“These aren’t just elite institutions, they’re elitist institutions”

Parents Forum
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This was reported by Harvard’s “The Crimson”. Since it does not reflect well upon the College, I would expect that they would not be able to publish this if it were questionable. They have been reporting this for years. In any case, yes, most kids do know what their parents’ income rank happens to be. They may not know their parents’ income, but they know whether their parents are in the $250,000-$500,000 a year range or higher. Since the kids from families who are making under $250,000 have the possibility of some financial aid, they know how much their parents make.

My main point is still that the legacy preference isn’t really strong, unless you are from a very wealthy family.

An interesting statistic:

The percent of the top 1% in the student body:
Harvard (considers legacy) - 15%
Yale (considers legacy) - 19%
Princeton (consider legacy) - 17%
Stanford (considers legacy - 17%
Upenn (considers legacy) - 19%
Brown (considers legacy) - 19%
Dartmouth (considers legacy) - 21%
Columbia (considers legacy) - 13%
Cornell (considers legacy) - 10%
MIT (does not consider legacy) - 5.7%

I’m pretty sure that the top 1% apply to “elite” universities at a much higher rate than their relative numbers in society, and that they do have many benefits that are not available to middle class Americans. However, they do not really have many benefits in preparation over the rest of the top 5% or 10%.

Another interesting statistic is that, for every colleges but MIT, the top 1% were overrepresented among the top 1% at twice or more the rate that the rest of the 5% were overrepresented. At MIT, both groups had the same overrepresentation (x5.7).

Another college with very low acceptance rates which does not consider legacies is Caltech. The percent of the top 1% there is only 3%, even though they have a higher percent of students from the top 20% than Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, or even Harvard. Harvey Mudd College, on the other hand, considers legacy, and they have 13% from the top 1%.

Of “elite” public universities:
UMichigan (considers legacy) - 9.3%
UVA (considers legacy) - 8.5%
Berkeley (doesn’t consider legacy) - 3.8%
UCLA (doesn’t consider legacy) - 4.3%

Only Georgia Tech doesn’t fit - it considers legacy, but only has 3.1% from the top 1%.

However, it really doesn’t matter all that much. The fact that 6% or 7% of the incoming classes of the “elite” colleges are rich legacies who aren’t as good as the rest of the students is annoying for parents and students who are really good but are being rejected. However, these are the kids whose families donate a sizable chunk of the cash which keeps these colleges running as they do.

If the AOs are building a class, and making sure that every student brings something important, these students are the ones who bring the funding.

Besides, having 100 or so extra places would only increase the acceptance rates of everybody else by perhaps 0.2%. That will be washed out by another small increase in the number of applicants.

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“More likely, these rejected are overall unremarkable, a form of “same old/same old.” Good kids, but not enough to reject the “A” kids, as you noted those”. I wrote it to refer to legacies. Not the “A” kid, thenon-legacy, as QM called them.

But blossom responds to, “…the non-legacy kid who gets rejected .”

“Some of the logical contortions from one poster in this thread are absurd.” Absurd? Or based on a nearer view and my own reactions? We all know many posters have fixed opinions. We don’t know they have and inkling beyond that. The H reader ratings are a metric only. You’ve got to realize there’s a lot of cut and paste that goes on in the process.

What I (and a few others) suggest is you really need to see the individual apps, the groups of apps (from regions or majors, etc, that sub-competition,) and what does come through in termsof strengths, stretch, traits, to understand not only the ratings, but the role of notes (which form a sort of conversation,) then what building the class really entails. Yes, I have a look at that, at one elite college. And I do not see elitism, extraordinary pull to admit uber wealthy kids, or some fantastical obsession with legacies. Kids make their own mistakes. Their chances rest first on their success in high school and with the app package. I’d bet blossom would agree, as a former interviewer. You start with a desire to like each kid, not all kids ace their part.

And I’ve never said no lower income kids apply. But yes, it’s an acknowledged problem that fewer do, overall. The bulk of the kids past first cut, in my own anecdotal experience, are from two parent families. What’s to make of that?!! That the college has a preference for them? I’ll skip more.

Is that really under the college’s control? Don’t forget the colleges’ efforts to make more lower SES kids aware of their opportunities, including FA. Who {i]hasn’t* see the mailings?

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“The fact that 6% or 7% of the incoming classes of the “elite” colleges are rich legacies who aren’t as good…” See? It feels curcular. They aren’t “as good,” so it must be their wealth and legacy? There are so many wealthy or legacies at xx percent, so it must be their pull? As if.

“…annoying for parents and students who are really good but are being rejected.” But do you know what is"good?" It’s more than high school standing, top dawg, wants to be a doctor or rich industrialist, led some club, started some non-profit. It’s not “spikey” or international awards.

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That’s likely due to the fact that Georgia Tech alums are mostly in-state residents and less wealthy.

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[quote]
you really need to see the individual apps, the groups of apps (from regions or majors, etc, that sub-competition,) and what does come through in terms of strengths, stretch, traits, to understand not only the ratings, but the role of notes (which form a sort of conversation,) then what building the class really entails.

[quote]

100% agree with this @lookingforward

The reason so many people think admission to the elites is a “crap shoot” is because that we as parents, or even interviewers, don’t have access to the bigger picture. We just see our tiny little piece - our own kid, maybe a few others from their HS, or as interviewers, the couple dozen or so kids we talk to every year from our area.

At most I know how many students are applying from my sub-region and for which major. That’s still a sliver of what adcoms are considering when balancing their incoming classes.

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There is also the pesky issue of facts and data. While any one AO at any one college may see and believe one version of events, the results when aggregated may strongly point to another. Personally, I rely on statistical facts, not assurances, however well intentioned.

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For anyone needing more proof water is wet, there’s this statement from the judge in the Harvard lawsuit:

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By “good”, I mean all of those kids with 4.0 GPAs, SATs around 1600, excellent ECs, a good number of awards, etc, who are rejected from Harvard because there are another 200 just like them applying, and Harvard doesn’t want 500 kids who are that similar, no matter how good each of them is.

Harvard accepts about 1,000 kids without hooks, and, of the 43,000 kid who are applying, at least 5,000, if not more, are as good as those students who are accepted. That’s what I mean by “good”. It’s an excellent college, but not the Ultimate Educational Peak, To Which Every Other College Should Strive, Though They Strive In Vain.

You seem to be claiming that every single student at Harvard is The Best Of The Best Of the Best. That’s simply not true - it’s just a myth in which Harvard has invested decades and billions of dollars disseminating. Among other reasons - it’s actually impossible for them to choose the best 2,000 out of 43,000 applicants based solely on written material and perhaps half an hour interviews. There is also absolutely no evidence that those 43,000 actually include the best 2,000 students in the USA.

As for numbers:

The top 1% legacies are over 50% of the legacies who were accepted. That means that 50% of all the legacies are in the top 1%, legacies from the 1% apply at a far higher rate than those of the rest of the top 5%, 10% or 20%, they are far better than candidates from the rest of the top 5%, 10% or 20%, OR that they are being accepted at a higher rate than other legacies.

There is absolutely NO study which even hints that 50% of all Harvard College alumni are 1%, or close to that. The NYT study suggests that, for the top 20%, studying at Harvard does not raise their socioeconomic class, and the increase for the rest leave them at the lower end of the top 20%. None indicates that Harvard College produces a slew of new 1% families. So it’s unlikely that their proportion among Harvard College graduates is as high as 50%.

There is very little to indicate that legacies in the rest of the top 20% or lower are less likely to apply or attend Harvard than their 1% peers.

There is also nothing to indicate that top 20%, 10%, or 5% legacies who are not in the top 1% are worse candidates than those who are in the top 1%.

Ergo, the 50% of Harvard legacies who are in the top 1% are the result of being accepted at a higher rate than other legacies. Since the average rate of acceptance for legacies is 33%, I expect that the acceptance rate of the wealthiest legacies is even higher

Are those legacies from the top 1% good candidates? I don’t know, but I’m pretty sure that they’re so so much better than every other group out there.

PS. The wealth of Harvard University alumni is substantial, but being a Harvard University alumnus because you attended their business school does not make you a Harvard College alumnus, and your kids are not legacies for Harvard College.

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I suspect this is a reference to the study at http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf . It groups legacy, dean’s special interest list, and children of faculty together, which makes it difficult to distinguish legacy from the rest. The LDC group of applicants as a whole were more likely to get a 1-2 high ratings by admissions readers than non-LDC, but the LDC admits were generally less likely to get 1-2 ratings. The athletic rating was an exception, in which LDC admits were substantially more likely to get high athletic ratings than non-LDC.

When controlling for these ratings, stats, hooks including athletics, applies early, planned concentration, application region, disadvantaged flag, and many other factors; the authors were able to explain the majority of variance in Harvard admissions decisions. Using this model, they estimated the following change in chance in chance admission for only changing legacy status and keeping all other factors the same.

A White, non-ALDC applicant with a … chance of admission increases to …
1% chance of admission increases to 8% for legacy and 15% for double legacy
5% chance of admission increases to 31% for legacy and 47% for double legacy
15% chance of admission increases to 60% for legacy and 75% for double legacy
20% chance of admission increases to 68% for legacy and 81% for double legacy

The previously referenced Harvard Office of Internal Research study emphasized the boost for being lower SES, so they focused on that area rather than legacy advantages. Harvard OIR’s model predicted <$40k income applicants would have a 6% admit rate without any kid of low SES preference, but they actually had a 11% admit rate. When broken down by SAT score, <$60k applicants at every SAT score in steps of 20 from 1280 to 1600 had a significantly higher admit rate than their >$60k counterparts – roughly double the admit rate for much of the range.

Harvard OIR found that legacy preferences were on completely different level than the lower SES preference described above – roughly 4x larger odds ratio. The Harvard OIR author writes:

“The variables with the largest effects on the probability of admission are athletic rating, personal rating, and legacy status. Compared to athletes and legacies, the size of the advantage for low income students is relatively small.”

This described advantage for Harvard legacy applicants is not what I’d consider only impacting applicants “who are very near to the borderline for admission,” although I can see how some who consider “borderline” more meaning academically qualified and not an obvious admit might feel differently.

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My main point was that the legacy preference affected non-legacy applicants who were very near the borderline for admission negatively keeping them below it. This would be a small part of the applicant pool.

My comparison of applicants A (non-legacy) and l (legacy) started with the two on an even footing, but it seems from the data that it very likely still holds when A is actually more qualified than I, but not by a great margin.

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Unless you believe there’s a Harvard gene passed down through the generations, there’s no plausible reason to think legacies produce better apps than the rest of the applicant pool.

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Umm, some testy wording on this thread.

When I suggest you need to see the apps, not just the ratings results, why does that seem so odd?

Of course it’s plausible kids with a better knowledge of some elite will produce better targeted apps and supps. In fact, that can be any SES. You aren’t just submitting a resume of stats, titles, and awards. There’s a lot more to your self presentation than that, in the app and supp.

I get that people want to think top stats and hs titles/status make one more “qualified.” And that the kid with the 4.0/1600 mentioned above is automatically superior, should own a spot (despite the 5% admit rate.) And if you have a 4.0 and the next kid who did get admitted had a 3.7, lol, you want to be outraged. Lol.

QM, I think that may be hypothetical. And “borderline” doesn’t really cut it, when you’re cutting 42k down to 2.2k.

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If only a magical few AOs of dubious professional qualifications themselves, who actually “see the apps”, can somehow discern the “most qualified” but are not able to defend their decisions in any transparent manner or with an evidentiary basis , the credibility of their process is implausible. And nobody is laughing.

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Maybe our experience is atypical, but it feels like the main way in which S’s college is “elitist” is that everyone is smart and a high achiever. It is academically elite.

Socioeconomically and racially and geographically, it is so diverse that we are in awe as parents.

S grew up in a community where pretty much everyone was upper middle class— the children of public school teachers (a lot of those, including me!), teacher aides, psychologists, nurses, accountants, an editor for a local newspaper, etc.

Contrast this with college. There, he has met a few people who are much wealthier than we are, but the majority of his friends are both nonwhite and less wealthy than we are; most are on financial aid; some are “first generation” college students.

Their family histories, their states/ nations, their interests and hobbies and experiences, etc., vary widely.

Social differences at his college are mitigated by:
A rural area (i.e, lack of expensive outings and most action is on campus),
Free events on campus,
The college’s efforts to provide financial aid students with free versions of anything you could imagine (including skiing equipment and lessons, music lessons, special trips to visit Wall Street companies, suits, expenses for study abroad incl. travel, etc.),
Equal cost of all housing, whether single or double, and whether brand new or decrepit (and incredible financial aid that covers living expenses anyway).

These combine to produce a college environment where differences in finances do not divide kids socially. My favorite example for this purpose is the child of a single immigrant mom who is a housecleaner who hangs out every day with the child of a Broadway producer.

The glossy admissions brochure describes the freshman entry (dorm) as probably the “most diverse collection of backgrounds” most students have ever encountered. Maybe that’s not true for everyone. It was certainly true for my kid.

Any system that attempts to be meritocratic in selecting students in part based on grades and test scores will result in the admission of many smart high-achieving offspring of smart high-achieving parents, who often have well-paying jobs and live in neighborhoods where college attendance is a social norm, making such colleges skew wealthy. Harvard and company are admitting the smartest kids and they should be (https://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-smartest-colleges-in-america-2016-10). That’s what makes them great! Our top colleges are the envy of the world and kids flock to them from across the globe.

That said, admissions officers and college outreach/ publications speak with great passion of their efforts to recruit from low income areas and get top achieving applicants who otherwise might never have heard of colleges like Williams, and of their partnerships with organizations like Questbridge. Applicants are considered by what they have accomplished in light of the opportunities available to them at their high school.

Recruiting poor students, admitting them, and giving them generous financial aid, are all efforts in which the most prestigious colleges are engaged. I am not saying that there are not also practices that perpetuate some forms of privilege; these are been well documented in this thread. I am just saying that top students of limited means should not be intimidated from applying to top colleges.

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This whole notion of AO’s attempting to or succeeding in compiling the “most qualified” class is a red herring. Does Harvard, or any other school, make the claim that they have picked only the “most qualified”? It is impossible to define, let alone come up with a foolproof system for picking out only the “most qualified” students.

Maybe it’s just me, but I never presumed a perfect system was the goal. If it were, Harvard would be investing billions of dollars in refining their admissions system to pick up on every possible nuanced difference between applicants. The imperfect collection of imperfect data the imperfect system relies upon, and the finite number of imperfect humans tasked with subjectively evaluating that mound of imperfect data at lightning speed is so profoundly absurd, no one should expect a perfect result at the end of the sausage-making.

This is all Harvard is claiming to do according to the admissions website:
“We seek promising students who will contribute to the Harvard community during their college years, and to society throughout their lives.”

I am not sure what that even means. But it for darn sure avoids the notion of “most qualified” on purpose.

So long as they don’t illegally discriminate- and I am fine with letting the courts make that determination - then they can have however many legacies and squash players they want. Discussing what is “fair” and who is “qualified” is a purely (ahem) academic exercise and futile waste of time.

Ultimately the market determines the popularity of a school. Right now the market demands diversity across all measures (yay!) far more than it used to. Harvard is wildly popular because of its secret sauce of competition, history, reputation, and diversity. It will continue to modify its sauce as the market demands. But the process cannot possibly be about achieving the perfectly most qualified class.

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@roycroftmom this thread is becoming debate. And personal.

I speak for my own observations. Yes, it runs counter to much of what others think. And I nag that kids and families should explore more, when they want an elite. Not just, eg, stop at, “There are more wealthy, X must be elitest.” Or, “They take lots of legacies, it’s rigged against me.”

Be mindful of what it takes. Don’t stop at hs stats, titles, awards or get sidetracked by who’s got more money or other speculations.
Your shot is your own, to master or blow.

Ultimately, this is about our own kids’ best choices and chances, hangs on what kids present in their own apps. Or not.

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Actually, Harvard legacies should be expected to produce stronger applications to Harvard than others, because of (a) SES advantages (Harvard educated parents are mostly higher SES than the general population) and related effects (going to better K-12 schools, often including well-connected prep schools) and (b) Harvard-specific knowledge from their parents.

But that means that a non-legacy would typically have to have more personal merit and motivation to produce an equally strong application. So giving preference to legacy applicants (especially to the point where legacy admits are weaker than non-legacy admits, as appears to be the case) is adding privilege to existing advantage.

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This thread is not about Harvard, even though we all use Harvard as an example from time to time. It’s about whether some of these elite institutions are elitist. If an institution is set up to perpetuate its own influence via preferences for its own privileged members, doesn’t it fit the very definition of being “elitist”?

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What is diversity can be a hard one.
Does it mean a different skin color? A different gender? A different way of looking at traditional genders? A different point of view on life, religion, politics?
I think to some, diversity means a different skin color that still “thinks like us”.

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I am using Harvard as a proxy for all “elite” schools, whatever that term means. And diversity in the broadest possible sense.

Point is, elitism, if it were the sole goal, would be a self-destructive strategy in a world that is understanding the value of diversity more and more. Admissions is just an imperfect system and the metric of “most qualified” doesn’t really exist. And is unnecessarily divisive in and of itself because it isn’t the goal to begin with.

Makes people fight amongst themselves for the scraps rather than look at the big picture.

Edited to add: the big picture is the pipeline- education at a K-12 level that prepares everyone for a productive future