Writes Shamus Khan — a Princeton sociology professor, author of "Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School" — in "Legacy Admissions Don’t Work the Way You Think They Do" (NYT).
[I]f elite schools delivered special intellectual growth and professional training — what social scientists call human capital — privileged students would benefit greatly from them. And there’s no good evidence that they do. Instead, other forms of capital play a bigger role: symbolic capital (the value of being associated with prestigious institutions), social capital (the value of your network) and cultural capital (the value of exposure to high-status practices and mores).
Graduating from an elite school pays off on all three counts: It affiliates you with an illustrious organization, offers you connections to people with friends in high places and acculturates you in the conventions and etiquettes of high-status settings...
Elite recruiters respond favorably to the kinds of cultural “similarities” — shared literary references, playing the “right” sport — that students pick up in fancy colleges, precisely because these shared traits remind hiring partners of themselves....
That's the exact opposite of embracing diversity — loving the way you remind me of me.
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39 comments:
wait a minute! wait Just a Dog Garned MINUTE!! are you saying?
That there are advantages to having rich parents? Is THAT what you are saying?
WHY didn't ANY ONE mention this before???
Gee, if only there were a way to measure native intelligence, something that didn't care about "symbolic capital (the value of being associated with prestigious institutions), social capital (the value of your network) and cultural capital (the value of exposure to high-status practices and mores)." You could call it an IQ test or a Scholastic Aptitude Test.
It's a running joke when looking at New York society that to get into the right college, you have to graduate from the right high school. To get into the right high school, you have to go to the right elementary school, and so on, all they way down (there's a 30 Rock episode about Jack Donaghy calling in an absurd number of high-powered favors to get a baby into an exclusive daycare centre).
There was also a joke in law school that if you graduate from Harvard, you could write your resume in crayon on the back of a grocery bag and wipe your butt with it and still get multiple offers from top tier firms who don't care what you know, they just want Harvard on the firm bio so they can charge clients $1,000 an hour.
Exclusiveness. THAT is why we have these problems.
"'Even without the extra boost legacies currently get, it would be almost impossible to offset the advantages of wealthy families who can pay for all the experiences and qualities that make their children seem miraculously, naturally, qualified.'
Writes Shamus Khan — a Princeton sociology professor..."
This post needs a "Harrison Bergeron" tag.
If the left now wants to go after legacy admissions, have at it. But I don't see how that would do much to get around the schools' inability to use race in admissions (either directly or as a proxy for some other desired attribute). Eliminating legacies is only going to open up more seats to smart Asian and white kids and thus make the schools more academically competitive than they already are. Hard to see how that helps inner city black and latino kids to get in.
Legacy students typically pay full tuition, and donate afterward. Harvard had a $50 billion endowment and doesn't need that money, but plenty of colleges do. With legacies paying full freight, they can offer tuition breaks to other students.
Some of the biggest jerks in the world are those who walk around with college names tattooed to their foreheads. If they are good at their jobs, they rub their resumes and 'superiority' in your face. If they are bad at their jobs, they are followed by sarcasm and create a backlash against elite schools. Outside of snobbish poseur cliques, there are minimal differences between elite school students and good students from average schools -- plus a lot of overlap.
All kinds of research worldwide has confirmed IQ as reliable and valid, and also heritable. Denying this was the Discrimination and Diversity Original Sin circa 1980 -- before that many radical "mind is a blank slate" ideologues believed they could educate away all racial and sex differences in education.
They were wrong. They failed. They continue to fail badly. They have been in denial since 1980. This is science and not happy talk.
So nice of some Professor at Princeton to explain privilege to me. I feel so...honored to be able to read their words.
It is the ultimate fool's errand to think it's possible to level the playing field between rich and not rich in any endeavor. I grew up in a tiny apartment with a single mother and in college became friends with a bunch of people who'd grown up in great wealth. (Still friendly with some of them today.)
In school, we were equal. Socially, we were equal. (It was the hippie era.) But it was impossible to avoid that we had entirely dissimilar worldviews. Theirs were from a height from which, if they fell, the landing would be soft. In distinct contrast to my falling. That difference informed everything about the way we related to reality and circumstances, as it continues to five decades later.
Roger Sweeny is right, you know.
Is there a tag for "things we already knew"?
"That's the exact opposite of embracing diversity"
Depends on what the meaning of "diversity" is. For progs it doesn't mean, like, diverse-diverse.
Anyway, as Roger Sweeny already said, Khan's assertions don't control for IQ, so the marginal benefit of Ivy higher ed, besides the creation of artificial scarcity, is not clear.
There is a case to be made for legacy (and donor) preferences in a pluralist society. They enable first-rate institutions to endure across the generations (somewhat) independently of Government. In a healthy society there are complimentary but competing sources of power, prestige, and opportunity. Like everything else such preferences should be subject to limiting principles and should constitute a small percentage of each matriculating class.
Of course, if you do not believe in a pluralist society and think that corporations, unions, media, universities, and foundations should all march to the same Deep State drummer you will disagree. But that is the definition of fascism: "Everything inside the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State."
I’ve often wondered how things worked out for the Hispanic kids who were plucked out of a highly gifted program at my local junior high here in Southern California and sent back East to elite boarding schools. This was in the early ‘90s and the boarding schools wanted a bit of diversity. All I could think of was the loneliness of the cold winter nights so far away from home.
It's always been thus and will always be short of an INGSOC-esque existence. And even there, we eventually find out it is still thus, lol. If the "your children don't belong to you" types get their way, you can damned well bet that their children will be thus too.
Anyone who says otherwise either doesn't have kids or is selling something. Probably both.
If you are from the Philadelphia area, you will have heard of St Joseph's Prep high school. It's a selective Jesuit-run school, considered "elite" at least in the world of Catholic education which is a big deal around here. For comparison, Justice Kavanaugh went to the equivalent institution in the D.C. area.
Our son went there (hello selective Catholic grade school and our friend who was head of the alumni association) and he has this confidence and coolness that's hard to define but it's definitely something he didn't get from his public-school-educated parents. We'd sell our house in a heartbeat if that's what was necessary to pay his way through that school.
How do we avoid these discussion in Athletics, Music, Writing? Oh yea, the best always rise to the top by measurables. And guess what? legacy kids do well also. Here in Iowa, the Hawkeyes Murry twins are both NBA players. There Dad also played at Iowa. The Coach's sons played, and while not NBA bound, earned Big Ten honors. Football coach Ferentz had his kid play and is now the Offensive coordinator.
Not any discussion about diversity.
The more the elites talk about class, the more I am committed to the individual.
"And there’s no good evidence that they do."
Maybe I'm reading that wrong but he seems to be denying that there is a difference in the quality and effectiveness of the teaching and practices of different schools.
Which would mean that a student in a broken school district in Baltimore, MD or Podunk, MS (a substitute for my home town) receives the same depth and quality of education as one who graduates from an elite private school.
Whether or not the connections and networking the elite schools provide are also influential, the basic premise as stated in the quote is obvious nonsense.
That the writer began that sentence with "and" rather than "but" leads me think that there may be other qualifiers in the inaccessible article or perhaps the quote misrepresents his thinking.
But/And maybe he's just bullshitting.
We have such big problems facing us, why sweat the little ones?
Legacy means community. Before cheap air travel, students simply did not go that far away from home in large numbers. Schools, even the Ivies, were more regional. This was particularly true for women. The problem is that over the last half century, instead of having a larger number of regional prestige schools, we have a small number of international monsters that can only be entered by indefatigable grinds, the blessedly diverse, and the rich and well-connected.
I found that the greatest benefit of going to an elite school, rather than a state school (I went to both) was the greater density of smart and committed students. But it was sort of a 66% instead of 33% sort of thing at that time.
“In school, we were equal. Socially, we were equal. (It was the hippie era.) But it was impossible to avoid that we had entirely dissimilar worldviews. Theirs were from a height from which, if they fell, the landing would be soft. In distinct contrast to my falling. That difference informed everything about the way we related to reality and circumstances, as it continues to five decades later.”
The cross-class dating and socializing worked for us, at a small liberal arts college around that time (I am 3 months older than Ann), but, interestingly, rarely marriage. The elite tended to marry each other. I dated some women who had a lot more family wealth (we were safely upper middle class) but didn’t marry them. I remember one guy in my fraternity, a year ahead, whose family was prominent in Long Island society. He dated around in college, as did his future wife, whom he had met at her coming out party in HS. She came into the marriage with more money, but he had more blue blood. Together, in 1972, maybe $100 million, which was a lot back then. That was typical. The women were more likely to be able to move up a class than a guy through a marriage - a daughter of a successful surgeon marrying into real money (wedding was in Aspen, with much of his family flying in on their private jets - in 1975). But mostly like married like. And ultimately, the rich paired up senior year with like.
My fraternity was middle of the road, with maybe a rich guy or two a year, most upper middle class, and a couple there on scholarship. My brother was in the rich fraternity on campus. Part of why it stayed that way was that their extracurricular activities cost money. Their parties were epic, their trips exotic, etc. My brother couldn’t keep up. Then, after college, they all had trust funds. He didn’t, and had to go to work after college. They didn’t. He resented that for a couple years, then thankfully got over it. I am still decently connected to many of my fraternity brothers. They mostly have professional graduate degrees, and stayed in the same social class. He is not. Graduate degrees were unnecessary for many of his fraternity brothers, as they were already rich. He has 3 professional graduate degrees.
This happened at elite schools too. Dick Cheney went back east to an Ivy League school, from his small town in WY, and left after maybe a year. He was a scholarship student, based on his brains. Academically, he was fine. Socially, he wasn’t. Ended up marrying his HS sweetheart, who went to my alma mater. Much better fit. Those schools had their own ways of socially sorting, like Skull and Bones that GW Bush belonged to at Yale.
This focus on legacies is counterproductive. Legacies are students whose parents were alumni and are usually active donors to the school. Their kids still need to meet some minimum standard, but admitting them benefits the school financially. It is much the same way that schools admit many foreign students, because they pay full price. Admitting such students actually subsidizes the poorer students, allowing the school to offer them more financial aid. If they stopped admitting legacies and rich foreign families, normal people would need to pay more. It seems a fair deal to me.
I think it's possible that legacy admission is more of a marketing device than an actual preference, that is, schools say they have a legacy program for children of alumni to make alumni feel as if there is a special connection and that makes them willing to donate money and time to the school when in reality the kid would probably have gotten in anyway.
I don't know that being a legacy admit is always such an advantage. I remember George W. Bush being denigated as a legacy admission to Yale because his father (and grandfather, Prescott Bush) both went there. Not an advantage in running for President on the GOP ticket anyway.
It is interesting, though, how very little effect affirmative action had on the so-called elite power structure in this country. Did it expand the ranks at all? Maybe a little but not that much. Certainly doesn't seem to have changed the thinking at all.
The point that struck me was the negative inference that learning high standards at St. Paul's was harmful. One of the greatest shortcomings we have as a nation is the lack of encouragement to strive for individual excellence. My first thought was of the high standards that are drummed into Marine recruits regarding their personal performance and their relationship to the Corps. Is it really wrong for an institution to inculcate high standards?
The problem is that money and power talk. When my daughter was looking at colleges, she briefly considered my alma mater. She wanted to go to a small liberal arts college, like we all did, as well as my mother and her parents had done. She had visited numerous times growing up, and I figured as a legacy, she was an automatic admit. Nope, a fraternity brother of mine pointed out. Legacy status isn’t what it used to be. The admissions and fund raising organizations worked closely together. They expected to see a constant pattern of giving since you graduated, totaling maybe 4 years of tuition over the last 20 years for a legacy admission. Probably higher for Ivy League schools. She probably would have been admitted anyway (having been wait listed at 4 of the top 5 small liberal arts colleges in the country). But decided to go back east instead of staying out west. Much better fit.
Point is that colleges are businesses. Harvard may not need more money, but they aren’t going to turn it down either. Every student whose parents buy their way in, pays for several less wealthy, but better qualified, students to attend. This means that they can hire more administrators and pay everyone more. Often much more. Win/win.
Of course, it’s not just money that can get preferences getting into elite schools. Al Gore, Hunter Biden, probably GW Bush (and maybe even his father, GHW Bush), Chris Cuomo, etc, got into Ivy League schools, based primarily on their parent’s political power. It has been claimed that the easiest way to into Harvard is with a parent in the Senate. Why? Because these elite schools make $billions$ every year in government grants. (That is why Harvard was covered by Title VI of the Civil Rights Act). As the fraternity brother, who told me about the reality of legacy admissions at my alma mater, is want to say: “Follow the money”.
I agree that legacy admissions are not the real issue. But the privilege of the wealthy is part of the code of who they take. Admission departments aren't taken in by these trumped-up credentials. They have a different use. They signal who is willing to pay big money and attention to place the proper sacrifices on the altar. "Ah, yes, here is one of our people. And they are likely to be good for money directly to us down the road, and unlikely to make too many waves about what we are doing here. Alexa looks like a stellar candidate."
Now that a certain complete-safe radicalism ("luxury beliefs," Rob Henderson calls them) is also fashionable with school administrators, it's just one more thing to pile on the altar.
"Even without the extra boost legacies currently get, it would be almost impossible to offset the advantages of wealthy families who can pay for all the experiences and qualities that make their children seem miraculously, naturally, qualified."
And teh "progressives" are fighting tooth and nail to make University admissions even MORE favorable to those rich kids.
That's what the focus to the "personal essay", "extra curricular activities", etc is all about: making it easier for rich kids to get into "elite" institutions
Want to help the non-rich? Then force universities to admit mainly on grades and test scores. Because to succeed at those, you just need to be smart and hard working.
Which is to say, you need to have "merit", rather than just having rich parents.
Althouse writes, "That's the exact opposite of embracing diversity — loving the way you remind me of me."
Wasn't diversity a fraud from the beginning? On the subject of legacy students, often the children of wealthy and successful university alumni who give their offspring advantages in travel, exposure to culture, and tutelage in the arts and sciences outside the usual scope of public education -- all these are valuable, of course, but parents who leave their kids' education to public schooling cannot entirely blame their relative poverty for the disadvantages their children may have compared to the legacy students. The public school academic year spans roughly 180 days, half the calendar year. What are parents in poverty doing for their children in the half-year they're not in class? Given the number of school-age kids I see on the streets late into the night, I must assume the answer is as little as possible. They aren't in the public libraries and they aren't attending recitals, both freely offered to anyone willing to walk in and participate respectfully.
Shamus Khan's studious avoidance of the elephant in the room is amusing. For Khan and the left in general, there is a vital and perhaps decisive element in the system of advantages the so-called legacy student enjoys that must never be acknowledged or even spoken of.
"Legacy Admissions Don’t Work the Way You Think They Do"
That's very presumptive...
stlcdr said...
"Legacy Admissions Don’t Work the Way You Think They Do"
That's very presumptive...
——————————————-
Agree. I prefer “don’t work the way we might think.” Sounds less condescending.
A good leveling would erase those advantages, until the levelers got control of the means to power and replaced one privileged group with themselves.
As has always happened through history.
@ Rabel: “Maybe I'm reading that wrong.”
Yes, you are. He is saying there’s no good evidence that elite schools (that is, elite universities) provide no “special intellectual growth and professional training” by comparison with comparable, non-elite universities. In fact, students at Harvard, for example, often complain that in courses advertised as being taught by academic stars, instruction and evaluation are relegated to teaching assistants.
I was never in any position to give a lot of thought to legacy admissions and how they work, so this has been an eye-opening thread.
All of my more-or-less middle-middle-class friends have remained more-or-less middle-class. The one prominent exception is the Baptist working-class kid who got an athletic scholarship to our local Ivy-wannabe but transferred to Memphis Mistake when he didn't fit in there. (I didn't know him before that, but talk about mismatch.)
He got a law degree and worked his ass off. Now he's got more money than any three of the rest of us combined probably, is a member of the prestige country club, and a Presbyterian.
AFAIK, neither of his sons have his drive.
You can sum up the legacy admissions issue with a simple phrase:
"Look, a squirrel !"
Quaestor,
Public school kid here, from a mostly lower-middle-class neighborhood. You are right, of course. I wasn't awash in "advantages" from the school standpoint, but my parents were both UW/Madison PhDs and taught my sister and me all manner of things, year-round. Didn't go to an "elite prep school," but didn't miss it either. (Also: did go to Juilliard for eight years. Not prep school, but still hella expensive.)
I ended up going to UC/Berkeley on full scholarship (a new one restricted to the mechanical engineering dept., which was my undergrad major). My Dad offset the "free ride" by donating to the Dept., which made my sister some variety of "legacy" when she followed me four years later. I know this b/c he told me that he'd intervened on her behalf when she didn't make the first cut, and they acquiesced.
I am not super-keen on the legacy thing, especially in the case of places like Harvard, with its ridiculously huge endowment. But it really isn't entirely a means of getting the dumb-but-rich into college. I should say that GWB, &c., had excellent chances for Yale with or without that particular privilege.
Legacy. Like Seth Curry. Like Bronny. Like lots of sons and daughters in many fields who get noticed and watched - and a leg up - because of who they've came from. It's not always about the kittens of fat cats.
The original point of the SAT was to fix these kinds of problems by finding really smart kids in one-room schoolhouses in rural Idaho who had the intellectual chops (if not the expansive education) to make intellectual contributions. That's how the SAT should have been and should be used: as a way of identifying really talented kids whose teachers don't like them, or are incompetent, or assume they're just as dumb as their older brothers, etc.
But what all of this discussion reveals is that the one thing our (incompetent and completely lacking-in-integrity) managerial class absolutely can't abide is the idea of NOT putting their thumb on the scale for every single person: this one needs a little help; this one had too many advantages; this one has a compelling (i.e., bullshit) life story; this one is related to someone important.
The hubris that is displayed by ANYONE seriously thinking that they have the information, judgment, and honesty to sort people out like this on a grand scale is breathtaking, especially since the people currently running the system can't figure out how to get their organizations to do--with the aid of computers and software not even imagined 50 years ago--things that were done successfully 70 years ago with file cabinets and manual typewriters. (Among many others, our Secretary of Transportation, who can't keep the railroads from derailing, the airports from grinding to a halt, the interstates paved, or the ports properly functioning, but by God he can provide glib answers to unresolved moral questions and tell inform people as to the proper amount of energy they should use).
Now do:
"really gorgeous women with great tits" privilege
And
"guy so handsome every woman gets kinda...moist...when they see him" privilege.
(I knew a guy like that. Amazingly, he was a very good person.)
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