^ #8 , I know several Harvard grads, (non STEM), and they all have done quite well; senior positions in major companies, profs at elite universities, one guy who came quite close to unseating a state senator in his first race, a baseball front office guy, etc. Quality is quality. That’s why MBB and Goldman live on campus.
I’m pretty sure that by “humanists”, Fitzsimmons meant “students majoring in humanities disciplines” - who are in shorter supply than formerly at Harvard and peer institutions - not that STEM majors are somehow less than fully human.
According to Harvard’s most recent Common Data Set, 8% of degrees conferred were in “computer and information sciences”, 5% in “engineering”, 14% in “biological/life sciences”, 10% in “mathematics and statistics”, 1% in “natural resources and conservation” and 8% in “physical sciences”, for a total of 46% in what could be labeled “STEM majors”. “Social sciences” and “psychology” account for 33%, leaving just over 20% for everything else, including all of the humanities (English, foreign languages, literature, philosophy, the arts, etc.). See here: https://oir.harvard.edu/files/huoir/files/harvard_cds_2017-18.pdf
I was sort of meaning it tongue in cheek, but for us, we would pay full price for a Harvard education (though we wouldn’t have it, and we’d have to saddle the kid with it). If he wanted to be a doctor, he’d have that Harvard debt, PLUS the medical school debt. Same with the Lawyer. I don’t see the banker getting a big job offer without that economics or finance degree - now you are looking at more debt for an MBA.
Since graduate school is in the cards for nearly all of those above, I still don’t see the value of paying the Harvard price for an undergraduate degree in humanities. You can go elsewhere and then do the graduate degree at Harvard and still get the same prestige.
It’s really time to avoid (or reduce reliance on) the lawsuit in our assessment of what H does or doesn’t do. In ways, that’s looking through the wrong end of the telescope. You see what one side’s lawyers claim. You rely on media reporters who do not have any inside experience, but often want to influence you. This sort of rote acceptance is so far from the level of thinking a H expects. If you’re not looking seriously at H as a college option, just the crazy throng at the Bastille gates, maybe say so.
I respect what seems to me to be Fitzsimmons trying to answer accurately. But you still need to process this in its context. Stop and think. Do you want H to base admits primarily on stats? Is your goal for your own kids just about stats? You want to convert H into full professional training and skip the intellectual richness, the diversity of experiences, values, interests, world view? (You understand H does not see itself as a vocational training school, right?)
Try to understand holistic, in its broadest sense. There is NO one superior category of applicants. The institution has a variety of needs to meet. It picks from applications, as they are. Not what the mass of hopefuls want.
“Humanists” as in oriented to the humanities, their study, their diversity of topics, and their way of viewing, processing, building knowledge. That does not preclude a stem person from being interested. But the focus on stem relies on a different set of principles and reasoning.
You keep mentioning “the Harvard price” as if everyone goes there is a full pay. In reality, at least 20% of Harvard undergrad class whose family’s annual gross income below $65,000 is “full ride.” Those whose annual gross income of $150,000 often pay the room and board only.
Many students receive their “undergrad degree in humanities” to go to law, medical, business schools or get their Ph.D. and become profs at universities, just to name a few.
@TiggerDad But a lot of us do have to pay significant money for elite schools which factors heavily in deciding not to look at them at all for undergrad, no matter how good they might be.
For my family, Harvard would cost 37% of our after tax income once you factor in the gift aid that they would provide for our income level. Once you factor in all the health care deductions and everything else from the paycheck, it is 50% of our take home unless we opt to forego all 401K contributions. Since we have no pensions, and there are multiple kids to consider - it’s pretty obvious why Harvard and the other elite colleges would be completely out of the picture. This is a pretty common theme in my neck of the woods.
We use quite a bit MORE than 50% of our take home pay to survive.
But when you say, “Who the heck wants to pay a Harvard price for a humanities degree?” it seemed to imply a fault with a humanities degree. Maybe that you wouldn’t pay even a heavily discounted price for that. And many of us find the humanities to be a wonderful educational direction. It didn’t stop our kids from lucrative futures.
If you’re interested in discounts, you might not send your kid to X for stem, either.
“But you still need to process this in its context. Stop and think. Do you want H to base admits primarily on stats? Is your goal for your own kids just about stats? You want to convert H into full professional training and skip the intellectual richness, the diversity of experiences, values, interests, world view?”
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
The discussion is getting a little off-topic and debate-y, but I’ll let that go for the moment. However, it is a long-standing CC rule that Affirmative Action discussion is limited to one thread, and this is not it. Several posts edited/deleted.
The testimony just debunked the myth that Harvard didn’t admit by majors. In terms of protecting yield by stating “Harvard had to be wary of admitting too many, because “a whole bunch” of them “will end up happily ever after at M.I.T. or Caltech.”, I am not so sure. The cross admit data doesn’t suggest Harvard would lose admits to MIT/Caltech/Stanford. I imagine Fitzsimmons probably meant that they would not feel sorry to turn down these kids who would change the “humanists” culture the college was known for.
Harvard doesn’t admit to *specific * majors, does not lock you in, eg, to a CoE. But of course your stated interests matter. I want to say, on what planet would they not? Your app/supp represent your thinking. Or not. That isn’t an idle, “Oh, lets find out what Bobby likes.” It has to do with how you assess your goals and prep. How you pursued appropriate activities or not. How alert and energetic you are, able to put your actions where your mouth is, so to say.
He refers to kids better matched to MIT or Caltech, from the get-go. Their types. Not just a yield issue. Match.
Since I’m in my 50s and my kids are already in college, I don’t really care what thinking Harvard expects - I am just finding the info coming out of the trial an interesting topic of discussion.
A lot of us talk about holistic admissions even though we have no personal stake in the matter, we just find it interesting 
Bingo. If you won’t pay for Harvard humanities degree, don’t pay for a Harvard STEM degree either, that makes no sense!
@elodyCOH - plenty of H humanities grads go right into business/banking/consulting without that finance degree. They take classes that interest and challenge them, they join finance clubs, they do internships or they simply learn on their own and/or on the job because they have learned how to learn.
That’s how I read it too.
Thank you for the link @1NJParent - even as old as the data is, it’s helpful (agree it’s likely higher across the board now). STEM majors skew heavily Asian and male.
Interesting that it doesn’t reach 50% - whatever “non-STEM” is, it’s more than half of all students.
Like @OHMomof2, I don’t have a personal stake in the current trial but find what it reveals interesting. I come to somewhat different conclusion though with what Dean Fitzsimmons said on the stand. Even if he meant to say there were fewer applicants interested in humanity-related fields, he equated humanity majors with “humanists” with clear positive connotation (and by extension, less positively for the other majors). I have no disrespect for humanity majors and certainly think a Harvard humanity degree is worth every penny. A Harvard humanity grad is sough after on Wall Street because investment banks are, ultimately, in the distribution/relationship business. They need sales people to craft pitch books, pitch ideas, sell products, etc. to their clients. A Harvard humanity grad presumably knows how to package ideas/products and tell a good story. But does that make him/her a humanist?
“…a scholar of the humanities.”
There are different uses of humanist but my bet is still that he meant humanities majors. No offense intended by him. No high philosophical concepts. They do need more in many fields. In some, more males. In some, it would be a distinct diversity advantage to be of certain, um, backgrounds. It’s about balance.
My point about “what it reveals” is that what you read is media filtered, if not groomed. We aren’t reacting to transcripts.
@1NJParent found a more recent study and it breaks down “life STEM” from “physical STEM”, which is interesting because Bio is probably the most popular STEM major. http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/3/89/pdf.
One thing I wonder is if the prevalence of Asian students planning STEM majors reduces their acceptance rate, in part?
Is this what Fitz was getting at?
The lawsuit has provided an unprecedented amount of transparency in to admissions at an “elite” private college. There is a treasure trove of extremely useful information that cannot be found elsewhere. Yes, it’s not presented as unbiased facts from a neutral 3rd party. However, I’d say the same thing about the vast majority of posts on this forum or comments in this thread, or almost any non-lawsuit related news story, or the vast majority of websites, or the vast majority of conversations with friends/family/teachers/… about colleges, etc. Being able to draw your own conclusions among non-perfect sources of information is an essential life skill and not a good reason to ignore what can potentially be valuable information.
Both sides have numerous lawyers and have presented numerous documents and analyses that support their claims. I assume you are referring to lawyer’s on the plantiff’s side, but Harvard has also posted a large number of pages on their website supporting their position at https://admissionscase.harvard.edu/ , including dozens of selected documents from the lawsuit. And Harvard’s lawyers will no doubt spend a lot of time making their case in the courtroom, which will no doubt be discussed in the media and on this forum… As in any lawsuit, each side presents their position, and one should consider both positions before assuming conclusions – not just the documents written by Harvard’s lawyers/experts published on Harvard’s website and not just the documents written by the SFFA’s lawyers/experts that are published on the SFFA’s website .
From my experience, when you have a mass of kids stating the want a certain pool majors- and there’s a reasonable limit to the number those depts can add- yes it increases competition among those kids. And when those applicants tend to come from certain areas/location- and you want geographic diversity- yes, it affects the individual’s chances. And so on.
Reviewing kids per the major(s) they state isn’t a commitment. It’s a way of both looking for balance in the depts and checking the kid’s thinking: the prep, experiences, sorts of challenges taken on, on top of the rounding. But remember, there’s a full app to complete, a good full self presentation is needed, to be a finalist.
@OHMomof2 Thanks for the link.
Yes, I certainly think the prevalence of STEM applicants negatively affected their acceptance at Harvard and maybe significantly based on the Fitzsimmons’ testimony. This is also consistent with the fact that Asian males have even lower acceptance rates at Harvard as the percentage of STEM majors is even higher among Asian males. However, Frizsimmons’ bias is pretty clear to me. I bet these STEM major applicants received lower “personal quality” rating on average as a result of this bias. Publicly, Harvard admissions never revealed that an applicant’s choice of major would affect his/her application, and in fact they’ve denied it in the past. Could the discrimination against Asian Americans just be the discrimination against STEM majors? Perhaps.