<p>True that middle class kids are not usually condsidered disadvantaged. There is however a great inequity in the admissions process. Golden in his book The Prince of Admission points out that while Harvard and other elite schools might have a 1 in 10 chance of getting accepted, 60% of the spots are already spoken for for. He says "you do the math". I am all for giving low income students equal opportunity to get accepted by the ivy league and other elite colleges so for that reason Harvard is right to get rid of SCEA. However, the greatest inequity exists in the admission of much lesser qualified wealthy well connected students. Why should a student from a wealthy, connected family whether or not his mother or father attended that elite school, have the opportunity to attend a school that he would never have qualified for but for the connection, edging out other qualified middle class students who have worked hard and are clearly more deserving? Why should wealthy underqualified applciants obtain the benefits of an ivy league education and connections that come with it perpetuating their wealth through these connections and career opportunities that attending that school might provide?(Golden points out that many of these underqualified applicants are admitted into secret societies, exclusive eating clubs,)<br>
I am not talking about situations where there are two equal applicants and the one with the connection is admitted. I can understand the scale tipping in favor of the connected student in the name of continuing the legacy or the schools interest in the endowment. What is not fair however is the process that allows a wealthy applicant with long standing connections to an elite school, who has good grades but not stellar, above average or even pretty good SAT scores, but nothing else about him or her that makes them a stellar candidate, and no real involvement in any extra curricular activities, get accepted becaues of that connection - while a middle class student with high class rank, high SAT scores, who is extremely involved in his or her community and school exemplifying great leadership, passion, commitment, unusual talent, accomplishment ect, who has worked unbelievably hard all throughout his or her high school years might not.
One should not be able to buy themselves into the ivy league as Golden makes clear happens in every elite school. It is not a fair playing field if there is a 1 in 10 chance of getting accepted but 60% of those spaces are going to applicants who have a special connection resulting in significantly fewer spots for those who have the qualifications to attend. All this does is perpetuate the concept of an elite society where the rich get richer. Should being born into wealth guarnatee that status all through life? Shouldn't the same opportunities be available to all? Shouldn''t qualified applicants who are low and middle class have the opportunities to attend an ivy league school over connected applicants who dont have the academic and extra curricular qualifications and would never even be considered compelling candidates but for the connection?</p>
<p>And how will ending EA eliminate these perceived inequities?</p>
<p>^^It won't. Collegebound is conflating two rather unrelated issues.</p>
<p>Collegebound - the issues in Golden's book have been discussed at great length. Read this thread:</p>
<p>"Why should a student from a wealthy, connected family whether or not his mother or father attended that elite school, have the opportunity to attend a school that he would never have qualified for but for the connection, edging out other qualified middle class students who have worked hard and are clearly more deserving?"</p>
<p>I think you're overstating the legacy preference. Being from a wealthy, connected family, by itself, gets you nowhere at Harvard. The legacy admit rate is only around 30%, and that's only a couple of points higher than the admit rate for children whose parents went to Princeton and Yale (in other words, a lot of the edge comes from well-educated parents preparing their kids well, not from a direct boost). If you're one of the handful of kids whose parents gave a building to Harvard, that's a much bigger boost, but that's a very small group. The middle-class kids who don't get in because legacies do are NOT "clearly more deserving"; this is a process of splitting hairs, where one great kid is picked over another, not a bunch of lazy B-student legacies filling up the class. If you showed the pile of applications to 10 different committees, you'd probably get 10 different proposed classes.</p>
<p>YALE HAS MADE a non-binding decision on early action: In a meeting last week, the school's board chose not to follow Harvard and Princeton in eliminating its early admissions program. But President Richard Levin tells the YDN: "That's not a final decision." Oh, the stress of college admissions.</p>
<p>The wavering at Yale is somewhat suprising, since Levin has long been critical of early admissions and, in 2002, sought approval from the Justice Department to drop the program along with other schools. Perhaps the YDN could explain what accounts for the newfound apprehension.</p>
<p>One reason may be the tepid response from other rivals, now trickling out over the op-ed pages of national newspapers. Following Stanford Provost John Etchemendy's defiant stance in the New York Times last week, UPenn President Amy Gutmann took to the Washington Post on Sunday with a similar defense of early admissions. (The Daily Pennsylvanian notes the latter today.)</p>
<p>The Gutmann op-ed is significant if only for its tone, including this caustic concluding paragraph:</p>
<pre><code>Both the ideal of equal educational opportunity and the reality of our country's future standing in the world demand that academia not be distracted by internecine debates in which relatively little will be gained or lost, regardless of who is right, and instead focus our efforts on providing a quality education and increasing financial aid based on need for all students.
</code></pre>
<p>IT'S ALSO FASCINATING to read Gutmann's salvo in light of today's Crimson scoop on her travels to Cambridge this weekend. Surprised by reporters outside her hotel, Gutmann sort-of repeated her sort-of denial of any interest in the Harvard presidency, but her mere presence in the vicinity of the Yard is likely to dominate talk among Ivy watchers this week. Will the DP get on her case tomorrow? Their opinion blog is already on it...."</p>
<p>ok debate!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>