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</p>
<p>Are there actually people that are anti-AA yet pro-legacy?</p>
<p>It is countless threads and post on cc expressing negativity or vitriol towards AA yet rarely is their outrage over admissions gained through being a legacy.</p>
<p>luisarose
</p>
<p>any data to support this statement? I mean that admitted females are as good as admitted males, or saying it differently, all admitted females are better than all rejected males? No such data exists. We only hear such assertions from MIT adcoms who have stakes in this. But they will never publish any data comparing females and males in the applicant, admitted, and matriculated pools.</p>
<p>Btw, Caltech also admits more females than their proportion in the applicant pool, but they are not fixated on getting the 50-50 ratio. They want to make sure their students of both genders could do the work, while MIT can handle less prepared students because MIT has less demanding majors.</p>
<p></p><br>
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<p>It is great that CalTech has held the line on merit-based admissions, though what exactly is meant by “merit” is everything. Affirmative action should be consistent with a deeper view of merit. When it is not, then the slope becomes slippery. With legacies, the slope becomes slippery when admission does not come with sizable expectations of funding and a contribution to student life.</p>
<p>Both aspects of American admissions are troubling.</p>
<p>I think Caltech gets diversity where it matters most and that is by admitting with a need-blind system. I am not familiar with the intricacies of the admissions criteria, but my understanding is that socio-economic background, geography and other factors impacting opportunity are also considered. This seems ideal to me in ensuring an equality of opportunity which I think by far the most important factor in an admissions process. </p>
<p>Beyond this I am somewhat skeptical of further moves to “enrich” the composition of the classes. I don’t see much if any marginal academic benefit from changing a gender ratio from 40:60 to 50:50. This is particularly the case given the asymmetry in applications. I realize females are underrepresented in STEM fields even as they now are the majority among college students in general. I also find chauvinism and misogyny are sometimes more tolerated in STEM fields, which is a blemish upon them as a whole. This should be factored to some degree in admissions, and I think it highly likely that the pool is self selecting to a degree as a result of these deficiencies. However, addressing this too heavily at admissions seems wrongheaded since the core problem is interest. </p>
<p>In terms of race based AA it troubles me that affluent subsets of underrepresented races are often the greatest beneficiaries. I understand the logic that this will lead to greater equality down the line, but I find the evidence of this actually working unconvincing. I believe there should be great deal of justification to counter the fact that these groups could benefit at the expense of less privileged whites and asians. </p>
<p>Above all there is growing evidence that the economic history of ones family in both the near and long term is increasingly the largest indicator of ones opportunity. Much of the continued racial inequity can increasingly be attributed to this also. Income and socio-economic class are also increasingly indicators of ones culture and values. At the same time there is growing concern with the decrease in social mobility. Hence using this as a factor in admissions meets three criteria, 1) it negates unfair advantages to create a equality of opportunity, 2) it is likely to increase the diversity of background, culture and thought of the student body, and 3) it combats what I think is widely agreed to be a current and relevant social problem. I do not think any other set of preference can meet these criteria as effectively. The one major drawback of course is that it increases the portion of cost likely to be borne either as debt or subsidized by the institution or state. I’ve heard rumors that shifting toward this system is increasingly in vogue, and honestly the cost is the only reason I can see for not making it near universal. </p>
<p>So how does Caltech compare on such criteria? Namely how diverse are the socio-economic backgrounds of Caltech students compared to other schools? </p>
<p>I’m having trouble answering this question but will edit if I manage to find any info. I thought finding bulk data like median parental income would be possible. Also information on student debt load and such. Wouldn’t comparing these two pieces of information with average starting salary be the best simple way to determine an approximate value for an education? I think these should be easily accessible but they are not.</p>
<p>So initial results for some of the schools that have come up by looking at the percent of students getting financial aid and the average amount awarded since I cant find better metrics. I am relying entirely on self reported stats, which may not be perfectly equivalent, but I have made all attempts to find only need based aid:</p>
<p>School
How many get need based aid(%)
How much aid on average ($)
Average 4 year debt($)
Need blind?</p>
<p>Caltech<br>
54-58<br>
36,483<br>
13,442<br>
(US)</p>
<p>Stanford<br>
59<br>
32,152<br>
15,724<br>
(US)</p>
<p>CMU<br>
58(grants) 46(loans)<br>
30,342<br>
29,303<br>
(No)</p>
<p>MIT<br>
64<br>
32,917<br>
20,800<br>
(All)</p>
<p>Harvard<br>
~60<br>
46,794<br>
11,780<br>
(All)</p>
<p>Yale<br>
51<br>
41,320<br>
9,254<br>
(All)</p>
<p>Princeton<br>
60<br>
39,700<br>
5,225<br>
(All)</p>
<p>Immediate observations: all schools have roughly the same percentage of students on need-based aid. The Ivies have both more generous aid and students with lower debt burdens. But not in equal proportion. This suggest that they might have flatter income distributions. MIT and the Ivies may be more internationally diverse being need blind to all applicants. To some degree Caltech bridges the gap with more aid and less debt between the Ivies and the rest. This surprised me. While not captured in this data the overall verdict seems to be that all these schools fail to properly represent the income makeup of the US, though it is not necessarily their own fault. </p>
<p>Also I did find some reported facts like “X% of student come from families making less than Y” but since Y varied considerably I’m not sure how helpful those would be. Let me know if you think they’d be helpful.</p>
<p>EDIT: While the table I tried to make above works in the editor, it doesn’t show up properly. Its harder to see the trends now but at least its not a jumble of numbers</p>
<p>Caltech needs to get rid of their legacy preferences before we can say they are a meritocracy. No good reason, even endowment, can justify keeping the legacy preferences but not AA.</p>
<p>I can justify it. I would honestly say that the type and caliber of student who goes to caltech has probably changed the least over the past 50 years compared to most elite institutions. In this sense, it makes sense that a caltech alumni would know what type of person should go to caltech. Additionally, the admissions office has a very difficult job in trying to pick bright individuals who not only are capable of the workload at caltech but would enjoy it enough to want to stay here. In my opinion, I think any preference for legacies is simply a result of legacies being exceptionally well suited for caltech. And, honestly, if any caltech alumni told me that their kid was caltech material, I would believe them.</p>
<p>Where is the evidence to support your claim that Caltech has changed the least?</p>
<p>Anecdotal.</p>
<p>Yay, fellow Indian! Observing my cousins in India, there’s no focus on diversity there. Admissions, as I’m sure you’ve heard there, is purely merit-based. Now I may not completely agree with their way of measuring merit (a single exam essentially determines your fate for college) but at least students know what colleges want and expect of them. IIT, the Indian equivalent of MIT and Caltech, is especially known for having brutal selections, but it’s purely based on exam results (12th finals, or “board exams”, and entrance exams). Yes, diversity is important to some extent. Colleges should take into account a child’s family and school situation and see what a student did with the opportunities available, no matter how limited. I of all people understand its importance, because though I am a middle-class Indian girl who attends a good school in the US, I am not even a Permanent Resident, so opportunities like the Olympiads are closed to me. It’s essential to see what opportunities were even available to students and what they did with that, but that’s different than accepting students to seem more racially diverse, to which I am completely opposed.</p>
<p>[Reservation</a> policy in Indian Institutes of Technology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reservation_policy_in_Indian_Institutes_of_Technology]Reservation”>Reservation policy in Indian Institutes of Technology - Wikipedia)</p>