GPA or extracurriculars however, no chance, those are much more dependent on home environment and wealth.
- 4y ago

_mh56 4y ago

Here in India, we have quotas for different kinds of people. There's caste based, Gender based and finally EWS (Economically Weaker Section) Quota. Overall 60% of total seats are reserved for these people. My friend who's ultra rich was selected in EWS Quota. His father who runs his own company took Zero pay for the last two years so he qualified for the benefits. Meanwhile people who actually deserved this had to compete for the non reserved seats. The point is you can't just give preference based on income as its incredibly easy to fudge.

civilized 4y ago
Wouldn't any metric be gamed? Why single out income for criticism? At least favoring lower income is going directly at the problem.
jakeinspace 4y ago
This is off topic, but do you find it difficult seeing this friend the same way while knowing that they and their father gamed the system like that? If I learned this about somebody I knew it would seriously hurt their image in my eyes.
- photonbucket 4y ago
  People will do what they can to make their children's lives better. It just means the system was poorly designed
- DSingularity 4y ago
  Well he is still his “friend”. Perhaps he has repented and paid for the education of a number of people who would otherwise not be able to afford it.
- ab0aa907 4y ago
  Coming from other side of border but with similar culture and attitudes, corruption is so common in that part of the world that most of the people don’t even see it. They would consider it smart to game the system. Only way I can explain this attitude is to compare it tax loopholes in the west. It is very hard for many Americans to see loopholes in tax codes as unethical. Like using mega-backdoor-ira loophole to bypass income limits for contributing to IRA. (Personally, I am not saying that tax loopholes are ethical or unethical, just something that can be seen both ways.)

commandlinefan 4y ago

> If equity is so important Because equity is about keeping people down, not lifting people up.

JohnDoe_f9t40e 4y ago
100% correct

pmoriarty 4y ago

"Or ban legacy preferences at the very least" It would be interesting if there was a rule that forbid you from attending the same school as your parents.

josephcsible 4y ago
This would be unfair for exactly the same reason that legacy preferences are, just in the opposite direction.
orthoxerox 4y ago
The USSR under Khruschev tried something similar: they were worried that people were becoming stratified: university-educated people would send their children into universities, factory workers would send their children into technical schools. Surely in a perfect world the demographics of university students should reflect the demographics of their parents' generation? So, a lot of restrictions and quotas were added to get these working-class children into universities. A couple of years after the first batch graduated the program was rolled back. Soviet scientists started to complain, because diversity and equity be damned, the quality of the graduates cratered. If you want to be able to rain nuclear fire on the USA, you need the best and the brightest working in your research institutes.
- hijghula 4y ago
  They were not just researching "how to rain nuclear fire on the US" but also how to send the first satellite into space, send a probe on Venus, put the first man in orbit, etc.
wheelinsupial 4y ago
They could just implement a reciprocal legacy status instead for your children.

wernercd 4y ago

I bet "why not ban legacy" is answered with "legacy donations mean two things: No chance". https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-why-elite-colleges-cant-give-up-legacy-admissions/ https://hechingerreport.org/proof-points-why-elite-colleges-... "To find out why elite colleges love legacies, two business school professors were granted access to 16 years of admissions data at one elite Northeastern college. The upshot: it’s in this school’s clear self-interest to take them. Alumni children who received offers matriculated at much higher rates, giving the school more certainty in their future enrollment numbers. And these loyal families with multi-generational ties to the college were far more likely to donate funds, money that the school needs, in part, to offer scholarships to others." Colleges want to look good... but no chance in hell they'll give up consistent students of families who donate. Cost effective? not when it'll cost them millions or billions in kick backs.

wldcordeiro 4y ago
Yeah it's like they've never walked around a college campus and noticed that every other building is named after some alumni that has made large donations.

cma 4y ago

> Standardized test scores are the hardest metric to game Learning disabilities give unlimited time on the tests. That means you can slowly use brute force on the math section to check each alternative one by one instead of needing to be good at other techniques. Harvard had something like 25% of admitted students do this. Does it sound plausible that 25% of Harvard students need unlimited time on the test due to a learning disability and that lower tier schools have lower rates of learning disabilities, or more plausible that Harvard students have more access to sympathic doctors (through family relations, upper/upper midle class organization connections) and savvy admissions advisers? https://www.wsj.com/articles/colleges-bend-the-rules-for-more-students-give-them-extra-help-1527154200 https://www.wsj.com/articles/colleges-bend-the-rules-for-mor... https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/how-some-las-privileged-kids-fake-disability-cheat-system-1195212/ https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifestyle/lifestyle-news/h...

throwaway1851 4y ago
I actually think this suggests it would be beneficial to just eliminate time limits on standardized tests. There is no inherent need to make time pressure the hard part of the exam. I’ve always thought it reflects a kind of laziness in the test design, and establishes a metric (thinking fast/under pressure) that isn’t really well aligned with the traits that help the most in real academic pursuits.
faeriechangling 4y ago
The system of accommodating learning disabilities is a grift, I had a few while always being a strong tester who tended to finish tests early. The “accommodation” I always got was extra time which was extremely baffling. Extra time in particular was given out like candy for no reason. Harvard students having learning disabilities that warrant extra time on tests is a fucking joke, how delusional must one be to think that those admitted into Harvard are MORE disabled than most students at learning? Why is somebody deemed somebody to have a weakness in learning in one particular area that makes them “learning disabled”? Why aren’t students who just aren’t as smart as other students considered “learning disabled” and given extra time on tests? But if you’re called dyslexic or dysgraphic or have dyscalculia you’re disabled and deserve not just accommodations (Which I wouldn’t be opposed to on balance) but extra time on every test even if on the whole you smoke the other students? They are beyond questioning and any teacher who does is likely to have their heads chopped off for hating and not believing disabled people despite not being an expert in disability. Which pretends these accommodations were given out in the first place due to some rigorous criteria by experts in disability.

chaostheory 4y ago

If you ban legacy, then you lose needed donations. If you lose donations, then costs go up for everyone else. There is a net benefit for everyone when there are academically challenged wealthy children. Just keep standardized testing to prevent mass arbitrary admissions that will inevitably become racist. https://priceonomics.com/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-against-asians/ https://priceonomics.com/do-elite-colleges-discriminate-agai... It’s happened in the past to Jewish people and it’s now happening with Asians. It’s routine to hear admissions officers say that Asians are boring. If the end goal is to eliminate any sign of a meritocracy, they are well on their way to achieving it.

yakireev 4y ago
> If you lose donations, then costs go up for everyone else. Aren't costs going up for everyone else anyway? Hot take: instead of hoping that rich alumni would donate to universities, the nation could tax these folks properly instead, and use that money make public education free/cheap. There are quite a few countries in the world doing this, not all of them rich.
- chaostheory 4y ago
  That would help public universities, but many universities are private
  - yakireev 4y ago
    In many countries with a single-payer health system all or some of the hospitals providing care are private. One could imagine a similar single-payer education system where some of institutions providing education are private too.
CrazyStat 4y ago
> If you ban legacy, then you lose needed donations. If you lose donations, then costs go up for everyone else. Or the universities could spend a bit less money. Most donations go to things that aren't exactly central to the supposed mission of a university, like football fields or $90 million dining halls [1]. The explosion of administrative staff over the last couple decades also doesn't help. [1] https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/real-estate/2016/08/inside-duke-university-s-west-union-after-90.html https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/blog/real-estate/2016/0...

paleotrope 4y ago

Once a school is all lower class people it will stop being a high class product. Part of the value of these institutions is in reinforcing and renewing class solidarity.

rayiner 4y ago

I'm experiencing this first hand. My family immigrated here from Bangladesh. Unlike much of my family, my dad had a college-degree required job lined up, and we ended up pretty comfortable with him on a GS-scale job and my mom selling furniture. Thanks to the SATs, my brother and I both ended up breaking into industries (banking, law) that until relatively recently were good old boy's clubs. Now that I have kids at in private school, I have a totally different perception of the cultural capital these families have that we didn't. We have a second winter break for ski holiday. My daughter asked me why we don't ever go to Aspen. When we were kids, we didn't know anyone, we didn't know what to write in admissions essays. We had enough money to do test prep, but that's incredibly cheap in comparison. I'm not concerned about my kids if we move to a subjective admissions system. We'll send my daughter to Bangladesh to do some gold-star project and hire an admissions coach to wring my dad's story of growing up in a third world village for all its worth. But if I was a recent immigrant, or a lower middle class kid in Iowa, I'd be pretty outraged about this.

throwaway894345 4y ago
> But if I was ... a lower middle class kid in Iowa, I'd be pretty outraged about this. Of course, no one cares about these kids (least of all the elites and their cadre), and any outrage from lower middle class Iowans is already explained away as racism (never mind that Iowa, like much of the rest of middle America, went to Obama in 2008 and 2012).
- the_third_wave 4y ago
  ...and anyone mentioning this is voted down by the chattering class of HN. Predictable yet still disappointing.
- msrenee 4y ago
  What's happening to lower middle class kids in Iowa? I'm honestly just confused here. To my knowledge, they're getting decent lower middle class jobs and doing fine. Maybe going off to college and moving to the coast, probably not unless they want to leave. I don't think of that particular group of individuals as disadvantaged, at least not in the context of getting into a good college.

LightHugger 4y ago

Then what do you do for children coming from wealthy families who don't support them? Just because the parents have money doesn't mean they spend any of it or time on their kid, and with your system, those kids get screwed. It's difficult.

lordnacho 4y ago

I used to think standardized tests were the way to go, but... My kid recently went through another testing gauntlet, which is the 11+ test. For those who aren't in the Southeast corner of the UK, this is a multiple choice type test that looks a lot like an IQ test in some ways. It's a single sitting and determines whether you are allowed into something called a Grammar School, which is just a selective school, and the test is taken the year the kid turns 11. So the thing about this test is that nobody will admit to it, but everyone in the middle class will hire tutors to help their kids pass the test. Furthermore, private primary schools will spend a lot of time prepping for this test in the two years before the kids take the test. Plenty of people do both: send their kids to a fee-paying primary school, and pay for tutors. Guess what, the pass rate for fee-paying (aka independent) schools is way higher than for state schools. It's hard to break down which parents went for state + tutoring, but it's not exactly a stretch to suppose those kids did better than state school kids with no tutoring. Furthermore state schools that do well tend to be in certain wealthy areas. If you have a look at one of these tests, it's pretty clear you benefit from practicing. Like just about any test, if you've done it before you are at an advantage, the more the better. I don't see how this isn't gaming the test. The idea with a test is to uncover which kids will get the most out of the selective school, but how is that going to work when a select few are prepped for the test? Now just for the record I did the SAT back when I was a kid. It's pretty much the same as the 11+, for a slightly older age group. Again, it doesn't make any sense to say it's hard to game. People are gaming it as we speak. I think what might actually be hard to game is teacher recommendations. After all these people have been with the kid for a long time and know what they can do. They also tend to be distanced enough that they don't have to say good things about every kid.

thegrim22 4y ago
How is hiring a tutor "gaming" it? They spend extra time learning, and as a result they do better. It's not like the tutors secretly give them a cheat sheet list of all the test answers; they still have to answer the questions the same as everyone else. If somebody puts more time into studying, whether on their own or with a tutor or with their parents, they'll do better than somebody who didn't.

908B64B197 4y ago

>> They have “polish.” > Standardized test scores are the hardest metric to game, and hence, are most under attack. All this talk about equity is the most convenient and cost-effective way to eliminate the one barrier that most vexes rich parents. It's also a good way to sneak in affirmative action (racial discrimination really) in places where voters and taxpayers repeatedly said no, like in the UC system, since it removes an objective measure and leaves more "holistic" criterions an admission committee can use to accept or deny (without giving out any explanation) a candidate. [0] [0] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harberson-asian-american-admission-rates-20150609-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harberson-asian-...

bnralt 4y ago

> This is a simple and effective way of achieving the goals they claim to be championing. And what are the real goals of these institutions? The whole approach of having artificially limited education where people are sifted into higher and lower status classes based upon judgements made when they're teenagers is premised on elitism, not equity. That's the purpose of these institutions - not to education as many people as possible, but to restrict education to a privileged few in order to increase their own worth. Saying they're concerned about equity is like the casinos that put up signs saying they're concerned about gambling addiction. There's a reason why Harvard is happy to take people's money and give them an education in the Harvard Extension School, but why they firmly tell those people they can't call themselves Harvard graduates. Contrast this with OMSCS, where they firmly say an in-person degree and an online degree will be the same thing.

Glyptodon 4y ago
That public funds can go to private schools like Harvard is such a joke.
- torstenvl 4y ago
  Okay. Why? Some of the public funds come by way of Pell Grants. What's so terrible about poor kids getting a top-tier education? Other mechanisms are research grants. You don't think it's in the public's interest to incentivize graduate students at top institutions to do socially beneficial research? Help me understand what your objection is to federal policy, and what you wish federal policy were instead.
  - docandrew 4y ago
    Harvard has an endowment worth more than $50B. Harvard grads are the ruling class of our nation, and their system of legacy admissions mean it’s essentially a hereditary system of nobility. This endowment isn’t taxed, and generates huge returns. Its one thing to defend poor kids getting a leg up with federal grants, but I’m not sure the ones who pay for it are the same ones who benefit, and the system seems to be enormously profitable for the private universities.

AtlasBarfed 4y ago

Allowing Rich kids in. THISSSSSSS!!!! is what it was always about. It amazes me how corrupt higher education is now. It is AMAZINGLY corrupt. There is this thing with getting old (I'm in late 40s now) where you think the world is going to hell, but really what is happening is that you are figuring out EXACTLY how fucked up everything is. However, sometimes things really are going to hell (increasing rich/poor divide, environment/global warming, vast increase in higher ed/healthcare/housing relative to inflation). Anyway, in this case, I still am trying to gauge if my fondness for the general institution of higher education circa late 1990s was actually still somewhat deserved at the time and it has _truly_ fallen apart in the next 25-30 years, or if it was this bad for the last 40-50 (I can argue there's a good chance it was a great institution in the 1960s fresh after post-WWII investment in higher ed by the gubberment). Anyone have thoughts? I personally think it is ACTUALLY worse, that the rise of the huge administrator/MBAs in higher ed has led to do-anything-for-a-buck, and it REALLY is this bad. Signs that it actually is bad: - the stupendous rise in cost / that little student loan crisis we have - the stupendous rise in Div I coaching salaries and facilities - the amount of frivolous facilities built - the rise of the minimum wage adjunct professor - the decline of import of tenure (revenue/publishing/research is now everything) - the decline of humanities. I still as a science guy look down at them, but they are historically important (as in over 1000s of years) to educational institutions. - grade inflation, it is pay for degree even in some Ivies it appears now

lordnacho 4y ago
> There is this thing with getting old (I'm in late 40s now) where you think the world is going to hell, but really what is happening is that you are figuring out EXACTLY how fucked up everything is. This is so true. When I was younger I thought "oh what a cynical thought, I should cheer up and be less gloomy". Now I realize I was right. The sheer amount of waste arising from badly managed orgs with wrong incentives is just enormous. This is why we don't have flying cars and teleporters. If you consider that universities these days let in a lot more people, it's inevitable that the academic level is lower. Back in the day someone doing a phd had a reasonable chance of becoming a professor. Now there's so many people the university is not really for producing knowledge, that's just a side business to giving a stamp of approval to your average middle class kid who is not gonna be doing research.

ww520 4y ago

Legacy admission should have been abolished long time ago. It’s systematic racism. Legacy admission has been part of the official admission system for the longest time. It's a system to favor the incumbents, the riches, the powerful, and the non-minority. It's used to ensure to give the elites are systematic unfair advantage.

s1artibartfast 4y ago

The core problem is that merit-based entrance is inherently at odds with equality of outcome. Families that are better off rais more capable children on average

Glyptodon 4y ago
I think they raise children who are more effectively socialized and protected more so than more capable. I've known very capable people who don't have the status to refuse to kiss rings and they always get screwed in public schools. The kids with sufficiently "decent" parents get handled with kid gloves and rule adherence, everyone else gets punched down with half-assery even when if they're experiencing injustice and unfairness. Have known so many bright kids who get nowhere because of schools.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  I'm not sure I follow everything you wrote. Are you saying that poverty produces children and individuals more capable of driving and succeeding in society?
  - Glyptodon 4y ago
    No. That if one kid is poor or minority or unstable background, etc., and a bit of a loose cannon, they'll get graded lower for the same answers, punished or dismissed if they question anything, not going to be able or willing to check in before school or after class for more help, etc., meanwhile goody two shoes daughter of the town dentists will give the same answers, socialize better with the teacher, who knows the parent's status, and likes the kid, give her points back, and by the end of the semester they'll both be just as smart, but one will have an A- and the other a C+. Basically kids having the "right" kind of parents and community connections and behavioral signifiers is at least ~1 letter grade overall regardless of students and ability.

wefarrell 4y ago

Wouldn’t rank within their school be the hardest metric to game, since schools tend to be fairly segregated with respect to income levels? The only way to game that metric would be for the wealthy to send their kids to schools that perform worse, which would wind up driving more resources to those schools.

nradov 4y ago

The admissions essays show polish because they are written (or at least heavily edited) by parents and paid consultants.

setgree 4y ago

Banning legacy admissions is a coordination problem. Try to eliminate it at one school and parents (re: donors) will raise an uproar. It would need to be eliminated at the whole cohort of peer schools to eliminate parents’ exit option. Semi-related anecdote: my alma mater got huge pushback from donors when it tried to eliminate its football team [0], which was legendarily bad and a recruiting nightmare to boot (apparently football rosters can be 100+, though Swarthmore’s was ~53). So there was about as clear a case for elimination as you could hope for, and still it was a big controversy that impacted the school where administrators tend to notice — its endowment. So when we talk about eliminating legacy admissions, I picture that, but just a thousand times worse. [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/05/sports/football-no-more-football-lots-of-questions.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/12/05/sports/football-no-more-f...

tomp 4y ago

This is a general question for the whole "social justice" movement. If you're concerned about the wellbeing of black people, and you justify your concern with statistics pointing out that they're disproportionately poor, why not, instead of instituting preferential treatment for black people (which, btw, is racist), you support preferential treatment for poor people instead? That way, you are more efficient (e.g. your resources aren't wasted on Obama's daughters, who are certainly sufficiently privileged already), while also helping people who weren't captured by your superficial assessment ("black <==> poor").

erikpukinskis 4y ago
The basic hypotheses for the pro-affirmative action crowd are: 1) Black people are not actually less “good at stuff”, we just have a habit of defining “stuff” in a way that excludes the things that black people are more likely to excel at. And, 2) Where black people do statistically worse, it’s not due to any innate difference, it’s because socially accepted “normal” support systems are more useful for people with challenges more common in white populations than challenges common in black populations. So the idea is, if you change the support systems and measures of success to be more universal, the differences will go away. And then the metric for whether administrative bodies have succeeded in this is “equal outcomes”. What you call “racism”. But the inferences on which this affirmative action position are based make rational sense. There’s no logical flaw. There’s no conclusive evidence for these hypothesis either, but they are logically plausible. The opposite perspective is the same: rational, yet lacking any basis in evidence. That is the perspective that black people, through biology, socialization, and/or culture, are actually “worse at stuff”. And the support systems and performance metrics are fair. There’s no way to prove something is “fair” or “not fair” in the face of “unequal outcomes”. It just comes down to what you want to believe. There’s no rational basis to come to one conclusion or the other. I choose to believe that all of the big categories of people are pretty similarly “good at things” but I can acknowledge that belief is a leap of faith. The truth is unknowable.
- paulolc 4y ago
  No. The truth is not unknowable. Some truth is unknowable, though.

User23 4y ago

> If equity is so important, why not grant preferential treatment to all children coming from families that aren't upper-middle-class? Or ban legacy preferences at the very least? Because the equity that the school cares about above all else is its endowment, and rich family legacies give more than anyone else by far.

morelandjs 4y ago

This is an interesting idea. You could stratify the admissions process by family income level, and set bars for admission at each level that ensure an equal distribution of admissions relative to the population distribution of income.

kodah 4y ago

All of these takes ignore the fact that college shouldn't be a privilege. As long as we keep to the point that only a select few can go to college then we'll keep fighting over scraps. Nobody in this debate wants a meritocracy because implementing one would harm their interests.

kwhitefoot 4y ago

> legacy preferences Why does this even exist?

pjscott 4y ago
There's a market for getting underqualified students into fancy universities via legalized semi-bribery, but it would be bad for their image if they openly admitted to it. Hence the obfuscation.
wheelinsupial 4y ago
"In the United States, legacy admissions in universities date back to the 1920s. Elite schools used legacy admissions to maintain spots for Anglo-Protestants amid fears that Jews, Catholics, and Asians were increasingly taking spots at the schools.[7][8]" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_preferences
twiddling 4y ago
How do you think some of those fancy new wings/building get their names?
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  Where I come from some are named for illustrious alumni, some of whom financed the building. But as far as I know it didn't give their offspring an easier way to get accepted as students.

indymike 4y ago

> If equity is so important, why not grant preferential treatment to all children coming from families that aren't upper-middle-class? College education has always been sold as a way to keep your children elite, and to the less well-to-do, as a golden ticket to being elite. The issue with education is that it has been marketed as the ultimate wealth signal: "My daughter is attending ______." (too bad for your daughter who is at ______ State) > Standardized test scores are the hardest metric to game, and hence, are most under attack. While this is true, standardized tests tend to favor children from more stable family situations and higher levels of wealth. The attack on the SAT is usually from the side favoring evening the odds for less financially advantaged groups.

dgs_sgd 4y ago

Equity is not actually important, and the author said it saliently in this paragraph > Elite colleges are eliminating standardized tests before they eliminate legacy admissions. Tells you all you need to know.

cm2187 4y ago

That sounds like conspiracy theory. I think it is more likely the combination of ordinary racism with woke militantism. They think certain minorities aren't smart enough to pass SAT standards so the solution to get more of them in, is to not test for SAT. It's the same stupidity that leads well-thinking liberals to bring their kids to drag strip shows because in their little mind "trans = gogo dancers in gay clubs".

roland35 4y ago

Interestingly I feel the same way about coding interviews, which HN seems to hate. I feel like studying and doing well on my coding interviews helped me get into top companies that otherwise would probably pass over my decidedly non-elite resume.

cactus2093 4y ago

I have a really hard time believing this is being actively driven by collusion among rich families who know they could game non-SAT metrics. It would require a huge organizational effort, and for what? It's still not going to be a sure thing to get their kids in, there's gonna be even more randomness in the process after this change than there is now. And sending your kids to elite an school doesn't even buy them that much anyway if you're already rich & influential, you can pull strings to get them a job after they graduate from a mediocre school. It's much easier to believe that this is being driven by college administrators who know that the way to advance their careers in the current climate is by passing radical social justice changes, and this particular idea is simply an organically popular fad among social justice influencers so it's the one they've latched onto.

andrepd 4y ago

I've made this proposal several times: judge an applicant by his/her delta relative to their cohort. For example (highly simplified) a kid from a wealthy family in a nice neighbourhood statistically scores 70% on average, if he scores 80 that's a +10. A kid from a poor single-parent household going to a dilapidated school where scores are 40% on average, if he scores 70 that's a +30. Very rough example but the idea is this. Philosophically/ethically, it seems better. But practically as well: you want to admit the students most likely to excel if given the high quality resources at your university. Among a kid with all the comforts and private tutoring and all that, and a kid who rose way above his shitty lot in life, wouldn't the latter fit that description better?

Gunax 4y ago
There is always a way to manipulate it. In this case, one would seek to downplay their own cohort.

berjin 4y ago

I've seen this play out in a non-US country. My friend with wealthier parents got his loans paid because his parents didn't earn an 'income' and thus the state interpreted them as being poor. In reality they were fairly well off business owners who had a good accountant who channeled the cash flows through the lowest taxed entities.

77pt77 4y ago

> get recommendation letters from important people, stack their resumes with extracurriculars, and use the right slogans in their admissions essays. They have “polish.” Or they just completely fake it, like a few cases that were discovered a few years ago. [1] Let's be honest though. Those with less "polish" that would be admitted on purely objective/anonymous merit might even excel academically at the university, but they would be excluded by the very same social games being played here. Sometimes they might even be told that explicitly but usually an excuse will be concocted. The real question should be: > What is more cruel, excluding them early on or allowing them to "win" but then ignore them completely when the benefits of that are to be distributed? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varsity_Blues_scandal

dan-robertson 4y ago

I wonder if it would be better to just have a system where there are some number of elite university places set aside at some very high price for the rich. Perhaps the problem is the price would be too high / number of places too small that there would still be an incentive to try to get in through the ‘normal’ route. Plenty of top schools already set tuition prices based on family income. It should satisfy people who want elite universities to be places to rub shoulders with other elites. My hope is that such a policy would reduce the incentive to game the ordinary system by throwing money at it. But I guess the whole thing feels terribly unegalitarian and so couldn’t happen. Perhaps an easier improvement would be if enrolment could be massively (say >2x) increased at elite schools.

leishman 4y ago

If legacy wealthy kids can’t go to elite schools then the schools will not be elite. The schools the elite’s children go to are, by definition, the elite schools.

cyanydeez 4y ago

Meh, meaningless. Those kids get in regardless. The SAT has flaws, like AIs trained on criminal records has flaws. Getting rid of a flawed test won't suddenly make rich privilege suddenly increase

mseidl 4y ago
The SAT was designed as a general intelligence test. But the fact you can study for it and improve your score made that false. Zoe Bee did a good video on grades... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe-SZ_FPZew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fe-SZ_FPZew