Reading comprehension is very important for lawyers too. It’s important in law to be able to pay attention to exactly what was written and read extra stuff into it that wasn’t there.
I would note that on the defense end of things, I would indeed sometimes want an engineer or scientist on a jury when my best hope was a hung jury. Especially if the prosecution case was tied to forensic evidence.
@CottonTales - Neither are the other posts discussing this tangential topic. I didn’t start that digression.
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I for one appreciate that MaineL, because the cheating scandal has raised a lot of Affirmative Action comparisons and issues. I can’t count the articles and editorials I’ve seen comparing AA to athletic recruitment and legacy preferences this past week or so,as the scandal has cast a lot of light on those for the general public.
@MaineLonghorn I second @OHMomof2 in my appreciation of you opening back up this thread.
The news cycle of the last week has been dominated by the Admissions scandal that has ensnared a group of wealthy parents and one thing that has not been talked about is how race does or does not play into that narrative. One of the barriers (seems to have a racial significance) that is not mentioned is a lack of access that was available to the wealthy parents involved in the scandal. If the parents had gone through legal means (large donations or leveraging access to college presidents and other power players) or illegal ones, I am not seeing a lot of people of color mentioned in comparison to current population demographics in our society.
We can talk about a meritocracy versus holistic measures, or legal (donations or AA narrowly defined) versus illegal (bribes or AA possibly going to far and being against the law because it is discrimination) admissions boosts, but the one thing that has been true and seems will be true is that the word “Merit” has different meanings for different folks. Most African Americans that I know categorizes making it into an elite institution despite some systemic discrimination encountered and in some cases having lower “stats” as making it in on “Merit” just as much as the student from a wealthy family who has had every advantage and whose family has given a large sum to X University considers that to be a selection based on “Merit”. In the history of the Ivy League, how often has an entire student body been completely selected and based on a meritocracy alone?
Never if you mean academic merit. However, if “merit” is defined to include other factors desired by those colleges, such as relationships and connections (to donors, alumni, VIPs, even if just by birth lottery), then always.
Thanks ML. This has, for the most part, been one of the most calmly reasoned discussions on a subject that tends to lean towards screaming and name calling.
Regarding the recent scandal I happen to think that the doors for middle to upper class white families have been so narrowed in recent years that even the 0.01%ers have to resort to desperate measures, some of them illegal. I heard last year from a Princeton AO that the hooked admits were about 70% of the class. I can only imagine what kind of the trickle down effect it would have on schools like USC. When the competition gets so fierce it should not be a surprise the preference of race becomes more of a focus and more contentious than it would have been ten years ago.
I think that the lesson learned from the scandal is that admissions officers/universities have too much leverage to discriminate against people for things like race and ethnicity. Affirmative action programs are thinly veiled quota systems designed to boost schools’ rankings and appease their donors. They are blatantly racist (and were even directly exploited in the latest scandal, which has largely been glossed over).
But a large percentage of those ‘hooked’ admits were middle and upper class whites so I’m not sure what your point is.
@ucbalumnus Yep. And how often do I expect that they chose a class based primarily on academic merit in the future?I don’t believe that will ever happen which basically means that they will always have the means to control who comes through those hallowed doors. Because the only thing more important than money (and the endowments are very important for status) is the power and perception that comes from from being associated with the brand.
@jzducol I would have guessed that the percentage of hooked admits close to the number that you quoted from the Princeton AO. I believe that the hooks have always been a good percentage of the student bodies selected at a school such as Princeton, but the number of applicants who have the access to apply and who receives those hooks has changed over the years. My only ask when it comes to preferences is to evaluate all hooks instead of folks just focusing on race alone, and getting rid of some of the outdated ones (some of the non-revenue sports for example) along with moving past racial preferences in admissions. I have never personally been to a high school that has a crew team, but to have crew spots sewed up for admissions at top schools is never questioned. Good ole Satch. He loved to make people think. We didn’t always agree, but we found common ground (our kids,our humble upbringings, and to put in work for what you want) and he definitely me made look at his side of any issue. He is probably irreplaceable on CC, because I don’t know many people (I don’t think I know anyone personally) with both his immense intellect and the guts to communicate such an unique perspective on race and elite admissions.
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I just read the lengthy NYMag rundown of all the families and indictments and not one used race in any way: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/college-admissions-scandal-what-every-kid-knew.html
Which cases that were glossed over are you referring to?
However one defines “merit”, it’s incompatible with hooks, any hook. The very existence of hooks is to bypass or circumvent a merit-based process.
Perhaps the colleges define “merit” to mean “whatever we like”, including connections to donors, alumni, VIPs, etc., even if they were acquired by birth lottery or inheritance rather than the student’s own achievement.
But a large percentage of those ‘hooked’ admits were middle and upper class whites so I’m not sure what your point is.
To put this into context, you also need to understand the over representation of Jewish students in the Ivy league.
Approximately 50% of the Ivy League is white
Approximately 20% of the Ivy League is Jewish (while being approximately 2% of the population)
Approximately 10% of the Ivy League is a recruited white athlete
So approximately 20% of the slots are left for white students that aren’t a recruited Athlete or Jewish. Asians are certainly getting squeezed out, but non-Jewish/non-recruited athlete whites are getting squeezed out even more.
Let’s assume that the 20% is accurate. In your opinion, are the admissions officers giving a bump to Jewish applicants, and if so, how are they screening for them? Or are they being admitted purely on merit?
“Recruited athlete” has an admissions system that is totally separate from everyone else.
“Jewish” and “White” do not, @tpike12
Apples and oranges (though yes, most recruited athletes at the Ivies are white, and some may be Jewish).
@OHMomof2 This NY Times piece mentions it: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/12/us/william-rick-singer-college.html