Shelby Steele on Ivy League Admissions

<p>But the problem is that he mentions those “values that made us exceptional…NOW carry a stigma of hypocrisy”, and then uses Ivy League admissions as an example. </p>

<p>And yet, as I said, Ivy League admissions was NEVER simply one of pure merit. It’s not that NOW there are “back doors” ways to get in, and back THEN, when we rewarded these “values that made us exceptional”, there were no “back doors”. </p>

<p>In fact, it was probably worse back in the good ole days with respect to Ivy League admissions.</p>

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<p>Yeah, based on the stats of the incoming freshman classes each year, I’d say it mostly advantages accomplished kids who have high grades and test scores and disadvantages those who don’t. If it didn’t there is no way the Ivy schools could rack up the high average stats that they do year after year.</p>

<p>Yes, it was MUCH better back in the old days when the Exeter and Andover headmasters met with the admissions committees and told them who should get in and who shouldn’t, hands were shaken and agreements reached, and academic merit had very little to do with it. Come off it. What incredible revisionist history. At least today’s legacies have to show academic chops, and there <em>weren’t</em> URM’s back then since they weren’t Our Kind of People, Dear.</p>

<p>How incredibly ignorant do you have to be not to realize that the “problem” of not-meritous students getting in was FAR, FAR worse back in the old days, when it was social status (most often WASP) and a handshake? He’s pining for a mythical past that never existed.</p>

<p>“Of course many here are bristling, and there’s nothing more offensive than a very educated black intellectual voicing these opinions to stir up the spider’s nest.”</p>

<p>You know if some on the center or left said that when a conservative attacked something said by a black intellectual, they would be attacked for “playing the race card” or the “victim card”</p>

<p>"The bit about merit in Ivy admissions is obviously about how the selection process is very much influenced by political agenda, advantaging certain special populations and disadvantaging others. "</p>

<p>Preferences for URMs are found in a range of schools, not just the Ivies. Whether those preferences actually recognize merit, in the form of overcoming circumstances is a matter of debate. However it is a fact that, regardless, URMs at Ivies have VERY high stats relative to admits at many, many other schools. I would guess URM’s at Ivies TODAY have very good stats compared to all admits at the same schools 30 years ago. </p>

<p>The golden age of “no quotas” at the Ivies would probably have been roughly 1945 to 1965, as that was when the Jewish quotas were dead or dying, and affirmative action was not yet in place. However even in that era there were legacies, development cases, recruited athletes, etc, etc.</p>

<p>"I would also mention that while the Wall street Journal does clearly have a conservative editorial viewpoint it is by far the largest circulation paper in this Country-more than double that of the NY Times so while it appears posters on cc don’t seem to give it much credibility it certainly resonates elsewhere. "</p>

<p>You dont suppose that has anything to do with their excellent and thorough coverage of business news, rather than the oped page, do you?</p>

<p>There seem to be many authorities on this thread on Ivy admissions. BrooklynDad - do you have a kid at an Ivy? Pizzagirl? If memory serves, you attended one but not your kids?</p>

<p>I graduated from one.</p>

<p>My DD applied to one and was rejected. Despite her being, IMO, at least as smart as I was, and in many ways a more interesting candidate. </p>

<p>Its just become so much harder in the last 30+ years.</p>

<p>Here we go again. </p>

<p>I hesitiate to get involved, and hesitate to mention Karabel’s book, The Chosen, because everyone seems to draw their own conclusions out of it. But it clearly indicates that for at least the last 50 or 60 years or so (since the schools started turning away larger numbers of students) there has been a constant struggle between pure meritocracy and other factors (including legacy, athlete, and race). There is also, of course, no one definition for merit. </p>

<p>One dean wants a pure “top one percent policy”, basically based on test scores and grades, others want a “happy bottom quarter”. The reasons for rejecting one student over another pointed out in the book can be a bit bizarre. And people have complained about it for years as well.</p>

<p>[The</a> Harvard Crimson | Have Politics Dictated the Class of 1974?](<a href=“Have Politics Dictated the Class of 1974? | News | The Harvard Crimson”>Have Politics Dictated the Class of 1974? | News | The Harvard Crimson)</p>

<p>The article is a litle messed up at the end, but you get the point.</p>

<p>BTW - I am no expert on these admissions personally, except to the extent that I was rejected by one of these schools. But Karabel did do a study.</p>

<p>“The Ivies only have the power you ascribe to them, you know.” - Pizzagirl.</p>

<p>There is a lot of truth to this.</p>

<p>"My DD applied to one and was rejected. Despite her being, IMO, at least as smart as I was, and in many ways a more interesting candidate. </p>

<p>Its just become so much harder in the last 30+ years. " - BBD</p>

<p>I think that is Mr. Steele’s point: It is a lot harder to get in now than it was 30+ years ago for applicants that are exceptionally successful in the classroom and on standardized tests. It is a lot easier (or at least accessible) for applicants with other aspects of their applications weighed more heavily today than in earlier eras.</p>

<p>"It is a lot easier (or at least accessible) for applicants with other aspects of their applications weighed more heavily today than in earlier eras. "</p>

<p>WHAT aspects? URM status? the Ivies ALREADY had affirmative action for URMs when I applied - im not THAT old :slight_smile: IIUC they probably have a much easier time getting URMs with high stats now than they did then, because the pool of middle class URMs is much wider and deeper than it was then. And its not like the URMs THEN were THAT low in stats or smarts - the advantage has always been at the margins. </p>

<p>I have little doubt that its harder to get in as a URM now, then it was as a non URM back then.</p>

<p>if you mean things like legacy, ECs. athletics, etc - no those were valued just as much in admissions then. You need MORE ECs now - but thats just part of the general arms race.</p>

<p>What rot. You can’t spend 20 minutes in the Harvard admissions office without hearing the mantra of “distinguishing excellences.” </p>

<p>'The golden age of “no quotas” at the Ivies would probably have been roughly 1945 to 1965"</p>

<p>This was still very much the age when prep schools handed over chunks of the white, male, Christan class to each Ivy. This didn’t change until the advent of affirmative action and co-ed classes in the late 60s/early 70s. It was also a time (per a Princeton handbook from the 50s) when legacies were admitted automatically if they met the bare minimum academically.</p>

<p>“It is a lot harder to get in now than it was 30+ years ago for applicants that are exceptionally successful in the classroom and on standardized tests.”</p>

<p>Well…unless you’re a woman. And I don’t think we really know how the Ivies weighed letters of rec from black teachers and a high rank at all-black high schools prior to the late 60s. I hesitate to be so sure that these students flew through the doors back then. Princeton didn’t admit its first black undergraduate until 1947.</p>

<p>There are plenty of good arguments against affirmative action, but this isn’t one. “Individual initiative and individual responsibility—the very engines of our exceptionalism—now carry a stigma of hypocrisy”? I often hear the fantasy that the achievement of a privileged 17-year-old can be chalked up to individual initiative and responsibility, instead of a complex mix of influences and choices. It is indeed hypocritical (and foolish) to be born on third base and pontificate about how anyone can hit a triple through hard work.</p>

<p>I’m speaking as someone who was born on third, managed against all odds to steal second, and then made it home.</p>

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<p>Note that there is also another phenomenon to account for such observations: what is visible to the admissions committee is not necessarily the same as what is visible to other students and parents in the high school. Perhaps the student known around the high school as generally less academically talented and intellectually curious happens to be excellent at written marketing and sales, which can be very advantageous when preparing essays and other materials for applying to selective universities.</p>

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<p>Shhhhhh . . . let them go on thinking it’s the ECs.</p>

<p>“parents whose kids have worked very hard in High School, and they believe that their child was shut out of admissions to an elite school”</p>

<p>Parents whose kids don’t make it will ALWAYS think the process was unfair. This seems to be built into our brain chemistry. It’s actually a beautiful thing that people believe so strongly in the specialness of their own child, but wounded parental love/pride doesn’t provide much evidence that one admissions system or another is actually unfair.</p>

<p>Well, then, sewhappy, if those awful Ivy League schools reward things that are just not worthwhile IYO, then why did you bother to send your kid there? No one said you needed to give them your money, and if the classmates he would encounter wouldn’t be “the very best and brightest,” you certainly wouldn’t want his brilliance tainted by associating with them.</p>

<p>Sorry. I continue to find it the height of hypocrisy to salivate over the prospect of going to certain schools while at the same decrying how who they let in just don’t reflect the best and brightest that your kid deserves to be among. And no one forced you to cough up $55K a year for that privilege either. Every state has a state school, and most provide good educations for the price. </p>

<p>Me, I don’t much care that my kids’ schools may give privilege to URM’s, whatever. Noblesse oblige, you know. It looks small, very small, to begrudge those who have often been less fortunate a hand up.</p>

<p>“It’s actually a beautiful thing that people believe so strongly in the specialness of their own child, but wounded parental love/pride doesn’t provide much evidence that one admissions system or another is actually unfair.”</p>

<p>Exactly. My kids would have been bummed and hurt if they hadn’t gotten into their desired schools, but that wouldn’t have made the process “unfair,” and I certainly wouldn’t be one of those ugly people that sadly populate CC who then complain that their kid was denied because of that URM/legacy/athlete/whatever. There are simply more qualified kids than spots. What is so hard to understand about that?</p>

<p>“There seem to be many authorities on this thread on Ivy admissions. BrooklynDad - do you have a kid at an Ivy? Pizzagirl? If memory serves, you attended one but not your kids?”</p>

<p>No, I did not (though I did get into one many years ago, I turned it down for a different school that had a particular, unique program that best suited my interests). And my kids didn’t have a single Ivy on their wish lists, anywhere. The horrors! LOL.</p>

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<p>Isn’t it amazing that the schools that form the Ivy League (and a handful of others) accomplish the rare feat of compromising their standards and maintain the highest admissions “profiles” … at the same time. </p>

<p>If the elite schools were so determined to maintain a narrow front door and a great number of side doors, should we not wonder where all the “top shelf” kids end up? Should there not be a great number of schools that would be exhibit better admission statistics?</p>

<p>Isn’t the reality that elite schools attract much criticism because … it works very well? The surest bet to have an article that gets some traction entails including Harvard, especially in a negative light. Articles that focus on problems at lesser-known schools get not much more than a yawn and a shrug, and this despite that Harvard and its true peers represent a microscopic portion of our education world.</p>

<p>In the end, most everyone has his or her own ideas about whom should be admitted in the elite schools. Overwhelmingly, it should be close to 100 percent of really, really smart people (use meritorous, if you want) who also happen to be well-connected and sophisticated. And, yes, it should of course include one of your loved one! Considering single-digit admissions, the schools create a vast supply of disappointed people every year in April. Others wait four years to find out the original expectations might have too lofty! </p>

<p>Poor elite schools … they cannot win.</p>

<p>“This was still very much the age when prep schools handed over chunks of the white, male, Christan class to each Ivy. This didn’t change until the advent of affirmative action and co-ed classes in the late 60s/early 70s. It was also a time (per a Princeton handbook from the 50s) when legacies were admitted automatically if they met the bare minimum academically.”</p>

<p>could be, that was before my time. I was referring in particular to the end of numeric Jewish quotas, which IIUC was associated with a rapid increase in Jewish enrollment post war, esp at harvard, yale, columbia, and penn. </p>

<p>Am also curious when the most elite prep schools began to admit Jewish kids - in my day there were already a bunch of jewish kids from Andover, and I think also from Exeter.</p>

<p>"Me, I don’t much care that my kids’ schools may give privilege to URM’s, whatever. Noblesse oblige, you know. It looks small, very small, to begrudge those who have often been less fortunate a hand up. "</p>

<p>think its rather more gnawing for those of us who gave birth on first base, and just want to see our kid not have too many obtacles getting to second, compared to people born on third :wink: </p>

<p>My posts are not meant in any way to defend affirmative action, whose justifications and results are mixed in my opinion, and which are, IMO, along with legacy and athletic admits, at Ivies or elsewhere, a perfectly reasonable matter for public discussion.</p>

<p>I just think the claim that URM preferences validate the statement that Ivy admissions have ceased to be about excellence, is itself laughable. That Mr Steele wont come out and say so in so many words, but leaves it to be read between the lines, makes his statement even more dubious. I could discuss Mr Steele’s own academic background, but I do not wish to insult anyone here.</p>