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I think legacy admissions is only supported by the elites —be they leftists or rightists. Normal leftists and normal rightists don’t support legacy admissions
by mc32 1y ago
I think legacy admissions is only supported by the elites —be they leftists or rightists. Normal leftists and normal rightists don’t support legacy admissions (pay to play). I think the vast majority of people would support fair admissions (GPA + something else that signals academic aptitude).
Most people would detest the extracurricular noise that some institutions use because often only people with money can afford their kids doing those things and two they are bullshit things. By most people I mean potential students such as those that in great numbers end up in state schools or community colleges.
- NewJazz 1y agoHow do you compare GPA across different schools?
- mc32 1y agoI think you can gauge that from the historical performance of students from those sources. Of course, there is a lag as schools either improve or dilute grades.
- NewJazz 1y agoHmm. Yeah it is a hard problem to solve. It is basically a mass interviewing system.
- acomjean 1y agoIsn’t that why standardized tests like the SAT/ACT… exist?
- simianwords 1y agoI agree with you but I meant both democrats and republicans are pushing merit based admissions. Gavin Newsom against legacy and Trump against DEI. On the point people vastly prefer GPA - I don’t agree because people on the left prefer DEI and affirmative action.
- rayiner 1y agoI think even most democrats oppose it: https://manhattan.institute/article/study-finds-most-democrats-oppose-affirmative-action-in-higher-education https://manhattan.institute/article/study-finds-most-democra.... Though unfortunately, it appears that what swings democrats from support to non-support is learning that it hurts asians, not just white people. :-/
- impossiblefork 1y agoYou can't be a leftist and support legacy admissions. You can be a right-liberal and support legacy admissions, but even the mildest mild-mild leftism would reject that kind of thing.
- kbelder 1y agoAnd yet they don't.
- impossiblefork 1y agoLiberals are not leftists. They are not egalitarians and they are not really for social equality. Allowing universities legacy admissions is a position so far to the right that I don't think any political party anywhere outside of the US propagates for it. There isn't a social democrat in Denmark or something who has vaguely leftist view but who also believes that universities should admit people based on their parents having gone there.
- philwelch 1y agoIf anyone really favored social equality they would support abolishing the elite universities entirely. Anything short of that still produces an identifiable class of people who attended these institutions, and it’s the existence of that class in the first place rather than its partly hereditary nature that runs counter to social equality.
- impossiblefork 1y agoHarvard-style elite universities, absolutely, and actual leftists do support abolishing them. CMU-style, or ETH-style or Independent University of Moscow-style elite universities are however probably an efficient use of resources.
- philwelch 1y agoIf you look at the political tendencies of the elite universities that themselves practice legacy admissions, those tendencies are overwhelmingly to the left of the American political center. I know it’s popular to make a “no true Scotsman” argument against anyone to the right of Mao Zedong but it’s silly.