[wycs]

When this is tried, it does not output ideologically-pleasing student demographics. Presumably because all objective tests of merit are hopelessly biased.

Caltech is such a school. And its population is largely largely Asian and Jewish, both demographics Harvard has a history of discriminating against.

I am sure Caltech’s administration is considered hopelessly reactionary, but their graduates have the highest number of Nobel prizes per capita. But again, what sort of merit does a Nobel prize prove? Look at the demographics of the winners.

[tzs]

Caltech seems to be considerably less Jewish than Harvard. Caltech is about 3x as Jewish as the general 18-21 population. Harvard is around 14x as Jewish as the general 18-21 population.

I'm getting this from a chart about halfway down the the following very long article [1]. (Note: I have not read that article. I just searched for info on Jewish enrollment at colleges, and found that chart).

[1] https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-myth-of...

[wycs]

Harvard does not discriminate against Jews today. They have historically. Now they do the same to Asians. This, one supposes, must be an example of moral progress.

[tzs]

Oh, I overlooked that you were talking about historical discrimination, not present discrimination.

[ForHackernews]

Caltech is an unusually focused school. If your only goal is to churn out future STEM PhDs, admitting based on an objective math test is probably not a bad approach.

Harvard's goal, traditionally, has been to [re]produce the ruling class of America, and their admissions criteria are geared accordingly.

[paulsutter]

Over the coming decades, my bet would be on

- Stanford to produce the ruling class of America, and for

- Harvard to produce the ruling class of Mad Men season 1

(just based on the criteria in the article)

[trhway]

as a math grad myself i wish the ruling class consisted of Caltech and similar math/physics/other "real" sciences graduates :)

[wycs]

See Singapore for such a country.