<p>This book has caused unprecedented debate on the subject of "affirmative action for the rich". Will getting people talking about legacy and development cases be the beginning of the end of these practices?
The most realistic defense of the status quo is that ending legacy and development cases would make academia an anamolous facet of american life. The super rich enjoy a major leg up in almost all walks of life. This realism, however, is at odds with the often professed idealism underlying a vision of a "fair" and "meritocratic" admissions process.
Will americans continue to accept the current system because of its natural link to our culture, or is it an injustice that they will fight?</p>
<p>If private colleges did away with legacies and development candidates (and athletes for that matter) they would have far less money to give scholarships with and they would again become home to only the wealthy.</p>
<p>I disagree Bobby. Schools like HYPS are so well endowed that they can afford to take donations only from those who are willing to make gifts with no strings attached. In fact, in a recent Wall Street Journal article President Tilghman admitted that Princeton could dispense with all tuition and fees and still operate successfully on one third of its annual investment income.</p>
<p>That's short sighted holycow, the money needs to keep coming.</p>
<p>'the money needs to keep coming"</p>
<p>Will americans accept this, or will they demand that Congress intervene and threaten the loss of tax preferences to institutions failing to reform their systems?
The middle class suffers most because of the admissions preferences given to those at each end of the economic spectrum. The middle class is still the strongest sector of the voting base.
The debate on "affirmative action for the rich" has been opened in earnest and americans may not accept that "the money needs to keep coming" is a sufficient justification for the things Golden describes.</p>
<p>Until you guys can produce substantial numbers of developmental candidates being accepted at HYP (Duke, imo, is just not on the same level because they need more money and therefore probably accept more developmental candidates), I'm just not going to believe that more than 10-15 of these kids are accepted per year based solely on financial contributions.</p>
<p>Admissions in the top schools concerning legacies is getting a lot tougher, although the statistics probably show a good percentage being admitted, but you have to realize that the children of an Ivy league grad are probably going to be bright and will be encouraged to pursue worthwhile extracurriculars meaning a good percentage would be accepted whether they are legacy or not.</p>
<p>Yes, a recent article (or was it just a post?) noted that legacies, as a group, tended to be just as strong as non-legacy candidates or more. This is fairly obvious considering their parents were intelligent enough to get into a top school and guide their sons/daughters through the admissions process.</p>
<p>Golden never criticized schools for admitting qualified legacies. He criticized them only when they lowered their standards for legacies and he did so very specifically.</p>
<p>Did he have any numbers as for the admission of undeserving legacies/developmental candidates?</p>
<p>Or did he just have you assume there are hundreds of these unqualified people being accepted every year?</p>
<p>For future reference, punctuation goes inside quotation marks. If you are writing college essays, correct grammar is important. </p>
<p>Developmental admits make up 1.4% of the admit pool at Duke. A small amount, and it pays off. </p>
<p>If you want to go after "unfair" practices, go after athletic recruits with poor academic records. They typically make up a much larger portion of admits.</p>
<p>Yes, but athletic recruits actually one could justify and say at least, that being that good to be recruited took a huge time commitment. The thing that seems unfair however, are applicants who have pretty good grades and scores, (but not outstanding) but really have not done much over the four years of high school, and if were not a development admit, would never be a competitive candidate to that elite school. By development case I mean a legacy at an elite school where their families have given substantial donations (usually seven figures). The admissions office can justify the admit because they can say they had within the SAT score range, even if at the lower end - but there might be no outstanding extra curriculars, leadership, community service, demonstration of passion ect.</p>
<p>Like at all other private entities, Americans have little say in how private colleges are run. Private colleges will give up Federal mononies before they accept being told how to run themselves. It will never come to that though. There are actually several state flagship Us that have threatened to go private rather than live by state mandates.</p>
<p>It is incredibly naive to think anything is about to change!</p>
<p>i found it interesting that caltech and cooper union do not make exceptions for athletes, legacies, minorities or development cases. they admit only qualified applicants. they seem to have survived rather nicely without resorting to a quid pro quo system.</p>
<p>All of this is summarized in four words: life is not fair.</p>