[HN Gopher] We Don't Do Legacy (2012)
___________________________________________________________________
We Don't Do Legacy (2012)
Author : hhs
Score : 42 points
Date : 2023-07-18 15:45 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (mitadmissions.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (mitadmissions.org)
| prepend wrote:
| I would like to see the impact of this policy. What percent of
| admissions have a legacy who attended MIT? MIT is likely the only
| organization that can do (or sponsor) this analysis while
| protecting privacy. It looks like their application form doesn't
| ask for legacy info [1] so they'd have to track this in some
| systematic way during onboarding or something.
|
| [1] https://mitadmissions.org/apply/firstyear/biographical-
| infor...
| amluto wrote:
| MIT, as an institution that is historically highly competent at
| using computers and designing computer systems, can surely
| figure out with decent accuracy who all the applicants' parents
| are and can cross-reference with their historical registration
| records.
|
| Just kidding. MIT, until quite recently, was remarkably
| backwards in their own administrative systems. Class
| registration was done by filling out a triplicate form, getting
| the appropriate signatures, and taking it to the gym to be
| stamped, with two copies going in a shoebox and one copy being
| kept by the student to use as evidence for when whoever entered
| the data into a computer eventually got it wrong.
|
| And this is the same MIT that sold half of its /8 without
| successfully notifying all the users of said addresses. And
| also the same MIT that created and still actively maintains
| Kerberos but, for some reason, outsourced authentication for
| its own systems to Duo.
|
| So I would believe any level of competence in the quality of
| MIT's development, registration and admissions databases.
| ComputerGuru wrote:
| I'm not sure why this was submitted, but (@dang) perhaps the
| linked full write up on the matter would be a better link to
| share: https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/just-to-be-clear-we-
| do...
| dang wrote:
| Ok, we changed to that from
| https://mitadmissions.org/help/faq/legacy/. Thanks!
| david927 wrote:
| God bless them for that. Legacy should never be taken into
| account and has no place in the 21st Century.
|
| But I also feel that sports achievement is given far too much
| weight as well, in general.
| jewayne wrote:
| If you're trying to be MIT or CalTech, that's absolutely true.
|
| If you're trying to be the Ivy League...maybe not. I recently
| heard an explanation saying that legacies/"special admissions"
| are not the customer in this situation. They are part of the
| product. At Harvard, some percentage of your undergrad class
| were literally born into more money than you will ever make in
| your hypersuccessful career. The chance for making connections
| with such people is why many hypersuccessful/hypermotivated
| people choose the Ivy League over more meritocratic
| institutions.
|
| I'm not 100% sure I buy it, but it's an interesting
| perspective.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| This is actually what's going on. Ivy's are an intelligence
| signal laundering operation. Attract 80% super smarts, throw
| in 20% rich upper class, now people think your average rich
| upper class kids are "super smart," for their later career.
|
| It's why there's such a skewed financial aid. And it's why
| there's no prestigious rich-kid-only school, because it's
| obvious the academics aren't very good and that's not what is
| desired to be seen like.
| [deleted]
| ghaff wrote:
| >And it's why there's no prestigious rich-kid-only school,
| because it's obvious the academics aren't very good and
| that's not what is desired to be seen like.
|
| Some smaller liberal arts schools in New England probably
| come closest to qualify. But if you've heard of the school
| that probably means it's large and diverse enough that
| isn't really an accurate description.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| You're right, but probably not for the reason you think you
| are. Harvard is not your typical university. It's more of a
| hedge fund with a school attached to it. So is the rest of
| the Ivy League.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_colleges_and_universit.
| ..
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Making connections is maybe the single most important thing
| you will do at college. The faculty, the other students, and
| the alumni network, are part of those connections.
|
| However, this sounds a little like a post hoc rationalization
| from a legacy person, tbh.
| bluepod4 wrote:
| Do you mean in general? Or do you mean that MIT gives far too
| much weight to sports achievement? Because I don't think they
| do.
| efdee wrote:
| Why give any weight at all to sports achievement in a
| university? What's one thing got to do with the other?
| no_wizard wrote:
| Sports is a huge money driver for some universities. Its a
| big revenue driver[0]. Performance of the team(s) also
| drives bigger contributions[1][2] by alumni when it comes
| to donations
|
| [0]: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/analysis-who-is-
| winning...
|
| [1]: https://gceps.princeton.edu/wp-
| content/uploads/2017/01/162ro...
|
| [2]: https://digital.sandiego.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?artic
| le=191...
| idopmstuff wrote:
| I think intelligent, non-sporting people tend to have too
| strong of a bias against sports being factored into
| admissions. Universities look at lots of things that
| indicate someone is an intelligent, ambitious, hard-working
| person. That includes success at a high level in all kinds
| of things - if you're a top-level musician or dancer, they
| look favorably on that. If you've started a successful
| business, they look favorably upon that. If you started a
| charitable organization that contributed meaningfully to
| people's lives, they look favorably upon that.
|
| I think in general, we'd all agree that those are good -
| they show that those people are driven and able to achieve
| something significant. So does being an elite football
| player. You have to be up at the crack of dawn for
| practice. You need to work well with other people. You need
| to memorize playbooks. It's a lot of work and commitment.
| Why shouldn't a university look upon that favorably?
| david927 wrote:
| I think the difference is in how it's approached.
| Admissions never say, "We need 20 bassoon players every
| year," but they absolutely look for 20 football players
| every year.
|
| And it's a known way to game admissions. How many people
| do you know who row or fence? Because top schools are
| looking for a set number of people who are good at those
| sports each year and wealthy parents can get their kids
| top coaching for such boutique sports, knowing that.
| ghaff wrote:
| Rowing is actually a fairly popular activity from what I
| see. (Caveat that I have some availability bias living
| outside of Boston.) It's also quite popular at the high
| school level, especially in the sort of private schools
| we have around here.
| squokko wrote:
| Robust health is positively correlated with pretty much
| every metric of life success. Success in athletics is not
| only a sign of positive health but also another data point
| on work ethic. There are some people who can get a 1600 on
| their SATs without ever studying and there are some people
| who can run a 5:30 mile without ever really training, but
| very few people who can do both.
| tekla wrote:
| Athletics has always been a part of the curriculum of a
| full liberal arts education.
|
| I do think SOLELY athletics may be a bit much, but its
| impossible to ignore that athletics and education have been
| intertwined ever since the idea of a liberal arts education
| existed.
| ghaff wrote:
| You can certainly argue that some schools overweight it but
| schools take into account lots of things that aren't
| strictly academic.
| aetimmes wrote:
| Maybe not MIT, but there are many universities whose bottom
| lines are significantly impacted by the success of their
| sports programs and the television deals that come with
| them.
| userabchn wrote:
| It demonstrates the ability to dedicate yourself to
| something and achieve success.
| david927 wrote:
| In general. I modified my comment to clarify. Thanks.
| HDThoreaun wrote:
| You know most elite schools aren't just trying to accept the
| most academically successful students right? MIT and caltech
| are the exceptions, but all the other ones are optimizing for
| career success and donations. Having rich, successful parents
| makes you more likely to be rich and successful, so they accept
| legacies. Being one of the best in the world at a sport is a
| good signal that you will succeed at other things, like your
| career, so these schools accept athletes with worse academic
| success. When you remember that the goal of admissions is
| career success all the decisions make sense.
| umvi wrote:
| > But I also feel that sports achievement is given far too much
| weight as well, in general.
|
| Probably because if you have good athletes, it can bring in a
| _lot_ of money to your institution via football /basketball
| ticket sales (a lot more than tuition). It's a question of
| funding in most cases.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Athletes keep the lights on
| LeonardoTolstoy wrote:
| I know you said on general but I think it is worth pointing out
| that MIT doesn't specifically mark any athletes for admission
| like most schools can and do. At least when I applied.
|
| I knew a varsity crew and varsity sailing athlete and despite
| both being nationally notable in their sports my understanding
| was the coaches could do nothing to "recruit" them. It of
| course helps in admission as much as playing a music instrument
| at a high level or being a published author might. If you have
| that plus elite academic achievements then you probably have a
| decent chance at admission to a school of your choosing.
| jkestner wrote:
| Good that you edited to add in general. I've seen the MIT
| diving team, who in fairness may have been testing air
| resistance of various falling bodies.
| chmod600 wrote:
| Did the recent Affirmative Action decision say how public/private
| factor in?
|
| At the extreme, if it's a private club, I imagine they could use
| any criteria (fair or not, including race) but I suppose private
| universities aren't the same as private clubs?
| maniflames wrote:
| Good on them, if you want a spot at a top uni/college you need to
| deserve it
| tialaramex wrote:
| It varies by discipline, but IIRC for most degrees there was no
| significant correlation between the previous achievements of
| the student and their eventual degree grade, suggesting that
| actually it doesn't really matter for most degrees. Or at least
| that if it matters it's outweighed by other factors you're not
| mesuring via prior attainment.
|
| So in that case within reason the output is independent of
| input, and the decision of who to admit to limited places is a
| matter of larger societal policy. Admittance on "merit" in this
| case would actually be bullshit in effect.
|
| My employer is also the institution where I got my degree many
| years ago (I like this city and after coming here I never left)
| when they taught me, the requirement for Computer Science was
| 24 points, with Maths. Today the requirement is at least 3 As,
| one in Maths (which is approximately 30 points by the old
| system). Do they need better students? No. They need _fewer_
| students, they are over-subscribed, and higher requirements
| deter applicants and some will miss the higher requirement,
| meaning they teach maybe 500 students (in my day it 'd be maybe
| 80). They still can't find big enough lecture theatres, next
| year's course will require overflow video relays. As I said,
| there's no correlation, but the goal isn't to find "the best"
| it's to reduce the sheer numbers without expensive in-person
| interviews of every candidate.
|
| The result isn't better graduates, it's about the same, because
| you could teach (within reason) anyone. Some populations might
| lead to more pastoral problems+, but the degree to which
| excellent pastoral care is delivered is independent of actual
| teaching.
|
| + Somebody's dog dies, they're distraught, don't go to class
| for a few weeks because they're so upset, next thing they know
| it's exams and they don't know anything. It doesn't have to be
| their dog dying, it can be mum got cancer, the family home
| burned down, their home country has a civil war, or even just
| the guy next door plays loud music 24/7 and they can't sleep
| properly. Non-academic stuff happens, you can wipe out
| somebody's potential by not addressing it.
| musicale wrote:
| > But one of the things that makes MIT special is the fact that
| it is meritocratic to its cultural core.
|
| "The word [meritocracy] was adopted into the English language
| with none of the negative connotations that Young intended it to
| have and was embraced by supporters of the philosophy."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy
| draw_down wrote:
| [dead]
| chmod600 wrote:
| If I were not concerned about fairness at all, I'd say that
| universities are a place to collect together a combination of
| people that are likely to succeed.
|
| Maybe that's a combination of intellectuals and engineers and
| scientists and rich people and connected people and business
| people.
|
| "Legacy" is a good proxy for "connected". Donors are rich. Test
| scores find the engineers and scientists. Essays try to identify
| intellectuals. Etc.
|
| But that's not fair, because you can't make yourself rich or
| connected before you turn 18.
|
| Athletics doesn't fit into that formula, and quite frankly a lot
| of academic departments don't, either. But it's a form of
| excellence so I don't see why it shouldn't count. A lot of
| intellectuals seem to think it's unfair to treat sports
| excellence on the same plane as intellectual excellence, but
| that's a self-serving position to take.
| david927 wrote:
| I don't think it's a matter of that it shouldn't count but more
| a matter of how aggressively it's pursued.
|
| Universities don't vie for the top 100 bassoonists each year
| and are willing to look past poorer tests results for top
| bassoon achievers.
| LeonardoTolstoy wrote:
| Seems a tad bit disingenuous, only because the Ivy leagues
| are probably not competing for the top 100 QBs or top 100
| point guards or top 100 pitchers either.
|
| To me being the best quarterback at your school and playing
| varsity football for four years should basically be
| considered the same way, as you point out, being the top
| bassoonist would. And my guess is that for the vast vast
| majority of cases extracurricular activities are pretty much
| all created equal unless you do it to a degree that makes it
| notable (like being an all-state athlete, or playing with you
| regional symphony or something)
| chmod600 wrote:
| Why should all talents be treated equally? Surely a
| university might care more about some talents than others,
| and I don't think that's necessarily a problem.
|
| Money in sports distorts things, to be sure, but that
| doesn't mean that everyone must treat football and bassoon
| talents equally.
| david927 wrote:
| Maybe a tad. Although I haven't seen a press conference for
| an incoming freshman bassoonist, and yet even the Ivies
| have them for promising incoming sports talent.
|
| But that being said... this isn't a strongly-held opinion,
| and I'm in awe of anyone going to these schools and what it
| takes to get there. Being a top talent in one or more
| sports, and also academically, is amazing, and I don't want
| to diminish that.
| [deleted]
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _We Don't Do Legacy (2012)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14016231 - April 2017 (78
| comments)
| tekla wrote:
| Good, should set an example for everyone else. YOU got into MIT,
| not the color of your skin, nor whose parents you had.
|
| I have a half dozen 1st generation friends who worked their asses
| off in inner city schools to get full ride scholarships to get
| into top schools, and are now part of the professional class in a
| single generation.
| sanitycheck wrote:
| Eh. It's mostly genetics that determine academic ability (and
| everything else), so reaching an end goal of "total equality"
| would in fact make admissions _all about_ who your parents are.
| abirch wrote:
| I think it's 60-70% of academic achievement can be explained
| by genes. If you know kids from a big family, their academic
| success can vary significantly although they have the same
| parents.
| sanitycheck wrote:
| Sure, and they may not all have the same colour eyes -
| variation is expected.
|
| But still, we have nature (genes, 60-70%) and nurture (hey,
| parents again). What else is there?
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Luck (excluding controllable factors by wealthy parents)
| abirch wrote:
| I'd say opportunities. When there are fewer kids
| matriculating into college it's easier to get into a
| better school (see Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers)
|
| Professors and Teachers, the variability of them is huge.
|
| Friends can have a huge impact as well. Is the norm to
| skip classes to go work on a startup or focusing on
| getting good grades?
|
| Resources such as the Numberblocks which make math more
| visual and accessible. My pre-K kid was doing
| multiplication because of that show.
| chongli wrote:
| Yes, and identical twins raised apart show extremely
| similar academic achievement, far more similar than non-
| identical siblings raised in the same household. This
| strongly indicates that academic achievement is highly
| explained by genes but that recombination [1] causes enough
| scrambling to result in large variance among non-identical
| siblings.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_recombination
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Which is why only pure-blood Germans must be allowed to the
| higher education unlike Jews, Slavs, Gypsies and other such
| Untermenschen. _sigh_
|
| Genetics don't determine _that_ much as some would like to
| believe, seriously.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| You're implying that the beliefs here must be racially
| consistent, which is a straw man.
| xienze wrote:
| There seems to be this mental block for certain people
| about genetics when it comes to anything brain-related.
| Genetics have an impact on your athletic ability? Of
| course! Genetics have an impact on your intelligence?
| Impossible!
| sanitycheck wrote:
| I'd thought HN was above calling people Nazis? I've said
| nothing about race.
|
| If we want a meritocracy we have to be comfortable with
| genetics playing a role in outcomes.
|
| Personally I've realised that a meritocracy would not be
| "fair" in the way that a lot of people assume.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| Alright, let's talk about eugenics then? After all, it's
| not just Nazis that had eugenics programs in the newest
| history: the USA had forced sterilization well into the
| seventies, so it can't be all that bad.
| chongli wrote:
| The evidence would suggest otherwise [1]. Race is a very
| bad proxy for intelligence, but that doesn't mean
| intelligence isn't genetic.
|
| [1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/26/the-atomic-bomb-
| consid...
| willis936 wrote:
| A heritable trait is not inherently genetic.
| chongli wrote:
| That's where twin studies [1] come in. The evidence for
| genetic factors explaining intelligence and academic
| achievement is extremely robust.
|
| [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/genes-dont-
| just-infl...
| medvezhenok wrote:
| Genetics does determine quite a lot, race is just not the
| primary factor involved. There have been many twin studies
| to this effect.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| No matter how much you try you never get into any top school
| just by your own hard work. It's necessary but not sufficient.
|
| For example, admission to most top grad schools in biomedical
| sciences is only possible without quota if you have
| publications. Guess who gets published in their undergrad more
| often than others? Children of professors.
|
| In the end the reality is pretty much everyone of socio-
| economic privilege gets one boost or another that's not
| available to other groups of people. That's why I don't get mad
| if some underprivileged classes get "unfair" quotas as alleged
| by the US supreme court. I didn't get mad that rich kids can
| get into Harvard without too much work, why would I get mad
| that an underprivileged kids can do that now?
| legolas2412 wrote:
| So, if one kid gets more parental attention and devotes more
| effort in studying than peers of the same income level and
| means, that is "privilege"?
| Shaanie wrote:
| Of course having supportive parents is a privilege, why
| wouldn't it be?
| userabchn wrote:
| > Children of professors
|
| This is like people claiming that because a higher percentage
| of children of high earning parents become high earners, that
| they got an unfair advantage because their parents could pay
| for them to go to good schools, etc. That might be part of
| it, but having parents who are intelligent enough and have
| the attitudes and habits to get a high earning job means that
| you will most likely be more intelligent than average and
| have absorbed those attitudes and habits as well.
| ramraj07 wrote:
| It's not the intelligence of the parents or the kids that
| gets them published. It's "hey, friend, could you let my
| son join your lab and work on a project that'll get his
| name on a paper?" That gets them a paper. I could do
| everything right, join as many labs as possible and work my
| ass off for every year of my undergrad and still not get a
| single paper without such a recommendation. I know because
| that's what happened to me.
| filoleg wrote:
| How common is this at all? Asking because I went to one
| of the fairly prominent public research schools in the US
| (Georgia Tech), have tons of friends who got published
| during their undergrad (almost did myself too, but
| priorities changed, and I quit research in that lab
| before we got to the point of draft submissions), and not
| a single one of those friends had academia-affiliated
| parents. None of them were donors to the school either.
|
| I don't doubt that those scenarios you describe happen,
| but I strongly doubt it happens at top research schools
| in any capacity that would be noticeable or affect
| anything. In fact, professors running the labs that I've
| encountered couldn't care any less about who you are, and
| way more about what you can bring to the table in terms
| of getting things done and published.
| getoffmycase wrote:
| Undergrad researchers are typically shielded from all of
| the bullshit that goes on behind the scenes because they
| aren't in lab 40+ hours a week. I know, personally, of 5
| separate 16-18 year old kids that have been a part of
| academic labs.
|
| They have all been professors kids or friends of
| professors kids
|
| Quick edit: I'll also add that PIs project one face to
| prospective students and "outreach" students, like a high
| schooler is. Additionally, adding a high schooler to your
| lab gets you points for scientific outreach, which can
| help with certain grant submissions.
| filoleg wrote:
| > Undergrad researchers are typically shielded from all
| of the bullshit that goes on behind the scenes because
| they aren't in lab 40+ hours a week.
|
| Sure, but the original comment was about the difficulty
| of getting published without being a child of an academic
| or an influentional person. Getting published as a 16-18
| years old kid is insanely rare and unachievable for most,
| and I would agree that for that you might want to rely on
| hookups from parents. Mostly because it is so uncommon
| and rare, heavy majority of labs won't even be able to
| provide the necessary support for a high schooler to be
| productive in their research (exceptions apply ofc).
| However, getting published as an undergrad is very doable
| for most academically-minded students, and there are
| plenty of opportunities to do so at most research-centric
| colleges.
|
| As for grad school, guess what's the most helpful item on
| the CV that professors and grad admission committees look
| at when deciding whether give an acceptance offer to a
| prospective grad student? It is their previous undergrad
| research and publication experience.
| throw9away6 wrote:
| Before DEI almost all our interns were kids of employees.
| Now they are almost all DEI candidates, either way is
| always some special group. I assume the same is true in
| university
| filoleg wrote:
| If you think professors care much about DEI when it comes
| to hiring students for their research labs, I have a
| bridge to sell you. Professors don't seem to have DEI as
| one of the primary metrics tied to their performance and
| financial compensation. They might have some, but I've
| never seen it, though I've definitely seen those metrics
| being a significant factor in performance review for some
| org directors in the industry.
|
| My (and that of everyone I know) experience with
| undergrad research was more like just taking a class with
| a professor, checking out their research papers, finding
| their research topics interesting enough, having a chat
| with the professor after the class or sending an email
| asking if their lab is looking for research assistants,
| meeting up with the professor to have an informal
| conversation to decide whether this is a good fit and
| whether it is a potential publication opportunity, and
| that was pretty much it.
|
| Caveat to this: only talking about STEM fields, as I have
| zero idea how sociology/psychology/etc. labs hire
| researchers or even operate at all.
| mbesto wrote:
| > YOU got into MIT, not the color of your skin, nor whose
| parents you had.
|
| Or you get into MIT because of your zip code, which is
| basically true of all elite schools:
|
| https://www.admissionsmadness.com/blog/your-zip-code-is-the-...
|
| your half dozen friends are anecdotes.
| [deleted]
| jncfhnb wrote:
| This article cites a survey that claims alumni, not admits,
| all live in the same zip code. The study is also not about
| MIT.
|
| It shouldn't surprise anyone that good schools have better
| admission rates to good universities.
| ghaff wrote:
| >It shouldn't surprise anyone that good schools have better
| admission rates to good universities.
|
| The actual answer is probably "it's complicated." MIT also
| doesn't want to filled with Stuyvesant and Bronx School of
| Science grads. (Though last time I saw the numbers they did
| admit a fair number anyway.) 5% of my small high school
| graduating class ended up at MIT but that was a long time
| ago and I assume that wouldn't happen today.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| There are many pathways to do this without explicit policy. If
| MIT wanted to show this explicitly they could release a dataset
| with admission outcomes and parent/relative donation history.
| [deleted]
| ke88y wrote:
| That's true. It's also true that even more subtle types of
| social capital can be extremely influential. And it's further
| true that these types of subtle influencing factors are much
| harder to address than overt corruption.
|
| But even with all of that said: not having legacy admissions is
| better than having legacy admissions.
| iudqnolq wrote:
| Not having explicitly legacy is probably often better, but I
| think it could frequently be effectively the same. If any
| non-rigourous scoring is done by people who know about legacy
| and whose bosses can be contacted informally by legacy
| parents to pass along complaints I'd wonder if it could be
| effectively just as bad.
| ke88y wrote:
| To be sure, it's not a panacea and there are more subtle
| ways to work the same influence networks.
|
| I liken it to Jim Crow: systemic racism didn't end the day
| that Jim Crow laws were struck down, but a world without
| those statutes is undeniably a step in the right direction.
| So too here: it's not perfect, it doesn't solve the issue
| once and for all, but it's unquestionably better than the
| alternative.
| squokko wrote:
| Does the application have a spot to mention your relatives who
| attended MIT? And if not, how would they have such a dataset?
| technothrasher wrote:
| My alma mater (University of Rochester) doesn't have an
| explicit legacy admittance policy, but they do have a "legacy
| scholarship" where you can potentially get $5K-$10K if you
| check off that your legacy on your application. I have always
| assumed this was code for "we do have a legacy admittance
| policy, be we don't want to say we do".
|
| Irrelevant for me, apparently though, because my kid has said
| there's no way he's going to go to the school I went to
| <shrug>.
| squokko wrote:
| I don't mean this as any insult to the University of
| Rochester but I don't think that any of this national
| conversation around legacy admissions and privilege is
| relevant to them.
| gumby wrote:
| How would they link them? It's been decades since I applied to
| MIT but I noted that they were the only application that didn't
| ask if you had any relatives who'd attended.
| Joker_vD wrote:
| The Admiralty version of this British method (old pattern) was
| different only in its more restricted scope. The Board of
| Admirals were unimpressed by titled relatives as such. What they
| sought to establish was a service connection. The ideal candidate
| would reply to the second question, "Yes, Admiral Parker is my
| uncle. My father is Captain Foley, my grandfather Commodore
| Foley. My mother's father was Admiral Hardy. Commander Hardy is
| my uncle. My eldest brother is a Lieutenant in the Royal Marines,
| my next brother is a cadet at Dartmouth and my younger brother
| wears a sailor suit." "Ah!" the senior Admiral
| would say. "And what made you think of joining the Navy?" The
| answer to this question, however, would scarcely matter, the
| clerk present having already noted the candidate as acceptable.
| Given a choice between two candidates, both equally acceptable by
| birth, a member of the Board would ask suddenly, "What was the
| number of the taxi you came in?" The candidate who
| said "I came by bus" was then thrown out. The candidate who said,
| truthfully, "I don't know," was rejected, and the candidate who
| said "Number 2351" (lying) was promptly admitted to the service
| as a boy with initiative. This method often produced excellent
| results.
| blast wrote:
| https://www.geocities.ws/films4/parkinsonselection.htm
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Legacy doesn't help when you have objective metrics of
| performance in stem. This gets harder for art.
| mitko wrote:
| Good to know, but when I applied in 2005/6 iirc they did have as
| a part of the application a question about anyone in my family
| being from MIT.
|
| But I didn't meet many students whose parents were also MIT grads
| there, which suggests that they don't give it a benefit.
| stephencanon wrote:
| Yeah, they certainly asked in 1997 when I applied. Curious when
| they stopped asking.
| [deleted]
| pbui wrote:
| Maybe this is true now, but when I applied to MIT for undergrad
| in 2002, I had to meet with an alumnus at their house near me for
| an interview. Being from California and first generation American
| and the first of my family to go away for college, I had no idea
| how admissions worked nor did I know much about MIT. Because of
| that, I basically bombed that interview as I was unprepared
| (didn't know what to expect and didn't have the cultural
| knowledge to converse properly). I was subsequently rejected from
| MIT despite having pristine credentials for the time (however, I
| was accepted at other schools such as Berkeley, UCLA, Stanford,
| and my eventual choice Notre Dame).
|
| Moreover, a classmate of mine from a wealthier family and who was
| on the football team was admitted to MIT, despite having worse
| grades and a lower SAT score (he was smart and deserving, I'm
| just pointing out that my numbers were better).
|
| So while it is nice that MIT claims to not use legacy now, the
| process I experienced 20 years ago suggests that alumni still had
| influence then and even athletics mattered too.
|
| To be clear, I'm not necessarily against legacy admissions or
| athletic preferences. I just wish schools were upfront about it
| and things were explained clearly to applicants.
| squokko wrote:
| Yes, there are ways to use social class to your advantage, even
| if just the ease to walk into a mansion and converse fluidly
| with the owner rather than feeling at unease. There are no ways
| to fully eliminate the effects of this, but MIT is at least not
| explicitly doing so.
|
| And there is a lot more to admissions than numbers. Athletics
| do and should matter - robust health is positively correlated
| with future success. And essays, recommendations, etc. also
| matter. And I would think that MIT is not ashamed to say so.
| ghaff wrote:
| When I knew the MIT admissions director many years ago, he
| said they had an X-Y chart with academics on one axis and
| other achievements/soft factors on the other. There was
| basically a minimum academic cutoff and above that cutoff you
| could basically tradeoff academics for other criteria.
| isopede wrote:
| _So while it is nice that MIT claims to not use legacy now, the
| process I experienced 20 years ago suggests that alumni still
| had influence then and even athletics mattered too._
|
| Not to discount your experience, but I don't believe what you
| experienced would fall under "legacy" or "alumni relations."
| For those, you would either need to have had parents/family
| that attended MIT, or a close relation to an alumni. It doesn't
| appear either of those applied to your situation.
| pbui wrote:
| To me, using alumni to do interviews is just a form of
| indirection in regards to legacy admissions.
|
| Who is better prepared to discuss MIT with alumni? A student
| with no idea about college or admissions, or someone who grew
| up with experience and knowledge of the institution.
|
| The push back against legacy is that is gives an advantage
| and thus less meritocratic. In this interview situation, a
| legacy is still at an advantage, and from my experience, a
| significant one.
|
| Again, I'm not sure this practice is still a part of the
| admissions process. My point is that non legacy were at a
| disadvantage when they had alumni interviews.
| pdonis wrote:
| _> To me, using alumni to do interviews is just a form of
| indirection in regards to legacy admissions._
|
| I don't see why. I was interviewed by an MIT alum during my
| MIT application process back in the early 1980s, and he
| never asked me anything about my parents or other
| relatives. (I did not have any parents or relatives who
| went to MIT, and would have told him so if he had asked,
| but he didn't ask.) He only asked me about things _I_ had
| done.
|
| _> Who is better prepared to discuss MIT with alumni?_
|
| The alum who interviewed me didn't _ask_ me anything about
| MIT. He _told_ me things about MIT. (One particular piece
| of advice he gave me was extremely helpful: he advised me
| to visit the MIT campus before I made a final decision
| about going there if I was accepted. I did that, and it
| made a huge difference.) He wasn 't quizzing me about my
| MIT knowledge.
|
| My understanding of MIT's rationale for using alumni to
| interview applicants is that the alum can provide input on
| how well they think the applicant would acclimate to the
| MIT environment. MIT can seem very harsh to a student
| coming from high school, where they were used to being at
| the top of everything academically, and finding out that at
| MIT, they're just somewhere in the middle of the pack. MIT,
| at least in my understanding, believes that alumni who went
| through that experience themselves can provide useful input
| on how an applicant might deal with it.
| ghaff wrote:
| >A student with no idea about college or admissions, or
| someone who grew up with experience and knowledge of the
| institution.
|
| Honestly, I think you're overstating things. That a parent
| attended a possibly distant school 25 years ago is a pretty
| indirect path to wowing an alumni interviewer.
|
| Now, maybe it's different, if the school was a part of your
| life growing up. A good friend of mine's father has a
| doctorate from MIT and worked next door at a lab that used
| to be part of MIT and my friend tells me of sometimes being
| dropped off in Doc Edgerton's lab to be looked after. But
| that's hardly typical.
| amluto wrote:
| This isn't legacy, though. There are certainly issues with
| college interviews, but it doesn't sound like the specific
| issue here is related to whether your parents went to MIT.
| Paul-Craft wrote:
| > ...the process I experienced 20 years ago suggests that
| alumni still had influence then....
|
| You're making a point here that doesn't support your argument.
| "Alumni having influence" and "legacy status is considered" are
| not the same thing.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's extremely common at selective schools for alumni to
| conduct interviews which can be a two-way street. Certainly,
| the interview can factor into the admissions process although
| it's probably a small factor in general. And, yes, athletic
| achievement has been taken into account to some degree,
| especially significant achievement, by MIT for as long as I
| remember.
| musicale wrote:
| Are you suggesting that alumni interviews implicitly offer the
| opportunity for legacy candidates to reveal that connection
| (perhaps it might be part of how they became interested in MIT)
| and thus appeal toward the interviewer's in-group loyalty
| toward other MIT alumni, thereby increasing the likelihood of a
| positive interview outcome?
|
| That doesn't seem entirely farfetched, nor does the idea of
| appealing to interviewer bias in general.
| OJFord wrote:
| For what it's worth, the alumnus I met had me come to some sort
| of gaming convention he was attending, i.e. it was pretty
| casual. I would think the more obvious criticism of using that
| network to interview candidates is it's a game of luck having a
| personality match - but then I suppose they hope by having
| historically got it enough 'right' it converges/is fairly
| steady state on the sort of person they want anyway.
| pbui wrote:
| For me it was at a big house in a wealthy suburb, and we
| talked one on one in the living room. There was no real
| guidance or explanation other than here is the time and
| place.
|
| From what I could remember, the alumni interviewer was kind,
| I just couldn't articulate answers to his questions as I was
| unprepared and didn't know what to expect. With some insight
| on the process, I probably could have done better, but it
| doesn't really matter.
|
| I ended up on a different path and am content with where it
| lead.
|
| My larger point is that there are many little ways where
| legacy advantages can leak through even if you have an
| explicit policy of not considering it.
|
| I think alumni interviews are such a possible mechanism of
| still factoring in legacy status or making this advantages
| stand out without it being on the application.
| filoleg wrote:
| > My larger point is that there are many little ways where
| legacy advantages can leak through even if you have an
| explicit policy of not considering it.
|
| I mean, if we are going down this rabbithole, your "legacy
| advantage" definition can be shoehorned into literally
| anything.
|
| I moved to the US midway through high school, with very
| barebones english and zero understanding of how college
| admissions process works. I didn't know what SAT was until
| about a year before I had to take it. Is it a legacy
| advantage if someone grew up in the US and was familiar
| with the process ahead of time and was able to optimize for
| it?
|
| Is having plenty of time to dedicate to studying, instead
| of spending your time helping parents [who lack any
| english] translate documents and help with tons of basic
| life things, like opening a bank account, a legacy
| advantage?
|
| What about some wealthy first gen international students
| who have great tutors and know all ins and outs of the
| american college admissions processes? Is this a legacy
| advantage, despite their parents never having attended a
| college in the US (or, very often, not having attended a
| college at all)?
|
| There is a clear definition of what legacy admissions is
| when people talk about it, and what you are describing
| ain't it.
| TigeriusKirk wrote:
| I did that MIT alumni interview in the mid-80s, so it's been a
| thing for them for at least that long. I still remember the big
| house in a pricey neighborhood and the interviewer. It seemed
| pretty free ranging, so it seems likely it was a "gut feel" on
| the interviewers part. I'm curious what their guidelines from
| MIT were.
| canucker2016 wrote:
| from the article referenced by the link:
| https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/just-to-be-clear-we-do...
| :
|
| "For those of you not familiar with the practice, "legacy
| admissions" means preferring the children of alumni in the
| admissions process. Why would schools do this? For the money,
| mostly, because if you make your alumni happy by admitting
| their kids, they might be more likely to give you money."
|
| I agree that colleges should state simply and clearly how they
| evaluate student applicants.
|
| But if they all did, students would probably need to start
| preparing in their sophomore year, if not sooner, to get the
| nice extra-curricular achievements to make their application
| stand out. I wasn't even thinking about what college I wanted
| to go to when I was a sophomore.
| gowld wrote:
| > MIT doesn't consider legacy or alumni relations in our
| admissions process. If you'd like to read more about this policy,
| check out the blog Just to Be Clear: We Don't Do Legacy.
|
| _blog_.
|
| Links to https://mitadmissions.org/blogs/entry/just-to-be-clear-
| we-do...
|
| which reads:
|
| > anatomy of a WTF in the WSJ
|
| _WTF_
|
| > Mollie _blogged_ about it back in 2006.
|
| _blogged_.
|
| > Our institutional research website says, quite specifically,
| that "alumni relations" are "not considered."
|
| Nope, it's a dead link.
|
| -----
|
| MIT, the original source of authority, trying to dispel a harmful
| myth, can't even be bothered to publish a legitimate, maintained
| document to use as a reliable, authoritative source for
| admissions policies. All they offer is gossip from random
| employees.
|
| Why would they expect random journos to do what they themselves
| can't do?
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah, someone from MIT really needs to scrub their FAQ. There's
| content there which is obviously current but this could
| honestly be handled with a current authoritative paragraph
| rather than linking back to a decade-old blog post.
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