Ooooh! How about the, “I will use all kinds of oblique phraseology to cover up the fact that I’m really mad about preferences for URMs”? That’s a familiar one here.
Bingo, Hunt.
Or this:
" I have done no work at all. I know next to nothing about competitive colleges."
“People care about issues that affect them. That is human nature.”
How can I do this, when the data is unreliable and scant? I want to vote with my feet. For that I need more information that colleges are not ready to give out. When I ask for it, I am told I am naive or evil, or don’t deserve it or cannot have it.
Imagine if the stock market operated in this way, or you were asked to invest in companies in this way where they could selectively conceal what data they did not want investors to know or worse still manipulate data to make them look good. And every time an investor asked for data, he or she was told, if you don’t like what we give you, vote with your feet. Why don’t we follow this kind of rule in investing, which is essentially the buyer beware rule.
Imagine if when I asked the Govt to step in, I was told “This is not a big issue. Most Americans don’t have enough money to invest in the market, so why not focus on just shoring up social security instead of being selfish on trying to make money in the market. Don’t be an elitist”
Clearly we don’t buy this argument for financial investing. Why should we buy it for “Legacy and other admission practices at elite private colleges”
I agree it is often easier for legacy kids to have an understanding of the college, its mores, values, etc. But it is absolutely not impossible for non-legacy kids to get that. I have one kid who applied to legacy school and one kid who didn’t. It was easy to figure out what made both schools tick, what they valued, how to position oneself in an interview. But it requires intuition and it requires holistic skills and it requires collating data that isn’t merely quantitative data – it comes from reading the website and intuiting what they value and how they present themselves. I think some people simply don’t have that skill, so they get all ticked off at those who cultivate it.
The moderators have already warned that this is not a AA thread. So Ooooh!!! lets not go there :-SS
What’s so scant about the data? At most elite schools, legacy provides a little bit of an advantage. It’s more than they want to let on to the public at large, and less than what they’d like their loyal alumni to believe.
But what difference does it make to you as the applicant? If you’ve done your homework and believe the school is a great fit for you / your kid based on all kinds of things, roll the dice and apply just like everyone else does. If School A and School B are both good fits for your child based on the things you value, and you find that School A gives legacies no bump and School B gives legacies a decent bump, so what? What does that have to do with anything? It’s as pointless as finding out that School A gives a preference to kids from North Dakota when you’re not from North Dakota. You can’t do anything about it anyway. If you think there are soooo many unqualified legacies at School B, then don’t apply. Problem solved.
Your real problem is that you don’t want to accept that the acceptance rates as published in USNWR are, pretty much, what they are. You have to stare those things in the face. At elite schools, it will be 20% or less. That’s how it goes. Too freakin’ bad that you can’t identify some secret sauce of legacy-plus-3.97GPA-plus-North-Dakota-plus-cello-plus-AfrAm-plus-newspaper-editor that makes it 80%.
How did you ever go on a date with your spouse? Did you figure out first that her “acceptance rate” of brown-eyed men was 20% but for blue-eyed men was 40%, and go get blue contact lenses as a result?
^ And call it a crapshoot or rage against injustices.
But that poster’s first has already gotten his results.
Companies do conceal and spin.
A more focused example might be building a large hs academic competition team. Who do you want on it? Just the top gpa kids? What if they can’t hit the buzzer, don’t show up to practice or give blooey answers to amuse themselves?
Just kids with top social skills, or those who plead they rally, really want to be on the team, despite not being competitive? What about balance- some STEM stars and some humanities? If there haven’t been girls on the team, would you look for some good, bright, competitive gals to take a seat, fill a needed academic strength? What about some kids who may not be val or sal, but would hold the group together, time manage for it, come up with practice routines, and keep everyone calm? Makes sense to build a “team” of all the needed parts.
Then you learned that a few kids on the team, horrors, had an older sibling who had been on the team- competitive kids who add their fair effort and results. Do you melt down? Do you call foul play? Do you demand an expose of all the kids who had this “legacy,” their SES, other details? Hope not.
Hmm. Can I borrow your crystal ball please? I think I really need this. Your crystal ball seems to give you such wonderful insights at divining other people’s intentions.
Nice. Very nice. Can a Manager use this approach with a female or minority employee complaining about not getting a promotion. Just checking. Maybe even good advice to the BLM protesters about intuiting what the police officer wants?
Can I tell the BLM protester that they just don’t have such a skill so they are getting ticked off? or does this argument apply only selectively to college admissions. Please enlighten me.
Because it’s a seller’s market, obviously.
But how much difference can this factor really make to a non-legacy applicant? Even if we assume that a substantial portion of the legacy admits are admitted because of legacy status (and not just because it correlates with other factors), then what percentage of the class at Harvard is there “because” of legacy status? Maybe it’s as high as 5 or 6%, but I doubt it. Is that enough to think a non-legacy shouldn’t bother applying to Harvard?
Also, it seems to me that, compared to other hooks, legacy status is the least forgiving in terms of how much weaker the applicant’s stats can be as compared to the overall applicant pool.
Your money. Their college.
Again, not a good analogy IMHO.
With all due respect, this is irrelevant. Asymmetric power does not give a person or institution the power to treat the other stakeholder unfairly. Labor laws and Cartel laws work on that principle.
Forcing colleges to release more data, forces changes in their behavior over time. And once enough information is released, there develops a movement against certain practices and soon laws are passed to prevent these practices. No college wants to be embarrassed by having their own data flung at them. That is why it is important, in case you did not catch that. Its not because an applicant will be affected immediately or can act on it immediately.
But you can’t force private colleges to release this information. It’s not going to happen. So why bother worrying about it?
VLP, let me again ask you, politely and respectfully, what your issue is.
-
Do you think private colleges should NOT be allowed to prefer legacy applicants?
-
If that is your position, do you think that should be legislated?
I think if you answered those questions, instead of comparing the legacy issue to constitutionally guaranteed civil rights, people (well, I should only speak for me) would have an easier time understanding.
I think you’re not very enlightened about elite college admissions, because THIS isn’t the era in which terribly unqualified legacies are getting in because of a handshake from the headmaster.
I certainly can’t, but if enough people ask for it and complain, the govt will step in and eventually this kind of data will be released. It will take time and maybe lawsuits by interest groups. Change takes time
“No college wants to be embarrassed by having their own data flung at them.”
what an assumption to make about the MOST COMPETITIVE private colleges in the world.
THEY have on average 10Xs more applicants than they could possible accept.
I.E. they are in the drivers seat, and outrage by any one small group of parents whose “snowflakes” were not accepted will fall on deaf ears.
Alumni parents by themselves have no say or control over elite college admissions decisions.
The children of alumni parents who contribute millions of $$ to a college fall under a different category- They are called Development admits, and they usually will go to the front of the line, just like athletic recruits.
Can’t somebody have a conversation, without having an issue? If you have an intellectual issue with some of the arguments and choose to take the other side to make the conversation more interesting, does it automatically mean that you have an axe to grind in the process?
I found this topic interesting, had some thoughts and presented them. Others had strong reactions to my views and started insinuating some hidden agenda. I felt that I needed to clarify some of the inconsistencies or selective outrage in some of their arguments. I don’t have personal animosity towards anybody or anyone. I am also not an egotistical self absorbed narcissistic jerk as some have suggested 
Maybe, I just enjoy a good discussion and exchange of ideas. Is that so hard to understand?
Stakeholder, not stockholder. And my thinking process is warped??? Lol!!
If you are unable or unwilling to articulate a position, and in fact admit that you are just looking for an argument, I will politely get out of your way as that is not of interest to me. Enjoy. Postmodern out.