What people don't realize is schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford don't select students for admission, they curate. My brother was on the admissions committee at Yale. A student with a 4.00 and 1600 SATs was no big deal, but a student who won the oboe competition in her state and had a 3.8 and 1530 was. My wife graduated summa cum laude from Yale, I graduated from Emory with no honors. She's no smarter than me and we're equally successful in our chosen fields. People get so upset about perceptions of status.That's challenged by someone who calls himself mendacityofhope: "I wonder if she believes you are as smart as she is?"
The first commenter comes back and says: "She be the first tell you that while she is far better read than I, she doesn't hold a candle to me in terms of practical knowledge. There are many kinds of intelligence." Ha ha. Classic answer — street smarts and different kinds of intelligence.
Mendacityofhope snarks back: "So true! You are correct about the curating thing too. Applicants are specimens in a grand butterfly collection."
By the way, there are 50 states and — what? — at least 20 different instruments in an orchestra, so that's a thousand big-deal applicants just on the level of that street-smart guy's hypothetical oboe girl. I love when bullshit is so obvious.
And — ironically — when you picture those thousand competition-winning orchestra kids, what ethnicity are you picturing? I'll bet classical music virtuosity counts for very little in the Ivy League admission process because it would help Asian American applicants. Or does it help a lot when you are not Asian-America but not at all when you are?
Posts
92 comments:
Mom said the bassoon would get me into Harvard, and I said,"Ma, you're nuts!"
So that commenter thinks Asians have good grades and test scores but don't win awards? That's not reality, so that idea must come from the guy's mind. Watch out, man, you've got racism like an admissions committee.
The only fair method is race neutral and meritocratic. Anything else IS racist. If universities are people by mostly Asian students, so be it!
Our plan is biggest pumpkin.
so that idea must come from the guy's mind
He should get a job with Harvard admissions.
The guy is correct, though, about the curating.
He doesn't address the actual evidence of how the curating is skewed.
My daughter did amazing things in high school - 99% SAT, ACT, top 1% of her class, work, volunteering, youth leadership, led a freaking Venture scout troop to Philmont, etc, etc. Hell, she sang the national anthem at her high school graduation - and nailed it.
She did not get into the major state school in FL. It's not even that competitive, really, and I suspect she was in the top 1% of the top 1% of candidates.
It's quite a mystery.
-XC
PS - She's very happy where she ended up and bears no grudges. Good kid.
I am getting damn sick and tired of things being curated.
I won't be surprised if next time I go to IHOP I find that the selection of 5-6 syrups is "curated".
I wonder what the professions of these two folks is?
For a good mini series on oboeists I recommend Mozart in the jungle. Less bullshit than Harvard's admission process, probably.
John Henry
In his book "Crazy U," the author (a Wash Post journalist getting his kid into college) observed that the Ivies can divide their class into thirds: legacies, big donors, and everyone else.
In other words, a third of the class is actually chosen based on some standard.
An admissions officer for one of the Ivies admitted that they have enough top applicants to fill four full classes, and there wouldn't be any difference among them.
Of course, that doesn't stop them from soliciting for more applications (my son was one). More applications = higher rejection rate = better rating on the U.S. News and World Report table.
Yes, even the Ivies care about their status.
"I wonder if she believes you are as smart as she is?" Do girls curate in husband admissions?
The issue is that the extracurricular methods were systematically used as a excuse to down weight Asians. It's discoverable whether comparable non Asians with similar profiles were treated the same. If Asians had their nonacademic activities minimized compared to others they have a strong case. I thought the entire case was brought because this data was already available.
The man has a point that we can place too much emphasis on status and that the prize they are fighting for is not that important. Maybe so, but the question is not about the value of a Harvard education but the whether it is offered fairly or not. There is plenty of reason, given past history, to believe it is not a fair process.
As always the best skill to have to get into the university of your choice is to be able to run very fast while hanging on tight to s football.
My wife graduated summa cum laude from Yale, I graduated from Emory with no honors. She's no smarter than me and we're equally successful in our chosen fields.
Schools defend their process this this argument but if it were true extremely selective employers wouldn't limit themselves to elite campuses. What are the chances Yale tells Big Law there's no difference between Yale and Emory students?
My long winded answer aside. The commenter has a point but it's not relevant to then main issue of just process.
If you heard the Harvard orchestra, you'd know they're not that into the oboists. Boston's full of music schools.
But Yale, on the other hand...
BTW, have we done a talk on the clarinetist from Montreal and his girlfriend yet in here? You can't imagine how big it was to get in Yehuda's studio. He is THE guy right now. Glad it worked out eventually.
It's a distraction. It doesn't matter if the goal is not worth much, this is a process question.
Do girls curate in husband admissions?
If they're smart they generally care about smarts.
Or does it help a lot when you are not Asian-America but not at all when you are?
Academia's goal is race-norming which many schools did directly until some were caught. Now they corrupt other evaluations to enact race-norming while maintaining deniability.
I've never seen an Asian oboe player. I wonder if they'd turn red like white oboe players do.
Here in Texas mariachi skillz are where it's at.
"at least 20 different instruments in an orchestra, so that's a thousand big-deal applicants just on the level"
Massive logic error here Ann. Not all instruments are equally available to orchestras.
FACT - oboe players are the TOUGHEST seat to fill in a college orchestra. This was reported in the WSJ some years ago. There are violin players aplenty in the applicant ranks.
The twisted timber of humanity: it's hubris to think that the admissions committee can "curate" a student body that is the Platonic ideal of a student body. The student body will reflect the ideals--read prejudices--of the selection committee at a particular moment in time. I suppose there was a time when the ideal was Anglo Saxon men with a strong Christian character. They've moved on. Maybe next decade they'll favor rap artists over oboe players. It changes......I've no objection to curated student bodies, but we should curate our elite colleges. Some university somewhere should have an absolutely merit based system of admission, and maybe another could give bright jocks who have mastered the playing of the oboe a leg up.
I would suggest that Harvard admissions is cherry-picked social engineering. As such, the Harvard admission selections show what they want elite America to be.
Harvard incoming class of 2021:
The majority of students consider themselves to be liberal. Forty-one percent described themselves as "somewhat liberal," 28% "very liberal," 19% as "moderate," 9% as "conservative," and 2.5% as "very conservative."
About 41% are legacy students.
52.1 percent of surveyed students said they are white, 23.8 percent of respondents identified as Asian, 11.4 percent as Black or African American, 10.2 percent as Hispanic or Latino, 1.7 percent as American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.8 percent as Pacific Islander.
82.5 percent percent of respondents said they identify as straight, 5.6 percent said they are gay, and 7.9 percent said they are bisexual. Roughly 3 percent reported that they are questioning their sexual orientation.
Harvard’s class hails from largely from the coasts, with a plurality— 39.4 percent—of students coming from the Northeast. The Southwestern states—Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma—sent fewer students than any other region, with 6.9 percent of respondents hailing from those states.
What I would be curious to see is the breakdown of the legacy students.
My assumption is that they are predominately status quo coastal white; I would also expect that they are a large majority of the overall white admissions.
What would Harvard look like if they were removed from the process? What is the percentage of whites and Asians that are NOT legacy?
-LWL
Slightly off topic: Are there any dilettante oboe players. I've known people who play the piano and violin as a form of relaxation, and I think most people take up the guitar to fuel their sexual fantasies of being a rock star on tour. But who plays the oboe just for fun? It seems to me that all oboe players are serious about playing the oboe. I would think that the oboe player's first choice would be Juilliard.
wouldn't the simplest way be to just have quotas for asians and jews? I mean, is it Really Fair to the rest of us that those people get better grades; just because they're smart and work hard?
</sarc
Unknown said...
Massive logic error here Ann.
One of several. The number of top musicians with a high SAT score in science is a much smaller number than the total number of top musicians.
@William
Short answer: Yes
Long answer: As rare as oboists are, there are still many many more than there are full-time playing jobs. Many are teaching oboe and/or working in another field, or teaching school band etc. Most cities have very accomplished wind bands filled with these folks who play for the joy of it. My wife and I have been playing in one of these groups for almost thirty years. It's one of those sub-cultures you have in the West that you don't see unless you're a fan of the music. Our group went to Europe last summer and played across Austria, and we hosted a band from France this past fall. If you're in a professional field of some kind, you probably know someone who plays some instrument very well and don't know it.
Example - both Ben Bernanke and Alan Greenspan played the saxophone at a professional level at some point. How about that.
Yes its because oboes are rare. Elite schools select the best student bodies, not the best students. Harvard Business School goes as far as selecting who will be in your clique.
There aee quotas for race, gender, state, nation...you know, all the things that shouldn’t matter.
Better to be an a minus female oboe fron Syria than the perfect student from New Jersey.
"She be the first tell you that while she is far better read than I,
Being well-read isn't intelligence.
she doesn't hold a candle to me in terms of practical knowledge.
Neither is possessing practical knowledge.
There are many kinds of intelligence."
Apparently that writer doesn't know what any of them are.
have we done a talk on the clarinetist from Montreal and his girlfriend yet in here?
I couldn't tell if the girlfriend was actually found before the lawsuit was decided.
In other unrelated news, that 'Principal of color' at Sherman Middle School in Madison has stepped down. Link.
How nice that the District is working hard to find another position for a failed Principal. I wonder how many School Leaders are saying Hell to the No when offered this prospective employee.
William said...
I would think that the oboe player's first choice would be Juilliard.
I occasionally listen to a WGBH program called From the Top. It features teenage classical musicians of real virtuosity introduced and briefly interviewed by host Christopher O'Riley. It's a charming program.
The young musicians fall into two broad categories. A small number that are already studying in a conservatory setting. A much larger number who are going to become doctors.
There is a high achievement in multiple areas at once rubric here.
Martin: Seattle's a big city. I'm sure there's a bunch of German fencing instructors, each one with dozens of students.
Frasier: Yes, but are they wealthy students?
Martin: [sarcastically] No, they're inner-city kids trying to work their way out of the ghetto with nothing but a foil and a dream.
Lots of pianists, violinists, and vocalists on that show. Too many.
William: Some university somewhere should have an absolutely merit based system of admission.
Caltech, so I'm told.
Funny, but I worked for big corporations for 35 years and can't recall one senior executive who went to an ivy league school. Maybe one who went to Wharton for his MBA. And I knew many who went to state schools or less prestigious schools that I had barely heard of.
It seems that only employers like government, education, and law value Ivy League degrees.
For profit corporations, who actually have to produce things that customers find valuable, while producing a return for their shareholders, don't particularly care where you went to school.
On a somwhate related note, I had a friend, an immigrant from China, who had a daughter. From the time her daughter was very young, this "Tiger Mom" plotted how to get her daughter into a top school. We had many conversations along those lines. The daughter went to a respected high school, got excellent test scores and grades, was active in everything, and oh by the way, was women's state champion golfer her Junior and Senior years.
She was denied acceptance at every one of the prestigious schools that she applied to, including Harvard.
Probably that thing about Asian girls being good at golf.
"For profit corporations, who actually have to produce things that customers find valuable, while producing a return for their shareholders, don't particularly care where you went to school."
-- Ivy leagues and advanced degrees are most important on your first hop out of college. After that, you've got personal accomplishments.
“The only fair method is race neutral and meritocratic. Anything else IS racist. If universities are people by mostly Asian students, so be it!”
Welcome to the University of Washington. Though it may just be a Pacific Rim thing.
I wouldn’t say Harvard’s position is completely without merit. What about the bright Black or White kid who doesn’t have the insanely ambitious Tiger Mom, driving her child to ace the SAT’s, be cello first chair in the concert band, and volunteer in the local literacy program? Is the university admitting the child or the parents?
Many times in my son’s time at the public high school I’ve wondered, “what happens to the poor kids”, whose parents can’t afford the expense of AP testing, science fairs, athletic fees, and a host of other things where money becomes a barrier to participation. I’m not a Commie but I recognize that merit can be bought.
-- Ivy leagues and advanced degrees are most important on your first hop out of college. After that, you've got personal accomplishments.
Exactly right - after 5 years the differences are not statistically significant.
There may be exceptions though in a few high profile jobs like Federal judges. How many Supremes went to an ordinary state law school? Of course that's a grad school credential, not quite comparable.
One problem is that playing a musical instrument is one of the places where Asians tend to work harder at. Which is to say that if they actually were looking for one, they would likely end up with an Asian one. The problem with anything like this is that the who point of these extra qualifications is to allow the schools to enroll more non-Asians, but Asians will, in sort order start showing up excelling in precisely those areas that the admissions office was using to discriminate against them. The basic problem is that Asians work harder and more single mindedly to get into the best schools. In many cases, a lot harder. When most of the rest of their age cohort is attending football games and dating in high school, a lot of Asian kids are doing things like practicing the oboe. Or, esp the violen. Maybe both. And doing extra credit projects, working for liberal charities, etc.
I'm with cracker in that I think an exception should be made for economically disadvantaged, but that can and should be done independently of race and is unlikely to be a large cohort. The claimed effect on Asians here is a substantial percentage of the student body.
"There may be exceptions though in a few high profile jobs like Federal judges. How many Supremes went to an ordinary state law school? Of course that's a grad school credential, not quite comparable."
Almost all of the Justices graduated from one of two law schools: Harvard and Yale. Esp Harvard. Things used to be different several years ago - Rhenquest and O'Connor were classmates at Stanford. But they were anomalies. And a lot of the really top entry level top jobs go to their clerks, who come primarily from a handful of law schools, led, again, by Harvard and Yale, that seem to have their own quotas - Harvard and Yale each seem to get roughly the same name number of clerks every year.
Apologies for the length, but here are excerpts from Arcidiacono's expert report for SFA. Lots more heavy-duty analysis where this came from.
• Asian-American applicants as a whole are stronger on many objective measures than any other racial/ethnic group including test scores, academic achievement, and extracurricular activities.
• Asian-American applicants suffer a statistically significant penalty relative to white applicants in two of the ratings Harvard’s admissions officers assign to each file (the personal and overall rating). Asian-American applicants also suffer a statistically significant penalty relative to white applicants in the admissions decisions themselves, even aside from the penalty in the personal and overall ratings.
• Race plays a significant role in admissions decisions. Consider the example of an Asian-American applicant who is male, is not disadvantaged, and has other characteristics that result in a 25% chance of admission. Simply changing the race of this applicant to white—and leaving all his other characteristics the same—would increase his chance of admission to 36%. Changing his race to Hispanic (and leaving all other characteristics the same) would increase his chance of admission to 77%. Changing his race to African- American (again, leaving all other characteristics the same) would increase his chance of admission to 95%.
• For the three most recent admissions cycles, a period during which Harvard’s Admissions Office has tracked admission rates by race using the federal IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System) methodology, Harvard has maintained African-American admission rates at nearly exactly the same level as the admission rates for all other domestic applicants (within 0.00064). The probability that the difference in admission rates would be smaller than 0.00064 in each of the three years is less than 0.2% absent direct manipulation, and is consistent with Harvard having a floor on the African-American admit rate.
Accepting Harvard’s scoring of applicants at face value, Harvard imposes a penalty against Asian Americans as compared to whites in the selection of applicants for admission. This penalty has a significant effect on an Asian-American applicant’s probability of admission. Consider that an Asian male who is not disadvantaged in the baseline dataset who, based on his observed characteristics (e.g., test scores, Harvard ratings, etc.), has a 25% chance of admission. Yet this applicant would see his admission probability increase to over 32% had he been treated as a white applicant.
"Disparate impact" seems to be a fluid concept.
When selection criteria produce a disparate impact that harms members of a protected group, defense of that criteria will at least be tremendously costly and, likely, unsuccessful.
But when selection criteria produce a disparate impact that harms members of a non-protected group, well, then, even the most trivial, transparent defense is sufficient.
Isn't it?
It depends on how many oboe players they have and how many are graduating. It's not clear that the "curated" class is a bad thing, and the difference between 1530 and 1600 is pretty marginal. As a verbal/analytical, SAT-friendly type, I was fortunate to learn in high school and the army that there are indeed different kinds of intelligence. The problem arises when any set of criteria is used selectively to accomplish other purposes.
In support of legacies, no matter how dumb, it is all about the money. Not all legacies are the same. Quite the contrary. A decade ago, when my kid was looking at colleges, we briefly considered my alma mater. Then a fraternity brother, who had a good friend who had inside knowledge of admissions asked me how much I had contributed to the school of very the decades since graduation. There, the expectation was at least $10k a year, or a minimum of $200k, to get legacy benefit in admissions. In other words, you essentially have to pay twice, once for your kid, and once for some else's kid. It isn't a coincidence that Harvard has the largest endowment, and a 40% legacy rate. Rather, it is cause and effect.
Maybe in one of the grossest examples of buying admission to college, Teddy Kennedy had been expelled from Harvard for cheating. Normally that meant that a good law school was problematic for him, since for most of us, the cheating would have seriously affected our chances at being admitted to the bar. But his father apparently bought his way in with a new building at UVA, and Teddy wasn't ever really going to practice law anyway - he was expected to go into politics, where ethics are a lot more fluid.
Manifold forms of intelligence. I watched a documentary on our "second brain," the gut bacteria, a month ago. Key importance to our survival, have evolved around a nervous system override of the brain's control of the organism. Maybe its time the Ivies added stool samples to the GPA and SAT scores in curating their student bodies.
ARM: "...high SAT score in science..."
That is not a thing. Thanks for playing.
There are two things.
1) the SAT,
2) Subject-specific tests run by the ETS.
But what about courage and likability? What about personality and pizazz? Errbody knows Asians ain't got none a that shit!
The schools that are using merit-based admissions are the lower tier schools that do not have the option to pick between A LOT of very talented, qualified student applicants.
There is a directional college out there that admits the best students it can because to do otherwise would be to admit unqualified student applicants.
My daughter is an all-state jazz percussionist, but that and her vapor trail of other honors didn’t help her get into the Elite School she wanted to attend. I did ask someone about that and the response was “I guess Elite School didn’t need a percussionist this year.” So yeah, the elite schools do curate their classes, but you’ll never know the reason why one kid gets in and another doesn’t.
The one thing that does bother me, though – Elite School sent my daughter a crapload of come-ons about how she was the kind of kid they want, how they would ensure she could afford Elite School’s tuition because of their Elite School endowment and all that rot, but when it was time to apply, they blew her off without a second thought.
To be fair to Harvard, I'm sure they have nothing against Asians. They're actually trying to keep out whites, and admit more Blacks and Latinos, but Asians keep getting in the way.
In all seriousness, these elite schools admissions standards are handed down from the original Slavery assessments made for pride of ownership based on bloodlines and special talents. They were all founded on Slave Traders fortunes. And they sales features of the human merchandize is all important.
The NFL is the same way. Both are owned by the Rich who used still use Race Horses the same way Harvard admits its students for pride of the owners.
But the Asians blew their cover story by making higher scores than the others.
Most of this angst over admissions is nonsense. It only applies to the fall incoming freshman class. If you get denied there, it’s pretty easy to transfer in as a more than freshman. Most parents I know put their kids into juco’s or cc to reduce the cost. Then transfer to the school you want as a sophomore or jr. I bet the elites do it also to some extent. The problem there is that with their all A grading, there’s not as many openings in later classes. Which explains why our ruling class is turning up so incompetent.
The following is not a defense of Harvard just an explanation of the "job" of the admissions committee.
The admissions committee is essentially charged with providing all the human material for the College and all its activities. Those needs stretch from maintaining Harvard's reputation for scholastic excellence, to right tackles for the football team, to sopranos for various vocal groups, to fiddle players and Sousaphone players, to someone to play Daisy Mae in "Li'l Abner", to students who will volunteer through Phillips Brooks house, to writers and editors for the Crimson, to center middies for the women's Soccer team, to students whose parents will participate and raise or give money to the College etc., etc., etc. They have to do this keeping in mind the assets that will be available for these needs over a four year period. It's a hell of a job and the admissions committee has historically done an outstanding job of filling all these needs.
A pure academic basis for admission will not provide the kind of diversity (how I hate that word) of assets that the College needs to maintain its many activities at the level expected of Harvard. It just won't happen. You'll have some world class brains for sure,
but will they want to take time out to write for the Crimson, or sing in the Glee Club ( and then who could Daisy Mae without being accused of cultural appropriation?)
And to respond to Mr. D. It's quite possible that your daughter simply ran into a situation where someone applied who had better grades, higher scores , better recommendations, or even played jazz trumpet as well as percussion at the all-state level. Doesn't mean your daughter isn't a great kid or that Elite college did not seriously consider her. It only means that she entered into a competition and, like so many of us, she did not win that particular competition. That doesn't mean she can't have a bright future in front of her or that she might beat the hell out of whoever took her spot at Elite college. She just did not win that particular competition.
University admissions at highly selective institutions is like modeling the climate. You keep adjusting the input/output formula until it generates the desired result. And it's always useful to build a fudge factor into the formula, just in case. Happy coincidence, too, that the same mentality is at work in both.
Voters seem to care about ivy pedigree: Penn, Columbia, Yale, Georgetown, Yale ....
And to respond to Mr. D. It's quite possible that your daughter simply ran into a situation where someone applied who had better grades, higher scores , better recommendations, or even played jazz trumpet as well as percussion at the all-state level. Doesn't mean your daughter isn't a great kid or that Elite college did not seriously consider her. It only means that she entered into a competition and, like so many of us, she did not win that particular competition. That doesn't mean she can't have a bright future in front of her or that she might beat the hell out of whoever took her spot at Elite college. She just did not win that particular competition.
Right. We're fine with the school she'll attend in the fall. And I fully expect she will beat the hell out of the kid who took the spot later on, because she's even motivated now. My issue isn't with the process, which was beyond her control. It's with the come-ons from the school. It feels like a bait and switch.
Expat(ish) said...
My daughter did amazing things in high school - 99% SAT, ACT, top 1% of her class, work, volunteering, youth leadership, led a freaking Venture scout troop to Philmont, etc, etc. Hell, she sang the national anthem at her high school graduation - and nailed it.
She did not get into the major state school in FL. It's not even that competitive, really, and I suspect she was in the top 1% of the top 1% of candidates.
It's quite a mystery."
As a Floridian I suggest two probable reasons: 1-follow the money. 2-no good deed goes unpunished. Florida has the Bright Futures scholarships and the top ten percent rule. Mix that with in-state tuition rates along with the FL Prepaid Plan and the good deed turns into a bias against FL residents when it comes to acceptances as they pay a lot less than foreign and out of state applicants. In 2009 my elder daughter's friends who graduated from an IB program at the top of their class and were admitted to Harvard and MIT ( but not full freight or hugely discounted) were turned down by UF Gainesville. The kids were trying to be smart by attempting to go undergraduate without a mountain of debt and instead incur debt for grad school. The reason their parents bought the FL Prepaid plan that covered the full matriculation for four years. The UF system did their maths and figured out it was more profitable to pay put to a non UF system school and accept a full freight kid in replacement.
The most prestigious private school in my community has an interview process for its incoming kindergarten class. I am certain that families of donors get preference. treatment.
Every year I'm amazed at the stories of a graduating high school senior, or a very small number, who garner acceptance to all the Ivies, and other elite schools. Almost without exception, these students are black, or occasionally, some kind of Latino or "other". I applaud them, but it makes me wonder why there are so few stories about Asians doing the same, or whites (to be perfectly frank, especially Jews).
It seems that high achievement in academics and certain types of extracurriculars, especially classical music, helps INDIVIDUALS, but harms GROUPS. The only silver lining I can see in this is this practices can only erode the academic prestige of the elite schools.
What would Harvard look like if they were removed from the process? What is the percentage of whites and Asians that are NOT legacy?
-LWL"
Beijing University with affirmative action for whites, hispanics and blacks.
If there were such a thing as an instrument that thought itself funnier or more clever than all others it would be an oboe.
And (as has been said before) hipsters and academics have ruined the word "curate."
Oboe is a hard instrument. There are very few oboe players therefore very limiting.
Many times in my son’s time at the public high school I’ve wondered, “what happens to the poor kids”, whose parents can’t afford the expense of AP testing, science fairs, athletic fees, and a host of other things where money becomes a barrier to participation. I’m not a Commie but I recognize that merit can be bought."
For the Supreme Court go to Harvard or Yale Law. But does your kid want to be a lawyer and go to the Supreme Court?
I've heard that for those in science or science-based fields like engineering it does not matter very much which school you go to in terms of future employment or even in terms of grad school whereas for the social sciences and humanities an Ivy league school matters a lot. So maybe parents should try to help their kids to see that prestige isn't the only marker for a good university, especially not for those in STEM. That STEM students have an excellent chance of getting where they want to go after university, no matter how high their hopes. I don't think it helps a conservative who likes literature to go Ivy League. It's my understanding that comic books and second rate literature supposedly reflecting male brutality are "studied" at vast expense at places like Vassar or Harvard.
Affirmative Action: Rend it, don’t mend it.
Objective criteria including achievement and order of arrival.
Objective aid including addressing causes during the formative years, not profiting from treating symptoms in perpetuity throughout.
Affirmative action not discrimination.
There are two rules of aristocracy:
1) The aristocratic class judges others, they are not judged by others.
2) The aristocratic class alone determines who is and who is not an aristocrat.
I wonder how Wang Ju contributed to the liberal culture of progressive dysfunction and spiritual destruction. The politicians, therapists, and businesses love her.
Re: Cracker:
I wouldn’t say Harvard’s position is completely without merit. What about the bright Black or White kid who doesn’t have the insanely ambitious Tiger Mom, driving her child to ace the SAT’s, be cello first chair in the concert band, and volunteer in the local literacy program? Is the university admitting the child or the parents?
Many times in my son’s time at the public high school I’ve wondered, “what happens to the poor kids”, whose parents can’t afford the expense of AP testing, science fairs, athletic fees, and a host of other things where money becomes a barrier to participation. I’m not a Commie but I recognize that merit can be bought.
The more you bring factors like extracurricular activities or subject-matter knowledge into the picture, the harder it's going to be for poor students. And the AP course GPA boost (A's in AP courses count as a 5.0 on a 4.0 GPA scale) is ridiculous -- high schools shouldn't do that, and colleges should back out that effect when computing GPAs.
On the other hand, formal test prep isn't actually much of a differentiator between rich and poor:
The second surprising fact about test prep is that it doesn’t vary nearly as much by income as people imagine. In fact, some studies find no effect of income on test prep use while others find a positive but modest effect. The latter study finding (what I call) a modest effect finds that in their sample a 2-standard deviation increase in income above the mean increases the probability of using a private test prep course less than whether “Parent encouraged student to prep for SAT (yes or no).”
In addition, Blacks use test prep more than Whites:
The third fact is that test prep varies by race in the opposite way that people imagine. In the quote above, Chris Hayes suggests that whites use test prep much more than blacks. In fact, blacks use test prep more than whites, as is well documented among education researchers (e.g. here, here, here)
The effect of paid test prep is quite small. Accordingly, for poor students, I think heavier weight on the straight SAT I (not subject-matter SATs) or the equivalent would give the fairest shot at getting into the good schools. If you go the subjective route, you're forcing poor people into an undignified scramble in which they have to offer up their sob stories about deprivation so an admissions officer can feel good about himself (or herself) for so generously giving a spot to such destitute wretches. That seems like it would be humiliating. Maybe give them a little affirmative action boost for parental SES, but don't make them abase themselves like that. It's just gross.
A student with a 4.00 and 1600 SATs was no big deal, but a student who won the oboe competition in her state and had a 3.8 and 1530 was
1: Note the "her" there
2: There may be 1000 winners a year. They aren't all going to have 3.8 GPAs & 1530 SATs
3: My guess is that asians tend more to violin / piano than to Oboe. I could be utterly wrong about that. It would be good to see what "musical championships" the Ivys most value
4; The Cracker Emcee Rampant said...
I wouldn’t say Harvard’s position is completely without merit. What about the bright Black or White kid who doesn’t have the insanely ambitious Tiger Mom, driving her child to ace the SAT’s, be cello first chair in the concert band, and volunteer in the local literacy program? Is the university admitting the child or the parents?
In a pure merit program, all that matters is grades, standardized tests, and (if you want to get accused of being racist): where you went to school (how hard was it to get a 4.0 at the school you went to?)
Then you don't have to worry about tiger mom driving kid to all those activities
Khesanh 0802 said...
The following is not a defense of Harvard just an explanation of the "job" of the admissions committee.
Actually, it's a pile of BS
You have a set of admissions for the sports teams. You have a set for the Theater school, etc. You have a set for donors / legacies
Then you have the pool of what's left. And the "elite" schools are being nailed for the racism with which they fill that "rest" pool.
Personally, i think we should simply announce that any school can have any admissions program they want. But if >50% of their admissions are not pure "merit", the school is not eligible for participation in any Federal student loans or grants
Harvard has a big endowment. They can pay for their own social engineering
The Ivy League is more than 20% Jewish, 10 Times their percentage of the population. If Jews were denied applications like Asians, Ruth Ginsburg would go apeshit like Jay-Z.
German Americans are the largest ethnicity in the US, followed by African Americans then Irish Americans. The Ivy League discriminates against non Hewish white ethnicities I guess.
But let’s be honest. The Ivy League is overwhelmingly rich kids (families with annual income above $200,000, much less the wealth they have). It’s about as diverse as the NBA.
If the schools really want to fix this problem- then the admissions process needs to be fully anonymized. Sure, they can set criteria that are not just test scores and grades, but those criteria are then applied blindly without regard to ethnicity. That was the problem Harvard is running into- they had other criteria, but were caught not applying them equally- your ethnicity mattered. That is the point that Harvard's defenders will have to admit, but aren't there yet.
There are those who maintain that graduation from Harvard or any other elite university serves primarily as signaling that you were smart enough to be accepted under strict standards, and that the education itself, gained at great expense in money and time, might well have been mostly wasted. In fact, dropping out rather then continuing the education once admitted can be a better choice -- witness Steven Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg and others, who missed the full education but continue to take advantage of the signaling.
If signaling were so important, however, it would make you more "elite" to turn down an elite university after being selected for admission. I turned down admission with full scholarship to both Berkeley and Harvard, but to this day, no prospective employer has ever asked me on an employment application to list elite universities that I have turned down after they had made an offer of admission!
"My issue isn't with the process, which was beyond her control. It's with the come-ons from the school. It feels like a bait and switch."
As I mentioned above, that's because it was a bait and switch. Universities want a lot of applications. The more they turn down, the more "selective" they are and US News and World Report ranks colleges by the selectivity.
I learned this a year ago, when my son's grades drew attention from Yale. That was the first envelope I had received from a university, and I had to check the name several times (it said "Yale College," not university), and the address to make sure that, yes, my son got a letter from Yale.
That started us on an odyssey that took the better part of a year to resolve, and in which I was educated about college admissions.
One big change was the creation of The Common App, where you can apply to as many as a dozen colleges at once pretty easily. Another is the drive behind universities to get as many admissions as possible, preferably from every state in the union (that was a big selling point during their presentations).
Compare that to 20 years ago and more, when applications had to be filled out by hand, and many, many students went to regional schools. (Back in the 1900-1920s, Harvard and Yale were part of an assembly line of New England schools, starting with boarding schools like Groton. Who would think of going there from California, much less Hong Kong, unless you were really, really motivated?)
All this sounds like Calvinball and the government holds most of the cards. What standards are universities supposed to follow in admissions when it's a zero-sum game?
but were caught not applying them equally- your ethnicity mattered. That is the point that Harvard's defenders will have to admit
It's not just Harvard. Diversity, including color judgment/discrimination, has been normalized. People are treated as if they are, we are, merely colorful clumps of cells for taxable, environmental, and political purposes, and social progress.
Re: jimbino:
I think it depends on what industry you're in. In law, it matters further into your career than you might expect, if you're in an elite law firm. Anecdoctally, I hear it matters for McKinsey/Bain-type consulting work too. But elsewhere, I've been surprised at the educational backgrounds of some people I've met working at hedge funds and investment banks. It's not all Ivy League. There's people from small schools I've never heard of. And in fields like computer programming and engineering, where there's objective criteria for performance (Does it compile? Does the bridge stay up?) I think "where did you go to school" is relevant when you're interviewing for your first job, but not much after that.
Cracker Emcee Rampant said:
"I wouldn’t say Harvard’s position is completely without merit. What about the bright Black or White kid who doesn’t have the insanely ambitious Tiger Mom, driving her child to ace the SAT’s, be cello first chair in the concert band, and volunteer in the local literacy program? Is the university admitting the child or the parents?"
What MIT does is define "minorities" into two different classes - "minorities" and "underrepresented minorities". The latter are those students identified as being in a minority whose % of the MIT student body is < their % of the U.S. population as a whole. Americans of Asian heritage are the former but not the latter. Those in the latter - black and Hispanic being chief among them - whose SAT scores, grades, etc. put them in the "qualified" pool get admitted. The rest compete with each other.
No group has yet crossed over from "underrepresented minority" to "minority". The graduation rate of underrepresented minorities is *slightly* less than the student body as a whole.
I'm not sure it's so much a case of the Ivys having to choose between all of these highly qualified applicants as much as it is a case of admitting far less qualified candidates who happen to be of a favored race.
That's what irks me.
And then the dishonesty about how they are really not doing it.
@GregP If everyone agreed with your take on the various pools for football, theater or legacies there would not be a court case. The Asians are saying that they are discriminated against in the entire pool not some limited segment. They are correct I think, but a pure merit (whatever that is) admissions criteria will play hell with the assets available for football, theater, legacy, etc. It will be a crap shoot on who is available for the multitude of non-scholastic activities that make up college "life". Maybe that's as it should be, but I am convinced that it will be a case of "be careful what you wish for".
As I have said before I feel like Harvard has brought this on themselves through its ridiculously liberal stances ( and courses) of the recent past. As an alumnus I am willing to see what happens if the Asians win. Since we are finding out that admissions for "minorities" are coordinated by the "Ivy League and Sister Schools Black Admissions Association" ( title not correct but close), it means I don't have to worry about Yale beating Harvard in football by 200-0 because all these schools are going to have to adhere to whatever admissions criteria come out of this case.
I'm not racist. I'm just a curator.
There are those who maintain that graduation from Harvard or any other elite university serves primarily as signaling that you were smart enough to be accepted under strict standards, and that the education itself, gained at great expense in money and time, might well have been mostly wasted.
Which is why, as a hiring manager, I avoided hiring Ivy League graduates. My experience with them was generally negative -- too much of "I proved myself by getting into an Ivy so I don't have to work hard for you to prove myself all over again."
My mother was told by someone in admissions at Cornell that there were too many Jewish children of professional parents from New York state with good SATs. I'm pretty sure I prefer the life I have as a drop out from an experimental college in Florida to one I might have had in a more structured environment, but my mother was really disappointed.
"No group has yet crossed over from "underrepresented minority" to "minority".
I don't know about MIT, but in California schools Filipinos were once, oh up to maybe 20, but certainly 30 years ago, regarded as underrepresented minorities and had some sort of preference, sometimes, in some places. This changed, now they are just as despised as Chinese and white people.
RE: Big Mike:
Which is why, as a hiring manager, I avoided hiring Ivy League graduates. My experience with them was generally negative -- too much of "I proved myself by getting into an Ivy so I don't have to work hard for you to prove myself all over again."
I've heard the same thing about Harvard doctors from relatives. That said, I work in an environment (viz. a law firm) where I encounter a fair number of Ivy league graduates (technically, I am one, albeit from a mere trade school (law)), and while I haven't found them uniquely impressive, I also haven't found them to be notably subpar. It's possible that the "law student" attitude that they're too good for scut work overwhelms the "Ivy league" attitude, though.
What's the difference between an oboe and an onion? No one cries when you cut up an oboe.
To be clear, my comment was about college hires. As a rule (there are always exceptions) the ones coming from state schools and less elite colleges grasped that they had to show me what they learned and I would not start them with any subsystems on the critical path.
Somewhat off topic, but someone mentioned that NPR show "From The Top." I realize that just because a child is musically gifted doesn't automatically make them smart; but these are classical music whiz-kids and I (perhaps naively, or maybe it's just my age showing) would expect them to SOUND smart, at least. Instead many of them, male and female, sound like Valley Girls, especially with the annoying "uptalk." (You know, where declarative sentences are spoken like this? Like it's a question? Even when it isn't?) My impression is that many of these kids are Asian-Americans. Asian-American kids, maybe I am prejudiced in your favor, but I expected more of you . . . like complete thoughts in well-phrased complete sentences.
Mom said the bassoon would get me into Harvard, and I said,"Ma, you're nuts!"
Mom said the cello would get me into Harvard and I said, "Yo, yo, Ma, you're nuts!"
Shrug. They are not my tribe so I don't care about their troubles, but enjoy the entertainment as they are hoist on their own petards.
It would be easy enough to solve by having an admission lottery: 100 spots randomly assigned to applicants.
It would then be...interesting to note how well these folks do in comparison to the 'best and brightest' admitted by 'the experts'.
Post a Comment