Who ‘Deserves’ to Go to Harvard

DeepBlue86
Mon, 17 Jun 2019 03:43:01 +0000

@MWolf did you read the article? This is more a commentary (and a scathing rebuke) to the speech that the Dean gave to students of Harvard’s graduating class, not really on who “deserves” to go to Harvard.

@MWolf and I are engaging with the speech that the article discusses, and criticizing it from a different angle than the article.

Well, that’s simple, more athletes, URMs and prep school wealthy deserve to go to Harvard than middle class Asians scholars. In some cases, privilege gets you in, in other its held against you. There is no rhyme or reason to it just misguided attempt at social engineering.

What’s misguided, in my opinion, is for someone to think they know better than Harvard who Harvard should admit. Harvard devotes very substantial resources to identifying, admitting and subsidizing the enrollment of the ~2,000 students each year that it believes best serves its interests. Those interests - fulfilling Harvard’s mission of teaching and research by expanding Harvard’s power, reach and wealth - are much more important to Harvard than any “social engineering” (a concept I only see talked about in certain corners of Reddit and College Confidential). If Harvard believed its interests would be best served by admitting only “middle class Asians [sic] scholars”, that’s who Harvard would admit.

There is certainly “rhyme or reason” to Harvard’s admissions process, which it’s pretty straightforward to determine if you look carefully enough (various people on CC understand it to a greater or lesser degree, for example).