If the colleges select applicants with connections, often worldwide, in politics, business, etc., is it surprising that some of them end up running governments, businesses, etc. worldwide? Those connections are sometimes mistaken as leadership qualities. Is there any doubt that the rich and powerful can create such qualities far more easily than academic qualities for their offspring?.
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So this is a complex issue.
By way of background, academic qualifications alone underdetermine Harvard admissions decisions. Things like activities, athletics (even non-recruited athletics), personal scores, and so on play a large role in Harvard admissions. And then the ultimate factor was the overall rating, which was not just an averaging of the other factors, although it was obviously correlated. Still, the imperfect correlation implied there were some residual factors involved in decision-making not capture by the other factors.
OK, so then for âunhookedâ applicants, the decisions were typically mostly explainable by the âscoresâ Harvard was giving on these other âactivitiesâ, âathleticsâ, and âpersonalâ factors, although again the overall rating add a bit more information. Meaning you could at least mostly explain why some âhigherâ academic qualification applicants didnât get in, and some âlowerâ academic qualification applicants did get in, using their scores on these other factors.
OK, then Harvard was flagging âLDCâ applicants (applicants who are legacy, deanâs list, or children of Harvard employees, which was mostly legacies), but how much difference did it really make? Using just their academic qualifications, it looked like a lot. But that isnât controlling for the other factors.
And the experts battled over how to really best control for that. And that NBER paper is by one of those expert groups.
Probably the biggest debate in this part of the case was over the fact that these experts used a predictive admissions model that excluded the personal rating. But the personal rating is really critical to Harvard admissions decisions. Among unhooked applicants who scored very well in terms of academics and activities/athletics, if you got a personal 2, you were likely to be admitted. If you got a personal 3, you were likely to not be admitted.
And it was demonstrable that LDCs did better on the personal ratingâlike, they were about twice as likely to get the needed personal 2. These experts believed that was the result of an LDC preference, so they excluded it. But the model they used to try to demonstrate that this correlation was caused directly by an LDC preference did not really control for things which plausibly could be personal ratings factors (to be fair, that is basically impossible, as those factors were basically âmeasuredâ inside a reviewerâs head). So at least critics of these experts argued that they didnât actually show whether or not the correlation between LDCs and higher personal ratings was caused by LDC status, or instead was merely correlated with LDC status.
SoâI donât know. The counterfactuals they discuss implicitly assume away the personal factor, and therefore do not credit higher personal scores as at least part of the reason why LDC applicants might get admitted at higher rates. Meaning essentially they assumed that if these individuals had not been LDCs, the benefit they got from higher personal ratings would have gone away.
And maybe, but I am not at all sure that these experts proved it.
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Perhaps itâs that âmistakeâ, but itâs also being comfortable in that milieu and knowing how to play the game - which may involve some unwritten rules.
We look for mentors in our careers, but some people get to observe some pretty powerful âmodelingâ in their homes and those of ftiends, as well as socializing with all of the above.
He may be exactly where he is today; we will never know. But very few NFL players are from the Ivy League
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Thank you for this entire comment. As I commented elsewhere, âstripping outâ legacy (or any factor really) and âleaving all else equalâ for analysis is pretty much impossible with holistic admissions. We donât know what âall elseâ is, we do not and cannot have all the data points, partly because not all the data are âpointsâ and partly because things happen âinside a reviewerâs headâ and are also spoken aloud in the room in discussion but not necessarily transcribed, or, even if transcribed may not be especially quantifiable in order to be fit into a model as a variable.
And, then thereâs the reality that these candidates are discussed in their entire context. If legacy (or whatever) were not indicated, or known, or discussed, then perhaps other considerations wouldâve come into stronger focus and been noted and discussed as such. We donât know and cannot know because thatâs not what actually happened.
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This is equally true, if not moreso, for dozens of other non-Ivy-but-increasingly-selective universities around the country, both public and private. And I see your August Busch example as illustrating my point. Back in the day, it was common for scions of industry to be sent to elite prep schools and then HYP for a bit of seasoning before returning to the boardroom. Now, as you suggest, it doesnât typically work that way - CEOs are often drawn from those who have climbed the ladder internally (and may have started out who-knows-where), or those who have demonstrated competence as CEOs elsewhere already (same). Either way, such career paths may sometimes include Ivy educations, but appear significantly less likely to do so than the old pass-it-along-to-Junior pathway.
Or is it not only because of LDC preferences, but because growing up as a Harvard LDC (or at least LC) kid may shape oneâs personality into something that more closely matches that which Harvard admissions readers would give a higher personal rating?
Inherent limitations of any attempts to quantitatively analyze the byzantine mess that is American holistic admissions system notwithstanding, I do not think even Harvard itself is denying that it is giving preferences to legacies.
The research is only trying to determine exactly how much, not whether.
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I agree. My point is that trying to determine exactly how much is a fools errand, and that when statements are made that e.g. âabout half wouldnât have gotten inâ without the legacy bump itâs something between a gross estimation and a WAG.
This opportunity gap will only get bigger with so many schools going test optional. The SAT was essentially the only objective measure restraining schools from going all-in on rich kids.
If they tried to do that study today, it would be impossible, because without SATs there would be no objective measure to compare a middle class kid from a public high school with a wealthy kid who came from a prep school that sent 50% of the graduating class to T10 universities.
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Thinking about it, I might be underestimating the number of Ivy undergrads by ~20%. But it doesnât change the conclusion that, if they constitute 12% of F500 CEOs, thatâs massive overrepresentation.
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In 1923, 1973, and 2023, thereâs only 1% of the nationâs 18 year olds that are the smartest (pure IQ, but feel free to throw in some component of ambition, grit, etc.)
In all 3 of these reference years, the Ivies got a disproportionate share of that top 1%. But Iâd wager that, for an objective measure of âtop 1%â, the Ivies in 2023 are taking in more of the top 1% than they did in 1973, and that in 1973 they took in more than 1923.
And that top 1% is going to disproportionately translate to F500 CEOs, 25-40 years later, especially as F500 companies have transitioned from family legacies to meritocracies (not perfectly so, but moreso now than 50-100 years ago).
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I think that depends on what the major is and where one wants to live.
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NFL teams can and do find players, especially QBs, at FCS schools - North Dakota State has had two different QBs (Carson Wentz and Trey Lance) drafted among the top 3 picks in the draft in the last several years, whereas Mahomes went No. 10 to the Chiefs his draft year. And a few Ivy QBs like Ryan Fitzpatrick (Harvard) and Jason Garrett (Princeton) have had long careers. But Ivy League schools are less likely than other FCS/FBS schools to produce NFL players, as top HS football recruits (those most likely to become NFL players) rarely choose to attend Ivies when given the option of state-of-the-art facilities and less-stringent academic requirements elsewhere. This is even true of those few top athletes with truly Ivy-worthy academic credentials, like former Florida St. safety and Rhodes Scholar Myron Rolle and former Ohio St. RB and microbiology major Robert Smith.
In his first year as a starter, TT went 7-6. His Junior year (and final year, he didnât graduate) TT went 5-7 and didnât make a bowl. Mahomes was not drafted highly because of anything unique to Texas Tech.
However, he was drafted highly, and rightly so, because of his arm talent. That would have been evident at Harvard or anywhere.
You are. Either way, whatâs the desire here? That F500 CEOs should come from 50 schools? 250? 500? That the Ivies should produce 8? Zero? How about the F5000? Should all 4000 degree granting schools produce 1 F5000 CEO?
Jay Fiedler from Dartmouth too.
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âŠthat probably explains all of the lawsuits we see around scorned applicants & Texas Tech admissions.
Going test optional allows highly rejective schools to receive more apps from low income, first gen and/or other underrepresented students. SCOTUSâ recent decision ensures that TO is here to stay for most schools that are currently TO.
What exactly do you think the SAT is an objective measure for?
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In those posts, Iâm not making a normative statement (Ivy over-representation among F500 CEOs is good/bad). Rather, my original post was in response to the implication that Ivy grads constituting 12% of F500 CEOs is not particularly significant.
i.e. âAnother way of putting it is that 88% of Fortune 500 CEOs are not Ivy gradsâ