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Harvard's Legacies Are Nothing to Be Proud Of
The university’s admissions practices are not, in fact, designed to accept the best people.
America has long fancied itself a meritocracy, and American universities have a reputation as the world’s best. Both of these premises are now under serious doubt.
A recent study of Harvard’s admissions practices leaves me with the queasy feeling that America’s top schools are bastions of self-replicating privilege, far worse than what most people think. The study draws upon the data generated by the lawsuit against Harvard alleging that it discriminates against Asian-American applicants.
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.
The inescapable conclusion from all this is that Harvard is not, in fact, obsessed with admitting the best people. Instead, wealth and family connections play an outsized role in determining who gets a chance at attending Harvard and … attaining additional wealth and family connections.
This sentence from the paper, which examined admissions figures for six admissions cycles, reinforces that view: “The admit rate for legacy applicants over this period was 33.6%, which is 5.7 times higher than the admit rate for non-legacy applicants.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-23/harvard-s-legacies-are-nothing-to-be-proud-of?utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=business&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-view&utm_medium=social&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business
America has long fancied itself a meritocracy, and American universities have a reputation as the world’s best. Both of these premises are now under serious doubt.
A recent study of Harvard’s admissions practices leaves me with the queasy feeling that America’s top schools are bastions of self-replicating privilege, far worse than what most people think. The study draws upon the data generated by the lawsuit against Harvard alleging that it discriminates against Asian-American applicants.
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.
The inescapable conclusion from all this is that Harvard is not, in fact, obsessed with admitting the best people. Instead, wealth and family connections play an outsized role in determining who gets a chance at attending Harvard and … attaining additional wealth and family connections.
This sentence from the paper, which examined admissions figures for six admissions cycles, reinforces that view: “The admit rate for legacy applicants over this period was 33.6%, which is 5.7 times higher than the admit rate for non-legacy applicants.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-09-23/harvard-s-legacies-are-nothing-to-be-proud-of?utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=business&cmpid%3D=socialflow-twitter-view&utm_medium=social&cmpid=socialflow-twitter-business
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