The Price of Admission - book

qialah · November 13, 2009, 12:30pm

I think it does a disservice to legacy kids at Ivies to insinuate that as a group they are “far beneath their competitors academically and talent-wise.”

How do we decide who “deserves” to be an Ivy admit? Is there any evidence that legacies are disproportionately in the bottom of the class or flunk out at higher rates to support the contention that Ivys lower their standards for legacies? It would contradict every rule of development to admit a kid a school knew would be unsuccessful.

Are there statistics showing what percent of alumni children actually apply to their legacy school? I’d bet it is also a very self selected group. An alum is going to have a far more realistic picture of whether the kid is a fit or not. I know plenty of Ivy alumni whose kids don’t apply to the legacy school despite having adequate stats.

hyeonjlee · November 13, 2009, 1:11pm

As a parent of high stat kids (read: meritocratic) with “anti hooks” (socio economically, ethnic/racial, whatever), and also a legacy for one of the top 10 schools:

(1) I am an enthusiastic supporter of the URM, the first generation college applicants, kids from under represented states, whatever. Society that does not leave the door open for upward social mobility for the kids from the disadvantaged background is not the kind of place I want to live in.

(2) Also support children of big donors (who cares if one dumbo got in with $2M contribution: that will pay for 10 bright kids from poor families).

(3) Will even support athletes of big time sports if that creates the “esprit de corps” for the whole campus and greatly enhances the school experience for the majority of the kids

However, what I don’t support is the legacy cases, athletes of preppy elite sports only found in elite colleges (know of any inner city kids who are working for the fencing scholarship?), and kids of faculty, staff, etc who would have otherwise not been accepted based on their merit alone. This flies in the face of fairness.

Deviating from the open, fair meritocracy is one thing and maybe even desirable at times if the end result serves the societal goal. It’s entirely another if it is done to further perpetuate the status quo (legacy cases, kids for staff/faculty at school, etc).

Surely, we can come up with a better balance between strict meritocracy and what we have now.

Every time someone rails against affirmative action and talks about reverse discrimination, I would like to point out the wonderful tradition of legacies and what have you that still, statistically speaking, overwhelmingly works in favor of the white, upper middle class kids. When the legacy kids look, collectively, like their class mates who made it on merit alone, that’s when we no longer need policies for URMs.

Bay · November 13, 2009, 1:26pm

Since Harvard reports that only 41% of its students are White, in 30 years the majority of legacy applicants will probably be non-White. Will you be okay with legacy admits then?

FallGirl · November 13, 2009, 1:26pm

I chose to have D focus on what she could control. So she studied hard, took tough classes,stayed in her EC’s, took SAT prep class. We could not control certain factors (not a legacy at schools she wanted,live in a wealthy suburban area, etc).She did not attempt to game the system by looking for an unusual EC (she did what she loved) or choosing an uncommon major. It was what it was.

marite · November 13, 2009, 2:00pm

As mini has pointed out time and again, legacy status is coming under attack just at the point when Asian and African-Americans have gotten to the position of having college-age children who could claim legacy status.

As I wrote in an earlier post, it would be a good idea to identify students who would not have been admissible if it had not been for their legacy status. The overlap between HYPSM is very high; individual students can’t possibly be legacies at all!

soomoo · November 13, 2009, 2:00pm

@bay

Loved your comment. My husband is a latino Princeton grad. A true poor, inner city kid who was extremely bright and given an opportunity which changed his life.

My son will be applying for admission this fall.

hmom5 · November 13, 2009, 2:09pm

soomoo, with at least 25th percentile stats, your son has a VERY good shot. What Mini’s analysis fails to account for is the double hook of the URM legacy. Attack all they want, these kids, when qualified, will get in.

soomoo · November 13, 2009, 2:12pm

@hmom5

His stats are very high. I do hope though, that he does not get any advantages from being a URM!! This kid has had every advantage and he is smart. His stats should be high.

marite · November 13, 2009, 2:23pm

UK universities do craft classes by limiting intake in particular majors. I would surmise that the proportion of graduates of public schools (private prep schools in American parlance) is higher at Oxford and Cambridge than of equivalent prep schools graduates at HYPSM. Let’s not forget also that in the UK, medicine and law are undergraduate majors.
How do we know that Harvard College turns out brilliant graduates? Not by looking at those only going into Ph.D. programs, but also into law, medicine, etc… Also looking into the longer-term careers of its graduates.

marite · November 13, 2009, 2:32pm

Soomoo:

I know some URMs whose parents attended H&Y and had 5 degrees between them. They are extremely smart; they got into both H & Y. I have absolutely no doubt that they would have gotten in even if they did not have these double hooks. If your son has great stats, he has a very good chance of being accepted. Legacy and URM status will help; but he will have fully deserved his spot at Princeton. That is all that matters.

marite · November 13, 2009, 2:51pm

On second thought, scrap this. I’ve met HYPSM graduates who’ve gone into k-12 teaching. I’ve even met HYPSM Ph.D.s who’ve gone into k-12 teaching, or became involved in community service (one college roommate of my H became a physician working in Appalachia) or in careers that are not usually described as “brilliant” but have been personally and socially fulfilling.

DadofB_amp_G · November 13, 2009, 3:07pm

I live in the boonies so I don’t bump into such graduates much myself, and those that are probably keep it to themselves. But the one Harvard grad I do know is - gasp - a newspaperman.

tk21769 · November 13, 2009, 3:10pm

I think this is quite different from giving the balance a little tip in favor of field hockey or lacrosse players.

I suspect that if this is true, it’s a matter of social inequalities unintentionally telegraphing through the exam system (not deliberately setting up non-academic criteria that correlate strongly with class factors, such as rowing prowess.)

Yes, I agree, to do this thoroughly you’d have to evaluate “holistically” (to borrow the admissions term). And it’s true (judging only from that controversial WSJ “feeder” study) that Harvard does exceptionally well at placing graduates into law, medical and business schools.

xiggi · November 13, 2009, 3:11pm

While not adding much information on the size of the donation by the Lauren clan, the role and relations of Duke’s Fleishman should raise more than one eyebrow:

[quote]
Mr. Fleishman’s friendships with Duke donors gave him a valuable entr

hyeonjlee · November 13, 2009, 3:25pm

You are quoting me out of context. I would like the legacy admission to go away: it is a tool to maintain status quo for those who are already advantaged. Eventually, I would like to see the URM admission advantage go away in favor of more transparent individual merit, but only when it is no longer necessary, and NOT as long as the legacy admission practice still overwhelmingly favors white, upper middle class kids.

When we start to see the collective face of the legacy kids resemble the collective face of merit based admits, we know that the URM admission advantage may no longer be necessary.

My kids have all the advantages in the world. If they yield a slight advantage to their classmates who had to overcome various odds against them, it’s a fair price to pay to live in an open, transparent society that encourages social mobility for all its citizens. Revolution happens in a society where large number of citizens feel that they are destined to the permanent underclass status.

marite · November 13, 2009, 3:48pm

tk:

I love how the focus is on the kids who are legacies or athletes but not on URMS, low income, first generation. The fact is that tips and hooks work for both the very and the least advantaged. Thanks in a large part to donors.
From the Oxford website:

I think this would fit a very large number of applicants to HYPSM. The question then becomes: how to choose among them all?

hmom5 · November 13, 2009, 4:22pm

I think everyone is just highlighting what they see as unfair. What the book and this thread points out is admissions at these schools is anything but fair. Does it really matter who benefits this year or this decade? Isn’t the point for folks to understand this is not a level playing field and decide how that effects them and what they can do to maximize their options?

Love Xiggi’s post. Mr. Lauren’s experience mirrors my family though we are not moguls. We didn’t know the game. We hired someone to teach us. Results got better. Mr. Golden is teaching all for far less than the Lauren’s and I paid.

Hope that guy is no longer at Duke and that every adcom contract now forbids such BS.

dadx · November 13, 2009, 4:43pm

I give up, which is it?

berryberry61 · November 13, 2009, 4:46pm

Smart, in and of itself, really does nothing for the University since there is so much more to its ultimate and continued success than what goes on in the classroom. It makes me nuts that just because there IS such a thing as financial aid that we somehow think full pay students often got in only because they have the money to pay the tuition and maybe participate in the Annual Fund. Where do you think they get the money to pay their professors, run the physical plant, AND have the resources to give to financial aid??? Without your million dollar donors, the financial needy kid wouldn’t be getting in at all. Long before endowments became such a huge facet of the operating budget, these kids were not getting in at al! I am really sick and tired of people leaping to some conclusion that just because your kids stats were more impressive that he deserves to get in over someone elses kids

Nicely said. All that FA doesn’t grow on trees. Colleges need full pay legacies and development admits to help pay for the costs other students do not pay for

xiggi · November 13, 2009, 4:55pm

With the low acceptance rates at the uber-elites, it is not hard to understand that between 75% to 95% end up being disappointed. The road from disappointment to a claim of unfairness is an easy one to follow.

The reality is simple: it is not easy for anyone. Marite is right to write that tips and hooks work well at both of ends of the socio-economic landscape. It works, but easy it is not. The difficulties of growing poor are easier to understand because they often have physical and tangible impacts. On the other hand, the pressures to “make it” at the Ivies might be every bit as formidable. Being the smart and diligent kid at a low to no-expectation school might be easier than having to be in the higher half of Exeter or Deerfield.

And, of course, there is that huge in the middle section formed by the children of middle and high middle class who are facing a 10-14 years battle to emerge from our suburban school system and accumulate that amazing resume necessaru for the HYPMS of this world.

All in all, and despite the many anecdotes of unfairness and favoritism, one has to admit that the system is working pretty darn well. The overwhelming majority of the students end up at a school that fits and … serves them well. Lower income and minorities are far from being excluded from our most selectives universities; the schools have responded with expanded financial aid policies for the middle classes; and the system is gaining in transparency every year.

Of course, my own conclusions are based on rather narrow base of experience and much less than a decade of observations. I completely expect for many to see a system that pleases only a few and disappoints many. C’est la vie!

The Price of Admission - book

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