Here is my very simple response to this topic. Why does it matter? Harvard is a private institution that is free to admit any students they want as long as they do not break any laws in doing so. If I’ve said it once on CC, I’ve said it a million times. Students exist for the University, not the University for the students. (I know I exaggerated as I have not a million posts on CC).
This is most specifically the case as Private Research Institutions, which Harvard is a member, but also all universities to some extent. If Harvard believes adding people to the student body that may help Harvard be more successful, then great. I suspect that some of the most cheerful givers to the University are those who went their and there children go there. Only to be surpassed by those who went there, and their children, and their childrens’ children.
Get over it, pick another university to fall in love with if you don’t like it. There are a ton of great ones.
@cupcakemuffins This really isn’t a surprise and was assumed by most everybody. If it wasn’t, why?
I say this as someone who has never been associated with Harvard. I’ve only become somewhat associated with UChicago this past admissions season. But, I assumed that with these prestigious schools, that legacies were a thing. I also don’t think Harvard has been secretive about legacy boost, if not the specific amount.
Again as a private institution, they can choose what they need to be transparent about. And as a supplier or customer, you can choose to enter into a relationship with them on that level of transparency. Now that you know the specific data, in what way will you change your behavior? As long as 20x the number of desired students apply, then are accepted, they are in the driver’s seat and set the rules.
You are right but we are only asking for transparency. No one is dictating their policies as even they benefit from local infrastructure and federal money, these are private corporations, we are only trying to protect consumer rights so young buyers can make educated decisions.
I don’t think they owe anyone “transparency”. What would that even mean? They take who they want, for a million different reasons based on their own priorities, and using a flexible, human-intensive process that is as much art as science. If they were straight-up lying about how they evaluated applicants, that would be one thing, but the truth is that they obfuscate and cloak everything in a holistic veil of mystery. Think of them as a luxury good, advertised with lots of happy talk and gauzy images. You might think that the luxury good is overpriced and not made of stuff as fancy as the advertising implies, but you don’t have to buy it. A Seiko might tell better time than a Patek Philippe, but they convey different messages when worn.
@BrianBoiler Your question is mine: in what way will knowing the specific data, in all the “buckets” change anyone’s behavior? It will continue to show what we already know…an applicant has a 5% chance of getting in Harvard (and all such peer schools). While we would know data, we still would not know the context of the data (essay, recs, ECs, etc) that formed the rest of the application. We still wouldn’t know why Harvard determined accepted applicant A who fell in bucket 1 was more desired than denied applicant B who fell in bucket 2. Short of releasing every single admitted students full application (unacceptable in my opinion) and knowing the very specific needs Harvard has for each class, we will never be clear on how they admit applicants.
Just not sure how transparency would give us anything more than perhaps additional topics to argue over (athletic vs geographic vs ethnic vs legacy vs low SES).
Here is a common fallacy of college acceptance. If school x has an acceptance rate of y% then a student z who applies has a y% chance of acceptance.
Each individual has a different chance of acceptance based on factors in their application. For the tippy tops, those factors include Group A: things like legacy, recruited athlete, URM, ORM, first generation college student, son/daughter of president/royalty/celebrity. They also include Group B GPA, rigor of education, test scores, essays, letters of recommendation, ECs, interviews, National Awards.
As a supplier of raw material, your job is to increase your personal chance of acceptance to as a high as you can get it. If you don’t have any from Group A, you need to offset with group B. Most likely in the essays, letters of recommendation, ECs, interviews, National Awards sub-group of B. I feel that this is where most people who are rejected from the tippy tops fall down. Not because they didn’t have a Group A hook, but because they assume that their test scores, GPA, and prep school pedigree was enough.
You know the funny thing, I never see a CC thread that complains that the children of Presidents have a 100% chance of acceptance at Harvard which is 20x higher than the acceptance rate. That is so unfair.
Hmm. Adcoms don’t go look at the parents’ home and ask parents for a statement on their philosopy on educating their kids and other experiences they value. It’s not about being raised in some magic environment. It’s NOT that these kids have privileges beyond others that “make” them better. It’s a funny twist on “us vs them,” rather supeficial. Here, “They have more” and the quick assumption that makes them better candidates. Not.
And an odd certainty that H swoons when they see the legacy box. Silly.
A kid either submits a good application packege or not. That’s by his own hand, his own choices through hs, his own perspective on what matters or not. His own drives and other personal qualities. You either show it or not. And far too many kids just don’t. They get distracted by scores and titles, awards, even insignificant ones. Kinda not a H level of thinking, in the first place.
That applies to legacies, as well. But a high proportion of truly qualified legacies have the familiarity with the school that others don’t (or don’t look for.) They can answer a Why Us sort of question or show some of the attributes that matter, as they were raised by people with those. Rich or not. They may produce better essays, on target, rather than just any writing. The best of them can connect the dots. They aren’t sitting around bemoaning conspiracies or accusing.
If anyone can sit on CC and promote the sorts of assumptions posters do, I doubt most would have some epiphany via transparency. I believe most would head straight for stats and awards and even those “founder” titles, and miss what holistic is about.
You assume so easily that others are privileging their way in. The time could be better spent learning what tippy tops do want to see. Less time on the random anecdotes and stories that alarm.
@BrianBoiler
Factor C: the quality of one’s thinking that shows. That shows in choices through hs, how one stretches and in what respects, what one chooses to project in the app, and avoiding some rookie mistakes. The app to a tippy top is not some “Hand it in on Monday” bio or brag sheet for a hs teacher.
You don’t need national awards. You do need the right sorts of thinking, evidenced in the app and any supp, the right traits. And more.
Who doesn’t want to go to the college that presidents choose for their kids? Or the one chosen by uber-rich and powerful families, period. It lends an aura of exclusivity and specialness that “regular” kids at the college get to be part of too.
We have an entire tens-of-thousands of posts thread about how unfair AA is to Asian-American and European-American applicants.
None about colleges that favor women, or men, for balance.
Legacy, athlete, development certainly favor certain racial/ethnic groups - and genders too in the case of the elites that used to be all male - but because it’s not as explicit it seems less contentious.
Or maybe some groups are easier punching bags than others.
Never assume a presidential kid gets in underqualified, lol. I’ll bet Malia was pre-qualified and if she was not the level they want, like and need, they would have gracefully suggested applying elsewhere, save all parties the heartache. There’s no good in taking her if she were miserable- or miserably not competitive. Colleges get some media attention just for the visits and speculation where these kids will apply.
And if she did apply to and attend a less competitive than H, I can guess where it would be and even give you the spin that would make that sound like a fabulous and totally appropriate first choice.
One of the Bush twins went to Yale, the other to UT Austin. Some of that may have been their choice, we don’t know.
Malia is reportedly a mediocre student and Z lister. Lots of mediocre people go through Harvard with the right parents, bank account, sport talent or racial background etc
I’m pretty sure there aren’t any, nor would we expect any in the future absent a large change in our system. Legacies do not constitute a suspect classification, and so as a general matter preference/discrimination that implicates legacy status is not going to be scrutinized very closely, if at all.
Personally, I could not care less about legacy preferences. Legacies are free to enjoy them, and non-legacies are free to assume that the legacies are on average of lesser ability and qualification (because of course they are). It’s all good.
Thanks for the laugh. Michelle Obama’s senior Princeton thesis is widely available on the internet. I urge people to (try to) read it. There are plenty of fairly average intelligence and ability kids at HYP. They all graduate just fine. In some ways that’s the point of HYP.
Even though legacy preferences at elite colleges, by their nature, advantage white people, they don’t explicitly do so and that purpose is not claimed, so it’s not seriously challenged.
^The best way to combat legacy preference - if one chooses to do so - is to agitate for disclosure of their academic stats, which are invariably lower on average than non-legacy admits. This disparity is clear, for instance, if one examines the baseline versus expanded data sets in the Harvard litigation, and is particularly telling as the Harvard legacy group in particular will have enjoyed higher advantages in getting to the point of application than non-legacies, on average.
Nevertheless, as a general legal matter, advantages conferred on one group are not accorded the same scrutiny as disadvantages. If they were, none of the preferences could survive, as each disproportionately favors one suspect classification or other (e.g., legacy, development and certain athletic preferences favor white students in aggregate - although importantly unhooked white students are therefore specifically disadvantaged by these preferences - while low income preferences might disproportionately favor Hispanic applicants). The jurisprudence is muddled, a result of the inherent impossibility of trying to address a difficult political issue through fatuous reasoning. But this is the system we’ve got.
“Harvard Legacy Admit Rate Five Times That of Non-Legacies, Court Docs Show” And? So? I mean really-what is the question at hand. These schools are obsessed with signaling that they are committed to equity and inclusion and diversity (if I have missed any of the special buzzwords please reply) yet are woefully uninterested in demonstrating a commitment to fairness, transparency and a somewhat level playing field. Read all about Ivy League athletic recruiting (I am ignoring NCAA because we arent talking about broad college admissions) and you will see that athletes being recruited to the Ivy consortium are the ONLY special population held to minimum standards. Perhaps if ALL applicants were held to the Ivy academic index -currently only applied to athletes–that would solve some of the perceived unfairness? I suspect-- but cannot know-that many of the legaciy admits now overlap with development. I know a pretty large number of Ivy legacy kids that are not going to the schools their parents attended.
I really don’t see a reason for outrage. Harvard is a private institution that has a mission to further the body of knowledge to improve society by acquiring and applying that knowledge. Students are a raw material for that purpose and Harvard (or any Private Research Institution) is the manufacturer of knowledge. They are not the manufacture of students. Students exist for the University. The University doesn’t exist for the students.
Now if we lived in a world where their purpose was to admit and educate people fairly, then you might have a little bit of a beef. Because, who gets to define “Fair?” The students or the institution. Here are some facts. Students of highly intelligent parents tend to be smarter then students of unintelligent parents. To assume that these legacies fall outside of the normal acceptance rate needs to be justified. Are there special cases, perhaps (children of Presidents and other celebrity cases). But by and large every kid I know who is a legacy is pretty bright in their own right. I also know of many cases where kids who hit the midpoint of the acceptance stat scale who aren’t legacies who have been accepted to the tippy top schools without a hook. So it is also absolutely wrong to say that schools preach diversity and development and don’t honor it.
The great benefit of our US Higher Education system is that we don’t have just one great school. And even our tier II and III schools are better than most countries best university. There is absolutely no reason for a kid who is qualified to not get an outstanding education at one of these universities. Does that mean that every qualified kid won’t get into a CHYMPS school? Yes, there are only so many slots.
@BrianBoiler they are not really “private”–nothing is. If they were truly private they would not be non profit (which s a form of government subsidy) and they could pick whoever they want to go there with no explanation whatsoever. Welcome to 1984.