... but you sure as hell can make it inequitable. > Harvard gives preference to applicants who are recruited athletes, legacies, relatives of donors and childr

... but you sure as hell can make it inequitable. > Harvard gives preference to applicants who are recruited athletes, legacies, relatives of donors and children of faculty and staff. As a group, they make up less than 5 percent of applicants, but around 30 percent of those admitted each year. [1] The writer holds an MA in "Writing and Rhetoric", and a PhD in English. So why is he using equity and equality interchangeably, and basing his argument on those lines: > You Can't Make a Competitive Selection Process "Equitable" [...] you cannot make a competitive selection process a tool for equality, as the entire point of competitive selection is to identify inequality. > What are those students doing when they brag about themselves, list their accomplishments, try to impress the admissions officers? They’re saying, “I’m not like those other applicants, I’m better, we are unequal.” The lefty-woke brigade has never been about demanding that everyone's life be the same. The DeSantis definition: "the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them". Inequities. Not inequalities. Let's see what Yale/Stanford/Cornell prof Robert Sternberg says about standardised testing for admissions: > First, their content is “often trivial with little use outside an academic setting.” Second, “life never seems to present us with multiple choice or short answer responses to problems,” indicating a flaw in the response format. Finally, the issue of “equity,” as the tests “rely heavily on socialization in the middle to upper middle class” and “unfairly favor white and Asian students.” As Sternberg pointed out, this system creates an “illusion of knowledge” and “self-fulfilling prophecies.” [2] But hey, the writer seems to just love the prestige differential between universities, so I don't feel unfair in saying that maybe he was unaware of the above because he's a Purdue guy. > Why do people covet that status? Because coming from one of those institutions signals to employers, graduate schools, and your social peers that you are in some sense better than others. How long is that status going to last once people figure out that it's pay-to-play. Maybe there's no woke bogeyman pulling the strings. Maybe Ivy-league admissions know something you don't. Maybe they don't want to export footballers and presidential-hopefuls who went there to party and make connections. [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/us/politics/harvard-admissions-civil-rights-inquiry.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/25/us/politics/harvard-admis... [2] https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/standardized-tests-narrow-dont-assess-creative-skills-sternberg-contends https://www.hamilton.edu/news/story/standardized-tests-narro...