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Let me try to make a defense of Legacy Admissions (highly unpopular I know). I come from a country with a purely meritocratic examination based college admissio

• MostlyStable 1y ago
  To whatever extent this is true (I'm not convinced it is, schools that aren't prestige aren't "irrelevant"), it is an indictment on the schools. This argument is a capitulation to the signaling hypothesis of higher ed. I believe at the least a weak version of the hypothesis, but I absolutely do not believe we should just roll over and say "well, that's the way it is". It may be the way things work, but this is a very important is/ought distinction. I think we should be fighting _very_ hard for the "ought" version.
  • sashank_1509 1y ago
    Yeah in my view, the primary value of undergrad in college, is the social connections you make and the status it grants you. If this was not the primary value of college what else can it be. What should it ought be. It certainly is not knowledge nor can it be knowledge. You learn far more in a single year on the job than in your four year college degree (and I say this as an engineer). In fact I think a STEM degree is mostly superfluous except for the connections you make in college which is very important.
    • tw04 1y ago
      A 4 year college is primarily about teaching you how to think critically. It’s also about proving to a company that you can be responsible enough to show up every day and get you work done. Finally it’s about ensuring you have a base level of knowledge so that all that learning you claim you’ll do in one year on the job can actually occur. “I didn’t learn anything in college” is either exaggerated arrogance, or you were doing something very, very wrong in undergrad.
      • ghaff 1y ago
        I absolutely have gotten industry jobs through my work network and, doubtless, through where I went to school to some degree. But basically zero of those have been through people I met in school. The school network aspect is almost certainly overstated in most cases. I've never gotten a job offer through a classmate or college professor.
        • coderatlarge 1y ago
          i got my first industry job through interview performance, but in later job transitions my university affiliation ended up playing a major role because certain employers are extremely focused on certain feeder schools, at least for periods of their existence often through founder bias or because it buys a certain kind of harmony based on shared experience and shared world-view.
        • eastbound 1y ago
          Atlassian’s founders are two college mates - one from rich background, one who couldn’t afford a computer until 12. One example of a multi billion dollars company offsets the idea.
          • ghaff 1y ago
            Sure. College mates start companies together. I'm friends with a bunch of people who started a now defunct gaming company more or less out of school. I know others who basically got their jobs because people they knew from undergrad activities were editors or whatnot. But there's this mythology that the main reason you go to Harvard (which I didn't attend) is to network with movers and shakers isn't generally true in the main.
• vlovich123 1y ago
  Those diplomas are super important to those connected and wealthy people, arguably moreso because it’s a form of reputation laundering - “I’m not just billionaire X’s child, I also got into to Stanford a university for smart people”.
• fn-mote 1y ago
  In this vein, think of the Stanford brand. You can not only ensure your own success, but you are buying a leg up for future generations of your family… even at full price, it’s a bargain. Not /s but not /100% serious either.
• meroes 1y ago
  Yep. The big companies set the real qualifications when they hire. Schools are just preparing them for that, pretending otherwise with made up standards/exams is a misstep—the big companies prize connections.
• light_hue_1 1y ago
  Let me refute that defense. I went to the kinds of schools we're talking about and I had a lab at them for over a decade. If you went to an elite school and your kid can't get in by competing fairly with other kids, they're subpar and shouldn't get in. Kids of legacies have a massive advantage even if their legacy status is totally ignored. For example, I'm certain that I can get my kids into MIT (they're a bit young right now). I know exactly what they need to do, how they need to present themselves, what classes to take, courses, extracurriculars, how to stand out, who to ask for letters, who to ask for opportunities like time in a research lab, etc. I've even helped other kids make plans and then get in. Same for my wife for the Ivy League school she attended. Those connections, peers, knowledge, resources, etc. are hard to match. If the kids decide they want to do that. There's no reason to give these kids (my own included!) any other advantage. They're born with such a massive head start that it's hard to lose, if they put in the work. If they don't, then they shouldn't go to these places. The only thing legacy admissions do is take away opportunities from students that deserve to be there. Stanford/Harvard/etc. shouldn't get a dime of state or federal funding as long as they continue to do this.
  • jjmarr 1y ago
    I'm certain by the time your kids are applying for MIT the standards will be much higher and your advice will be less relevant. I know a professor charging high schoolers to be his research assistant, because there's too many people asking for research labs roles. I know people that got into top business schools because they already had thousands in MRR in high school.
    • light_hue_1 1y ago
      You're thinking like an outsider instead of an insider. My friend's kids are going there ahead of mine. I know plenty of people there, including folks involved in admissions. I'm contacted to write letters for candidates. etc. You stay plugged into the system. I have no idea what mechanism a faculty member would use to charge a highschool student. But I think that's rather unethical and useless. Finances of labs are such that this money is worthless. In any case, plenty of labs, mine included have several highschool students at any one time. But guess how you get in? With connections.
• oaktowner 1y ago
  > If you remove the people born into privilege, from attending your college, all you succeed is in making your college irrelevant, I don't think that the Cal Grants program was ever designed to remove those people from the program. It was designed to make sure they didn't get an advantage. In other words, it was prevent universities from letting people who otherwise would not have made the grade in just because their parents made the grade. Giving alumni's children an advantage isn't giving an advantage to "the smartest, most charismatic, most talented people" -- it's giving an advantage to the luckiest (the ones who happened to be born into it). And the phrase "it would be ideal if those born into privilege could also clear the SAT" is such a strange one. OF COURSE rich people can "clear the SAT;" in fact, they get the advantage of MUCH better preparation, etc. So this is absolutely about giving an advantage to kids who could not qualify on their own. To be clear: I don't think Stanford is doing this to keep poor people out (their scholarships have always been very generous). But I do think the administration probably done some basic calculation: they get more in donations from alumni who want legacy admissions for their progeny than they get from Cal Grants. And Stanford has decided that accepting some kids who just don't make the grade is worth that economic advantage.
  • late2part 1y ago
    you're missing his point. Cal Grants removes an advantage that actually functions in the real world.
    • AlexandrB 1y ago
      You could make the same argument for why any kind of prejudice should be allowed since, for example, racism provides an advantage that functions in the real world. This seems like a bad defence for legacy admissions.
      • zdragnar 1y ago
        Legacy admissions are preference, not prejudice.
        • 1y ago
• BrenBarn 1y ago
  > If you remove the people born into privilege, from attending your college, all you succeed is in making your college irrelevant, not those people irrelevant. This is an argument for stricter regulation, not more lenient. It means that schools that give such advantages to the already-privileged should not be able to even exist, nor should businesses that give such advantages in hiring, nor should any entity that gives such advantages. In other words, if this rule didn't succeed at making those people (or rather, their advantages) irrelevant, then we need an even harsher rule.
  • nradov 1y ago
    The last thing we need is to waste more tax money hiring an army of useless bureaucrats to micromanage corporate hiring practices. Inequality and privilege are preferable to that kind of dystopia. I've always found it bizarre how so many "progressives" think it's acceptable to use force to realize their preferred society.
    • otterley 1y ago
      > The last thing we need is to waste more tax money hiring an army of useless bureaucrats to micromanage corporate hiring practices. Does that include preventing discrimination based on race, religion, ethnic origin, gender, and age?
    • sapphicsnail 1y ago
      Conservatives are literally using force to realize their preferred society. What world do you live in?
      • sokoloff 1y ago
        And it’s ridiculous and should be repudiated, not copied and expanded in a different direction.
    • BrenBarn 1y ago
      > I've always found it bizarre how so many "progressives" think it's acceptable to use force to realize their preferred society. All law is the use of force to realize a preferred society.
• wat10000 1y ago
  Stanford effin’ University is not going to become irrelevant just because they stop admitting children of alums who otherwise wouldn’t qualify.
• JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  This is a good defence of a programme I've generally found abhorrent. What about this: public funding (and tax exemption) is reduced in proportion with the number of legacy students a university accepts? The idea being the university should be able to monetise these slots to more than compensate for the decline in public funding. And said slots do not serve a public purpose, but one more particular to the graduates of the university.
  • sokoloff 1y ago
    This requires a precise and careful definition of legacy student, I think. Is it a student whose admission decision was influenced by legacy status? Or merely someone who was a child of an alum? MIT claims to not have legacy status affect admissions decisions. Would their taxes increase if they admit the kid of an alum?
    • ghaff 1y ago
      I suspect it's a question that it's very hard to find direct answers to especially given how admissions on the margins are probably at least somewhat arbitrary. There are a lot of reasons why children of parents who attended an elite school probably have something of a leg up irrespective of how much money the parent has donated.
      • sokoloff 1y ago
        Exactly. I feel like you'd have to write such a law to be based on provable influence, rather than solely on outcomes. The last thing we want is for a school like Ohio State or Michigan to lose public funding and tax exemptions just because a lot of families have multiple generations of students attending them.
        • ghaff 1y ago
          A lot of the big state universities are pretty powerful magnets for people living in those states for a variety of reasons even before you factor in that a parent or two went there.
• deleted 1y ago
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• aaron695 1y ago
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• cakealert 1y ago
  People forget that while having a meritocracy is best for society, society doesn't make decisions, individuals do. And those individuals make decisions for their own benefit, not that of society. Colleges strike a balance by having some fraction be meritocracy, but going all in would be fatal. Networks of wealth and power will start to congregate elsewhere and if necessary sabotage the place which now hostile to their interests (which includes that of their offspring).
  • energy123 1y ago
    There are implications for US soft power. Would the institution carry the same prestige if it was purely meritocratic? If NO --> Would it be a magnet for overseas talent? Would Xi's daughter want to go to it? One can recognize the significant societal downsides while also recognizing the picture isn't very simple.
• coldtrait 1y ago
  IIT?
• jjani 1y ago
  > If you remove the people born into privilege, from attending your college, all you succeed is in making your college irrelevant, not those people irrelevant. Calling 99% of the world's universities irrelevant is certainly a take. And not a very intelligent one.
  • dividendpayee 1y ago
    Given the sheer number of “universities” that have sprung up, in practical terms he is almost certainly right.
    • int_19h 1y ago
      That is mostly an American thing.
  • com2kid 1y ago
    The point of going to an Ivy is to interact with the rich and powerful. It is a way for people to jump up a few social classes all in one go. If Stanford was just filled with kids who got high test scores, that purpose would be gone. Plenty of startups have a story "we met in college" and one had brains and another had the social connections and family finances to make things happen.
    • laidoffamazon 1y ago
      You're making a great case to shut all of them down and shun the graduates
      • com2kid 1y ago
        Why? The current system graduates kids from poor to not poor. Sure it is a small number, but it is one of the pathways for social mobility in our society.
        • isaacremuant 1y ago
• seydor 1y ago
  Countries that have military conscription do something similar: you mingle with everyone from the poorest to the very rich. Almost nothing comes out of it. Intentional networking can happen anywhere in life.
  • inglor_cz 1y ago
    Israel says that their military conscription indeed lowers some class barriers and helps the "startup nation" work. Details matter. If a conscription term lasts for 9 months and the richest people do their best to get their offspring exempted (which is how it worked in Czechia prior to professionalization of the army), I am not surprised by the lack of overall effect. If a conscription term lasts 3 years and the local elite feels compelled to take part (Israel), the effect may be much bigger. Note that college is closer to the latter in its parameters.
    • seydor 1y ago
      Israel's success is because it teaches people leadership and risk taking , not because it mingles them with dumb money. There are studies about it e.g. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289369969_The_effect_of_combat_service_and_military_rank_on_entrepreneurial_careers_The_case_of_Israeli_MBA_graduates https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289369969_The_effec...
      • inglor_cz 1y ago
        Maybe more countries should attempt to teach people leadership... if this is true, it looks like a fairly low-hanging fruit to be plucked.
        • gampleman 1y ago
          Talking to some older Czechs who experienced the system, perhaps teaching people … anything at all would prove superior. Apparently the worst thing about it was the complete disrespect for people’s time and talent.
  • 1y ago
• isaacremuant 1y ago
  Wow. Your underlying thesis is that the schools value and relevancy is only tied to the connections you can make. Which maybe in effect, in a broken system, is true. Just a class divider to try and get to the elite connections and climb status (from what I read about Ivy leagues) but education should not be that. It should about education and forming professionals not perpetuating inequality through unfair pay to win strategies. You pretend we need the established world order because this is how the world works but the actual world works in certain ways due to policy. The same policies that allow the rich to pay no taxes while the mid and poor do. I understand your attempt at a pessimistic yet pragmatic view but I think There is an alternative that still works and doesn't actually make universities "irrelevant". The wealthy unqualified can always be VCs/funders.
• 4ndrewl 1y ago
  > If you remove the people born into privilege, from attending your college, all you succeed is in making your college irrelevant, not those people irrelevant. You're not removing the people, you're removing the privilege. Those same people can still apply on the same terms as everyone else.
  • xboxnolifes 1y ago
    I think you missed the point. Part of the value of the college is the connections with these people.
    • BoorishBears 1y ago
      So then it's even better if they end up in other schools right? More exposure to less connected people who can derive value from knowing the child of someone who accomplished something. And students who get into the highly competitive schools where this matters most get by on nothing but a top-tier education? Seems like everyone wins honestly.
    • mathiaspoint 1y ago
      I think a better way to phrase what you're thinking is the social mobilizing utility/effect of college depends on making these connections.
• Ozzie_osman 1y ago
  > Of course it would be ideal if those born into privilege also could clear the SAT. They often do. Or at least are very close. I got into an elite engineering school (off the waitlist at the last minute, no donation/legacy), and the admission folks basically told me "we accept the top X, but if we just ignored the top X and took the next (X+1)-2X (or three), the result would be the same." Basically, these schools are so competitive that if you wiggle things a tiny bit, on the margin, you're not really sacrificing much. However, if they wiggle too much, that would obviously degrade pretty quickly. But from my experience, that hasn't been the case. So a school like Stanford is probably thinking, within the margin of noise, if we let in folks because their parents did well here as students/faculty/etc, that's probably net positive. The donor one is a bit different, but again, on the margin, and with some math around donations vs Cal Grant, they probably see it nets out better for them.
  • musicale 1y ago
    Admissions has a tricky job since there are many more outstanding students than they have slots for - even limiting to perfect test scores and grades (usually with top quality essays, recommendations, etc. as well.) Many applicants end up with the same admission ranking (and those rankings still have a large margin of error as you note). Selection becomes arbitrary, based on ancillary factors (hmm, how many concert pianists vs. cellists are we admitting? do we have too many prospective CS majors and too few history majors?) Which is why they argue that at the margin they can consider demographics (for example balancing the number of men and women), geographic origin, socioeconomic status, athletics, donor status, etc. Truly random would be fairer however. The problem has worsened over decades; applications have ballooned ~7x (600% increase) since the 1970s, while class size has only increased by 15%.
• highfrequency 1y ago
  Reasonable argument, but preference for students whose parents went to the exact same school seems like a very inefficient way to insert more wealth and power into the student body.