I took another look at the Harvard admissions link provided by LadyMeowMeow, and again, wow! What baloney! Students “who will be the best educators of . . . their professors!” In physics, at the undergraduate level, that is pretty much guaranteed to be the null set.
Not everything has to be about physics–it’s not as if I think that it does. But generic statements ought to be generically applicable, or they ought to be qualified.
The questions would make for an entertaining parlor game for adults, though.
At the moment, the sort of human being I am is “bemused.”
Not by a long shot! Its about opportunity for all including browns, blacks, and poor people. 35 per cent of Harvards Asian students reported their parents make more than 250k . The amount of African American students at Harvard whose parents make less than 40k is 2. 5 times that of Asian students. It is sometimes hard for some people to share for the good of all.
Of the 40,000 applicants to Harvard every year, 10,000 have no chance. Those 10,000 send in their apps and the filing fee every year because “you can’t win if you don’t play.” They can’t win. They won’t get in. Everyone knows it. And they send in the app anyway.
“You really think they owe that to you?
That you need a Rosetta Stone?”
Not really a matter of owing someone something. It’s more a matter of honesty. I think most people dislike it when they are told that the dampness on their leg is rain when it is clearly another material.
It’s not just Asian students that generally come from affluent families – it’s Harvard students as a whole. The previously linked NYT article found that 39% of Harvard families had an inflation adjusted in come of $242k+. This is largely consistent with the freshman survey you reference, which reported the following:
Legacy – 46% report parents make $500k+
White – 42% report parents make $250k+
Asian – 35% report parents make $250k+
Hispanic – 24% report parents make $250k+
Black – 22% report parents make $250k+
Full US Population – $250k household income is 97th percentile
I have no problem giving some set number of spots to students from low income families regardless of race. But I am against colleges magically controlling to maintain the same percentages of students by race year after year. I do agree that the admissions process appears very contrived.
Wow, that income figure for legacies is eye-popping. No wonder so many private colleges give a big legacy boost. They may be officially “need-blind,” but they know what they’re doing when they pad their class with legacies.
For typical colleges, the legacy pool at least means 100% college graduate parents, versus X% (X<100) college graduate parents. Since college graduates generally have higher income and wealth than non-college-graduates, preferring them (through legacy preference) skews the parental income level upward.
For a college like Harvard, the legacy pool presumably also means a high percentage of parents in “elite” jobs (Wall Street, management consulting, successful lawyer or physician, etc.) compared to the typical pool of college graduates (note that only 15% of Harvard students are from non-college-graduate parents). Obviously, this skews the parental income level upward.
So describing legacy preference as adding privilege to existing advantage would be a reasonable assessment.
“Wow, that income figure for legacies is eye-popping. No wonder so many private colleges give a big legacy boost. They may be officially “need-blind,” but they know what they’re doing when they pad their class with legacies.”
Legacy admissions are a great way to enroll kids that skew upper SES. Even Harvard has a limited financial aid budget and so needs to enroll a certain amount of full payors every year.
Legacy admissions are not that great a way to get mega-buck alumni donations – especially since Harvard turns down something like 70% of the legacies who apply. But it is an awesome way to enroll kids whose doctor/lawyer/banker families can afford to fork over $70k a year.
I wouldn’t say the research on this thread is the sort I advocate. I’m curious what sort of “informed” posters think is sufficient. It certainly isn’t marketing materials or broad statements. Nor that some other kid you know did or didn’t get in. Now you know 200 admits are recruited, 2-300 are Bright Minds, and your app is part of a vast pool of other top perfomers in their high schools. What makes you think your app is viable?
I suspect many more than 10k are weeded out on first cut. My bet would be around 20k. What’s left are interesting kids, for various reasons. What makes you think you have a shot? It’s not enough to rest on your hs fame, nor say, “I don’t know, they didn’t tell me.”
Many of the mistakes kids make don’t need H to reach down and explain. You can see it in chance threads, the sorts of assumptions they make. Or other threads.
Lol, the whole thread has ranged off the subject of athletes, into various aspects of admissions and the difficulties. So far, we’ve been allowed that.
@LadyMeowMeow I took the bait and clicked on the link you shared. I couldn’t get past the Jeremy Lin video, not because I don’t like him, but because of the impression I got of Harvard (and other Ivies they played) when I watched his documentary (Linsanity on Netflix). His time at Harvard was not easy. He failed his first math test at Harvard (he actually turned it in blank) and was discriminated and made fun of at games by students and other players. Lin would be called names like “Chink” and referred to “that Oriental”. It was infuriating to watch, but I was inspired to see that he rose above that to graduate and get drafted. I know not everyone at Harvard and the Ivies are like this, but it was upsetting to see.
Lin was a recruited athlete and got into Harvard because of his sport. I don’t have a problem with that as I have no problem with schools setting aside a number of slots for URMs, legacy, etc. It’s the school’s choice and I’m not surprised by the title of the thread that a high percentage of recruited athletes are admitted. As others have noted in earlier posts upthread, Ivy recruiting is straightforward so by the time a student athlete submits their application they know exactly where they stand and know that they have the coach’s support.
But it also keeps getting back to the original topic, which is why I have kept it open. Although I have to say, I do think we will soon be past the point where any new comments are meaningful.
What would Harvard look like - how would it change, good and bad - with non-recruited varsity teams (meaning great athletes would still get a tip similar to a very talented violinist or debater), or even if it just fielded a large array of competitive club and intramural teams?
I’m sure H’s teams would become less competitive against other schools that still recruited, for one.
In this thread I’m also hearing that alumni would be against that change and stop giving $, and that is a big reason that rings true to me. It seems alumni often vocally oppose change, especially if those changes affect things they recall with fondness from their own college experience. Alumni often resist ending Greek life when colleges do that, and I’m sure many H alumni aren’t happy about the single-sex club ban (on fellowships and varsity captainships, ironically) at Harvard either. But colleges survive these changes, I can’t think of an elite school that’s ended Greek life then returned to it (maybe someone else does).
On the plus side, I think more students would play sports if they could walk on, so a benefit of better physical/mental health could be one result.
Grades and academic accomplishments might go up, as athletes spend somewhat less time on athletics and somewhat more on academics, or other pursuits (internships, theses, charity, etc). (Amherst’s athletic study reported recruited athletes avoiding science majors with labs, doing fewer senior theses, having lower GPAs, and in a higher concentration in “easy” majors).
Any other changes anyone can think of, good or bad?
Yale’s fraternities slowly disappeared on their own after the establishment of the residential college system, but have made a comeback since the late 80’s, imo because of the change in the drinking age from 18-21 which moved a lot of the party social life off campus.
@OHMomof2 My Ds are starting this fall at much less selective D3 LACs, but both their schools were emphatic that their athletes do better academically during their playing seasons than during the non-playing periods. The explanation in both cases related to the highly structured athletic programs that kept the student athletes on track in all respects. Apparently all that free time isn’t always spent productively.
I think Harvard would be less competitive to the point of losing nearly every conference game in key sports, such as football. From a sports standpoint, it would be appropriate for Harvard to drop out the Ivy League (an athletic conference) and switch to Div III, such as joining MIT in the NEWMAC. The big football game might be Harvard vs MIT, rather than Harvard vs Yale. Or it might be appropriate to not field a football team altogether. This would be a tough sell to many that are connected with Harvard.
According to https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/choosing-harvard/student-activities , 80% of Harvard students, participate in some form of athletic activity/team. However, the bulk are at levels below varsity, such as at the club sport level, which offers more different types of sports teams than varsity. I think if Harvard students want to be athletic with sports, there are opportunities.
Not all club sports teams are lower level or casual. There are try outs and there is a very rigorous practice schedule.
For example, there are no men’s lax teams in the PAC12 (Utah starts this year) and the club teams are at a very high level and could beat many D1 teams. Almost all the club team players at those schools were recruited to D1 teams, but just chose to go to Stanford or USC or Colorado.
Not all club sports have “try outs and a very rigorous practice schedule.” For example, I was on the cycling club/team at Stanford. There were no tryouts (or at least none that I did), and you could go on rides with the group as often or as little, as you chose. The team was still ranked very well, somewhere within top 10 in the United States, primarily due to a small number of really exceptional riders.
This was very different from the crew team where we practiced 20+ hours each week, including rowing when it was cold, dark, and raining (bus left for practice at 6AM).
