
A recent study of Harvard’s admissions practices - doppp
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-23/harvard-s-legacies-are-nothing-to-be-proud-of
======
09bjb
If Harvard's "best interest" isn't fairness but rather perpetuating Harvard as
an institution for the maximum amount of time into the future, then its
admissions behavior makes sense. Colleges and Universities are institutions
(like private companies) and (like private companies) it is very difficult to
get them to engage in behavior that they perceive may shorten their own
lifetimes.

Put differently, the main goal of an institution is survival. Profit (or a
huge endowment, or close connections to the wealthy or those in power) is the
primary factor in ensuring survival, and institutions know it.

Harvard has been focused on power over ethics for...well, I'm not sure, but
certainly over a hundred years. As much as I would like to believe that
admitting better-qualified candidates over "better-connected" candidates
(heavy quotes here) will be better for their survival in the long run, I
wouldn't put money on it. And, it turns out, neither would Harvard.

~~~
bhk
> power over ethics

No one sees themselves as evil. I'm sure that "they" just differ in terms of
what they consider ethical. If I may play the devil's advocate: Why is it more
ethical to favor those born with ability than to favor those born with
connections?

I don't have a quarrel with either form of discrimination, but I do have a
problem with the dishonesty about how things actually work.

~~~
solveit
Apparently we're close enough to post-scarcity that people forget jobs are
supposed to _do_ things and not status symbols.

The point of meritocracy isn't that it's more fair or ethical, the point is
that we give the most important (on the margin) jobs to the people most
capable of doing said job. The fact that money, status, and power flow to the
people doing important jobs is an incidental side effect.

Now universities aren't exactly jobs, but the point stands. Universities are
supposed to educate people, so that those people can _do stuff_. Letting in
people with connections and not ability means we are not making the best use
of our limited educational resources. Note that this is an argument for
affirmative action as advertised and an argument against affirmative action as
practised.

~~~
pingyong
Why do I always get the impression that getting into an elite university is
harder than getting a degree there once you're already in?

~~~
goatinaboat
It absolutely is. In fact in many situations “Harvard dropout” carries more
social cachet than “Harvard graduate” (of course both can backfire).

------
rjkennedy98
We should just straight up ban sports, legacies, ect from admissions. They
play a part vastly bigger than what people imagine in determining admissions.

~~~
sopooneo
I have mixed feelings about this. A friend of mine grew up very poor in a tiny
rural town with no known family that ever went to college. But he worked at a
nearly superhuman level in high school and got into an Ivy league school.

He is also charming and funny and by his third year was friends with
influential enough people that he was attending THE White House Christmas
party.

Now he works where and for whom he wants because he has connections in the
upper level of society that like him and know his competence. Without legacy
admissions for him to make friends with, all that might not have happened.

Merit admissions give the legacies legitimacy. Legacy admissions give the
superhumans opportunity.

This is simplified and certainly not the only way to let people achieve escape
velocity. But it's what I saw happen to one of the most impressive people I
know.

~~~
throwaway_law
>Merit admissions give the legacies legitimacy. Legacy admissions give the
superhumans opportunity

Taking you at face value your superhuman friend is going to White House
parties, while you have the legacy admissions, such as G.W. Bush's of the
world, running the White House.

I'd rather see this system and cycle broken than a few well deserved people
get invited into the inner circle.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Perfectly said.

Social engineering to benefit the current elite while selecting a few token
representatives from the real world doesn’t do a thing to help 99% of this
country.

~~~
mav3rick
Harvard has way more than legacy admissions. Why do you care anyway ? In your
head it mustn't be good with all these "legacy admissions".

~~~
throwaway_law
There is an elite/political/ruling class in the US, and one way they maintain
their status is through a false sense of meritocracy.

For example, GW Bush isn't just a spoiled rich kid and son of a former
President, he went to Yale and Harvard, thus he can be marketed as smart and
hardworking because those are the top institutions in the country.

Yet, no one ever accused GW of being a Rhodes scholar, and those Ivy League
credentials are nearly impossible for non-elites, but essentially given to the
ruling elite and qualifying these people for the best jobs, even being
President of the US. Legacy Admissions are a fraud on the working class, and
indicative why the US has the lowest social mobility of any 1st world nation.

~~~
mav3rick
A counter point 3 of my friends who had no money from India got accepted into
Harvard purely on the merit of their talents. Same with the son of a blue
collar worker here. You have conveniently setup a shield in your head where
this ceiling will never let you break it. Well, how about you look inside and
grow yourself ? Instead of calling yourself not a part of the "elite".

~~~
akhilcacharya
"Merit" doesn't exist and can't be defined.

Anyways I doubt anybody from India with "no money" can get into Harvard. ("No
money" in India means begging on the streets or subsistence farming..)

~~~
mav3rick
They couldn't afford to pay the fees. They got full rides.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Barely anybody in India can pay $60k a year (30x GDP per capita) of course
they’d get full rides!

That doesn’t mean “no money”, it just means “probably upper middle to upper
class”.

~~~
mav3rick
I know people who have paid . Upper class can be very rich too.

------
deogeo
> The most shocking number in the paper is this: Of the white students
> admitted to Harvard, more than 43% are in the so-called ALDC category

For perspective, the demographics of all Harvard students, not just ALDC
[1,2]:

    
    
        Asian American: 25.3%
        Jewish: 25%
        non-Jewish white: 22%
        African American: 14.3%
        Hispanic or Latino: 12.2%
        Native American: 1.8%
        Native Hawaiian: 0.6%
    

[1] [https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-
statistics](https://college.harvard.edu/admissions/admissions-statistics)

[2] [https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/The-most-heavily-Jewish-US-
co...](https://www.jpost.com/Diaspora/The-most-heavily-Jewish-US-college-and-
other-facts-about-Jews-at-American-colleges-437701)

~~~
kpozin
The "25% Jewish" figure is based on decades-old data from Hillel (an umbrella
organization of Jewish campus organizations). In a 2016 survey, 14% of Harvard
students identified as Jewish. [1] More recent surveys indicated <10%. [2]

Also, not all Jews -- even in the U.S. -- are Caucasian. [3]

[1]: [https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-many-jewish-
undergraduat...](https://ejewishphilanthropy.com/how-many-jewish-
undergraduates/)

[2]: [https://features.thecrimson.com/2016/freshman-
survey/lifesty...](https://features.thecrimson.com/2016/freshman-
survey/lifestyle/)

[3]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ethnic_divisions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_ethnic_divisions)

~~~
manfredo
1% of Jewish Americans identify as Asian, 1% Black, and 1% "other". 5%
identify as Hispanic but this figure does not specify race - Hispanic is a
cultural group that encompasses a variety of races and 2/3rd to 3/4th of US
Hispanics identify as White. While it is correct to point out that not every
Jewish person in America is white, the overwhelming majority are and this
nuance does not significantly impact university demographics.

1\.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Jews)

------
raldi
One day "legacy" admissions will be abolished.

Not long after, people will be shocked that such a thing ever existed.

~~~
StudentStuff
Bloomberg is really putting Harvard on a pedestal in the beginning of this
article, that along with the unretracted implants[1] story makes me think
their newsroom is deeply flawed.

I don't think Ivy Leauge schools are deserving of their current reputations or
valuations (in terms of quality), the systemic rot at MIT (having an ice cream
social to celebrate Aaron Swartz, happily taking money from convicted
criminals), Harvard and nearly every other Ivy League stems from an
idolization of money over all else, education and research are only present at
these institutions as window dressing.

None of these institutions should qualify as a non-profit, given their abject
failure and continuing refusal to act equitably as every other (non-church)
non-profit must.

1 - [https://www.servethehome.com/investigating-implausible-
bloom...](https://www.servethehome.com/investigating-implausible-bloomberg-
supermicro-stories/)

~~~
nessus42
_> education and research are only present at these institutions as window
dressing._

Oh, _puh-lease_! This is just utter nonsense.

Not that MIT and Ivy League schools don't deserve serious criticism (like just
about everything else in the world) but your characterization is either
extremely biased or completely uninformed.

~~~
StudentStuff
What has MIT or Harvard launched recently that has come into as widespread use
as the GNU Coreutils?

~~~
nessus42
_> What has MIT or Harvard launched recently that has come into as widespread
use as the GNU Coreutils?_

Even if the answer to that question is nothing, that does not justify the
conclusion that "education and research are only present at these institutions
as window dressing".

Btw, are you oblivious to the fact that RMS invented the GPL and wrote the GNU
C compiler and Emacs and formed the FSF (among other very useful things) while
he was employed as a research scientist at MIT. And that, as far as I'm aware,
for much of this time he had no other responsibilities than doing these
things?

Also, are you aware that his undergraduate education is from Harvard, which
certainly must have had some sort of effect on the interests that he chose
later to pursue? (He's on record as stating that he enjoyed much of his
education there.)

Stallman also maintained the MIT version of Lisp Machine Lisp and the MIT Lisp
Machine OS for some of this time. It is working on this and seeing MIT's
research "stolen" by Symbolics and other companies that in no small part led
to his beliefs about free software.

~~~
StudentStuff
I was pointing to a time when both institutions were producing valuable tools
from their research and development that significantly bettered the world
around them.

MIT & Harvard have not been affecting change in the world around them like
they did in prior decades.

~~~
nessus42
_> I was pointing to a time when both institutions were producing valuable
tools from their research and development that significantly bettered the
world around them._

And how does this claim translate into "education and research are only
present at these institutions as window dressing"?

I currently work at a famous MIT and Harvard-affiliated research institute
that aims to eventually cure cancer and other genetically-caused diseases. Or
at least find better treatments for them. Is this not important research? Is
trying to treat and/or cure terrible diseases merely "window dressing" to you?

Before working on this, I worked at an MIT research lab that developed an
X-ray space telescope. Software that _I_ wrote was essential for the
publication of about 1,000 peer-reviewed astronomy papers.

Is 1,000 peer-reviewed astronomy papers "window dressing"?

------
Konnstann
I have mixed feelings about legacy admissions, partly due to the fact that
having a pedigree from an elite institution matters a lot less coming out of
undergrad than it does for grad school. Graduate admissions are far less
likely to have as significant legacy components, but legacies allow the school
huge leeway and connections to secure funding for researchers, if not fund it
directly.

The article talks about the huge endowment Harvard has, and I wonder how much
of the incredible research going on around me would be possible if the
university were to "take a hit" financially by reducing or banning legacy
admissions.

~~~
jackcosgrove
I was curious so I looked up how much of Harvard's endowment is disbursed
every year.

In 2016, $1.6 billion was disbursed for university operations.

[http://www.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/content/20160401_...](http://www.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/content/20160401_harvard_congressional_report.pdf)

"Using conventional financial reporting standards, 84 percent, or $31 billion,
of the $37.6 billion in the endowment is restricted by the terms of original
gifts."

"Of the endowment that is restricted, the leading restrictions include (1)
support for professorships and faculty salaries (32 percent), (2) financial
aid (21 percent), (3) support for teaching and research programs (8 percent),
(4) program initiatives (e.g., cross-faculty programs, global and
international programs, and women’s studies) (5 percent), (5) support for
libraries and museums (4 percent), and (6) maintenance of the physical plant
(1 percent)."

I know there may be uneven annual funding levels due to when a gift was given,
but as an estimate 84% * 8% = 6.7% of disbursements are restricted to teaching
and research. That's about $0.11 billion dollars in 2016.

In comparison, Harvard received $1.08 billion in research funding from the
federal government in 2016.

[https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingbysour...](https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingbysource&ds=herd)

So federal sources of money for research dwarf the disbursements from the
endowment.

If Harvard's endowment were to begin dwindling, I am not sure what would be
cut first of the 16% that is not restricted by donor intent, but levels of
research funding would appear to be mostly intact.

------
lanevorockz
The only reason the university is worth its tuition is because of the renown
that it creates. The fact that rich people enter through legacy is actually
why the diploma is worth more.

Much easier for a Harvard candidate to have connections that could lead to a
successful angel investment. Once Legacy admissions go away, the value of
Harvard my dropped by a large margin.

Crazy world but all these things need to be taken into account.

~~~
akhilcacharya
> Once Legacy admissions go away, the value of Harvard my dropped by a large
> margin.

Sounds great to me! I worked hard to get into my degree program and get my
undergrad too and it has negligible worth - honestly, if the same could be
said about the HYPSM+ folks we would all be better off.

~~~
mav3rick
Why would we be better off ? Harvard consistently produces well rounded and
above average graduates. Most people here aren't comfortable with that
thought.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Their influence needs to be kept in check. The alternative, which is an
oligarchy, is un-American.

There are millions of tax paying, patriotic, and effective citizens that did
not get into HYPSM schools and are overlooked in the media in favor of a few
thousand people who have the virtue of a HYPSM+ degree. [0]

[0] [https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-
harvard/](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/shut-up-about-harvard/)

~~~
mav3rick
There will be billions of people doing good work. Many will always be
overlooked. So your problem is people from average schools not getting fame ?
On average it's the top tier schools that produce top level prize winning /
field defining people. Compare the number of those people from NCSU vs an
Harvard or an MIT.

~~~
akhilcacharya
> On average it's the top tier schools that produce top level prize winning /
> field defining people.

I am saying we are not valued. We are thought of as inferior individuals, as
you've described several times on HN. I'm honestly sick of it - America was
made for everyone, not just the folks judged to be the best in a nebulous
definition of "merit".

~~~
mav3rick
How are you not valued ? You yourself said you get 145k TC, is that not valued
? What have you done to deserve to be on the NYTimes or other papers. If you
want more accomplishments and recognition then work harder instead of
complaining.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Valued by my employer yes, by society apparently no. Besides you did say
yourself that it wasn’t impressive and was low.

I’ve worked plenty hard in my life and compared to the average top school grad
I haven’t achieved much according to the folks on HN.

~~~
mav3rick
You seem to have a huge chip on your shoulder. Also, HN is not what you should
measure your life against IMO.

------
kevintb
> The most shocking number in the paper is this: Of the white students
> admitted to Harvard, more than 43% are in the so-called ALDC category — that
> is, they are recruited athletes, legacy admissions, applicants on the
> “dean’s interest” list and children of Harvard faculty and staff.
> Furthermore, in the model constructed by the authors, three quarters of
> those applicants would have been rejected if not for their ALDC status.

Yikes.

------
neonate
[https://outline.com/6cnFTR](https://outline.com/6cnFTR)

------
blakesterz
This is not a very useful link, it's a short op ed that's pretty devoid of
anything work reading. The actual study is here:

[http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf](http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf)

------
golemiprague
I don't understand how any other specific admission criteria would be better
and what exactly it suppose to achieve?

Ivy league is just a brand, some people get branded by it and some are not,
some people because they were born to the right family, some because they got
very high marks and some because they got the right skin colour. There is no
"justice" as it is just a lottery winning thing, if you got branded your life
would be better after. For any one who get accepted there are 100 who could
replace him.

You could study the exact same program and acquire exactly the same knowledge
in a different university but you won't get branded, so how is it fair? There
is no fair, it is just pure luck that your combination of various parameters
didn't get you into an ivy, if they changed it it would be someone else bad
luck.

At the end of the day, who is going to be branded to be part of the elite is
up to the elite, if you force them to change the rules they will just remove
the branding, this branding only worth if the people who are already branded
accept the newly branded.

------
drak0n1c
Elite Ivy League universities are where post-modernist theories of all-
encompassing privilege hierarchies were initially formed and propagated.
Unfortunately, dogmatic belief systems that may be relevant in the bubble in
which they form are then excessively projected onto the outside world.

~~~
navaati
> post-modernist theories of all-encompassing privilege hierarchies

Genuinely curious, what are you talking about ?

~~~
jseliger
[https://jakeseliger.com/2014/10/02/what-happened-with-
decons...](https://jakeseliger.com/2014/10/02/what-happened-with-
deconstruction/)

He's talking about almost anyone engaging in ideas typically labeled
"postmodernist" "poststructuralist" "critical race theory" "theory" "literary
theory" and a couple of others, as well as persons engaging in fields called
things like "ethnic studies" or "gender studies."

~~~
claudiawerner
In your article you write,

>But dressed up in sufficiently confusing language—see the Butler passage from
earlier in this essay—no one can tell what if anything is really being argued.

As someone who has a cursory interest in critical theory, the passage was
perfectly readable to me, especially if you're familiar with what the
structuralists such as Althusser were arguing in the first place. The idea
that it's _only_ some ideological force that keeps deconstruction in play is
false, since Althusser himself was sympathetic to the political goals of many
deconstructioists - he was literally a Marxist and is heavily cited in
critical theory even today. For that matter, one of Althusser's closest
partners, Etienne Balibar, very frequently takes on issues of capital, race
and gender from a structuralist perspective in new books he writes every year.
Could the passage have been expressed in clearer terms? Maybe. But it's a
mistake to charge it as not being able to tell what Butler is arguing.

As an aside, this same criticism is leveled against Hegel, but the most
progressive thing you'll find in Hegel is his takedown of phrenology.
Confusing language is not at all limited by ideology. On the other hand, there
are very clear writers such as Marcuse and Althusser who form the bedrock of
critical theory today. As Adorno wrote in response to a criticism of his
literary style:

>"Now, from what you write about my language, to be honest, I find it very
difficult to imagine that you mean it seriously. Your argumentation shows a
true obsession with the thought of the reader. With my stuff you obviously
didn't even come up with the idea that I'm not interested in him, neither in
catching him, nor in snubbing him, but only in the most adequate and rigorous
presentation of the matter possible. That is probably the only linguistic
thing that can be done seriously against the cultural industry."

You say confusion, Adorno says rigor. I have a hard time seeing why I couldn't
have substituted your Butler passage for a passage from a paper in recent
abstract mathematics or type theory.

