<p>The whole list
<a href="http://www.nacubo.org/documents/about/FY05NESInstitutionsbyTotalAssets.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.nacubo.org/documents/about/FY05NESInstitutionsbyTotalAssets.pdf</a></p>
<p>Again, epiphany, we are talking at cross purposes. Whenever someone uses an alternative measure that is designed to elicit quality, I'm ok with it. Whenever it is designed to help out balance for the benefit of the College, I'm against it. Believe me, adcoms KNOW the difference between accepting someone with weak scores that they think will be an academic star anyway vs. accepting someone with weak scores that they feel will be in the bottom quintile but who makes the school "richer" or more "interesting" or more "connected" or....These categories overlap, but that merely acknowledges that correlations are imperfect. Picking people who randomly wear green shirts on the day of the interview is also bound to result in some good students.</p>
<p>Moreover, some people who couldn't score a 1000 on the old SAT and who couldn't pass remedial English or math might still end up wealthy or famous. Should they be admitted to Princeton or MIT? Should classes be designed to accomodate them?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Well, NQO, you will not get the style of transparency you seem to want (naming names, providing stats) because we have this thing in the United States called privacy rights, and further we have confidentiality agreements & assumptions. (Which is why some people are not pleased with the Frist example.)
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, that's why the Golden book is valuable. Elite universities can do a lot that is widely considered illegitimate and wrong and then hide behind the "privacy" of the admissions process and the "complexity" of each case. Guys like Golden, who are in the information business, need to embarrass them every now and then because otherwise there would never be any concrete evidence. I do not particularly like that it has to be done to some particular kid, but that's the lesser of two evils if the alternative is turning a blind eye to these things going on behind closed doors.</p>
<p>And before it is pointed out that my (or the public's) evaluations of "illegitimate and wrong" are irrelevant to the operation of "private" institutions, let's recall that they get huge privileges which are not afforded to private businesses; in addition to what has already been discussed, let's recall that the universities are exempt from taxes.</p>
<p>NQO, I think you're mixing several things here.</p>
<p>People with low standardized scores PLUS low other stuff (but supposedly) "make the college look good" [because from the "right" disadvantaged group or something] you will find is not really happening. If they're providing social/racial/economic balance to the school, you'll find that they are also quite competitive & only marginally --if that-- below competitors' performance. I base that statement on statistics over the last several years released by the colleges, as well as reporting on CC by admitted & rejected students.</p>
<p>Now, a non-competitive student in the development-admit category we've also been discussing, that's a different matter. (That's a matter of "compensation," yes.) I do agree that their admit numbers should be small; I do not agree with those who believe their admit numbers should be necessarily zero. I may be in the minority here. (The 50% development-admit rate at the K-12 schools is insupportable, i.m.o., as I said above. It would be insupportable, too in higher education, but it is just NOT happening.)</p>
<p>Finally, even IF (I don't buy it, but even if) the rationale for admitting a variety of students with various compensating learning strengths is sociological, not academic, I think the result is positive for the college -- positive in a more general sense of meritocracy. Those angled & different learners who may contribute provocatively in class & in debate end up being extremely beneficial to the "strictly meritorious" students, some of whom frankly couldn't think their way out of a box if their lives depended on it. The class benefits, the college benefits. Who cares what the reason it? (That was only half rhetorical: yes, the colleges will still get blamed because they have to be pure of motive, as well as pure of result. Ain't goin' to happen.)</p>
<p>We shall agree to disagree. You've rigged the terms. There's no reason why the sociological/development admits should be better at reasoning, arguing, etc. than the meritorious students. None. If you can measure those characteristics, use them in admission. If such criteria are not used by themselves, there's no reason to suppose that on average developmental admits will be superior ON ANY academic dimension to merit admits. That's the way correlations work.</p>
<p>Yes. (By the way, NQO wasn't mixing anything up. He's a pro.)</p>
<p>One good rule of thumb for realizing when the wool is being pulled over your eyes is when people say how "multidimensional" or "complicated" something is, and how useless ranking applicants from best to worst is. If you go ask graduate admissions committees or recruiters at top financial firms, they seem to have no such difficulty. ;-)</p>
<p>While I will agree to disagree, no I was not "rigging the terms." If anything, you were doing so by combining & conflating categories. </p>
<p>And thanks, Ben, but I don't need the condescending, gratuitous comment about how "he's" a "pro." (I guess that means I'm not.)
Wrong. His opinion is no more official, accurate, authoritative than anyone else's on this board, including yours, by the way.</p>
<p>He was indeed mixing categories.</p>
<p>Fine. I get it: both of you are campaigning for a return to "pure," "strict" meritocracy. I think that was operative in Ancient Greece. Well I'm a fan of the classics, too, & history in general, and the ancients in particular. As an aside, just remember that their "democracy" also represented (speaking of affirmative action) the very rich.</p>
<p>I'm not irritated by the fact that your opinions differ from mine. I'm irritated by your claims about what is and is not in fact happening in college admissions, broadly speaking, comprehensively speaking. (Or the extent to which supposedly nefarious things are happening.) Because you say it's so doesn't make it so. Because Dan Golden strings separate episodes together and claims it to be a shocking expose, does not make it so.</p>
<p>Could there be more disclosure, more transparency? Sure, but to a limit. And I know that limit will not please you.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm irritated by your claims about what is and is not in fact happening in college admissions, broadly speaking, comprehensively speaking. (Or the extent to which supposedly nefarious things are happening.) Because you say it's so doesn't make it so. Because Dan Golden strings separate episodes together and claims it to be a shocking expose, does not make it so.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, indeed. Casual observation (of the CC forums, among other things) suggests we are wrong. Ergo, we are. Game, set, match.</p>
<p>Ahem, if the elites were to water down the class with dumb rich kids to the extent that many on this thread are claiming, nobody else would want to go there. I hate to name names, but there are scores of lower tier colleges which admit boatloads of dumb rich kids, and none of them is named Harvard or Yale. The fact that some of these dumb rich kids end up being successful down the road is great.... proof that in America your SAT and High School GPA does not define you, and that Mommy and Daddy's connections can prove to be a great start in life. Kid didn't go to Yale (even if grandpapa did), still ends up rich and successful, and Yale didn't have to sacrifice its academic reputation by admitting said rich kid.</p>
<p>This is a tiny, tiny problem which involves a handful of kids per year per school. Can't you guys get this agitated over the tens of thousands of kids in a variety of locales who get cheated out of a K-12 education every year by the %^&*-lousy system we call public schooling?</p>
<p>I agree there are bigger issues, but when you combine all preferences that help rich or privileged kids, they decide the composition of a substantial chunk of the collective student body of top universities (Jerome Karabel, a renowned researcher of these issues at Berkeley, estimates 10-15%. Golen estimates 25-30%.) If that doesn't seem to be a big problem in the grand scheme, maybe I agree, but all our problems are trifling by a grand enough standard.</p>
<p>As for why nobody cares that lots of underqualified rich people get into second-tier schools, the reason is simple: Lehigh doesn't open nearly as big a door to the corridors of influence and power as Harvard does.</p>
<p>I'm going to stick strictly to the developmental admit issues. Caltech can be extremely generous because its profile fits certain donors' priorities. If it were to expand its mission to include first-class humanities and social sciences, it would find that it would not be able to provide funding for all the students and the activities that it would want to fund. </p>
<p>Regarding the Harvard endowment: The $25 billion endowment is a bogus figure to work with in terms of college admissions. It include the HBS, HLS and HMS, none of which would allow their funds to support undergraduate admissions or activities. Much of the college funds similarly carry restrictions and cannot be used for scholarships. Harvard, like other universities, tries very hard to get donors to give unrestricted funds, but donors have their own priorities,too. The Broad Foundation money went to the Broad Institute. If cures are discovered by Broad Institute staff, the whole world will benefit, but Foundation money will not go to supporting poorer students.</p>
<p>Now suppose that all 300+ kids of the COUR members were rated low (no all that likely). If they all attended Harvard at the same time (again not that likely) they would still be 300+ out of a student body of 6,000+, or 5%. But that's the worst case scenario. Hard to believe that all millionnaires have such dumb kids that they all need affirmative action for Jill and Johnny. So let's say that only half of the COUR kids are at Harvard at the same time and only half are marginal. That brings down the numbers to 75+ out of a student body of 6,000+ I can't find it in me to get terribly agitated about this.</p>
<p>All this reminds me I should up my donations to my alma mater and to those of my kids.
If a donor comes along who has a college age kid and is willing to provide scholarship funds, as long as the kid is not inadmissible, I have no problem with a college admitting the kid. For all the furore about the Frist kid, no one has suggested that he was an academic failure. He did not graduate with honors: a fate he shared with something like 2/3 of the Princeton student body.</p>
<p>I think it's probably not true that the reason Caltech can be so successful without development admits is really so closely related to its math/science focus. I don't see why there would be fewer rich philanthropists willing to support a pure-hearted, top-notch humanities/social sciences institute than there are to support a top-notch pure sciences institute.</p>
<p>Ben:</p>
<p>That's life. Nowadays, much of the money to support math/science comes from corporation not "pure-hearted" donors, most of whom were not English or history of fine arts majors. That's the reality of fund-raising.</p>
<p>Surely some corporations would be interested in training top legal minds or political scholars or public relations experts, though. No?</p>
<p>But, um, if there weren't such corporations, it's not really clear why those majors shouldn't be <em>mumble, mumble</em> abolished.</p>
<p>[If anybody takes the second sentence seriously, I will cry.]</p>
<p>Ben:</p>
<p>The answer to the first is no. The second statemtn, I did not take seriously. :)</p>
<p>epiphany,</p>
<p>I will make one last point. I was not making a statement of opinion. I was making a purely logical claim in my last post. If there are important characteristics related to performance, use them. Anything else, including developmental influence, must by definition be uncorrelated with the desirable meritocratic traits.</p>
<p>You seem to acknowledge this point but argue that the scores, grades, etc. of these admits are not so low that it matters very much. The latter point is an empirical issue (how big the real differences are) and a value issue (should we be doing it.)</p>
<p>Beyond that, we have each had our say and I have nothing more to add.</p>
<p>
Given the average SAT scores of the very selective colleges, they can't be admitting too many "dumb, rich" kids. At Dartmouth, the median SAT of the class of 2009 was 1470 (old SAT). The mid 50% range in the current USNWR is 1350 - 1550.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>...they decide the composition of a substantial chunk of the collective student body of top universities (Jerome Karabel, a renowned researcher of these issues at Berkeley, estimates 10-15%. Golen estimates 25-30%.)<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>If there are so many dumb, rich kids enrolled there, where are they hiding them? Are they all confined to one dorm? My D goes to Harvard and neither she nor any of her close friends nor any of her extended friends is rich, and they are sure not dumb either.</p>
<p>In her blocking group of 6 girls there are two that are from backgrounds that I would call upper middle class, one that I would call middle class, and three that I would call working class. For example, one of them had never flown on an airplane prior to her sophomore year Spring Break. Dumb? Well, 5 of the 6 were vals from their respective high schools and the 6th was the sal.</p>
<p>An anecdote? No, that was 6 anecdotes. And it continues from there. It is much the same story in her extended group of 20 or so friends and acquaintances. Most are middle class kids of varying degrees of affluence plus a significant portion of poor kids. None of them is remotely wealthy enough to "buy" their way into Harvard. Enough anecdotes start to add up to a trend.</p>
<p>I asked her once if there were these rich kids around the place. She said yeah, there were said to be some but she didn't know any. However, she'd heard there was a rich kid living over in (nearby dorm).</p>
<p>So unless the dumb, rich kids are all living in their own isolated, plush ghetto somewhere, I think my D would have run into a lot more of them by now if they were all that common. Plus, as others have said, the average SATs would be a lot lower too. </p>
<p>Golden seems to think he's blown the lid off some huge scandal, when in reality, the "problem" (at HYP at any rate) is far less now than it has ever been in the past.</p>
<p>It's not the case that people who would have been rejected without a preference associated with wealth or legacy wear a sign. While we're at it, it's also not like they're "dumb". Just less good (academically, extracurricularly) than some kids who didn't have a tip. The preferences and injustices are subtle, but that doesn't make them right. Maybe you disagree, but I think lots of people who read Golden's book won't.</p>
<p>And a lot of people who read Golden's books might not be able to afford for their kids to attend HYP without aid. </p>
<p>See, Ben, I went to college on scholarship; and now I am able to afford to pay full fare for two kids at top colleges.</p>