The allegation by Michael Cohen, that Trump asked him to write to the schools Trump attended threatening them with legal actions if they release his grades, gives me an idea. Since the colleges one attends are already public information, why not go one step further by making transcripts public information? Employers can ask for them already. It will shine light on whether those admitted with various preferences are truly deserved. A little transparency may be worth the loss of some privacy. Kids today, with all their activities on social media, don’t seem to care much about their privacy anyway.
Making transcripts available? Again, that’s not all that makes one successful. Or not.
Btw, the fact that the Common App asks if you’re applying for aid does not mean that answer gets downloaded.
I think this is common in public life. The last president did the same.
But let’s stay off the political train or lest we get “derailed”, rightfully so, by the mods.
I respect your contributions to this board @lookingforward, but you dismiss these powerful tools far too readily.
In the hands of someone competent, regression analysis is a powerful tool to measure real relationships between multiple inputs and an output. Note that regression analysis has been validly applied to thousands of different problems, and there is no reason to think that holistic admissions so magically different that can’t be used here.
Importantly, regression analysis can find true relationships that exist that nobody expected, or are much stronger than expected. When the data tells you very clearly that legacy applicants have an N times higher rate of admissions than an equivalent unhooked candidate, it’s true (again assuming a competent person running the analysis).
Now it automatically doesn’t explain why it is true, but determining why becomes the next step in the process of analysis. It could be as simple as someone said (paraphrasing here): If in the case of a tie you pick the legacy student, it helps in admissions where there are a lot of ties. Or it could be that legacy students simply present much better due to parental education and awareness of what their alma mater looks for (which itself is could be either an unconscious bias or an intended bias).
@elodyCOH why would you want to charge somebody more in tuition just because they have some $$ ? Imagine if everything worked that way? That concept is preposterous. Nobody would ever want to make more money.
There is an actual price for tuition, just like most things we buy, use or consume. I don’t know why people have a hard time with this concept. There is no “right” to a free college education.
@RightCoaster But isn’t it already that way? Rankings reward colleges for being more egalitarian, why not just make it so the right people pay more? If the goal is to get more lower income people to have access, doesn’t it make sense to charge the very richest more? Doesnt US News reward colleges for that anyway? Instead of burdening the middle, why not just charge everybody by what they can pay?
Well, development admissions is kind of a way of doing that, though the college relaxes admission standards in exchange (sort of like need-aware in the opposite direction (willingness to pay a lot more than the list price)).
Of course, “more than that” could be some incredible achievement by the student (e.g. national level achievement in something that the college likes, backed up by essays and recommendations that the college likes, etc.), or it could be some unearned (by the student) characteristic (e.g. legacy).
@elodyCOH because the whole system’s sole goal isn’t to get lower income people into school. That might be one particular goal, of many that an institution has. Perhaps another top goal is to have enough $$ coming in to keep the place open.
I’ve worked hard for my money, so under your plan I actually get penalized for doing well, and doing nothing wrong. That is not a sustainable system and is fundamentally flawed.
Maybe colleges should publish a menu:
we will accept your SAT 1500+ child for $10,000
we will accept your SAT 1400+ child for $30,000
we will accept your SAT 1300+ child for $100,000
we will accept your SAT 1200+ child for $300,000
we will accept your SAT 1100+ child for $1,000,000
we will accept your moron child for $100,000,000
All public. Per the OP’s premise, I can stomach admitting such ‘substandard’ students at those levels for the corresponding monetary benefit to the college. 
But that would potentially hurt more than it helps because you’re saying that standardized testing is the only metric for admission. The applicant with unique talents, interests etc…is subordinated to the best test takers.
See, ubclalumnus, awards revert to the hierarchical notion of better or more worthy. Most applicants, even admits, do not have national or intl awards. It’s nice, but far from determinative. In fact, you could have all that glory and still get rejected. None of that makes up for a kid who can’t answer a Why Us well or unwittingly makes an unwanted impression in the rest of the app/supp. Or other things. (Again, elites.)
I do know the value in regression analysis. But it’s missing the key aspect in this context: the app itself. Even Espenshade admitted he was not privy to apps and comments.
As for charging the rich more: don’t they, in effect? But the cap is full tuition/RB.
My hesitation about athletic hooks is from having seen the pull, even when they are not fully qualified. But I’ve seen plenty of other kids, including legacy, rejected when they’re “substandard.” And it’s not even a maybe. From my perspective, legacies who get past first cut are initially qualified. Then, the fine tooth combing.
On wealthier families paying more for college - they generally do, and mostly they do it for other kids rather than their own. They even do so in the way that was suggested here, being as a percentage of their income. Obviously, I am referring to taxes that help fund public universities.
Many full pay families have enough money to be full pay, but they are not Uber wealthy, college building builder type of families.
Why stop at college? Wealthy should pay more for the exact same car, or dental work, or food at the grocery store.
Nobody mentioned the Espenshade’s study. The Harvard OIR and SFFA analyses differ from 3rd party studies in that they have access to all of the reader ratings for tens of thousands of Harvard applicants and use those ratings of specific applicants in the regression analysis – the reader academic rating, EC rating, personal qualities rating, LOR ratings, alumni interview ratings, etc. They can compare applicants who receive similar ratings in all of these categories, have similar hook status, have similar concentrations, the same SCEA/RD status, etc. They obviously don’t model comments or other criteria that readers do not convert into ratings. Nevertheless, the SFFA model was able to explain the majority of variance in admission decisions, so while it is in’t perfect, the model works reasonably well.
If both Havard’s internal models and external analyses come to a similar conclusion about a large boost for legacies that is well beyond the strength of a change in reader rating of the applicant in academic or other core categories, then it seems unreasonable to assume that everyone is wrong and legacy just “may tip in a tie,” without any supporting evidence and/or supporting statement from Harvard.
While comments weren’t used in the model, the previous lawsuit does list some reader comments that imply notable legacy benefits such as,
**“Without lineage there would be little case. With it we’ll keep looking.”
“Not a great profile but just strong enough #s and grades to get the tip from lineage.”
“We’ll need confirmation that dad is legit S&S because this is a luxury case otherwise.”**
Then you have to ask why is Duke taking “one and done” kids? Couldn’t someone use that spot to get an education? I guess they bring in big money so it is ok. Seems to me like every school has a strategy and they are not shy about it.
Would love to see what Harvard’s class would look like if the gender, income, race etc was all left blank. Just send in the scores, GPA, essays etc.
Harvard’s expert did a similar analysis in the lawsuit. His model predicted the following change in class percentages if all existing hooks were removed and replaced with a stronger preference for low SES.
Athletes → Decreases by 93%
Double Legacy → Decreases by 74%
Legacy → Decreases by 70%
Special Interest List → Decreases by 69%
Black → Decreases by 51%
Children of Faculty/Staff → Decreases by 28%
Hispanic → Decrease by 12%
Female → Decreases by 2%
Engineering/Physics → Increases by 10-12%
Financial Aid → Increases by 19%
Asian → Increases by 43%
So a student body that is majority Asian and everyone else is diluted including URMs? I’m so interested in the out come of the lawsuit because my prediction is that it will change nothing about how admissions works at H.
UCB, what do you think “We’ll keep looking” [at this one] means? It’s an interim comment in a multistage review process. No indication an admit is coming. They keep this one on the back burner. Nor do the other comments indicate an admit.