A new (and larger) Chetty study on elite college admissions is released today

[1NJParent]

CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf (opportunityinsights.org)

Study of Elite College Admissions Data Suggests Being Very Rich Is Its Own Qualification - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

As noted by David Leonhardt of The New York Times:

7 vs. 16

The new study, by Raj Chetty and David Deming of Harvard and John Friedman of Brown, demonstrates that the country’s most qualified high school students are indeed disproportionately affluent.

About 7 percent of the country’s very top students come from the top 1 percent of the income distribution. These students tend to have scored at least 1500 on the SAT (or 35 on the ACT), received top marks on Advanced Placement tests, earned almost all A’s in their high school classes, and often excelled in science fairs or other competitions.

Perhaps the most surprising pattern involves so-called legacy students, those who attend the same college that their parents did. At the elite colleges that the researchers studied, legacy students had stronger academic qualifications on average than nonlegacy students. Similarly, graduates of private high schools had stronger academic records on average than graduates of public high schools or Catholic schools.

These stellar academic backgrounds predict later success. Highly qualified affluent students tend to excel in college and afterward — which indicates that the professors and university officials who’ve reached out to me over the years have a point.

Yet they are also overlooking an important part of the story: Most of these colleges do not admit only the hyper-qualified affluent students; they also admit many other high-income students.

As I mentioned above, 7 percent of the country’s very best high school students come from the top 1 percent of the income distribution. But what proportion of students at elite colleges comes from the top 1 percent of the income distribution? Much more: 16 percent.

This combination of facts is a tricky one to grasp. Affluent students are overrepresented among the nation’s best high school students — but the colleges are nonetheless admitting a larger number of affluent students than if the decisions were based on academics alone. The biggest boost goes to the wealthiest students

Also from the linked The New York Times article:

The missing middle class

The advantage to rich applicants varied by college, the study found: At Dartmouth, students from the top 0.1 percent were five times as likely to attend as the average applicant with the same test score, while at M.I.T. they were no more likely to attend. (The fact that children from higher-income families tend to have higher standardized test scores and are likelier to receive private coaching suggests that the study may actually underestimate their admissions advantage.)

An applicant with a high test score from a family earning less than $68,000 a year was also likelier than the average applicant to get in, though there were fewer applicants like this.

Children from middle- and upper-middle-class families — including those at public high schools in high-income neighborhoods — applied in large numbers. But they were, on an individual basis, less likely to be admitted than the richest or, to a lesser extent, poorest students with the same test scores. In that sense, the data confirms the feeling among many merely affluent parents that getting their children into elite colleges is increasingly difficult.

“We had these very skewed distributions of a whole lot of Pell kids and a whole lot of no-need kids, and the middle went missing,” said an Ivy League dean of admissions, who has seen the new data and spoke anonymously in order to talk openly about the process. “You’re not going to win a P.R. battle by saying you have X number of families making over $200,000 that qualify for financial aid.”

The researchers could see, for nearly all college students in the United States from 1999 to 2015, where they applied and attended, their SAT or ACT scores and whether they received a Pell grant for low-income students. They could also see their parents’ income tax records, which enabled them to analyze attendance by earnings in more detail than any previous research. They conducted the analysis using anonymized data.

For the several elite colleges that also shared internal admissions data, they could see other aspects of students’ applications between 2001 and 2015, including how admissions offices rated them. They focused their analysis on the most recent years, 2011 to 2015.

Though they had this data for a minority of the dozen top colleges, the researchers said they thought it was representative of the other colleges in the group (with the exception of M.I.T.). The other colleges admitted more students from high-income families, showed preferences for legacies and recruited athletes, and described similar admissions practices in conversations with the researchers, they said.

“Nobody has this kind of data; it’s completely unheard-of,” said Michael Bastedo, a professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Education, who has done prominent research on college admissions. “I think it’s really important to good faith efforts for reforming the system to start by being able to look honestly and candidly at the data.”

How the richest students benefit

Before this study, it was clear that colleges enrolled more rich students, but it was not known whether it was just because more applied. The new study showed that’s part of it: One-third of the difference in attendance rates was because middle-class students were somewhat less likely to apply or matriculate. But the bigger factor was that these colleges were more likely to accept the richest applicants.

Legacy admissions

The largest advantage for the 1 percent was the preference for legacies. The study showed — for the first time at this scale — that legacies were more qualified overall than the average applicant. But even when comparing applicants who were similar in every other way, legacies still had an advantage.
…

Nonacademic ratings

There was a third factor driving the preference for the richest applicants. The colleges in the study generally give applicants numerical scores for academic achievement and for more subjective nonacademic virtues, like extracurricular activities, volunteering and personality traits. Students from the top 1 percent with the same test scores did not have higher academic ratings. But they had significantly higher nonacademic ratings.

[CMA22]

I have posted on CC before that I have the sense highly selective colleges have a “diverse” student body comprised of the very rich and the significantly low-income — with virtually no one in between. This study seems to confirm that. I am not sure that leads to having a truly representative group of the best and brightest who can exchange ideas for the betterment of all (if that still is, or ever was, a goal).

[Spring4]

This isn’t surprising at all. Isn’t this done by design? The top 1% (according to Fortune magazine) is households who make roughly over 655k/year. That sort of income or disproportionate wealth-to-income (which is rarer still) would be needed to subsidize the half of students who are not paying the COA.

It’s really not a problem for those of us that fit into this category. There are plenty of good schools in price range for families who make 200k, 300k, 400k. None of them are Ivy’s, but neither are the alma maters of most of the people in the working world outside of a couple of investment banks.

The wealth disparity does seem more extreme than 20 years ago, but that is more a reflection of the huge increase in COA over that time frame than any overt admissions strategy change. It takes far more income (or wealth, or both) to pay 85k/year than it did to pay 25k/year.

[Thorsmom66]

I’m not sure why the wealthiest should continue to be outsized beneficiaries of elite school admissions. It isn’t a matter of education - students can get a great education at many schools - but of access. As long as the levers of power are concentrated among graduates of schools like Harvard it would behoove us, as a society, to have a more balanced representation of students with different backgrounds and life experiences. Today there is too much sameness which, to me, results in a lack of innovative thought and ideas.

[Spring4]

I’ll respond just once- what levers of power are you thinking that Ivy grads have exclusive access to?

I can only think of a few- the Supreme Court, a few select investment banks, what else? I know the VC world has a lot of Ivy business grads, but not so many undergrads.

I also know a few Ivy grads and all of them have colleagues who do not have Ivy degrees. I think that is far more common than the mythical vaunted halls of power.

I’m not passing any sort of judgement on the conclusions of this study. I’m just stating that I am not surprised.

[1NJParent]

From the same NYTimes article I linked to earlier:

Less than 1 percent of American college students attend the 12 elite colleges. But the group plays an outsize role in American society: 12 percent of Fortune 500 chief executives and a quarter of U.S. senators attended. So did 13 percent of the top 0.1 percent of earners. The focus on these colleges is warranted, the researchers say, because they provide paths to power and influence — and diversifying who attends has the potential to change who makes decisions in America.

The researchers did a novel analysis to measure whether attending one of these colleges causes success later in life. They compared students who were wait-listed and got in, with those who didn’t and attended another college instead. Consistent with previous research, they found that attending an Ivy instead of one of the top nine public flagships did not meaningfully increase graduates’ income, on average. However, it did increase a student’s predicted chance of earning in the top 1 percent to 19 percent, from 12 percent.

For outcomes other than earnings, the effect was even larger — it nearly doubled the estimated chance of attending a top graduate school, and tripled the estimated chance of working at firms that are considered prestigious, like national news organizations and research hospitals.

“Sure, it’s a tiny slice of schools,” said Professor Dynarski, who has studied college admissions and worked with the University of Michigan on increasing the attendance of low-income students, and has occasionally contributed to The New York Times. “But having representation is important, and this shows how much of a difference the Ivies make: The political elite, the economic elite, the intellectual elite are coming out of these schools.”

[Mwfan1921]

@Spring4

That sort of income or disproportionate wealth-to-income (which is rarer still) would be needed to subsidize the half of students who are not paying the COA.

At many of the highly rejective schools, the cost per student of providing an education is greater than the gross COA, meaning the college subsidizes even full pay applicants.

There are many sources, here’s one analysis, from 2019.

https://bowdoinorient.com/2019/04/12/how-does-bowdoin-spend-its-money/#:~:text=Most%20of%20Bowdoin’s%20money%20is,come%20to%20roughly%20%2428%20million.

[Spring4]

I saw that, but I don’t think of those numbers as the guarantee that they are often portrayed as. Another way of putting it is that 88% of Fortune 500 CEOs are not Ivy grads, for example.

That’s a tenuous correlation IMO.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@CMA22

a “diverse” student body comprised of the very rich and the significantly low-income — with virtually no one in between.

So the attendance distribution is going to be different from the admission rate distribution, because the application distribution is not even.

You have to go all the way down to Appendix Table 3 Panel A (page 73) of the full paper to get this information:

CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

But this was the attendance distribution for Ivy Plus students by parental income:

0-20 3.2%
20-40 4.7%
40-60 8.2%
60-70 6.0%
70-80 8.4%
80-90 14.9%
90-95 13.5%
95-96 4.1%
96-97 5.2%
97-98 7.1%
98-99 9.1%
99-99.9 12.8%
Top 0.1% 2.9%

If you norm to the size of subrange, this is consistently increasing with higher parental income. The breakeven point was about 80%, meaning 70-80 was a bit below a proportionate share (8.4% of attendees for a 10% size range), and 80-90 was above a proportionate share (14.9% of attendees in a 10% range).

I think it might also be helpful to summarize this in terms of quintiles, which looks like:

0-20 3.2%
20-40 4.7%
40-60 8.2%
60-80 14.4%
80-100 68.5%

Then the top 20% by deciles:

80-90 14.9%
90-100 53.6%

And finally the top 10% by 5% ranges (the 1% ranges are already basically done):

90-95: 13.5%
95-100: 40.1%

@CMA22

I am not sure that leads to having a truly representative group of the best and brightest who can exchange ideas for the betterment of all (if that still is, or ever was, a goal).

That was in fact never the stated goal. Here, for example, is Harvard’s Mission Statement:

Mission, Vision, & History

Unless you missed the point, here is an elaboration that actually comes first:

Our mission to educate future leaders is woven throughout the Harvard College experience, inspiring every member of our community to strive toward a more just, fair, and promising world.

OK, so Harvard’s mission is not to bring together a “representative group of the best and brightest who can exchange ideas for the betterment of all.” Harvard’s mission is to “educate future leaders.”

Of course some might believe those should be the same groups. But Harvard has never said it sees things that way, and has never acted like it sees things that way.

[Thorsmom66]

They are more likely to hold positions of power in government, be heads of corporations etc. That being said, most Ivy grads go on to have typical careers and lives - no different than their non-Ivy league graduate friends/neighbors.

[Mwfan1921]

Exactly. Dale and Krueger data show that affluent students do well career wise not because of the school they went to, but for other reasons, including the connections they have. Said differently, they tend to do well no matter what undergrad school they attended.

Separately, and for all, this is a long study which will take many people some time to read and digest. It’s best that people do this before commenting about its findings, no?

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@Thorsmom66

As long as the levers of power are concentrated among graduates of schools like Harvard it would behoove us, as a society, to have a more balanced representation of students with different backgrounds and life experiences.

At a deep level, this is a chicken and egg problem.

Harvard says its mission is to educate future leaders. If future leaders are going to be disproportionately drawn from higher income families, even more so the highest income families, then Harvard accomplishing its mission requires it to disproportionately educate students drawn from higher/highest income families.

Still, the data quoted above suggests these schools are at least collectively reinforcing this effect.

But I’d also note we’re just looking at the middle part of a chain that goes from birth through career peak. Children of the highest income parents are starting off with extraordinary resources even before they get to kindergarten, in part to prepare them for school. K-8, they are attending expensive private schools and expensive summer programs and expensive clubs and so on, which again are preparing them for high school. They then attend expensive high schools and more expensive summer programs and expensive clubs and so on that prepare them for college. They then attend expensive colleges and such that prepare them for graduate or professional school or entry-level jobs. They then attend expensive graduate or professional schools or highly-selective entry-level jobs in expensive cities that prepare them for the next step after that. And it just keeps going on and on.

OK, so it is true Harvard and its peers are doing their part in all this. But so are “elite” private high schools, and K-8 schools, and pre-Ks. So are “elite” law schools, business schools, and medical schools. So are “elite” entry-level firms and government offices and NPOs. And so on. All these different institutions are taking the children of the “elite” and preparing them to end up “elite” as well.

And that is how our society works. Not just “elite” colleges.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@Mwfan1921

Dale and Krueger data show that affluent students do well career wise not because of the school they went to, but for other reasons, including the connections they have. Said differently, they tend to do well no matter what undergrad school they attended

But what this study is finding is there are different effects in the middle of the curve and the far tail of the curve. In the middle of the curve, there is no notable value-added effect. In the far tail of the curve, they apparently are finding a significant value-added effect.

Of course this means the vast majority of attendees of these colleges are not likely to experience a meaningful value-added effect. But apparently a few will.

[Mwfan1921]

Providing gift link of NYT article: Study of Elite College Admissions Data Suggests Being Very Rich Is Its Own Qualification - The New York Times

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@Spring4

I don’t think of those numbers as the guarantee that they are often portrayed as.

That is absolutely correct.

I sometimes think of this as the sweatshirt theory. Just have the ability to wear the right sweatshirt, and you are set for life.

That sort of crude theory about the value of attending elite colleges has long been debunked. For the vast majority of us, many different sweatshirts will get us where we want to go, if what we want is basically a happy and fulfilling life which includes a good job.

But then people will say, what if I want to be a CEO, or Senator, or President of a university, or whatever?

Well, first of all, most people with such ambitions fail. Even if they attend one of these schools. Second, such people are not necessarily happier or more fulfilled.

But still–yeah, maybe it helps a bit.

Nonetheless, my final point would be this. Even if we as a society do not like the fact a disproportionate number of career peak elites come from elite colleges, I don’t think trying to fix that at the college admissions stage makes sense. I think it makes sense to look at how we are selecting our CEOs, Senators, and so on. Meaning start at the end of the process of filling these “elite” positions, not somewhere buried in the middle.

[Mwfan1921]

David Deming, one of the study authors, has a substack newsletter where he will be discussing the study, here

He’s also addressing it on his twitter feed (oops his X feed): https://twitter.com/ProfDavidDeming

[ucbalumnus]

@NiceUnparticularMan

Harvard says its mission is to educate future leaders. If future leaders are going to be disproportionately drawn from higher income families, even more so the highest income families, then Harvard accomplishing its mission requires it to disproportionately educate students drawn from higher/highest income families.

In other words, the class comes from those scions of aristocratic inheritance who earned enough merit to have typical excellent stats given their ample opportunities, along with those from the non aristocracy who have earned extraordinary levels of merit to be seen as candidates to join the next generation of the aristocracy?

[BUMD]

Isn’t that the way the world is run and has always been run? Why would anyone expect anything different from Harvard and its peer institutions? In a historical context, how much have their methods actually changed?

[ucbalumnus]

It is not different from historical practice.

But it is different from the carefully marketed popular perception of being a place mainly for those with top academic merit and achievement, even though that admission bucket is significantly smaller than the entire admission class.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@ucbalumnus

In other words, the class comes from those scions of aristocratic inheritance who earned enough merit to have typical excellent stats given their ample opportunities, along with those from the non aristocracy who have earned extraordinary levels of merit to be seen as candidates to join the next generation of the aristocracy?

Exactly.

This is really just reconfirming a very old model of these “elite” private colleges. At a high level, at least since they became selective and middle-class/middle-American students started attending in significant numbers, they seem to be structured to bring together young people from families with high social, political, and financial capital, and young people who have high intellectual capital, to their mutual profit.

And there are various studies suggesting this works. Maybe not uniquely as to the Ivy Plus colleges, because this is also going on at other highly selective colleges including LACs and flagship public universities and so on. But basically, it looks like the people who enter these schools high on intellectual capital but low on socioeconomic capital do benefit from mingling with the people who enter with high socioeconomic capital.

However, what is sorta “new” is that these colleges have gotten so selective that most of the high socioeconomic capital students ALSO have high intellectual capital. Largely gone are the days of the white shoe Ivy League students with gentlemen’s Cs. There may be a few exceptions, and definitely higher admit rates, but most of the legacy admits and donor’s list admits and elite private feeder HS admits and so on also have excellent grades and test scores.

And this is consistent with another empirical finding, which is that it is actually less clear that these socioeconomic elites who are also high in intellectual capital are benefiting from this mingling, at least in terms of future power/money prospects. One might hope it is still making them better people, though.

The last nuance I would mention is that I do think for all their self-congratulatory talk of educating future leaders, most of those future leaders are going to be just pretty normal professional class leaders, not oligarchs and such. Like, they may become notable leaders in their academic department, but not necessarily ones most people have heard of. Partners in law firms, but not necessarily ones most people have heard of. Business executives, but not necessarily ones most people have heard of. Important officials in government, but not necessarily ones most people have heard of. Have important positions in creative industries, not not necessarily ones most people have heard of. And so on.

And of course some won’t do any of that. Lots of things can happen to derail people during or after college, and all that can happen to Ivy Plus graduates too.

But still–it isn’t like all that is hurt by this mingling effect either. You might never become a CEO, you might “just” be a law firm partner, but law firm partners sometimes interact with CEOs. And being comfortable in those interactions, comfortable generally with networking with anyone who might be in an important position, is a powerful tool in many professional careers.