
Carnegie Mellon Admission Levels Field by Eliminating Demonstrated Interest - guard0g
https://admission.enrollment.cmu.edu/pages/eliminating-demonstrated-interest
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nsnick
Eliminating demonstrated interest seems to go against the whole Carnegie
Mellon ethos. After all the motto is "My heart is in the work." Demonstrated
interest was a way of admitting people who have passion for the subject and
who may not have been admitted with grades or test scores alone. With this
change, CMU will likely get more of the same applicants that all top tier
universities get who just study for the SAT constantly instead of the kids who
spend all their time programming or competing in robotics.

The argument advanced seems to be that eliminating demonstrated interest makes
the admissions process more equitable because wealthy parents will push their
children into the activities CMU is looking for and will know how to
demonstrate interest. The counter to this argument is that wealthy parents
will always be able to game an adversarial process. Parents will just push
their children to study for the SAT more and pay more for SAT test prep.
Parents will just push their children to work more on grades and classwork
instead of things the children actually want to do like robotics or
programming.

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mdorazio
Given that this change seems to have been pushed by the Diversity team, I
think they were probably finding that minority and female demographics were
severely underrepresented in the demonstrated interest category and probably
did much poorer in alumni interviews as well. Eliminating those factors makes
it more likely that minority and female candidates will get in on general
academic merit and then hopefully make the choice to pursue engineering once
they get there.

Basically, I'm reading this as a diversity play, not a rich/poor play. Whether
it will actually work or not is another question that's hard to answer without
seeing their data. I can pretty much guarantee that on the male/female side,
though, demonstrated interest massively favors male applicants. Female
students just aren't encouraged to do (or maybe don't have as much interest
in) the kinds of things that impress admissions committees in that category,
regardless of what they may end up wanting to study by the time they graduate.

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forapurpose
> I'm reading this as a diversity play, not a rich/poor play

Is there a factual basis for this reading?

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mdorazio
I'm not sure what you're asking. It says multiple times in this press release
that they're trying to increase diversity. It leads with the first sentence
"The mission of Carnegie Mellon University includes the cultivation of a
diverse community." and then follows with "The goal is to provide a more
equitable, level playing field where all segments of our applicant population
have the same opportunity in the admission process."

They want diverse students, which includes poorer students, but also includes
underrepresented demographics (looks like male/female split is 55/45, and
hispanic/latino and black numbers are small).

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exogeny
This one is hard for me, as there is likely no way I’d have gotten into CMU if
I didn’t schedule an interview, basically say it was my dream school, and
apply early - all of which is clear and demonstratable interest. I wasn’t
rich; I simply lived in Pittsburgh, and grew up indoctrinated that CMU was
where the smart kids went.

Like any elite school, CMU is very far-ranging and international w/r/t student
body; it’s fair to assume that a disproportionate amount of students traveling
to Pittsburgh to interview, tour, and attend pre-college are from above-
average means. I get the logic. I also (anecdotally) know at least a dozen
students at my time there who were wholly unqualified to be there save for
their family’s ability’s to pay their tuition in full, cash.

I have zero interest in litigating the value of diversity; if that had to be
explained here then you’re too ideologically gone for either of our time spent
to be useful. What I can say - and I suspect CMU agrees - is that education
and opportunity is a great way to give underserved populations upward
mobility, therefore minimizing outputs of family affluence and giving more
opportunities to lower-income applicants will yield a higher overall impact.
I’m sure they likely saw performance (and potentially even donor) differences
between the two populations; it’s possible that the demonstrative interest
population simply didn’t perform as well.

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corpMaverick
> family’s ability’s to pay their tuition in full, cash.

There is an argument in favor of this. It lets the poor kids connect with the
rich kid's network.

~~~
arcaster
_Shakes fist at rich people_

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rpiguy
The logic here is mind boggling. Essentially they are removing merit as a
selection criteria, because privilege affords people more opportunities to
show merit. If you are raised with privilege your parents are far more likely
to have encouraged you to do extra cirriculars, support your interest in
X,Y,Z, paid an essay coach to help or write your admission essays, etc.

I understand this, but it is not a good policy. In effect you will now be
discriminating against good kids who worked their asses off to do extra
cirriculars and prep for the SATs, etc.

Get rid of legacy preference for sure, find new ways to be more inclusive of
underrepresented populations, but don't fix discrimination with more
discrimination.

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jlebar
"Demonstrated interest" is a term of art in college admissions that refers to
demonstrated interest *in attending a particular school".

They're not talking about extra-curriculars, which might demonstrate interest
in STEM or whatever, but don't count as "demonstrated interest" in CMU.

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hadrian82
They lead off saying all of the buzz words about diversity which always rings
hollow with me personally, and this decision is based on increasing diversity
according to them.

Honest question: why should diversity (as they use it) ever be a goal?
Immutable characteristics of a person should not be a consideration in any
application to life unless the application is explicitly for that (tall people
in basketball for instance). Meritocracy should be the paramount consideration
in all things, and possibly a small consideration of diversity of ideas and
beliefs, but not diversity of skin color or genitalia.

If all of the most brilliant astrophysicist minds in the world happen to be
Japanese women, why shouldn't they be preferred over all others in getting
into prestigious colleges to study astrophysics? Why do we care if we have a
certain number of European males in that situation? The right answer is that
we don't care how many European males enter that field (which is true today
but for different reasons that I am not trying to get into).

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JoeAltmaier
How about: what if an equitable share of the brilliant astrophysicist minds
are women of many ethnicities? And are underrepresented due to high selection
factors in the admission process for alumni, coached applicants and so forth?

Which is far more likely the case than some hunky-doodle strawman meant to
justify continued bias.

~~~
hadrian82
My bias is towards letting the cream rise. I don't care what color my surgeon
is or what is/isn't between their legs. I want the surgeon who got in based on
merit alone and is one of the best people in the world for this job. I don't
want a diversity candidate who barely got by and got passed along by people
who were afraid to be labeled racist because of PC culture.

Immutable traits should never be considered, only merit.

~~~
mdorazio
How do you measure "only merit" in a way that cannot be gamed by parents
paying for prep courses, practice tests, expensive tutors, mentoring, etc.?
That's the problem - it's entirely too easy to conflate actual merit with
opportunity, which is the driving force behind diversity under-representation.

~~~
troupe
> gamed by parents paying for prep courses, practice tests, expensive tutors,
> mentoring, etc.

Given the amount of free things like Khan Academy, MIT Courseware, etc. the
distribution of access to resources to perform well is becoming more
distributed than ever.

A poor motivated kid with good encouraging parents and access to only free
resources is on a more level playing field with kids from a rich family than
at any point in history.

~~~
mdorazio
How much time have you spent with poor families? You seem to think it's merely
a problem of will, which is absolutely not the case. It's kind of hard to sit
down and do a Khan Academy series when, for example, you have to spend all
your time helping your mom raise your siblings because she's working three
jobs since your dad left home. Or if you're a girl, your parents tell you not
to waste your time on studying or STEM things because you should just be
trying to be pretty and get married.

And even if you did get out of those traps and spend the time on free stuff,
it's not even going to come close to getting you on par with a tutor who knows
what they're doing spending 1 on 1 time with you and parents willing to spend
thousands of dollars on electronics, flying lessons, or whatever other
enrichment activities support you. And where's the free equivalent of your dad
getting you a high school internship at his prestigious company for kids who
need to work minimum wage service jobs to help pay the bills?

"A more level playing field" is not even close to the same thing as "A level
playing field" today, and it won't be for a long time. That's why diversity
programs are still important.

~~~
troupe
I still contend that the ability to access educational resources is more
evenly distributed than it has been at any time in history. Motivated kids
from supportive families have more free and inexpensive educational
opportunities than they will ever be able to exhaust even if their family is
at the lower end of the income spectrum. Your examples of bad parents making
things hard for their kids doesn't change anything I stated.

Your main contention is that a kid with access to tutors, expensive
electronics and flight training is going to get a far superior education to
someone who is working with their parents to direct their own study. Those
things aren't as big of a differentiator as they used to be in one's ability
to obtain an education. Much of the pedagogical value a tutor can provide in
sequencing topics is easy to find online--often written by the very people who
would make the best tutors. The ability to ask questions and get answers is
also easily available. Is it nice having someone decide exactly what you need
to work on and learn. Sure, but in terms of access to educational resources,
not having a tutor isn't a particularly big differentiator.

> How much time have you spent with poor families?

I grew up below the poverty line, so a reasonable amount of time.

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morpheuskafka
To me this seems like two decisions combined. The idea of making sure that
"letters of continued interest, extra recommendations, expectation of campus
visits, lobbying efforts," do not play a role in campus decisions (notably,
the statement offered no response to recent issues with donor preference at
other "top" schools) seems like a common-sense focus on actually relevant
factors and an attempt to reduce bias that will no doubt favor more diverse
(and more ethical) candidates.

But how does that in any way go along with shunning "supplementary submission
of materials, including resumes, research abstracts, writing samples,
multimedia demonstrations of talents, and maker portfolios." How is work (most
of which, like a writing sample or resume, requires no resources or affluence
to create) less equal than academic records which are literally determined by
what neighborhood one lives in? Essays aren't bad in theory, but it's only a
matter of time before entire books are written by "admissions counselors" on
exactly what influential people to name drop and what "shared values" with the
school to highlight. Beyond a basic capability (prerequisites) and a lack of
contrary evidence (ex. failing classes repeatedly), what could possibly be a
better discriminator of student success then the interest they demonstrate
through actual self-driven initiative?

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wastedhours
> self-driven initiative?

How much "self-driven initiative" is actually self-driven though when it comes
to a formal application process, and not influenced by someone in an advisory
role? E.g. a parent who's been through the application process, or a careers
advisor in a school (if you're lucky enough to have access to either)?

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gfodor
It would be interesting to know if the people who showed demonstrated interest
tended to be more likely to become successful graduates or not.

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erikb
What does that mean? Maybe it's that English is my second language? I would
interpret it as, "if you really want to come here and show that to us, then we
will decrease your chance of succeeding". Is that correct? And they argue that
this should equalize the chances for everybody? I can't see the logic in that.

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Edmond
Maybe they looked at their Alumni and realized most of them are product
managers and programmers at a FANG....in other words while they have fine
careers and are making "positive" contribution to society they are not doing
anything that they couldn't if they'd attended a less renowned institution.

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pmarreck
So basically, because some small percentage of irrational evaluations are -ist
(racist, sexist, genderist, whatever), they are moving towards purely rational
measures?

I think this is a step back from the best solution to the problem of finding a
good college/student fit.

EDIT: Try not to downvote without at least giving a reason.

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CoolGuySteve
Looking at their diversity stats, the largest group in their student body is
Asians despite Asians only being 5.6% of the US population.

Much like the elite high schools here in New York, CMU’s entrance requirements
have changed now that the wrong kind of people are the majority.

I don’t know how to feel about that.

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forapurpose
> Like many other institutions, we are inundated with demonstrations of
> continued interest and additional recommendations, mostly from well-
> resourced or well-advised applicants. Though we don't request any at all,
> students write letters of continued interest, send us more recommendations,
> send projects, visit our campus to make their case in person and also have
> anyone with any perceived influence make phone calls to lobby and advocate
> for them.

The above indicates very high demand for Carnegie Mellon's educational
services (along with other universities like CMU). Perhaps the obvious
solution is to increase supply - if so many are so willing and apparently able
to study at that level (the difference between the last admitted and first
rejected is, AFAIK, almost undetectable), let's give them the opportunity!

Let's start with an open mind; I know many of the 'answers' already jumping to
people's fingertips, but let's challenge those assumptions and the status quo.
Nothing in the universe requires that there should be N spots available at
CMU-level schools. Why not 2N or 10N or 100N? My impression is that the
availability of quality college education boomed in the mid-20th century,
especially in the U.S. Why not now, with such high demonstrated demand? At
least public universities could be expanded.

It raises many questions: What do students and parents perceive is better
about CMU than the next school down their list? Is their perception accurate?
Can other schools be changed to match CMU in some or all regards?

I imagine (but don't want to assume) that the faculty at CMU are better than
the next best school, but is that really so? Is there a material difference,
other than prestige? And how important is that - all faculty (and most PhD
students) at any school know infinitely more than almost any freshman, and few
undergraduates take advantage of the faculty resources until later in college.
Perhaps the solution is that admission to CMU-level schools and access to
their faculty shouldn't happen until a student demonstrates the ability and
interest in their first year or two.

~~~
mlevental
>Let's start with an open mind; I know many of the 'answers' already jumping
to people's fingertips, but let's challenge those assumptions and the status
quo. Nothing in the universe requires that there should be N spots available
at CMU-level schools. Why not 2N or 10N or 100N? My impression is that the
availability of quality college education boomed in the mid-20th century,
especially in the U.S. Why not now, with such high demonstrated demand? At
least public universities could be expanded.

like i wrote elsewhere in this thread the cognitive dissonance here comes from
the idea that CMU is about educating. it's not. it's about generating profits.
just like porshe/rolex/debeers could easily produce more product but doesn't
in order to artificially deflate supply (in order to be able to give the
impression of scarcity in order to be able to charge more) every elite
institution does the same. for what it actually looks like when a school is
honest about the material value of its degree just take a look at the online
masters in CS from GT.

