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

[Zrt42]

@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.

That isn’t what I took form their study. They make it clear that the huge, life-changing benefits of attending highly selective universities mean more to people the less well-off they are at the time the apply to college. Wealthy students already have great connections BUT less wealthy students benefit from attaining access to these networks.

It is no shock that the middle-class kids have it the worst. Too wealthy for a full ride but likely not able to afford 400K. For the small number of middle-class families who do prioritize, save & budget for their kid(s) to attend elite universities, I am confident the benefits are there to justify the cost.

By the way, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when the first line of the study said, “Leadership positions in the U.S. are disproportionately held by graduates of a few highly selective private
colleges.” It is true, of course, but so many on this website refuse to accept this reality.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@BUMD

Why would anyone expect anything different from Harvard and its peer institutions?

I actually think that is a really good question, because quite clearly many people DO expect something different.

As in, it seems very common that people believe these colleges are supposed to be admitting the best and the brightest according to objective criteria of academic and academic-related achievement (or something like that). Indeed, they might well believe that these colleges have said that is what they are doing. And therefore they see it as a scandal when it turns out these colleges are using some admissions criteria that vary from that ideal, such that they may well admit Candidate X and not Candidate Y even if by objective academic and academic-related achievement criteria, Y would seem to outscore X.

But what is puzzling is these schools have never said that they are purely meritocratic in that sense. They instead have always explained they use holistic review. And while I think they would defend holistic review as being meritocratic in some sense, the whole point of holistic review is that they are planning to admit some of those Xs over some of those Ys because the Xs will have scored higher on personal/fit factors, non-academic activities like athletics, and so on.

Now to be sure, the degree to which certain non-academic factors, like legacy status, might be part of their holistic process is not necessarily something they highlight on their webpages. But yes, they were always telling us they were not simply admitting the best and the brightest as these people understand those terms.

And yet then these people are surprised when what these colleges told us turns out to be true.

[1NJParent]

@NiceUnparticularMan

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.

I’m not sure about that. It wasn’t highlighted in the study, but MIT was the lone exception among the elite privates studied (Caltech is too small to be included in the study, but it’d certainly be another exception if it were included). Admission to MIT is undoubtedly more meritocratic than to the other elite privates in the study.

Gentlemen’s Cs have become gentlemen’s As.

[BUMD]

People are shocked because these universities are very good at marketing themselves to the public and because their admissions practices are so opaque that it is impossible for any 3rd party to replicate their results. It is an institutional priority to admit students that best serve the interest of the institution, so they are IMO essentially gerrymandering their class to reflect that goal.

[eyemgh]

A lot is made of this without acknowledging that a much higher percentage of those students start their matriculation as very highly qualified students.

There are more F500 CEOs from the Big 10 than any other conference. The average acceptance rate across the whole conference is 60%. They accept many less qualified students.

What would be interesting is to do a subsection of D&K and look just at F500 CEOs. My suspicion is that most of them entered undergrad as very strong students.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@ucbalumnus

But it is different from the carefully marketed popular perception of being a place mainly for those with top academic merit and achievement

Where do you see Harvard, say, marketing itself that way?

I know that is a popular perception of Harvard. I know many families talk about Harvard that way. I know Harvard might be portrayed that way in popular media sometimes. And so on.

But to me, it looks like all that is happening despite what Harvard says about itself, not because of it.

To be sure, academic merit is ONE of the things Harvard says it values. But it always said that is ONLY one of the things it values. And if Harvard values other things, then necessarily that means there will be cases when those other things cause a person with lower indications of academic merit to be favored over a person with higher indications of academic merit.

Which some people then think is an example of Harvard violating what it has represented itself as doing. But actually, Harvard all along was telling us this is what it is doing.

[eyemgh]

@NiceUnparticularMan

Largely gone are the days of the white shoe Ivy League students with gentlemen’s Cs.

When my dad was at MIT one of his fraternity brothers was dismissed based on his GPA. He had to bring it up elsewhere to get back in. He went to Princeton.

@NiceUnparticularMan

But to me, it looks like all that is happening despite what Harvard says about itself, not because of it.

I think this is primarily a function of USNWR.

[Mwfan1921]

@Zrt42

BUT less wealthy students benefit from attaining access to these networks.

Agreed. That’s why I said affluent students.

@Zrt42

, “Leadership positions in the U.S. are disproportionately held by graduates of a few highly selective private
colleges.” It is true, of course, but so many on this website refuse to accept this reality.

I won’t be commenting on this study until I have read it, but did they control for graduate and professional degrees?

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@1NJParent

MIT was the lone exception among the elite privates studied (Caltech is too small to be included in the study, but it’d certainly be another exception if it were included).

Absolutely. The model I am talking about is primarily associated with a form of college traditionally known as a liberal arts college. This includes stand-alone LACs, but also the LACs that are embedded within research universities. Harvard College is an example of such an embedded LAC.

But MIT’s college is not so much on that model. It is a “tech” college, and tech colleges have long been distinct.

I note for a long time, most of the students studying “tech” stuff were at public universities, and elite private tech colleges like MIT or Harvey Mudd or so on existed, but were relatively uncommon compared to elite LACs. That’s actually still apparent if you look at, say, US News’s lists of the “top” colleges at research universities or “top” LACs. There are some “tech” schools, but only a fraction.

But tech stuff has gotten really popular, and this is shaking things up. Some elite colleges still don’t offer much tech stuff to undergraduates, and some offer it in a way I will describe as half-hearted. But some elite colleges have robust tech departments, or indeed entire tech schools. I’d still say you can see public universities generally playing a bigger role in undergraduate tech education, however.

Anyway, I agree what I was noting may not apply very well to tech colleges. When it is just a tech department at what was generally an LAC, though, without it being a special admissions school or restricted access major–I think a lot of the same analysis still applies.

[TheVulcan]

@1NJParent

It wasn’t highlighted in the study, but MIT was the lone exception among the elite privates studied (Caltech is too small to be included in the study, but it’d certainly be another exception if it were included). Admission to MIT is undoubtedly more meritocratic than to the other elite privates in the study.

MIT and Caltech are certainly in a class of their own in terms of their admissions policies - and the resulting student body.

Why it has to be that way, I do not know.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@eyemgh

I think this is primarily a function of USNWR.

Good point. I would agree generic rankings of colleges has promoted a mindset about their missions which can in important ways be at odds with their actual stated missions.

[Zrt42]

@NiceUnparticularMan

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.

The Dale & Krueger study did say that the benefit for wealthy kids was pretty much zero but the benefit for poor/disadvantaged kids was substantial. I can’t recall if it talked about middle-class kids. It may not have…likely because there aren’t many middle-class kids at highly selective universities. I can’t help but think that middle-class kids would likely get the same bump from their new networks that poor/disadvantaged kids receive.

We really need a new study. This Dale & Kruger study was from over 20 years ago, and income inequality between subgroups has massively increased over that time.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@TheVulcan

Why it has to be that way, I do not know.

I’m not sure about whether it HAS to be this way, but . . .

I think it is often illuminating to look at the operating budgets of these schools, and see where their money for operations actually comes from.

At a high level, holding aside when hospitals are involved (which is a whole other thing), the main sources for operating funds are research grants, state grants, net tuition, gifts (either for immediate use, or filtered through endowments), and returns from other operations (university presses, various fee-charging services, and so on).

Private colleges obviously don’t get state grants, but then private colleges also vary among the remaining four main categories.

And for MIT, their top sources of operating revenue breaks down roughly like this:

Research grants: 46%
Returns from other operations: 24%
Gifts: 11%
Net tuition: 9%

For Harvard, it breaks down roughly like this:

Gifts: 45%
Net tuition: 21%
Research grants: 17%
Returns from other operations: 17%

OK, that’s pretty different. From poking around budgets, it is also pretty typical. As a top “tech” college, MIT gets WAAAAAAY more of its funding from research grants, and really that extra 7% in returns from other operations is mostly tech-related too.

In contrast, Harvard gets WAAAAAAY more of its funding from gifts, and also a lot more in net tuition too.

And to be very blunt, this explains a lot about their admissions practices. In fact, when Harvard was confronted with a choice of explaining their admissions practices as either a result of ethnic bias or something else, it chose something else, and then in part explained a lot of what was going on is that Harvard is trying to manage its long-term financial plans, including how it planned for its endowment and other gifts to continue supporting its operations for generations into the future.

Now, there is some empirical debate about whether Harvard and its peers are getting this right. Like, some people have suggested things like legacy policies don’t seem to have important gift effects. Some have countered that these studies are not looking at multi-generational time scales.

But at least Harvard seems to believe its admissions policies are ultimately informed in part by the need for future gifts. And then of course needing a lot more net tuition to balance their budget is pretty straightforward.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@Zrt42

likely because there aren’t many middle-class kids at highly selective universities.

As an aside, as I pointed out in another post, they found there are more kids from middle-income families than from low-income families at Ivy Plus colleges. But there are way more kids from high-income families than either.

The charts that people seem to think suggest otherwise are either of admit rates, or possibly of attendance rates controlling for test scores. But these are not inconsistent observations when you realize those are different measures.

But anyway, I agree there is need here for updated research.

[Zrt42]

@NiceUnparticularMan

they found there are more kids from middle-income families than from low-income families at Ivy Plus colleges.

Someone smarter than me will have to reconcile this with the “The missing middle class” section in the first post. I can’t.

[TheVulcan]

@NiceUnparticularMan

And for MIT, their sources of operating revenue breaks down roughly like this:

Research grants: 46%
Returns from other operations: 24%
Gifts: 11%
Net tuition: 9%

For Harvard, it breaks down roughly like this:

Gifts: 45%
Net tuition: 21%
Research grants: 17%
Returns from other operations: 17%

Wow. Yeah, I knew MIT’s numbers but never bothered to look up Harvard’s. Follow the money indeed.

[ucbalumnus]

@TheVulcan

MIT and Caltech are certainly in a class of their own in terms of their admissions policies - and the resulting student body.

Why it has to be that way, I do not know.

Both (particularly Caltech) do have a higher than typical minimum level of rigor in college, and emphasize areas where there is less room for social / political connections to be able to override lack of achievement. An LD admit to Harvard may just need to be an ordinary “gentleman A-” student in order to go on to aristocratic post-graduation directions based on pre-existing connections. But some of those students would struggle in Caltech Ma 1a, and the post-graduation directions that Caltech students tend to aim for are likely to have a much greater emphasis on personal academic achievement relative to pre-existing connections.

[ucbalumnus]

@1NJParent

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.)

Would the 75th-99th percentile that has depressed admission rates in the above graph be the “upper middle class” at the very least (versus the “middle class”)?

On the other hand, the 1st-65th percentile produces relatively few applicants with the needed top-end credentials, at least partly due to fewer opportunities and greater barriers.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@Zrt42

Someone smarter than me will have to reconcile this with the “The missing middle class” section in the first post. I can’t.

So I think the basic problem is that the title “The missing middle class” is highly misleading given the actual substance of that section. Which unfortunately happens a lot in popular press articles.

If you look at the actual substance, they are looking at percentage admit rates among students with the same test scores.

But all this means is that if, say, you had an ACT of 35 and applied to an Ivy Plus, all else equal your admissions rate might be higher if you had a lower income versus a middle income.

It in no way addressed how many people from different income ranges actually applied with such test scores. And in fact, they acknowledge there are a lot more such middle income applicants:

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.

OK, this actually isn’t a contradiction, then. The admit rates controlling for test scores are lower for middle-income applicants, but the volume of such applications is way higher, and in fact it turns out that the volume of such applications is so much higher, that even with the lower admit rates, the actual attendance rate was much higher too.

[1NJParent]

@ucbalumnus

Would the 75th-99th percentile that has depressed admission rates in the above graph be the “upper middle class” at the very least (versus the “middle class”)?

Because of the lack of granularity in the data, the depressed region on the curve is roughly between low-70%ile and mid-90%ile. According to the paper, 60%ile corresponds to $68k, 95%ile to $239k, and 99%ile to $611k, for the years under this study.