This shouldn’t be neglected. Every time you let money buy something that isn’t supposed to be bought, but deserved, you solidify the reign of money, undermine the concept of merit, and make people lose trust in society and justice.
If I read your cite correctly, it says that legacy applicants are accepted at a much higher rate than non-legacy applicants. However, the overall student population is only 14% legacy.
Here’sa really informative graph. Ignore the first one–it’s an average over 20 years and meaningless. Scroll down to the next one, which gives acceptance rates by race for Harvard by year. 20 years ago, African Americans had a much high acceptance rate–because, frankly, hardly any were applying. But for the last several years, the average white applicant has had a greater chance of being admitted than the average black applicant. I will tell you, that doesn’t “feel right” if you are in this business: incredibly talented white kids seem to get rejected at a much higher rate than talented black kids. The reason for this, frankly, is that there’s two groups bundled under “white kids”–normal applicants and elites–not just “development” kids, but all the other things I’ve talked about over and over and over again. They get in at a much higher rate than 8%. These groups push “normal” white kids out of the running because, and I mean this, the elites don’t want to go to college with a bunch of boring suburban white kids. They want “exotics”–including underrepresented minorities, but other types of diversity as well. In a very real way, everyone that isn’t an elite is there as a prop for the elites to have the experience they want.
So when the suburban white kids don’t get in, they blame the black kids (and to some degree the Hispanic kids). That tiny little group over there! They took my slot! But it’s entirely wrong-headed. It’s the elite group that’s both eating up the slots and, frankly, serving as the drivers for what the rest of the class looks like.
Here’s the thing: Arguably, the only thing that inspired most people to open the thread (perhaps the only reason the topic is even interesting) is because of the scandal being in the news.
Problem is, the legacy kids come from a highly influential, networked background. Their odds of getting into positions of power, sometimes very large amounts of power, is much larger than other graduates. Even graduates of elite universities.
Its not limited to the US. I believe both in the UK and France a disproportionate amount of the governing class comes from a very small number of universities.
If you’re going to recruit a large amount of your governing people from a fairly small group, stacking the group with people who shouldn’t be trying to work with their brain is probably a bad idea.
In the case of France, it’s the E.N.A. . But then again, it makes some sense because it’s the only school that gives access to most high ranking positions in the civil service (except for people who enter it at a lowest and slowly climb the ladder). It’s not an university, either, but rather a two years long education and training program tailored for those future high ranking civil servants. When you join it, you’re already technically a civil servant, and are paid, just in training. And admission is solely based on a competitive exam, so there’s no suspicion that it’s tainted by favors.
Rather, the issue is that mostly all the upper management of the public service is made up of people who attended it, hence have been selected in the same way, with the same expectations, and tend to share the same mindset and views (this specific mindset is already clearly visible before people even join the school, when they’re preparing for it). And belong to the same network, of course. On top of it, a large part of politicians also come from this school. Three out of four of our last presidents attended it (and the previous ones were too old, it has been created after WW2) and a large part of our prime ministers. So, the upper level of government, both political and administrative, is ran by “Enarques”
There’s also the problem that the proportion of people joining the school coming from lower classes is small and in fact becoming smaller and smaller (not true only for this school, it’s the case for all highly regarded schools) . And that an abnormally high percentage of them are children of people who attended it themselves (but not because they get some break, simply presumably because they’re encouraged to go in this direction, and coached by a parent who knows what is expected and how to best prepare for it). There’s no doubt however that everybody gaining admission has a high potential, the entrance exam is really very selective.
Not that in fact it was originally created in good part to guarantee a more diversified social origin for high ranking civil servants, and precisely prevent favoritism and social reproduction, in a meritocratic spirit. It did work at first, but seems to be failing more and more at this goal.
For the record, I attempted (and failed at) this admission exam.
This is a pointless comparison because there is no reason to think that the legacy and non legacy applicant pools are exactly the same. As your cite says the sons and daughters of alumni are more likely to know the process and how to optimize their applications. Someone with knowledge of the situation, Dean of Admissions William Fitzsimmons said"“If you look at the credentials of Harvard alumni and alumnae sons and daughters, they are better candidates on average,"
However it still does not matter because even under the most extreme assumptions, that all legacies are white and that all legacies are underqualified, we know that they only make up 14% of the student body. If you don’t count any hispanic students as white then white students are 43.5% of the student body. The highest possible percentage of underqualified legacy white students is 32%. So even under crazy assumptions the chance of a white harvard graduate being underqualified is less than 1 in 3, while the chance of a black harvard graduate being underqualified is more than 1 in 2.
One thing that drives admission rates is that US News rates colleges by percentage of applicants admitted. The more applications rejected the better the rating. This means colleges try to get as many people as possible to apply as possible so their numbers look good. As your cite says the numbers of black students who apply for Harvard has been skyrocketing recently. Now black students are more likely to apply for Harvard admissions than white students are. Asian students are an amazingly 6 times more likely than white students to apply for Harvard.
I believe “legacy” in all its formats is evil. Conglomerating the wealth and securing it at the top with fewer and fewer having access needs to be ended.
One of my colleagues spent a post-doc year or two at Harvard teaching math. He was told in no uncertain terms by the dept chair that he was not to give a grade below B+ since, if he did, he would have to write a letter of explanation. This is where this crap leads. And I very much persuaded by the remark above that this just extends the list of things of that money can buy that it is not supposed to be for sale. The bottom line is that a Harvard degree really doesn’t mean much any more.
I am truly disgusted by posters here that are okay with bribery, fraud and elitism if afterwards there are some crumbs available to every one else. No wonder there are saps who buy into the trickle-down theory. Being left out in the cold, they love the warmth of urine pouring on their heads.
Grade inflation has been a problem at Harvard for a long time.
I don’t think this actually happens. The wealthy don’t care about being smart; why should they, really? They know their parents’ money will open all the doors they need in life. Studying and showing up to class and knowing enough to ace an exam are what peasants have to do to be impressive. It’s actually a sign of nobility when you can flagrantly slack off and not face any repercussions for it.
I think these kids know full well that they aren’t as strong academically as their less affluent peers. What they probably didn’t know is that this is fraud that could put you in jail. “Everybody (who matters) does it” is probably what they’ve been thinking, too.
Frankly, there ought to be a legal ban on legacy or donor status being considered as a factor in admissions.
Eh, if it’s a private university with private funds, they can let in whoever they want, IMO. So long as they don’t run afoul of anti-discrimination laws. Maybe the founder/governing body of this school wants to serve students with a broad or varied range of academic ability and doesn’t always take all the best students - their choice. Maybe they only want oboe players - okay. Hell, maybe they just want pay-the-fee-and-you-get-in on a first-come, first-serve basis. Whatever. I might not morally agree with all these choices, but they should be legal, IMO.
Maybe cut off the life-blood of their research: Federal grant funds (USDA, NSF, NIH, etc).
Ex-college prof here.
It is not a good thing at all.
And it is part of a very bad slippery slope. It’s the elephant’s foot in the door.
If the kid isn’t good enough to get in, then the chances they will get a degree without “help” are small. So profs get pressured to pass them, and on and on.
You can avoid all such problems by just having standards.
Re: Legacy students. The only time I was pressured was from the Dean of Students who was a friend of the kid’s mother. (Both were alumni.) The kid was terrible. Needed to be kicked out. Which was going to happen with their grades. For various bigotry reasons I was the nail that stuck out so I got hit with the hammer. Incredibly long discussions ensued. Facts didn’t matter. I was clearly “not coming around to their view”. Screw that.
No, you do not want to have of this nonsense started in any way shape or form.
Exactly. In fact, don’t want to play by nice/fair rules? Lose public “accreditation”.
Private or not - these are centers of education - not country clubs. Standards should matter. Wallet size should not.
Serious question: how do you feel about legacy boosts/development boosts for kids who are superqualified? Lots of super qualified kids don’t get in just because there isn’t space.
Interesting point. The difference here, is of course, that that money would be going to individuals, and not to the govt.
It would be an interesting situation if people could actually buy their senate seats. Highest bidder wins, with the funds going to the treasury.
Not sure I would like that govt, but at least it would be funded.
If you only gave the school the money with the expectation that your kid get in, then it makes sense for the school to give some favorability to that student in order to attract more similar donations. If donations don’t give you an advantage, then donations dry up.
Puddlegum kinda had the right idea of it, except that he was looking at “discounting” people based on their skin color, rather than their background.
If you know that someone comes from a wealthy background, just assume that they got in on the merit of their wealth, rather than on their own abilities.
And, what if they want to go to medical school? Will a big enough donation make that happen?
No, you donate enough that there is now room for 20.