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Do universities keep admissions data at that granular of a level? I would add a generic “culture fit” component to each candidate score which you could use as a

Do universities keep admissions data at that granular of a level? I would add a generic “culture fit” component to each candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit legacies without calling them as such.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Do universities keep admissions data at that granular of a level? In my experience, yes. (It's an outright question on many college applications.) But this law, together with the older one, mandate recording and retaining these data. > would add a generic “culture fit” component to each candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit legacies without calling them as such This is a good way to turn a reporting requirement into criminal conspiracy with intent to defraud the state charges.
- kurthr 2y ago
  Yeah, I don't think so. There's no paper trail. Whether it's in person interviews or not, having a "culture fit" isn't what's in the law. Unless, allowing in legacies is mandated from above and documented, you're gonna have a hard time showing criminal conspiracy. If the form doesn't allow you to put in "legacy" commentary, there will even be "evidence" that it wasn't. If you want to embarrass them, just do it. Spend the capital (political or otherwise) to put it in the media, but pretending it's going to criminal court is kinda out there without some other political motive. Frankly, there are bigger discrimination problems for qualified applicants than legacy for admissions at the most selective colleges. Certainly, nobody is going to prevent "athletic" ability, "extracurricular" experience, or SAT coaching in admissions.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > having a "culture fit" isn't what's in the law Sure, alumni interviews may favor legacy, though if alumni start broadly asking about it I could see legislation targeting that being inspired. > allowing in legacies is mandated from above and documented, you're gonna have a hard time showing criminal conspiracy OP seemed to suggest creating a dummy variable to stand in for legacy. If that were to happen, and you could find communications basically admitting the purpose of that variable is to evade the law, yes, I could see criminal charges being brought. More pointedly, you're describing an issue common to anti-discrimination law in general.
    - kurthr 2y ago
      You seem well versed in this. Has there been a prosecution for academic criminal discrimination or criminal conspiracy to avoid discrimination protection in the last 20 years? I mean there's Title IX, but the Supreme Court has blocked even sex discrimination rules. https://www.npr.org/2024/08/16/nx-s1-5064627/supreme-court-schools https://www.npr.org/2024/08/16/nx-s1-5064627/supreme-court-s...
      - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
        > Has there been a prosecution for academic criminal discrimination or criminal conspiracy to avoid discrimination protection in the last 20 years? I don't think anyone has been doing it. Race-based discrimination was, until recently, legal.
        kurthr 2y ago
        No one has been prosecuting it, or none of the 6000 some odd universities/colleges have discriminated in the last 20 years? I can believe the former, but not the latter. If it's the former, why do you think they would suddenly start prosecuting now for a difficult to prove criminal conspiracy to allow legacy admissions? Political reasons?
        lazide 2y ago
        Actually, until very recently race-based discrimination in college admissions was required wasn’t it?
        kenjackson 2y ago
        It has never been required.
        lazide 2y ago
        It was if they had any interaction with the US Federal Government, which almost all colleges or universities do in various ways. [https://www.oeod.uci.edu/policies/aa_history.php https://www.oeod.uci.edu/policies/aa_history.php] There is still an active executive order requiring all government contractors to do it too. Which includes companies like Google. It’s been a thing since the 70’s - to various degrees of enforcement.
  - serial_dev 2y ago
    There is no paper trail so there won’t be many criminal cases… …but there is no paper trail so they might not be able to “fast track” legacy kids into the university so easily, it’s logistically hard to cheat for so many kids during the many steps of the process without creating a ton of evidence. I don’t think it will make the problem go away, but I do think it will reduce the number of legacy rich kids getting accepted, simply because the bar is put higher (for parents’ influence).
fshbbdssbbgdd 2y ago
They ask on the admission form if you are a legacy, and legacy applicants answer yes because it helps them get in. So that’s very easy to track. Parents who get their kids admitted by donating millions of dollars presumably get a more “white glove” service, and I don’t know if that’s tracked in the same way.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > Parents who get their kids admitted by donating millions of dollars presumably get a more “white glove” service, and I don’t know if that’s tracked in the same way A lawyer for Students for Fair Admissions "quizzed [Harvard College’s long-serving Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid] on the 'Dean’s Interest List,' a special and confidential list of applicants Harvard compiles every admissions cycle. Though the University closely guards the details, applicants on that list are often related to or of interest to top donors — and court filings show list members benefit from a significantly inflated acceptance rate" [1]. [1] https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/day-three-harvard-admissions-trial/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/day-three-harv...
  - slt2021 2y ago
    if a donor's kid get accepted in exchange for $10 mln donation - that funds 20 scholarships to underrepresented students - is it a good policy or not??? would you rather have no legacy admits and ZERO scholarships whatsoever ? or would you prefer to have some number of legacies + scholarships and new buildings funded from their donations ???
    - rvba 2y ago
      Zero legacies. If the university is suppised to produce good students ir shouldnt be that 1 student in 21 is a complete dud. Because that's how it works, they are duds, who cant be kicked out and they will get their diploma even if they cant read. In theory (not reality) those who finish top universities should be top people. To tell it other way: would you be happy if 1 car in 21 didn drive? Or 1 apple in 21 was poisonous? The top universities have long watered down their achivements anyway. Most is just pure nepotism.
vineyardmike 2y ago
> I would add a generic “culture fit” component to each candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit legacies without calling them as such. This is not new. This is a battle as old as time. Want to keep out poor people? Require them to live on campus instead of locally at home. Want to keep out the wrong kind of person? Start requiring college essays to get a "culture fit". Or add "geographic diversity" to get less NYC Jews, or require "well rounded" candidates that do more than pass tests to keep out Asian Americans. Or conduct interviews so you can see their race in-person without asking for it on a form. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_higher_education_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_higher_educat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._Harvard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v...
- like_any_other 2y ago
  Before wringing our hands too much about antisemitism or anti-Asian prejudice in universities, this is what the demographics of the Ivy League looked like in 2023: https://archive.org/download/ivy_league/ivy_league.png https://archive.org/download/ivy_league/ivy_league.png
  - sequoia 2y ago
    The point of this law is to reward merit and hard work and discourage universities from offering back-doors for wealthy donors and alums. The point of it is to encourage fairness. Unless you're suggesting that Asians are overrepresented because their parents are part of an elite old-boys network that gives them an unfair advantage, I think you're missing the point here. If you want to suppress the number of Asians in school because their numbers at ivies are out of proportion with their numbers in the broader population, it sounds like you want more legacy-style admissions rules, not fewer. Maybe this is what you're suggesting and I just I'm just misunderstanding you.
    - like_any_other 2y ago
      I'm not suggesting anything, just adding needed context to the discussion. E.g. if you want to suggest that these institutions are rife with systemic white supremacy, be my guest. Just include in your assertions explanations for why there are, per capita, 8x as many Asians, 11x as many Jews, and 1.4x as many Blacks, as there are non-Jewish Whites, in the Ivies, despite Whites' many privileges. Edit: Self-selection is at best an incomplete explanation. It fails to explain how, when comparing non-Jewish Whites vs Blacks, Whites' 177-point average SAT-score lead results in a 1.4x admission penalty. Meanwhile Asians' 73-point lead over Whites becomes an 8x admission advantage. Scoring well on the SAT is an advantage for other groups, but somehow a disadvantage for non-Jewish Whites.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
j45 2y ago
Yes, it is far more detailed than I anticipated in the US, and likely compared to other counties. I have worked on some enrolment and "lead generation" systems and databases in the US college space, including for high-schools and summer students. The slicing and dicing of the data on the students leading to enrolment was quite detailed, even if the multiple SQL databases were not.
xhkkffbf 2y ago
I've heard that places like MIT quietly tell their alumni that their children have a better chance because "they know what they're getting into." And this may be true. But it's a way for them to have their cake and eat it too. They loudly proclaim they don't allow legacies. Then they quietly give them a boost on "cultural fit."

JumpCrisscross 2y ago

> Do universities keep admissions data at that granular of a level? In my experience, yes. (It's an outright question on many college applications.) But this law, together with the older one, mandate recording and retaining these data. > would add a generic “culture fit” component to each candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit legacies without calling them as such This is a good way to turn a reporting requirement into criminal conspiracy with intent to defraud the state charges.

kurthr 2y ago
Yeah, I don't think so. There's no paper trail. Whether it's in person interviews or not, having a "culture fit" isn't what's in the law. Unless, allowing in legacies is mandated from above and documented, you're gonna have a hard time showing criminal conspiracy. If the form doesn't allow you to put in "legacy" commentary, there will even be "evidence" that it wasn't. If you want to embarrass them, just do it. Spend the capital (political or otherwise) to put it in the media, but pretending it's going to criminal court is kinda out there without some other political motive. Frankly, there are bigger discrimination problems for qualified applicants than legacy for admissions at the most selective colleges. Certainly, nobody is going to prevent "athletic" ability, "extracurricular" experience, or SAT coaching in admissions.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > having a "culture fit" isn't what's in the law Sure, alumni interviews may favor legacy, though if alumni start broadly asking about it I could see legislation targeting that being inspired. > allowing in legacies is mandated from above and documented, you're gonna have a hard time showing criminal conspiracy OP seemed to suggest creating a dummy variable to stand in for legacy. If that were to happen, and you could find communications basically admitting the purpose of that variable is to evade the law, yes, I could see criminal charges being brought. More pointedly, you're describing an issue common to anti-discrimination law in general.
  - kurthr 2y ago
    You seem well versed in this. Has there been a prosecution for academic criminal discrimination or criminal conspiracy to avoid discrimination protection in the last 20 years? I mean there's Title IX, but the Supreme Court has blocked even sex discrimination rules. https://www.npr.org/2024/08/16/nx-s1-5064627/supreme-court-schools https://www.npr.org/2024/08/16/nx-s1-5064627/supreme-court-s...
    - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
      > Has there been a prosecution for academic criminal discrimination or criminal conspiracy to avoid discrimination protection in the last 20 years? I don't think anyone has been doing it. Race-based discrimination was, until recently, legal.
      - kurthr 2y ago
        No one has been prosecuting it, or none of the 6000 some odd universities/colleges have discriminated in the last 20 years? I can believe the former, but not the latter. If it's the former, why do you think they would suddenly start prosecuting now for a difficult to prove criminal conspiracy to allow legacy admissions? Political reasons?
      - lazide 2y ago
        Actually, until very recently race-based discrimination in college admissions was required wasn’t it?
        kenjackson 2y ago
        It has never been required.
        lazide 2y ago
        It was if they had any interaction with the US Federal Government, which almost all colleges or universities do in various ways. [https://www.oeod.uci.edu/policies/aa_history.php https://www.oeod.uci.edu/policies/aa_history.php] There is still an active executive order requiring all government contractors to do it too. Which includes companies like Google. It’s been a thing since the 70’s - to various degrees of enforcement.
- serial_dev 2y ago
  There is no paper trail so there won’t be many criminal cases… …but there is no paper trail so they might not be able to “fast track” legacy kids into the university so easily, it’s logistically hard to cheat for so many kids during the many steps of the process without creating a ton of evidence. I don’t think it will make the problem go away, but I do think it will reduce the number of legacy rich kids getting accepted, simply because the bar is put higher (for parents’ influence).

fshbbdssbbgdd 2y ago

They ask on the admission form if you are a legacy, and legacy applicants answer yes because it helps them get in. So that’s very easy to track. Parents who get their kids admitted by donating millions of dollars presumably get a more “white glove” service, and I don’t know if that’s tracked in the same way.

JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> Parents who get their kids admitted by donating millions of dollars presumably get a more “white glove” service, and I don’t know if that’s tracked in the same way A lawyer for Students for Fair Admissions "quizzed [Harvard College’s long-serving Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid] on the 'Dean’s Interest List,' a special and confidential list of applicants Harvard compiles every admissions cycle. Though the University closely guards the details, applicants on that list are often related to or of interest to top donors — and court filings show list members benefit from a significantly inflated acceptance rate" [1]. [1] https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/day-three-harvard-admissions-trial/ https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/day-three-harv...
- slt2021 2y ago
  if a donor's kid get accepted in exchange for $10 mln donation - that funds 20 scholarships to underrepresented students - is it a good policy or not??? would you rather have no legacy admits and ZERO scholarships whatsoever ? or would you prefer to have some number of legacies + scholarships and new buildings funded from their donations ???
  - rvba 2y ago
    Zero legacies. If the university is suppised to produce good students ir shouldnt be that 1 student in 21 is a complete dud. Because that's how it works, they are duds, who cant be kicked out and they will get their diploma even if they cant read. In theory (not reality) those who finish top universities should be top people. To tell it other way: would you be happy if 1 car in 21 didn drive? Or 1 apple in 21 was poisonous? The top universities have long watered down their achivements anyway. Most is just pure nepotism.

vineyardmike 2y ago

> I would add a generic “culture fit” component to each candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit legacies without calling them as such. This is not new. This is a battle as old as time. Want to keep out poor people? Require them to live on campus instead of locally at home. Want to keep out the wrong kind of person? Start requiring college essays to get a "culture fit". Or add "geographic diversity" to get less NYC Jews, or require "well rounded" candidates that do more than pass tests to keep out Asian Americans. Or conduct interviews so you can see their race in-person without asking for it on a form. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_higher_education_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_higher_educat... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v._Harvard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_v...

like_any_other 2y ago
Before wringing our hands too much about antisemitism or anti-Asian prejudice in universities, this is what the demographics of the Ivy League looked like in 2023: https://archive.org/download/ivy_league/ivy_league.png https://archive.org/download/ivy_league/ivy_league.png
- sequoia 2y ago
  The point of this law is to reward merit and hard work and discourage universities from offering back-doors for wealthy donors and alums. The point of it is to encourage fairness. Unless you're suggesting that Asians are overrepresented because their parents are part of an elite old-boys network that gives them an unfair advantage, I think you're missing the point here. If you want to suppress the number of Asians in school because their numbers at ivies are out of proportion with their numbers in the broader population, it sounds like you want more legacy-style admissions rules, not fewer. Maybe this is what you're suggesting and I just I'm just misunderstanding you.
  - like_any_other 2y ago
    I'm not suggesting anything, just adding needed context to the discussion. E.g. if you want to suggest that these institutions are rife with systemic white supremacy, be my guest. Just include in your assertions explanations for why there are, per capita, 8x as many Asians, 11x as many Jews, and 1.4x as many Blacks, as there are non-Jewish Whites, in the Ivies, despite Whites' many privileges. Edit: Self-selection is at best an incomplete explanation. It fails to explain how, when comparing non-Jewish Whites vs Blacks, Whites' 177-point average SAT-score lead results in a 1.4x admission penalty. Meanwhile Asians' 73-point lead over Whites becomes an 8x admission advantage. Scoring well on the SAT is an advantage for other groups, but somehow a disadvantage for non-Jewish Whites.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

j45 2y ago

Yes, it is far more detailed than I anticipated in the US, and likely compared to other counties. I have worked on some enrolment and "lead generation" systems and databases in the US college space, including for high-schools and summer students. The slicing and dicing of the data on the students leading to enrolment was quite detailed, even if the multiple SQL databases were not.

xhkkffbf 2y ago

I've heard that places like MIT quietly tell their alumni that their children have a better chance because "they know what they're getting into." And this may be true. But it's a way for them to have their cake and eat it too. They loudly proclaim they don't allow legacies. Then they quietly give them a boost on "cultural fit."