<p>I am in the middle of The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale and Princeton by Jerome Karabel. This is an exceptional cultural history of the social context of American college admissions. I would like to quote at length from p. 135 and get your opinions on this material:</p>
<p>"The response of the elite private colleges to the "Jewish propblem" was one of the turning points in the history of American higher education.Had the principled positions held by Eliot and his allies prevailed, the Big Three's policy of admitting students almost exclusively on the basis of academic criteria might still be with us. Instead, the traditional policy was abandoned and, in the process, both the procedures and the criteria used in admissions at elite private colleges was forever altered.</p>
<p>The creation of a new system of admissions occured in the midst of one of the most reactionary moments in American history.....Many of the features of college admissions with which we are all familiar- the emphasis on "character", the preference for alumni sons and athletes, the widespeard use of interviews and photos, the reliance on personal letters of recommendation, and the denegration of the applicant whose sole strength is academic brillance-have their roots in this period.</p>
<p>Though all of these features are now taken for granted as a natural feature of the academic landscape, many of them are in fact extraordinarily strange. Americans, for example, accept as normal that highly subjective qualities such as "character" and "personality" should figure centrally in the admissions process- a policy that seemed to many at the time it was invented to be an open invitation to prejudice and discrimination. Americans also take for granted that the ability to throw, kick or hit a ball is a legitimate criterion in determining who should be admitted to out greatest research universities- a proposition that would be considered laughable in most of the world's countries. And Americans also tolerate a system in which our most selective institutions of higher education routinely grant preference to the children of alumni and major donors- a practise that viewed from a distance looks unmeritocratic at best and profoundly corrupt at worst.</p>
<p>All in all, the admissions process....has striking affinities to the system of selection at a private club. Given its historical origins, this resemblence is less than fully coincidental"</p>
<p>In reading this book, I find myself very ashamed that although I have been through the college admissions process two time with children, I had no idea that the system was first set-up to restrict the number of Jews and other undesirabiles in the Big Three and to insure the continuation of the "manly" Protestant ideal.</p>
<p>What I like is the system of college admissions at the "elite" schools was not set up as a way to accept the best and the brightest, but to perpetuate the social class structure of society. Yet, people associated with these schools have this attitude that they really are the best and the brightest. :)</p>
<p>As a person who was educated elsewhere in the world, I find the american admission system so profoundly corrupt (citing Karabel), that I openly discourage my son from applying to Harvard, since I am in great doubt of moral values of the admitted students. Not to mention that as an adult I see a lot of contradiction between Harvard's stated values and attitudes (what we are looking for...) and the reality of the admission system.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I am in great doubt of moral values of the admitted students.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Your logic is flawed. Whether or not the admissions system was/is corrupt, there is no ground for impugning the moral values of the students. Please keep your insults to yourself.</p>
<p>The Jewish quotasare a great stain on American education. However, I would submit that today's American colleges are more meritocratic than at any time previously, including, the period before the Jewish quotas were introduced.</p>
<p>Merit, however, is not to be defined solely in terms of GPA and board scores as these capture only certain types of skills and evaluate only certain types of achievements.</p>
<p>Aside from the inadequacy of purely numerical criteria, there is great value in the diversity of American campus life and flexibility of the typical college curriculum. This means that students have a chance not only to change their majors after being admitted but also to adopt a more multi-disciplinary approach than is possible at universities in Europe and Asia where students must start take courses almost entirely in their area of specialization and must start from scratch if they change majors. This also means that it is not easy for admissions committees to identify the best prospective classics or English or Biology major.</p>
<p>Additionally, American campuses have a vibant culture that is made possible by admitting students with diverse non-academic interests and strengths. Inevitably, balancing academic excellence and cultivating a vibrant and diverse social scene entails pursuing admissions policies very different than at European or Asian universities.</p>
<p>I think the great age of meritocratic admissions (for the elite schools) was the mid-to-late 70s/early 80s, and they quickly learned their lessons. To me, what was most interesting in Karabel (since I had actually lived through the period he described, and was part of the "Jewish problem"), was how, when he wrote the book (2002?) there was a smaller percentage of African-American students at Princeton than there was in the early 70s, smaller numbers of low-income AA students at all of the prestige schools than during that period, and that prestige schools are, generally speaking, well less economically diverse today than they were 20 years. (Mortenson came to the same conclusion, though his work only dates back to 1993.) (You haven't gotten to the end of the book yet, so wait.)</p>
<p>But the conclusion I always come back to is, does it really matter? The prestige schools could disappear from the face of the earth tomorrow and it would barely be a blip on the American education radar screen. I'm much more concerned about students not being able to afford the community college, or being denied transfers into the four-year state schools (so they can take high-paying OOS students), than I ever could be about whether Yale provides "advantage to the advantaged."</p>
<p>I am very ashamed, too, given what I have heard about the book. The cover emphasis on character, so-called, given the leadership position of the schools in question in American life, may be one of the major causes of our continuing anti-intellectualism in this country. Over the summer I read the book about the Warburgs written by Ron Chernow. It seems that members of the Warburg family moving to the US in the thirties from Germany were shocked at the blatant Anti-Semitism practiced here.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The cover emphasis on character, so-called, given the leadership position of the schools in question in American life, may be one of the major causes of our continuing anti-intellectualism in this country.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh please. Anti-intellectualism in this country does not stem from people who were denied admission at HYP but from others who would not even consider applying to HYP. </p>
<p>There was blatant anti-semitism in the US, but certainly less lethal than anti-semitism in Europe, and especially Germany! Let's not equate all types of anti-semitic behavior.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think the great age of meritocratic admissions (for the elite schools) was the mid-to-late 70s/early 80s, and they quickly learned their lessons.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Indeed. As a Jewish woman at one of the HYP schools who graduated in 1979, I know that there were plenty of Jewish and, to a lesser extent, African-American students on campus. And most of my friends were not from high-income families. I never felt like a minority (well, except as a woman, but that was ok because I'd been at an all-girls' school for the previous 10 years. :)) I was very surprised to read in Karabel's book how the percentage of Jewish, AA, lower income, etc. students fell markedly beginning in the mid-80s.</p>
<p>I think that the percentage of AA and lower income students fell in the mid-1980s but not the percentage of Jewish students (although this has been alleged about Princeton). I find it hard to believe that Henry Rosovsky would have countenanced a policy that overtly or covertly discriminated against Jews.</p>
<p>No idea about Jewish students (other than what happened at Stuy High, which dates back further than that). What happened with the income spread actually was pretty subtle. As list prices went up much faster than inflation, when the the percentage of students receiving needbased aid remained stable, the result was that the median income/assets of students increased fairly radically. From just looking at percentages receiving aid, it could look like nothing changed. Looking at the size of scholarships, it could look like schools were getting more generous. But neither turns out to be true. This trend continued into the 2000s. The changes at Princeton since 2003, though, have been rather substantial, though the majority of beneficiaries have been students from families in the $100k-$160k range (which was a wash for Princeton - as they gave out "need-based" aid to these students, they recouped it from them through increases in list price.) But they also increased percentages of Pell Grant recipients, though far short of, say Amherst.</p>
<p>marite,
now you are not even implying but directly stating that European universities have lesser flexibility and are less vibrant compared to the American universities. Sorry, but it tells me that you have not really been to one. It is an american myth that non-meritocratic admission system produces better student life on campuses or more diversity. You, as an adult, should do better than 17-year olds and realize that this is (along with others) just an excuse to propagate admission system based on "character". </p>
<p>I read a tiny but striking article in NY Times recently about amount of cheating that goes on in job resume writing. Anyone who ever participated in a search knows about it only too well. I would argue that the roots of it are in the college admission system and its emphasis on "character". Personally, I find it ironic.</p>
<p>Marite, I think any large trend, such as a misplaced focus on athleticism in our schools at all levels, contributes to the anti-intellectual tide in our society. I am glad you live in some sort of rarefied society. I do not, and most of us do not. </p>
<p>I was surprised, of course, to read what I did about the Warburgs' reactions to circumstances in nineteen thirties America. Of course things were much worse in Germany, but their observations are still interesting. After all, I was not alive in the nineteen-thirties and I guess your weren't either; but some things seem to have a long life. Anti-Semitism is despicable and that the Ivy League schools practiced Anit-Semitism in their admissions policies is despicable, too. </p>
<p>One interesting outcome is that Kaplan, founder of the test preparation company, began to offer tutoring for tests because he could not find employment. There are a slew of other stories, too, such as the fact that the employment of Lionel Trilling in the English Department at Columbia was considered exceptional since leading writers, his contemporaries, were dissuaded from going to graduate school in English and were channelled into departments of philosophy and so forth.</p>
<p>Couple of months ago my life took me to a local jewish academy. I was shocked to find that
1. Name of the school was not posted anywhere outside as a security measure.
2. The school was surrounded by a 6-foot-high metal fence with a barbed wire on top.
3. The school had an armed guard standing by a locked front door.
No anti-semitism in America these days?</p>
<p>As to the anti-intellectualism discussion:
Personally I find it degrading that my academically brilliant son needs to support his claim to a university spot by his athletic abilities.<br>
For a very long time America's anti-intellectualism was not detrimental to its society, since America was rich enough to buy all the brains it needed. Not anymore, the well is drying out (read any of the American Physical Society's publications for factual support). As a result of it, the negative effects of a brain vacuum will manifest itself in a very near future and will be very dramatic.</p>
<p>Anti-intellectualism is rampant in America. Agree. And the best sign of this is....
Harvard bashing, and more generally HYP bashing.
A focus on Ahtleticism? Are we talking about Ivies or Big Ten? </p>
<p>Fizik: I see you did not address my challenge about students with no moral values. Did I say anywhere there is no anti-semitism in the US today? No. my argument was that anti-semitism in the US in the 1930s did not begin to compared to the Germany that the Warburgs left. I hope you can see the difference between the US in the 1930s and Germany in the 1930s. And that you can distinguish between admissions committees and students. I have my doubts.</p>
<p>fizik said: "For a very long time America's anti-intellectualism was not detrimental to its society, since America was rich enough to buy all the brains it needed. Not anymore, the well is drying out (read any of the American Physical Society's publications for factual support). As a result of it, the negative effects of a brain vacuum will manifest itself in a very near future and will be very dramatic."</p>
<p>I'm sorry, but that quote just angers me. You may not mean it this way, but to me, that sounds like a huge generalization of the American people. Not everyone in the United States is in a "brain vacuum" just as not everyone in (insert name of any country in the world) is brillant.</p>
<p>I do not make generalization, I comment on a trend. I find it embarassing that U of Texas system cannot hold a graduate course in Physics anymore on separate campuses - they have to teach it through distance-learning since none of the campuses has enough graduate students (a minimum is usually 5 to teach a course). I was a chair of a search committee for a plump tenure-track assistant prof position a couple of years ago, we could not find a single home-grown physicist to even invite for an interview! The sister university just closed a search because they could not produce a decent candidate. I am to chair still another search committee in the next months and the entire committee have very low hopes for success. This is the reality.
I find it embarrassing that US produces less engineers than Mexico.<br>
Couple it with the fact that scientists and engineers from Europe, India, and China are reluctant to come to US these days because they have better options elsewhere.</p>
<p>About the original quote: I did not try to imply that American people were stupid, and the rest of the world brilliant. It is simply too expensive to produce a qualified scientist or engineer, takes a lot of time, money, and energy. That is why for decades the mode was to buy rather than to grow. I am afraid that the price of buying becomes too high and I am not sure that this country can affoord it anymore at the point of peak oil, no less.
I do not like to play Cassandra, I am simply scared about the future of my own children.</p>
<p>You would say that the moment demand increases supply will appear, but you see in science it is not that simple. You need decades to develope a decent school, you need years and years of good schooling to produce a scientist, a mathematician, an engineer. Who is teaching these disciplines at US universities? Foreigners. And they start to think really hard of going back (first hand knowledge) to their countries where their brilliant children can get an excellent education very cheap and without necessity of showing their "leadership" abilities.
In fact one of the highly successful, sky-high tax paying families I know just decided to move back to Europe because their charming, trully brilliant, successful kid with an added bonus of education from the top Southeast privite school was not admitted to an american university (they strongly suspect because of the lack of athletics on his resume), but sure enough was admitted to Oxford (not Mississippi either). Who can blame them for feeling rejected? Who is at a loss?
I love this country, I am an optimistic person, but the signs are not good.
The trend just began to manifest itself, but what it means is that it is well underway. Once started, it would be extremely hard to reverse. Do you feel like being an agricultural appendix to China or India?</p>
<p>I agree that my country is not perfect. Actually it's nowhere near being perfect. However, I don't put the blame on the country nor even the schools for the lack of output of engineers and the like. One reason for this problem is that people just don't want to go into those professions. For example, I went to a magnet school in math and science during my high school years and performed well there. However, once i entered my university, I was no longer interested in those subjects and am studying history and Spanish instead. It's impossible to force people to do what they don't want to do, and I think that's one of the major variables in this equation.</p>
<p>In fact there is a very easy way to force people into these professions: by paying them well. The problem is we have the money, we want to pay it, we cannot find takers anymore.</p>
<p>To paraphrase your post, you, as an adult, would do better not to presume to "know" about total strangers the way you presumed about the moral values of students at Harvard.<br>
You would lose your bet that I don't know about other countries' higher education systems. I am well acquainted with the systems of several countries either through living in some for several years or researching higher education in others.</p>