I will defend a bit of AA (though I prefer it based on SES than race, as I think that is a better way of defining who is truly disadvantaged in our nation). The reasoning is accurate as you read it.
“This child-of-a-welfare-mother went to a shit school in a shit district, got great grades but only hit our minimum SAT threshold. Let 'em in and they should do well here.”
for legacy, it is a different arguement. With the legacy we are saying that we are comfortable in our assumption that children of our alumni are great kids thanks to their parents, regardless of their numerical scores.
“Looks like he fucked around in high school, but we know that any child of a alum MUST have something going for them, so we will give him the benefit of the doubt.”
Heh. My brother is really smart but partied hard during HS (and was probably bored) and got Bs. He did get very high SAT scores. But he was no doubt a legacy too since he only got into PU and his safety school as well. He ended up partying his way through 2.5 years and failing out for a while. He did return and graduate though.
The funny part is our family isn’t the typical rich alums. My father was the first to go to a four-year college and his parents were thisfar removed from working class. I’m not sure any of us donate money (I know I don’t).
I disagree. For the most part, legacies are not insanely wealthy alumni. Do you really think Harvard would sweat the $5000 they might lose if they reject the average legacy? Their endowment is currently large enough that they lose any number of donors without missing a beat. The reason they accept legacies is because they want to ensure their alumni are successful. The value added an many Ivy-League schools is not as high as many other schools. What going to Harvard instead of UCLA means that you improve your odds of knowing the current and future CEOs of fortune 500 companies. It means it will be easier to get grants for your research. It’s why Yale & Harvard admitted GWB, who despite being underqualified, is currently President. It’s not so much about money as much as it is about power. It’s not that people think it’s right or wrong, they just don’t think about it at all. Just look at the estate tax. People talk about merit, et al., but they don’t really apply that standard universally. Everybody understands the impediments to social mobility and the power rich people leverage; it’s just that they think they will be rich eventually. So while few will defend legacies, their actions only reinforce the ideas behind it.
I think the logic is less this and more "This child-of-a-welfare-mother went to a shit school in a shit district, got great grades but only hit our minimum SAT threshold. Let 'em in and give them a chance to leave their disadvantaged circumstances and reap the rewards of a top-notch education. In other words, I don’t think they’re working off the belief that there is a correlation between good performance in the face of adversity and good performance at their school. Maybe I’m wrong, though.
If that’s the policy that they are working under, that seems exceptionally indefensible to me. Kid is presumably the offspring of well-to-do parents. Raised in an enriching environment, with access to the finer things in life. Little if no hardships to overcome. But he fucked around in school, so his scores aren’t super high. If the kid fucked around in school because he knew his legacy status would give him an advantage over the rest, can’t say I’d really want that kid in my school. If the kid fucked around in school because he wasn’t motivated to try his best, can’t say I’d really want that kid in my school, either.
So why am I supposed to not only allow this kid in my school, but make it easier for him to do so over the rest who did not fuck around? This is the part I’m not getting. I mean, I understand what you mean about potential. But it’s a lot more to getting admitted than that.
I believe you could still sue under equal protection. The grounds for review and likelihood of winning would obviously be lower, but the school would still have to provide a rational basis for said discrimination. I could be wrong, but I would imagine that if you can sue God, you can sue a school for admitting legacies, even if it is only to make a larger point.
I agree completely. Legacy admissions are not, of course, per se biased in favor of whites, but as a practical matter they are almost universally available only to white beneficiaries. And if, in fact, these applicants are otherwise qualified, then let them compete on the basis of those qualifications.
Legacy slots have no basis for existence in university admissions.
I don’t think so. I think there would have to be some prohibited discrimination involved. The college makes no guarantee that anyone can get in, regardless of grades, SATs or anything else.
Your analogy only works for GPA, but we have the SATs which is the same test nomatter which school you went to.
If competitive school Bob, with his tutors and great teachers, gets a 1500 and crappy school Fred, with his metal detectors and teachers as babysitters gets a 1400, to me Fred is a smarter kid who has a better chance of success in college.
Nomatter what the permutation of Bob or Fred’s ethnicity is.
By the way you with the face, I’ve thought about this today, and you’re probably right that legacy isn’t brought up and condemned as vocally as it should be. I still contend that the vast majority of people don’t believe in legacy, and it’s difficult to say that AA based solely on ethnicity should be eliminated without first eliminating a more egregious wrong.
I believe you are wrong, but maybe Bricker or one of the other lawyers will comment on this. A plaintiff in a protected class should, I believe, have his/her case evaluated under strict scrutiny, but I believe you can still sue even if it is not a protected class.
Really? You value an SAT score more than 4 years worth of tests and evaluations? If your logic were correct, you would see valedictorians from crappy high schools leading their college classes, and receiving higher degrees at a disproportionate rate. I don’t think that is the case. Either way, how do you justify punishing a kid because of where he went to school? In your example, Bob did harder work and did better on his SATs, and yet you think Fred will do better in the future?
It’s not a matter of valuing, it’s a matter of normalizing. The tests and evaluations in 4 years of one school, are not normalized to the tests and evaluations in 4 years of any other school.
By my logic you would absolutely NOT see valedictorians from crappy high schools leading their college classes. Because a valedictory GPA at one school doesn’t even mean that you would be average in another school. So, you would only see valedictorians with good SAT scores leading their college classes. The SATs are the normalizer. If you can come from a crappy school and STILL do well on the SATs, then my hat is off to you, and you will likely succeed in college and thereafter.
But, in my example, Bob probably DIDN’T work harder than Fred. That’s exactly my point. Fred probably worked harder because he had to do it himself. He probably didn’t have the SAT tutors and analogy drills and SAT math prep courses provided by the school that Bob did. Not to mention private tutoring.
I’d admit the kid who came up a bit short, but did it himself over the kid who did a bit better but had it handed to them every time.
But there is a limit, obviously. It’s when we start to admit Fred even though he scored 600 points lower that we run into a problem.
To some extent, but high schools are ranked, and AP classes are fairly standardized, so we can have a relatively good idea about how A’s at one school compare to A’s at another.
Your argument, as I understood it, was all other things being equal, a kid from a crappy high school with a comparable SAT score was “smarter” than a kid from a good high school. Thus, if an equal number of kids from both scenarios were admitted in to a college, the crappy high crappy high school would excel. Am I misunderstanding you?
I think you are making a lot of assumptions there.
Agreed on the AP tests. That would be another normalizer. Assuming of course that this crappy school has AP classes, and many (probably most) don’t, leaving only the SATs. And rankings for high schools are pretty shitty.
Not necessarily smarter, but more prepared for college and life beyond where all of a sudden everything isn’t fed to you.
If I know that you come from a shit school, and your scores are comparable, or even a bit lower than mine (from a good school), then chances are greater that you will succeed in college and beyond. In my opinion of course.
Agreed.
My wife got into the college we went to on a racially based affirmative action. She deserved the leg up. Her SAT scores were a bit lower than mine, but she really worked for it. I had mine essentially fed to me, and I would have had to have tried to screw it up. She didn’t deserve the leg up because she was non-white, but because she did it all herself with very little to work from. Her scores genuinely reflected preparedness for the real world. She is also much smarter than I am, as it turns out.
As I mentioned, our kids (who will obviously be non-white as well, for affirmative action purposes) will have no such disadvantage. If they need tutors, they will have two parents who can teach them everything that they need to know, or we can get outside help if necessary.
It’s not that they won’t be deserving of a good college slot, but it’s hard not to look at a kid without such help doing almost as well and saying, “Hey, let’s see what that kid can do if we actually give him the advantages.”
I think you’re right that most people find it hard to defend. But that doesn’t mean that they are against it.
I wonder what would happen if the Henry Whitehouses of the world were faced with two choices. Completely scrap AA based on race and do away with legacy admissions to make everything completely “fair and square”, eliminating any preferences.
OR
Leave both systems in place untouched.
I’d bet my favorite cat that the Whitehouses wouldn’t hesitate to leave AA in place just as long as legacy stays. They may be uptight about their eating clubs, but they’re not complete idiots. They know what’s good for them.
