Do you think it has dawned on the AOs at Harvard (and other tippy top schools) that admission practices that serve to entrench privilege and perpetuate societal inequality (LDCs and recruited athletes in certain high SES sports) shape a larger segment of each class than those seeking to rectify past societal wrongs? I wonder whether they are experiencing any cognitive dissonance.
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Pretty sure that they know well that much of the class is selected to perpetuate power and privilege (good for donations and connections to the school) while offering some of the class space for admission of those outside the existing connected upper class in order to preserve the images of academic merit and at least theoretical possibility for those from all parts of society to earn their way into the aristocracy.
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They don’t want you to notice it…
They’re so anxious to tell you about it at every opportunity…
Window dressing has always been a successful marketing strategy.
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That’s oversimplification, successful people have succesful children, this applies accross all races. Tippy top schools admit successful applicants and those they think have the most potential to be successful, naturally those with successful parents will have these traits. The real issue is finding those diamonds in the rough (and those URM’s within that group) that haven’t had the opportunities that wealthy applicants had. Not an easy task. As far as legacy goes that, we all know, is just an unfair attribute in admissions.
But have you considered why that’s true?
Successful people have successful children – Not always true, but as a general proposition, it’s a generally true statement. Now why??
1 – Successful people have wealth. That wealth leads to their kids attending better schools, affording extra tutors. Even affording to have more education experiences. Instead of working a part-time job 20 hours per week, their children can spend more time on academic pursuits and other special interests.
2-- Successful people had genetic and biological traits that contributed to their success, which they pass on to their offspring biologically.
3-- Successful people have the knowledge of how to be successful, which they can teach to their offspring.
4-- Beyond wealth, successful people have connections. From legacy status at an elite college, to opening doors for internships and first jobs. As the saying goes, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.”
5-- Successful parents become role models to their kids. Expectations are set. The expectation isn’t 2 years of community college followed by an administrative job where you may earn $50k. The expectation is, “of course you’ll eventually go to grad school… MBA, JD or MD or Engineering?”
It’s not just about finding diamonds in the rough. As in the movie Trading Places — Most of those successful kids wouldn’t be successful if they traded places with a lower class kid. And most of those lower class kids would be successful in the home of successful parents.
So the goal is not to allow a self-perpetuating cycle, where we simply reward people based on the circumstances of their birth.
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You may have missed one more item – perhaps the most important.
For the sake of simplicity, let’s break the successful people into a) people who are successful through education, and b) people who are successful through business. Obviously there are intersections.
The first group is anal about kids education. The second group is anal about worth ethic etc. And they inculcate these values in the kids from a very young age. They set high expectations, whatever the kids are doing. It is often not resources that tip the scales. It is focus and attention.
A good example is immigrants that come into the country with very few resources. Resources often don’t make that much of a difference. The argument about tutoring etc, and expensive ECs is overstated. It is unclear to me how many of the high performing students at our school (and other kids I know elsewhere) ever get tutored. I would guess less than 10%. Getting tutored is such an inefficient way of learning.
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Absolutely true. Which is why I listed “expectations” and “rolemodel” as 1 of the factors.
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High performing kids aren’t necessarily tutored but they are often “enriched” (starting in elementary school) with programs like Russian Math - at least in our area.
I am sure some people are. But I am skeptical of “Russian Math” or other such enrichment to make a material difference. Many of these programs are rote, and leave the kid somewhat turned off with the subject. We tried CTY Math for a year and discontinued it because kids feel burnt out. I don’t think a lot of resources are required for some of this enrichment, if any.
I heard that AOPS is good though.
A bachelor’s degree from their country of origin and matriculation to a PhD program in the US are not “resources”?
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I would also add to your first bullet that successful people’s wealth may contribute to them saving towards college so that their kids don’t have to take out loans (though that is partly prioritizing and choosing an affordable school; don’t need to be wealthy to do it but it certainly helps). Graduating without debt and with a marketable degree makes a big difference in “success”
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Most of my peers (immigrant peers, that is) - our parents came with limited resources. One had a nursing degree, but the other was a blue collar laborer, in my own case. It was good old fashioned, save save save, work, work work. No vacations, no eating out. I don’t think my mom went for a professional haircut ever. But they saved and paid for multiple college degrees. 4 yr college was a minimum, and loans were out of the question. That made a lot of difference.
They always said, “we sacrificed so you could have an education.” That is the immigrant work ethic I think was being stated.
I’m sure there are another group of immigrants who do come with bachelors degree, get a phd and become successful that way. But I guess there’s still a strong work ethic passed on through role modeling.
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Back to topic please.
There is a grand total of one thread on CC where people can post about affirmative action, while there is no limit to the number of threads a user can create to discuss what’s on their minds (well, there is, but few are likely to max out). So let’s leave this thread for its intended purpose.
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With regard to the comments about immigrants, this is a striking statistic:
“First- and second-generation African immigrants, despite constituting only about 10 percent of the U.S. Black population, make up about 41 percent of all Black students in the Ivy League”
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This really should not be a surprise, since the same thing applies to recent immigrants from Africa as for recent immigrants from Asia: a large percentage were selected by immigration as PhD students and skilled workers, biasing the population toward high educational attainment (which tends to follow to their American kids).
However, such Asian immigrants and their kids make up a large portion of the Asian American population, so their high educational attainment gets associated or stereotyped racially to Asian Americans, while the similar African immigrants are small in numbers relative to the overall African American population, so they do not set the popular stereotype for African Americans.
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Immigrants from Africa are a self-selected group, but their number is still very small compared to African Americans with similar parental educational attainment. Besides, an immigrant from Africa, like immigrants from elsewhere, faces additional admission hurdles (language, geographical quota, etc.) that a native-born doesn’t.
I don’t think that information is completely correct. Black immigrants from around the world make up 10 percent of the total Black population in the US (not just African immigrants). The data you attached shows that African Immigrants make up 42% of the Black Immigrant population in the US (The 2 largest Black immigrant populations in the US come from the Caribbean). So 1st and 2nd generation Black Immigrants from Africa make up no more than 5% of the total Black population in America. Looking at the article I think you meant to say that 41% of all Black Ivy League students are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants (whether their family’s origins are from Africa, the Caribbean or from somewhere else).
The percentage of asian students coming for a PhD out of all Asian immigrants is very small. And they often come with very little money — could be less than a month worth of expenses. You are building your life from scratch
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I took the quote from the WaPo op-ed. But I agree with your correction, I’m guessing the word “African” was mistakenly put in there by an editor changing “African American” (since “African American immigrant” doesn’t really make sense).
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Highly selective institutions were never the goal for most of the top Black students where I attended high school. I went to a magnet school that was 75%+ Black and we had some very good students (my junior year we had 12 National Achievement Semi-finalists which meant those students were among the top 1,600 PSAT taking Black students in the nation at the time). 2 of those students went to highly selective schools (Both 1st or 2nd gen. Black immigrants) and the rest (only one remaining 1st or 2nd gen. Black immigrant among them) chose an assortment of schools with most choosing HBCUs or stayed in-state. The majority of those students never even applied to highly selective schools because our dream schools were Tennessee St, Morehouse, Spelman, Howard, Tuskegee, Florida A&M, and other HBCUs, not the Ivy League.
I saw this same divide during my kid’s admissions cycles as Black 1st and 2nd gen immigrants were much more likely to apply and attend very selective schools that consider race in admissions than Black families with a longer history in America. I have also seen Black students (3+ generations in America) who do apply and get accepted, but they have been much more likely to decline acceptance and choose our state options or accepted generous scholarships offers from HBCUs. Other groups (Asian-Americans, White, Black 1st and 2nd gen immigrants and Hispanics) almost never turned down an opportunity to go to an Ivy League school (we know 1 kid who turned down an Ivy for Georgia Tech in engineering), but that has not been the case with Black students (3+ generations in America) close to my kids.
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