“A California or New Jersey kid would need to get 1550 on the SAT whereas somebody from Alabama/Mississsippi will qualify with a 1200 SAT.”
lol, that’s how kind of how it works now
“And it’s the certainty that the current process is flawed.”
Flawed may not be the right word for it, but it’s an opaque process made by individuals, who by definition are flawed. So an opaque process with natural mistakes could get people to perceive that it’s random, and a lottery could be just as effective. Even with 2-3 people looking at an app, you’re not going to remove, the human, fallible element to it.
Lol, TM, it’s their team and they get to choose. I wish I felt more families really did do the research. As it is, on CC, we get lots of questions that seem to show people don’t.
The point IS the human view of it.
So sure, maybe they make a few mistakes, some kid doesn’t stick with stem or can’t handle the competition or can’t get along with peers. But this is about the application, LoRs, interviews and making the best of the snapshot you do have. I don’t see how a lottery makes a better class. And you know I feel that, if a kid can’t comprehend digging into what the college does say and show, maybe those high stats and club titles aren’t really enough.
When the Harvard admissions director confirms in the testimony after the plantiff’s lawyer says - the more wealth the family has, the better chance they have of getting into Harvard, that should reveal a lot, it’s definitely more than high stats and club titles, it’s about money too. It’s just not Harvard of course that does this, it’s just their admissions policy is the one on trial. The defendant’s lawyer objected but the judge overruled and adcom director had to answer.
The Emperor is naked.
I’d like a link to the “testimony.”
The trial is set for October.
It’s from the deposition, NYT article:
"After an exchange running three fully blacked-out pages, Mr. Fitzsimmons explained that candidates on the dean’s list could receive a separate rating, in consultation with people connected to the alumni association and the development office, the chief fund-raising arm.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer asked, “And are you rating the applicant, or are you rating the level of interest that other people at the university have in this applicant’s admission prospect?”
Over an objection, Mr. Fitzsimmons replied, “The latter.”
The plaintiffs’ lawyer asked whether the bigger the financial contribution from a donor, the more it would affect the development office’s rating of someone on the dean’s list related to that donor. “It would tend to go that way,” Mr. Fitzsimmons replied."
They don’t really rate the applicant, they look at how other groups at Harvard would be impacted if the applicant was accepted or not. And the bigger the contribution the higher the applicant rating, again not surprising at all.
Here’s the link:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/29/us/harvard-admissions-asian-americans.html
"The plaintiffs’ lawyer asked whether the bigger the financial contribution from a donor, the more it would affect the development office’s rating…
And you turned that into, “the more wealth the family has, the better chance they have of getting into Harvard?” Or you mean a few mega donors?
I believe you read the article selectively. Perhaps with some bias? The paragraph(s) above matter, too.
You know how development works candidates, right? And how small the dean’s list.
Short hijack:
@theloniusmonk
There are no judges at depositions. The deposition is a process that generally takes place in a lawyers office, with the lawyers from both sides, the witness, possibly the parties, and the court reporter. No judge. No rulings on objections.
During the course of the deposition, lawyers are allowed to make objections for the sake of preserving the record, but in most cases the witness is still expected to answer the question. The reason the lawyers object is so that later on, if the opposing party wants to introduce parts of the deposition in a court trial, the objection has been preserved (not waived).
Example, at a deposition:
Lawyer A: “What did your sister’s cousin say happened?”
Lawyer B: “Objection, calls for hearsay.”
Witness: “My sister’s cousin said that her uncle saw the kangaroo fly.”
The main exception would be if there was a claim of privilege, because answering a question in any context could constitute a waiver of the privilege.
In that case, the lawyer who asked the question would have to go to court to get a ruling and to compel an answer. That might mean adjourning the deposition and returning at a different time.
End of thread hijack.
Carry on.
calmom - thanks for clarifying. My knowledge of law is based doing jury duty once and television/movies!
I don’t see college admissions becoming increasingly competitive in and of itself a problem. If colleges can keep up with maintaining access and affordability to those who are disadvantaged, then I see no issue. That is a big “if”, however, and will require a lot of increased and continued reflection, planning, and execution.
Let’s remember, most colleges are not facing the arms race of increased admissions competition - only the top 100 or so in the country (and of that top 100, the dramatic changes are really only visible in top 30 or so for the most part). The other 3,000 colleges in the country are still an option, and many are having trouble enrolling students.
The Harvard documents answer this and related questions for us.
For white admits (% of total):
Development/Dean’s Interest – 14%
Legacies – 22%
Recruited Athletes – 16%
Faculty + Staff Child – 2%
Overall (considering all races):
Development/Dean’s Interest – 9%
Legacies – 14%
Recruited Athletes – 11%
Faculty + Staff Child – 1%
If you run the numbers, this means that at Harvard, 54% of the white admits are chosen from just 9% of the white applicant pool.
Including all races, 35% of admits are chosen from just 6% of the entire applicant pool.
Yeah, I think a lottery might work a bit better in terms of assembling a better group of students, so long as Harvard set a floor qualification (GPA + scores). Sure, a few spectacular candidates might be missed, but when you are taking such a large proportion of the class from such a small subset of the applicant pool, by definition you are excluding many of the most promising candidates anyway. Holistic is simply a smokescreen to mask institutional goals under the guise of picking an optimal class. Again, there is no evidence that adcoms know how to pick optimally anyway (this is an almost perfect analog to the active vs. passive management debate in finance, for those who are familiar with the question).
I myself favor a mixed approach: 20% chosen on whatever bases the school wants (consistent with law) and the rest lotteried, subject to a floor qualification.
(All numbers are approximate and taken Arcidiacono Table B.3.2 in the initial expert report. The numbers are slightly different in the equivalent table in the rebuttal report, but only because athletes are excluded in the latter report. See p. 112 here: http://samv91khoyt2i553a2t1s05i-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/Doc-415-1-Arcidiacono-Expert-Report.pdf.)
How is the admission process of a private school any outsider’s call? While we are all free to debate & discuss it, it is the school that ultimately gets to decide who to admit and how to admit them. Yes, they need to stay within legal boundaries. In the end, though, their school, their decisions. Lately, it seems like just about everything is viewed as everyone’s business. I am finally the old woman yelling at the kids to stay off my grass…things sure are making me grumpy.
Of course, “optimal” is what’s optimal to the college. But, “Holistic is simply a smokescreen to mask institutional goals under the guise of picking an optimal class” is opinion. 'Smokescreen" is loaded.
Are the ‘Bright Minds’ chosen for pure talent included in the dean’s discretionary list? You’ve seen the reasoning behind this group.
Why does H need to reduce the personal reviewing and selection? Really, why? So individuals outside the process think it’s fairer, by their definitions? You have little dog in this race, outside maybe your or your kids’ dreams. You admit you don’t truly know how the process works, only have a severely blacked out summary. And many take the plaintiffs at their word. You really don’t know more than what you read or assume, based on class profiles.
Note that all these schools are receiving federal funding at taxpayer expense. When everyone has an affordable and meaningful public option open to them and our government is no longer subsidizing private colleges, we can stop talking about this. And note some colleges like Hillsdale do not take federal funding. These other elite schools can reject federal funding if they want more autonomy and they can go back to being playgrounds of only the rich only instead of funding a little SE diversity.
“all these schools are receiving federal funding at taxpayer expense.”
What is this about? Mostly the federal funding is given to these colleges as grants for scientific researches that have future implication in military, health, industry, technology advance for not only the nation, but also globally. So you are advocate the government should keeps the money and funds the research itself instead of using the bright of the brightest minds. I think you like big government.
"So you are advocate the government should keeps the money and funds the research itself instead of using the bright of the brightest minds. "
The data coming out of the Harvard lawsuit shows the student body isn’t exactly the brightest of the bright minds. Of the approx 1700 incoming students, only a couple of hundred or a little more than 10% are the brightest of the bright minds. The rest are athletes within a few standard deviations of the others’ statistics, children of people who have donated or will donate, children of important and/or rich people and the top tier of URMs, students from areas that aren’t well represented and first generation students. The lawsuit is dispelling some of the brightest of the bright minds myth, so maybe the taxpayers should also be looking at how the funds are spent and who is doing the research. If it’s one of those few brightest of the bright minds - great. But if it’s just one of athletes, legacies, geographic diversity admits with lower stats… perhaps the taxpayers should know that and look other places for the bright minds, not just assume they are at Harvard.
Harvard is a private college so is well within its rights to admit as it chooses as long as no laws are violated. But let’s not blow smoke with the best and brightest phrasing now that we’re seeing actual data on how the admissions work. These generally aren’t dumb kids, but for many the most apt description would be the brightest among the field of students who Harvard thinks will most benefit them financially and politically. That’s a very different reality than simply the brightest… period.
It’s faculty, maybe with grad students. And then possibly an undergrad or two. Presumably, their faculty can identify a qualified students to support their research work.
Fair enough.
The lottery idea is basically the same as colleges admitting students with the best combination of GPA and test scores. That is because the schools with try to raise their lottery levels as high as possible and so they end up with the same class.
That is basically what the top publics do now for most applicants. You can look at them to see what happens.