[1cvmask]

So when we remove the legacies and school fund donators (roughly half) - about 40 to 50 percent of the class, athletes (affirmative action for rich whites with relatively lower credentials and scores) - about 10-20 percent of the class, and regular affirmative action ( about 15 percent of the class and mainly affluent politically connected blacks and latinos). The remainder is the group based on traditional credentials.

The academic reputation of these schools is disproportionately from that remainder group.

The rest of the world just has an exam system. Interesting way of comparing the systems.

[whimsicalism]

Why would we exclude legacies altogether?

Legacy certainly gives you an advantage, but I think people also discount the fact that if you are the child of an Ivy grad, you are perhaps more likely to go to a top-tier school of your own merits as well.

I say that as an obviously biased Harvard legacy, who also got into other Ivies without legacy, had a 1600 SAT, etc. We never donated anything and I never intend to, we were on financial aid, but my dad did happen to go, and I'm sure it did give me an advantage. I am less sure that there is no chance I would have gotten in without it.

[csa]

Agreed.

People think legacies are guaranteed admits, and they are not. Legacies get rejected very often (e.g., ~67% at Harvard).

There are many advantages to having a parent who is an alum:

1. Probably smart.

2. Probably knows something about how to get in via academics and extracurriculars.

3. Might be a gifted athlete who was recruited and knows how to share these gifts with their child.

4. Might understand some of the fundamental rigors of an elite education and shares that with their child regardless of where said child actually attends school (interestingly, an elite kid with great pedigree at a shitty school has a huge advantage in admissions).

Add some or all of these things together, and you get a high school kid who will probably have an above average application and should probably get accepted more often than the general population.

While there are some legacy admits who are accepted on the margin and would not have gotten in without being a legacy, I think the number of these folks is relatively small. The overall legacy applicant pool is very strong.

[LudwigNagasena]

It is really uncomfortable to see how much in life depends on the choice of university and how much they have a say in arbitrarily selecting their students.

It would really be much better if lots of activities could be decoupled from universities instead of making them mini-nations where people live, find friends, do extracurriculares and everything else.

[csa]

> It is really uncomfortable to see how much in life depends on the choice of university and how much they have a say in arbitrarily selecting their students.

In the US, this just isn’t the case.

Elite schools produce a lot of elite people because many of the students were already running around in elite circles before they entered the school. They were going to succeed regardless of where they went to school.

Folks from low-SES can achieve wild success through a state school just as much as an elite school. The hard part is putting together the skill set (work habits, study skills, communication skills, social skills, etc.) that leads to wild success when one was not born into it.

[huitzitziltzin]

>> and mainly affluent politically connected blacks and latinos

Where in the world do you get that idea? I challenge you to provide a good source for the claim that the AA students are either affluent OR politically connected.

[whimsicalism]

It's not entirely inaccurate. There is a trend for top tier universities to pick Black students mostly from prep & private schools for some reason.

https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674976894

Excerpt: "tiny fraction" of low-income black American teenagers who attend private schools "produces about half of low-income black students at Ivy League colleges."

Anecdotally, looking at who attended Ivies where I grew up, this seems to be true.

I think they worry that Black students from actually Black, and often poor, school districts will not jive well with so many silver spoon swallowers. They want people more accustomed to bougie New England & NYC culture.

[csa]

> There is a trend for top tier universities to pick Black students mostly from prep & private schools for some reason.

My guess is that this “tiny fraction of low income black American teenagers” are mostly, if not entirely, recruited athletes doing a 13th year to fix grades, SAT scores, and (maybe) study skills.

While folks (of any race) from low income areas can theoretically succeed at elite schools via their own initiative, the education at these low income schools does little or nothing to prepare them for an elite education. This is a very significant handicap that many people underestimate the importance of.

[amznthrowaway5]

Why is it a handicap? I've seen poor Asians who go to the same types of schools tend to do just fine.

[csa]

First, I am discussing low-SES schools in the US. It can be very different in other countries, especially Asian countries (first hand experience seeing this).

That said, in the US, many people (Asians included) can go to shitty schools and still succeed. Their success is despite the formal education they got at a low SES school, not because of it.

Generally when you see elite school success from students from low-SES areas, it is due to substantial intervention at home and/or extracurricular education/tutoring.

You ask why it is a handicap. If they could get quality education during school hours, their extracurricular hours could be used for deeper study or more interesting endeavors (e.g., research projects).

[amznthrowaway5]

There are lots of Asians that grow up poor in the US and excel at far higher rates than poor African-Americans. There isn't really much evidence that SES has a large impact on things like SAT scores, I doubt it would affect being able to do well at Harvard (which I've heard is actually very easy once you get in).

[will4274]

> for some reason.

Because it makes their racial stats sound good to affirmative action advocates without actually requiring the effort of educating somebody who is underprivileged? I don't think the reason is a mystery at all.

[throwawayboise]

I think the worry is more that kids from terrible urban public school districts will be woefully unprepared to do the academic work expected at an Ivy. Wealthy kids (regardless of skin color) who have attended private prep school are a much safer bet.

The mission of Harvard, Princeton, or any university is not to remediate the poor education some kid received in K-12.

[whimsicalism]

Yeah, as someone who went to one of these "terrible urban public school districts" in a 50% black school - it's a bullshit, racist fear.

I went from my shitty ass physics class to taking one of the hardest freshman physics classes in the country. It is manageable, they are just afraid of cultural inhomogeneity.

There were at least 10 Black kids at my school who could have succeeded at Harvard.

[amznthrowaway5]

I've seem smart Asian kids from poor public schools do far better than the wealthy corrupt kids. It's not about "poor education".

[whimsicalism]

I'll ignore the dogwhistle behind your comment.

The really bad inner city school systems usually: a. don't have sizable Asian communities

b. Not many Asian students from those schools are accepted either.

Anecdotally, in 4 years at my inner city school district, which had a small, poor Asian population (mostly Vietnamese), only one Asian kid got into an ivy league, and her dad was a professor at a top-tier university.

[amznthrowaway5]

I'm saying from the ones that do excel, they do just fine, and far more poor asians excel.

Calling it a dogwhistle is just trolling. The real racism is from people judging based on race instead of ability.

[LudwigNagasena]

I am not sure about being politically connected, but it is known that universities accept rich black immigrants from places like Nigeria and consider it “affirmative action”. In Ivy League unis the percentage of immigrants among the black student body is over 40%, while in the general population it is near 15%.

But I judging how the things are going I am sure this is going to get fixed soon. The colleges will ask you to do a DNA test to determine the purity of your black heritage and a proof of slave ancestors. Hooray, intersectionality.

[greenwich26]

Spent a year at an Ivy League. I met dozens of affluent, politically connected racial minorities, mostly from Northeast prep schools. I met exactly 0 poor kids from the South, or inner city Chicago or Detroit, or some other such background. It was pretty obvious what was going on.

[whimsicalism]

Dozens vs 0 would be an overstatement, but the disparity is still there.

I suspect it was exacerbated by what social circles you were traveling in.

[908B64B197]

> athletes (affirmative action for rich whites with relatively lower credentials and scores)

I guess the hours of training don't count.

> mainly affluent politically connected blacks and latinos

I'd be curious to see stats on the number of kids of Brazilian/Mexican and Nigerian millionaires (in US dollars).

[whimsicalism]

> I guess the hours of training don't count.

The sports these sorts of schools focus on are crew, polo, squash - those are designed to help Brahmins [0]

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Brahmin