<p>Not all legacy admits - ie, those with a parent who attended Harvard - get in by way of a $1,000,000 contribution. Quite a few of them are very highly qualified - not surprising, given their heritage.</p>
<p>Yeah, should we ignore the genetic factor? I mean, are we able to assume that someone with to IVY league parents is innately more intelligent than say someone whose parents went to college X? And nurture (upbringing) can't be ignored either. Do you guys think that inevitably, most of Harvards applicants will be legacies in say one hundred years as the number of alumni grows? What happens then?</p>
<p>Question: If an athlete is recruited, they are expected to participate in the sport for ALL four years (as an undergraduate), right?</p>
<p>Recruited athletes are not bound to compete at all if they choose not to. The Ivy League is not like the athletic scholarship schools, such as Stanford, Duke, Michigan, Notre Dame etc. in this respect. </p>
<p>At Harvard (or any Ivy) all financial aid is based on need and not conditioned upon athletic participation. </p>
<p>You should have no fear that your scholarship will be "pulled" if you decide not to play for whatever reason.</p>
<p>Byerly--No one should scream foul when a legacy simply gets in. I would venture to guess a legacy is more likely, statistically, to be more qualified than the average applicant for a number of reasons (so, Tony, giving preference to legacies doesn't factor in genetics because if, by genetics, you as a legacy are intelligent enough for Harvard then you would get in anyway, regardless of legacy status). The problem people see (I hope people don't mind if I speak on behalf of them :p) is when legacies get an advantage over similarly-qualified non-legacies.</p>
<p>Now as much as I hate to say this, as much as I am against giving special preference to recruited athletes, legacies, etc., if it is necessary to accept the occasional underqualified (maybe even "complete idiot", as sakky put it) student in order to get hefty donations from their parents ("hefty" meaning, e.g., money that builds a new lab), then it really should be done. Now if there are fixed numbers of admits per year--that is, if any time Harvard accepts one student it must bump another out--then these "new lab" admits shouldn't be counted since it is extremely unfair for any qualified student to be rejected because of it. But the effect that a few underqualified kids (a few meaning no more than 5 or 10--I mean, I'm talking about significant donations) has on the class's experience is miniscule, especially compared to the effect of a new lab (or other similar donation). The problem with the rules for recruited athletes is that they inject a significant number of underqualified students (yes, underqualifed--if you're qualified then it doesn't matter that you're a recruit) into the student body with a significantly-diminished positive impact for the class as a whole.</p>
<p>It all boils down to weighing the positives against the negatives...</p>
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Not all legacy admits - ie, those with a parent who attended Harvard - get in by way of a $1,000,000 contribution. Quite a few of them are very highly qualified - not surprising, given their heritage.
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Yeah, should we ignore the genetic factor? I mean, are we able to assume that someone with to IVY league parents is innately more intelligent than say someone whose parents went to college X? And nurture (upbringing) can't be ignored either
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<p>Yeah, but then that begs the question of what about the children of alumni of peer schools like Yale, Stanford, Caltech, Princeton, and MIT? Harvard doesn't have a monopoly on brains, you know. Would these peer school legacies also not enjoy the same genetic/environmental advantages that the Harvard legacies do? I think they would. So why should only Harvard legacies enjoy the admissions boost, but not those other students? </p>
<p>I think, as GuitarmanARS has pointed out, it's really all about the money. Heck, you don't even need to be a legacy to be able to get into Harvard as long as you donate money, as long as it's a LOT of money. Since we all know this is happening, Harvard should admit it explicitly. With the current situation, it's like the gorilla in the room that we all know is there but nobody wants to talk about. </p>
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Do you guys think that inevitably, most of Harvards applicants will be legacies in say one hundred years as the number of alumni grows? What happens then?
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<p>Uh, unlikely, for the simple reason that people die. Nobody lives forever, you know. And nobody bears children forever. While a new generation of Harvard legacy might be getting born, another generation is entering a stage in their life where they won't bear children anymore, and yet another generation is dying off.</p>
<p>haha, yeah Sakky. I meant multigenerational legacies. Like the "everyone is a child of Adam" argument but applied to Harvard (if that makes any sense). And it is all about money. Yale legacies are smart but less likely to contribute to Harvard. Harvard legacies are smart AND have money to donate. It's like a two for one deal. I agree with Guitarmanars.</p>
<p>Well, I think the Harvard legacy connection gets pretty darn weak when you start claiming that your great-great-grandmother went to Harvard. </p>
<p>Reminds me of the scene from Spaceballs:
Dark Helmet says: "I am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate."<br>
Lone Star says: "So what does that make us?"
Dark Helmet says: "Absolutely nothing!"</p>
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And it is all about money. Yale legacies are smart but less likely to contribute to Harvard. Harvard legacies are smart AND have money to donate. It's like a two for one deal.
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<p>I agree that it's all about money. However, I think the best way to get money is to cater to those desperate rich people who have no connection to Harvard but want one and are willing to pay through the nose for it. Some billionaire wants to send his idiot son to Harvard? For the right price, why not?</p>
<p>I thought I'd throw some opinions in:</p>
<p>About athletes: I can see why many of you could be angry, since I was a bit angry when I was applying. What I realize now, though, is that there is some practicality in admitting athletes. At Princeton, old alumni flock to football games, often in larger numbers than current students. The school feels pride when it wins in football, and so, we try to get good football players (versus a walk-on team). The Ivy League realizes that it has to balance some sense of fairness with this practicality, so it doesn't issue scholarships.</p>
<p>About Legacies: Legacies DO often have higher stats than others (not because of genetics--which, I feel is inconsequential--but because of being around two educated parents and having a well-paid education), so I don't think the discrepancies are as big as you make them out to be. The practicality with admitting legacies is two-fold:</p>
<p>Higher alumni donations
Higher school tradition</p>
<p>What I've also seen in athlete and legacy admits is that often they are more laid back than the rest of us. This might be politically incorrect, but social affability often accompanies athletics more than academics (I say this as a non-athlete)...and some legacies from wealthy prep-schools often maintain a certain aura that I feel Princeton wants to retain (although the ones I have met are quite nice).</p>
<p>The advice I would give you is to realize that colleges can't practice sole meritocracy--they COULD, but often there would be losses accompanied with this. See it like this: admitting legacies and athletes may stop some applicants from getting admitted, but it helps the rest of us who have gotten admitted. We get high donations and a decent (not in the case of Princeton tho) athletic program...and advantages when they curve our tests up or down :)</p>
<p>Ahh. Everything about that makes sense to me except one part of the last sentence--exactly how is having a decent athletics program (which certainly isn't a bad thing, of course) such a huge advantage to the student community that it warrants rejecting many otherwise-qualified students?</p>
<p>well, i think more students can relate to having a good athletics program than having a good musical program, since athletics have been so tightly associated with schools in the past (ie in high school). i think princeton in particular (compared to mit and cal-tech, which use walk-ons) wants to develop a well-rounded image. historically, princeton--unlike mit or u chicago--hasn't prided itself solely on academics. i think it was at harvard where t.s. eliot was scorned for being a "grind" instead of a "old boy." the same philosophy holds true (though to a lesser extent than in early 20th century harvard) at princeton.</p>
<p>the number of athletes who would not have otherwise been admitted is not too high. i'm not trying to present the tired argument that athletes are nearly as academically qualified as other students, because that generally isn't true. however, many athletes in fencing, crew, squash and lacrosse are legacies from college prep schools.</p>
<p>i would guess (and please don't quote me on this) that there are 50-60 freshmen recruited athletes who were recruited in sports like basketball, tennis, and football. that is 5-6% of the class. take away perhaps 1-2% for some football/hockey/bball players who are actually brilliant (and there ARE a few--a hockey player i met, from canada, whose dad was a logger and who got a 1600) and you are left with 3-5% of the class.</p>
<p>it's not my place to make public judgments about this, but it seems that princeton seems that these numbers are low enough to justify recruiting.</p>
<p>"I think the most corrupting part of the process is not that it is happening (although that's bad enough) but all of the tapdancing and double-speak that school administrators do when they're confronted with it."</p>
<p>I think Sakky hit the nail on the head. When I reflect back, I think this unnerves me the most. Harvard says they don't make significant breaks for athletes, but they had a sub 1100 tailback recently. I mean, that is REALLY low. Just be open about it. Just say you want athletes.</p>
<p>Here's what doesn't make sense: The best athletes (Reggie Bush, etc.) are going to go to sports schools where they can compete for the nat'l championship, so why would Harvard bend over for these guys? A sub 1100 is really just out of control; they seem to be in the middle, which is pretty stupid. Either keep standards up, or try to compete in athletics.</p>
<p>Exactly what I said earlier. I think that all the ivies want to do is beat each other, which really doesn't seem like that great of a goal. Don't you want to see how you stack up against the rest? Besides, playing just the ivies and not entering the 1-AA playoffs is actually kind of snooty. Sort of like, "we're too good to play other schools."</p>
<p>It seems like a number of other universities can combine division 1A athletics with strong academics. Stanford immediately comes to mind, but also Duke, Rice, Northwestern, Berkeley, Virginia, Michigan, Vanderbilt, UCLA and some others. Surely Harvard could do the same if it wanted to.</p>
<p>But schools like Stanford and Duke sacrifice some academic integrity for the athletic dominance (most notably through athletic scholarships) and I'd imagine quite a few students get turned down each year when they would have made it in were it not for the need to maintain athletic dominance.</p>
<p>Harvard effectively does the same thing, getting kids in that don't have a prayer without being recruited, except they aren't as good at athletics.</p>
<p>Yep, I have to agree with KirbusPrime. Let's face it. Harvard isn't exactly Caltech. At Caltech, NO athletic recruiting is performed and so athletics are not treated as anything more than just another form of EC, and not something special in their own right. For example, I'm fairly certain that Caltech has never admitted a subpar student just because the Caltech football team needed a star quarterback. But Harvard has. Come on, GuitarManARS, you know it's true. We all know that Harvard has done this and will continue to do this. </p>
<p>So the point is, if Harvard is going to recruit students who have no chance of getting into Harvard except for their athletic ability, then Harvard might as well take it all the way and be like Stanford or Duke to try to compete for major national championships. Why not? If you're going to bend your admissions process for athletes, then you might as well give yourself a shot at the title.</p>
<p>Sakky--Oh, I know it's very true :p I admire Caltech's admissions a lot in that respect. Their basketball team sucks but that's a small price to pay for academic excellence ;)</p>
<p>Not like that's enough to make me take Caltech over Harvard, of course :p</p>
<p>A bit of a logical leap there; just because a girl loses her virginity doesn't mean she has to become a prostitute!</p>