While schools like Harvard provide some opportunities to rub shoulders with royalty, aristocrats and SES elites/celebrities from all around the world, the levels of such opportunities seem to be exaggerated based on what I’ve observed on such campuses as a student AND from accounts of Ivy alums who both have/have not roomed/rubbed shoulders with such scions.
While some such scions go out of their way to integrate themselves with the entire college community and blend in*, others tend to self-segregate themselves with other fellow scions without mingling or doing much to interact with classmates who are more ordinary upper-middle class and lower.
It also fails to account for the fact not every successful applicant to Harvard or peer elite college applied and hoped to make it in for that purpose…or even had that thought occur to them. Many apply because Harvard has topflight academic programs in a wide variety of fields with a few exceptions.
In fact, the presence of “high personages” was considered a bit of a detracting factor for some of the HS classmates who were admitted and ended up attending Harvard…including some who were doing so because they were turned down by schools they preferred because they felt it was more meritocratic and stronger in STEM…such as MIT or Caltech.
Such as the scion of the HK tycoon who were classmates with an in-law and a former older colleague at Princeton....and said colleague also attended HS with him as well. Despite having a close friendship with him, my in-law didn't know he was a scion from such a prominent HK business family until graduation when she saw his parents greeting him. One thing which helped him successfully conceal his connection was he made it a point to dress down and avoid limiting his socializing to fellow scions or associating himself with the most socially exclusive clubs on campus.
@al2simon, your question about podunk U has been answered repeatedly on this thread. In short: it makes more sense for just about any other institution to engage in pay-for-play. @blossom, minimizing the issue by citing more important problems is by now also a rhetorical classic, but the thread has a specific title and I’ve tried to respect it, especially since I didn’t start it. I look forward to reading your proposed solutions to the exploitation of African-American athletes elsewhere.
Bless you @DeepBlue86 for actually advancing the conversation again, and for basically characterizing my position: “it’s damaging to Harvard’s brand to admit kids whose family made a big donation that sealed the deal.” To spell it out a bit: I think pay-for-play is unnecessary in Harvard’s case. It’s damaging to Harvard’s brand in the sense that Harvard would be better place if it stopped doing it. It would be a better university, a better symbol of higher education, a better leader, a truer representative of meritocratic and democratic ideals, a better educating institution for future leaders. Yes, eliminating developmental admissions would have a small impact on the student body, but it would be symbolically important.
As for the “Gates admits,” I still think it’s a dangerous idea to take them (but we must always listen to Bill.) One problem (not the only one) is that the moment of facing college admissions is lost: Jared – if he can momentarily be a metaphor without people leaping up to say we haven’t seen his file – presumably never faced the problem of college admissions at all, sailing through it as he did on a boat of $$. So as a future ‘mover and shaker’ in society, the lesson he learned from this was? And the method he knows for getting hard things done in the future is? His understanding of the world in which most people live is? An opportunity cost…
In my view the Harvard that rejects pay-for-play has a better, and possibly greater, impact on the world than the one that tolerates it, and that’s the brand.
OK, @LadyMeowMeow (he says, chuckling - in a nice way), I think we can take it that if Harvard explicitly stated that henceforth actual or potential donations would not influence admissions in any way, its brand would be a lot better as far as you’re concerned. And that the price of admission for you is Bill Gates’ net worth if he insists, with some reservations given that anyone so blessed/cursed as to benefit from Bill’s largesse in this way will have been deprived of the character-forming experience of applying to Harvard and having to worry about the outcome. Maybe we should leave it there. ;
If there are kids in this position, it is by their own choice. There are basketball players who are ‘one and done’ every year, and I don’t think they are exploited at all by the schools. They play for a year and jump to the NBA or Europe, but it is their choice. They have 4 year scholarships if they want them. Football players have to wait 3 years out of high school before turning pro, so they might as well get the education if they want it. The big schools provide them room, meals, tutors, books, and now a stipend. The education is there for them if they want it. If there were no sports in college, these teens wouldn’t go to college.
I’m the mom of a first year student at Harvard. As a recently widowed parent, it was important for my D to apply to schools with big endowments and who would meet her need. H was not her first choice, but became it after she saw their financial aid package. It didn’t even occur to us when she was applying to be concerned with anyone else who might be competing with her for a spot, much less a scion from wealthy family or a developmental admit.
So let me try again, lookingforward: You object that posters on this thread strenuously oppose development admits (i.e., major donors’ children who are adequately qualified along with thousands of others, but who are boosted into the admitted group by donations), because the posters can’t know that there are any development admits? I can’t offer hard proof, but I am pretty certain that there are development admits. Do you think there are not?
If you say that no one can be certain that a particular donor’s child would not have been admitted, absent the donation, then I am willing to agree to that (and emphatically so about applicants whom I know nothing about).
The question is one of philosophy, though. LadyMeowMeow, for example, is a purist, who feels that Harvard damages itself by offering any development admits. I tend to agree with this position. DeepBlue86 is a pragmatist, and a quite effective apologist for Harvard’s position. Not meaning to overlook other posters, just feeling that these two exemplify the extreme positions with regard to the ethics of development admits. Because several of us view this as a philosophical/ethical issue, the small number of development admits is irrelevant from the standpoint of this component of the discussion.
There are also the “Who cares?” posters, the “Life is unfair” posters, and the “Other issues are more important” posters. I acknowledge the existence of these positions–which might even be the right ones to take–but in my view, they do not address a key issue: whether it is proper for Harvard is to have development admits, or not. (Added in editing: I also acknowledge that it is logical for them not to address this issue.)
The push for geographical diversity does not bother me. I would not be surprised if Harvard occasionally went a year without admitting anyone from Idaho. I don’t think that residents of Idaho are so advantaged by their location that they ought to be held to higher standards than other applicants (though perhaps this is because I have spent only a short time in Idaho–apologies to Idaho natives who consider their location to be an overwhelming advantage). I do think that the development applicants are already so advantaged by wealth that they ought to be held to higher standards.
QM, I think you phrased that in a slanted way, lol. And a bit of reductio.
Of course, there are dev admits. No one said there aren’t any. And there are occasional faculty kid admits, omg, maybe an extra helping of kids from some local hs the college has a close relationship with, etc. All sorts of balances, per institutional needs and wants… Athletes. And each choice, as they add up to a full dance card, means others don’t get in.
I accept some are opposed to dev admits. Argue on. But not that all dev admits are less qualified choices. That’s what I think rests too much on assumption.
The outrage here seems based on a certainty these rich kids haven’t really earned their place and are “taking someone else’s spot” or bribing, buying, should be ashamed, it’s some moral evil. (Talk about loaded spin.)
We can argue abut geo diversity later. It’s far more constraining than the small number of kids of wealthy donors.
Add “pay to play” to the phrase list. You assuming that’s all it takes?
Given some of the hugely negative things I’ve seen parents due to their kids, I’m supposed to worry about this now. Screwing with his kids lives? His kids live in a $50M house, go to a top Seattle prep school and, I suspect, have never flown a commercial airline in their life. I’m not sure what horse you’re worried about but it left the barn about $60B ago.
A spot at Harvard is a bizarre place for a strident morality play. I’ll probably regret this but what problem are you really trying to solve. Put another way, what’s evil about this? Maybe I’m missing something but this seems to be a Kissingeresque “the stakes are so small” sort of issue.
@QuantMech Thanks for your kind words, but I will quibble with the statement that I’m an apologist for Harvard. I don’t consider developmental admits to be something Harvard needs apologists for. It’s entirely up to Harvard to decide the number, if any, of development admits it wishes to offer, and how open it wishes to be about that. The president and trustees have a duty to uphold the school’s mission, and how they choose to do it is their call.
@al2simon had a good summary post upthread, as part of which he said that having a problem with Harvard offering developmental admits is like saying that the Met shouldn’t give free tickets to its largest donors. I’d actually use a slightly different analogy. Harvard’s more like the greatest restaurant in New York, central to the city’s culture, where they serve amazing food and everyone wants to see and be seen. You have to work very hard to get a table there, calling exactly at the moment they make reservations available for tables a month from now, and you have to redial 50 times after you get a busy signal, but if you do what’s expected, and you’re lucky, you’ll get in and have an unforgettable experience that you’ll talk about and people will be impressed by forever: the best meal of your life, in a beautiful setting, surrounded by famous people from all parts of society and around the world.
Every so often, though, a celebrity’s personal assistant will call, say that the person they work for would like to come by with five other people in an hour, and, miraculously, a table will be found. Having these kinds of people as customers is part of what makes the restaurant what it is, and why so many people want to go there. They also tend to be pretty good tippers.
No one likes to be left steaming in a bar waiting for the table they reserved a month ago, now occupied by some famous person who cut the line. It seems transparently unfair, even though the restaurant was entirely within its rights to handle things as it did. This is why the maître-d’, if he’s good, doesn’t do it that often, and is subtle about it. Overdo that sort of thing and it creates resentment, affects public perception of the restaurant and causes regular people to stop coming. The restaurant decreases in cultural relevance and turns into a sort of club. Clubs tend not to have very good food, since the members are mainly there to socialize with each other and the meal isn’t really the point. Accordingly, the restaurant’s management needs celebrities, but has to manage its brand carefully.
You might object that Harvard isn’t a restaurant and academics should be all-important. In my analogy, the academics are the food. The Harvard restaurant has to serve the best food, but if it does so in a spartan warehouse, and the only patrons are food connoisseurs, it will have diminished cultural relevance, many people won’t go there and its ability to continue serving the best food will be imperiled. The restaurant with the best food in the world, according to some critics, is Noma, situated in a warehouse on the Copenhagen waterfront, where they serve dishes including moss and live ants. Personally, I have no plans to visit (and they’re closing at the end of the year anyway).
To those who would object that it’s immoral for Harvard to allow money to be the primary determinant of admission for anyone, I would respond: on what basis do you make that claim? Here’s what Harvard has to say on their website about whom they admit and why:
I read this as: “we can take whoever we want, for whatever reason we want, and we don’t owe you an explanation”. As long as a candidate has the relevant “academic accomplishment” (i.e., the admissions office believes they can do the work and graduate from Harvard), is “promising” and “will contribute to the Harvard community” (no comment), no one has any basis to say that the university violated its standards - which it sets itself - by accepting that candidate.
@fragbot If you read upthread, you’ll see we’re not talking about Gates’s own kids.
For those who don’t like the concept of moral harm, it was inspired by Harvard’s own high-sounding rhetoric. For the third time on this thread, I’ll cite Harvard’s own claim that their students exemplify “integrity, maturity, strength of character, and concern for others” and that these qualities form an “important part” of their admissions evaluations. If that were true, Harvard would not be able to accept any development admits, since each and every one, by purchasing their entrance, renounced their single best opportunity to demonstrate integrity, maturity, strength of character, and concern for others. Harvard is flagrantly calling out its own hypocrisy. Its hand is in the cookie jar, and everyone knows it.
In general this thread reads like a litany of what kids say when their hands are caught in the cookie jar. Susie did it first. It’s only one cookie. There’s a fire on the stove. Look at something else. You shouldn’t be worried about my cookie-stealing, you should be solving the problems of the world. (What kind of world problems could have been solved in the time it took to write 20,000 posts on CC, one wonders?)
Ah, but when you catch @DeepBlue86 with his hand in the jar, he says something more interesting: “yes, I know it’s a bad habit of mine, I don’t like to talk about it, but listen to me, I’m really doing it for the good of the family.” And you have to listen.
“Some admission candidates will demonstrate extraordinary promise in academic or research endeavors. Some will show uncommon talent in other areas, such as leadership, performing arts, or athletics. Most of our students combine the best of both scholastic and extracurricular achievement. Personal qualities—integrity, maturity, strength of character, and concern for others—also will play an important part in our evaluations.” https://college.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/viewbook_1617.pdf
@LadyMeowMeow you misread. My hand is not in the cookie jar because there is no cookie jar. I am not acknowledging bad habits, because I don’t believe there are any to acknowledge. And you don’t have to listen.
@DeepBlue86 I posted before I saw ^. I had in mind upthread where you made reference to sausage-making and “doing things you don’t like to talk about” for the good of your family. My point stands, however. Harvard likes to talk about its students’ “integrity, maturity, strength of character, and concern for others,” but not about how developmental admissions undermines all that.
Thank you for post #228, lookingforward. It give me a chance to clarify my position and the position of quite a few others on this thread who don’t think Harvard should offer development admits.
You commented:
“But not that all dev admits are less qualified choices. That’s what I think rests too much on assumption.”
Of course, not all development admits are less qualified. I have assumed from the beginning that the development admits are somewhere amongst the thousands of well-qualified applicants, in the broad swath from which Harvard takes only a few. The question is: What causes them to be taken, and not others? The donation, per se? Or unique personal qualities that result from having grown up with great wealth? (Boorishness does not count, here.) If the latter, then the donation would be totally superfluous for admissions purposes. But one has the sense that the donation differentiates the development admit from the thousands of other equally qualified applicants who are rejected. Perhaps Harvard is not one of the highly selective schools whose rhetoric includes the statement that they could have admitted an entirely different, second group of applicants who were essentially equally qualified with the group that they did admit. But some of the highly selective schools do say that. (I’ve read it here on CC. How could it be wrong?)
If I have interpreted LadyMeowMeow correctly, she thinks that by permitting his/her application to be connected to a donation, the development admit is ipso facto less qualified.
Re DeepBlue86’s position: I guess I was using the term “apologist” as a back-construction from “Christian apologetics,” a defense of the faith, where the apologist obviously thinks there is nothing to apologize for.
(There is no cookie jar! Wow! Even Bart Simpson could not have come up with that one! Really just making a joke here, DeepBlue86. I admire your rhetoric. The restaurant analogy is an interesting one.)
@DeepBlue86 Sorry, but chic restaurants don’t yammer on about the “integrity, maturity, strength of character, and concern for others” of their clientele. Harvard does, and because it does, it creates its own hypocrisy.
Jared’s application might well provide compelling proof that he has academic chops along with personal integrity, maturity, strength of character, and concern for others, but the minute he attaches $2.5 million to it, that proof dissolves.
DeepBlue86’s restaurant analogy does offer the interesting possibility of college reviews in the guise of restaurant reviews, though.
Caltech: The food was excellent and the ambience pleasant, but the wait staff kept hurling the dishes at the customers at a rapid pace. Would not go again.
Harvard: Waited in the bar for three hours, despite having made the reservation two months in advance. Eventually was told that they could not offer my group a table that evening, nor any other evening for at least a year. The maitre’d suggested that we go to another restaurant that was easier to get into, and that we might fit better there. I would have been insulted, except that the maitre’d was careless and had let a large wad of $100 bills partially escape from his pocket.
I admire your rhetoric. The restaurant analogy is an interesting one.)