The number of applicants who apply to elite colleges has increased dramatically in recent years. If we believe that most of them are highly “qualified”, kids must have become increasingly and dramatically smarter year after year. Is that the reality? Or is it that many of these elite colleges have dramatically lowered their standards, at least in some of the disciplines? Why are the most challenging and cutting-edge graduate programs filled with international students? Why are more than half of the Silicon Valley firms started by immigrants? Some of our elite schools seem to be focused on producing politicians and investment bankers (for which legacy status comes handy), don’t they?
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I don’t see anything wrong with elite schools producing leaders in finance and politics-the same would occur in most countries. The percentage of STEM majors, particularly in computer science, has skyrocketed at HYPSM and it is now the most popular major at most of those schools. Many HYPSM stem majors choose not to pursue graduate work in that field due to other excellent options, and the perception of difficult outcomes in academia. I dont think it is surprising that US graduate school programs, largely free for phd students, attract world-wide interest from top students.
I don’t think any of that has much to do with legacy admissions.
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We’re producing them disproportionally. IMO, it’s a severe misallocation of human capital.
Some of their primary options are finance and politics. Doing in-depth graduate work is often required for advanced and cutting-edge work in industry, not just academia.
Legacies brought relationships, which are the most valued in finance and politics.
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Not necessarily. Kids aren’t smarter, but they have far more opportunity than ever to do impressive things. Free resources for standardized tests are readily available like never before. Also, the convenience of the Common App has led many kids, who might not otherwise apply, to do so. And international applicants to elite colleges have soared over the past two decades.
I can’t speak to this, but there is no reason to think that legacies benefitted any more than another preferred class of student, if true.
Not sure what this has to do with legacy admissions practices.
They are, indeed, but I’d argue it’s connections more than legacy at play. Biden’s grandkids didn’t attend Penn by accident. Chucky Schumer’s daughter didn’t get into Harvard just because her dad went there.
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What does that have to do with being more “qualified”?
It has to do with lower academic standards.
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This is largely a result of cost of education and ability to work in the US. US BA/BS graduates have no visa barriers against finding jobs in the US at graduation, and may have educational debt to pay off. International BA/BS graduates’ way into the US is through funded graduate study (as opposed to expensive (especially for them) undergraduate study in the US), after which it is easier to get a work visa in the US than with only a BA/BS degree.
Of course, this has a selection effect, in that it selects for immigrants with the highest ability and motivation, but who are largely outside of established upper crust social circles associated with legacy etc. students at elite colleges. To the extent that many of the immigrants’ demographics are visibly different from those of the general US population, that results in their characteristics becoming associated with race and ethnicity, even though they are a highly selected subset of their race and ethnicity.
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You and @roycroftmom both made the point that these graduate programs are attractive to international students. They are. However, AFAIK, these programs still favor domestic students, especially in some of most sought-after fields. There just aren’t enough similarly “qualified” domestic applicants.
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… who are interested in entering PhD programs instead of taking high paying jobs at graduation.
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Not all of them have high paying jobs waiting for them upon graduation. STEM isn’t limited to CS and engineering.
Is your contention that the number of academically qualified students should remain flat as the US has grown by ~20% since 2000, has seen the top quintile and (especially) top decile hugely increase the amount they spend on supplemental education and place more value on education in general, and has seen an enormous increase in international applicants?
Yes, and the number of international graduate students in other STEM fields (e.g. biology) is lower.
https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsb20223/international-s-e-higher-education (figure HED-23)
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This argument reminds me of the Agricultural industry (at least here in California). There are not enough American workers willing to do the work so that’s why we employ undocumented immigrants.
You mentioned the pay not being attractive and my daughter can vouch for many of her colleagues having dollar signs in their eyes for their post graduation goals (engineering major). I did my PhD research in a small, rich European country where there is a law requiring the universities to pay their PhD engineering students 75% of what their colleagues entering industry make (it was a technical university and I don’t know what the pay is like in other disciplines). Most of my fellow PhD students were from that country. And most post graduation went into industry, not academia. As long as workers from abroad are willing to come to the US and do the work for a lot less we will continue to see this phenomenon.
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I guess I am confused by your premise-that somehow limiting legacy students at elite schools would result in more domestic stem graduate students? I dont know why that would occur, and note that at least at Princeton, legacy students are more likely than others to major in stem, presumably because many legacies have strong math preparation
The increase in “qualified” students cannot be explained the population growth. Not even close. On the question of international students, most of these elite schools have kept their numbers to about 10%, so they’re really separate.
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Yes I am Asian American, and I am not a victim.
Of course I realize that Harvard has discriminatory practices against Asians and my wife and I, as a consequence, have stopped taking calls from their development office. While none of our kids applied to Harvard, we were pleased that at least one of them was offered an athletic recruitment spot on one of their varsity teams.
It should not be news to anyone that the college admissions process is unfair and the unfairness is a moveable feast that can change year to year. The discrimination the Jewish people faced decades ago is very similar to what Asians are facing today. It is worth noting that applicants of Jewish decent are no longer subject to discrimination today (in the college admission process) and I am hopeful that Asians will be able to say the same thing soon. I think Asians can learn a lot from how the Jewish people have survived and persevered over discrimination in this country. How to convert this learning into results is for a different thread.
As I have said earlier, to me, the whole point of CC is not to complain about the unfairness of everything, but rather to find any/all ways to successfully navigate an imperfect system in its current form. While many complain about the daunting admissions percentages, I look at it differently. Each elite school takes about 2000 students/year, why can’t one of them be mine? If I can convince my kid that there is more than one ideal school (let’s say 5), then the odds improve from to getting one spot out of 10000. If your kid is truly qualified, getting one out of ten thousand spots is possible.
When I applied to college, there were several kids who got into schools that seemed to be above their accomplishments. At the time, I did not think it was right, but I learned there was another way of getting into college beyond just having good grades/scores. In running a wildly successful multigenerational organizations (as elite college and universities are), having strong/on-going multigenerational relationships is a no-brainer.
I guess affirmative action is other way of another way of getting into college beyond just having good grades/scores. While it has directly and negatively affected my kid’s college admissions chances, we have availed ourselves of other imperfections in the system to find a way forward. The problem with affirmative action is that it does admit academically less qualified students. When less qualified students work together with highly qualified students, segregations can result. Some will call these segregations systemic racism, other will call it trying to assemble the best groups to get the best grades. When I was young, I was always chosen last for kick ball and I attributed to racism; now that I have the wisdom of a 60 year old, it is possible I wasn’t a very good kick ball player.
While I am sure there are many opinions on this, my point is there are no favors being done in accepting kids who can’t handle the work.
I think once affirmative action and/or legacy admissions is eliminated, people will find some other unfairness to complain about. Life isn’t fair, but a good life is about how well one plays an imperfect game.
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Which workers are you referring to? Sorry, not clear how employment opportunities relate to legacy preferences or there being more international students in graduate programs.
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Legacy preference, along with all the other preferences, help lower academic standards, which affect the preparedness of some of these students.
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Well, we just have to disagree there. 75% of legacies are rejected. Those who get in are more academically qualified than other students, and more likely to major in stem. Not sure why you think this somehow “lowers the academic standard”.
Just like faculty children, those legacy students are actually raising the test scores, and are better prepared than most.
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Legacies are fortunate that their status is not immediately visible, like most URMs.
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The reason you need to have these preferences is because some of these admits wouldn’t be sufficiently qualified to get in. By letting them in, standards are lowered so they can all graduate (via grade inflation, reduced and easier core curricula, creation of less rigorous majors, etc.)
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