[HN Gopher] California bans legacy admissions at private univers...
___________________________________________________________________
California bans legacy admissions at private universities
Author : JumpCrisscross
Score : 342 points
Date : 2024-09-30 18:42 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.ph/xWXNM
| raincom wrote:
| These private universities can come with a solution: remove
| legacy; add a new dimension, let's say X, to evaluate applicants.
| Hire legacies because they have higher X.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| So you just keep cranking on the policy ratchet until you get
| the outcome you want. Loophole found? Loophole closed. Humans
| are tricky, and engineering around them is a never ending
| process. Certainly, the evidence shows that with sufficient
| incentives and punitive measures available, compliance is
| possible.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Exactly. I hate this defeatist attitude of "Well a 100%
| solution to the problem is impossible, so why even try?" So
| they find a loophole which allows them to continue
| wrongdoing. Great, resolve that loophole with another law,
| and repeat. Laws should have frequent patch releases to
| address zero-day exploits.
| anonymousab wrote:
| The issue is that they are not closing the loophole at all.
| It is the same loophole every time, and the
| workaround/update is just a wording change. Just make up
| some new arbitrary criteria on a whim in an instant, as a
| response to very slow and costly (state/legislator/activist
| time)new legislation changes.
|
| A more fundamental broad fix is needed.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I guess what I'm saying is that minor legislation changes
| shouldn't be slow and costly. There ought to be a way to
| quickly "patch" exploits that were against the intention
| of the original law's writers. Lawmakers _should_ be able
| to see people exploiting a loophole at 9AM, quickly
| debate over a fix, and roll out the fix closing the
| loophole by 5PM. It 's only currently slow because voters
| allow it be slow.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| They had a way to quickly "patch" things, the Chevron
| Deference, and it was found to be unconstitutional.
| jjmarr wrote:
| That's called administrative law. In the federal govt,
| Congress enacts a broad mandate as a law, and then
| individual agencies promulgate additional rules on top of
| that.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_administrativ
| e_l...
|
| As a random example, we benefit as a society when ketchup
| isn't runny. Congress doesn't want to waste time on this,
| so the FDA is granted a broad mandate to define foods.
| The FDA uses this mandate to provide a definition of the
| viscosity that defines ketchup as well as a way to
| measure said viscosity.
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/155.194
|
| > The consistency of the finished food is such that its
| flow is not more than 14 centimeters in 30 seconds at 20
| degC when tested in a Bostwick Consistometer
|
| It goes on to define the flow-testing procedure in
| excruciating detail to prevent loophole abuse.
|
| > Check temperature of mixture and adjust to 20+-1 degC.
| The trough must also be at a temperature close to 20
| degC. Adjust end-to-end level of Bostwick Consistometer
| by means of the spirit level placed in trough of
| instrument. Side-to-side level may be adjusted by means
| of the built-in spirit level. Transfer sample to the dry
| sample chamber of the Bostwick Consistometer. Fill the
| chamber slightly more than level full, avoiding air
| bubbles as far as possible. Pass a straight edge across
| top of chamber starting from the gate end to remove
| excess product. Release gate of instrument by gradual
| pressure on lever, holding the instrument down at the
| same time to prevent its movement as the gate is
| released. Immediately start the stop watch or interval
| timer, and after 30 seconds read the maximum distance of
| flow to the nearest 0.1 centimeter. Clean and dry the
| instrument and repeat the reading on another portion of
| sample. Do not wash instrument with hot water if it is to
| be used immediately for the next determination, as this
| may result in an increase in temperature of the sample.
| For highest accuracy, the instrument should be maintained
| at a temperature of 20+-1 degC. If readings vary more
| than 0.2 centimeter, repeat a third time or until
| satisfactory agreement is obtained. Report the average of
| two or more readings, excluding any that appear to be
| abnormal.
|
| I would recommend opening the federal register and just
| clicking on random pages. This is what regulators
| actually create. It's mindnumbingly boring and necessary
| work that allows you to go to the grocery store, buy a
| bottle of ketchup, and not have to worry about it slowly
| being enshittified to save money.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| The fundamental broad fix is to have state universities
| that are funded to the level where they don't need to
| charge for tuition.
|
| We had that, then _got rid of it_ because university
| students doth protest too much (as in, they protested the
| Vietnam war). Apparently an educated proletariat is
| "inherently Communist" or something?!
|
| Anyway. The removal of public funding means that public
| universities had to beg at the trough of private capital.
| Which means they need to be able to _sell_ them something
| in order to get that capital; and that something is
| usually an _extreme_ appeal to vanity. Shit like entire
| buildings named after a particular investor who thinks
| they 're suddenly a building architect; or letting all
| their failsons attend purely to save face.
|
| This need for private capital is also why "publish or
| perish" became the law of academia - with all the
| scientific scandal and misconduct that comes with it.
| Keeping a high profile means more research grants and
| those grants may just lead to patentable inventions that
| universities can charge royalties on.
|
| And of course let's not forget the endowments - the
| billion dollar tails wagging the university dog. Because
| the reason why most universities went along with this
| systematic defunding was that they got the ability to
| play capitalist themselves. _Every_ university is
| effectively a private, for-profit business, even if they
| aren 't run that way.
| ryandrake wrote:
| I'm not sure why you think, if they were fully funded by
| the public, that they would not _also_ continue to go for
| private capital in addition to those funds. Anything
| extra they can juice out of alumni, corporations, and
| "donors" would be gravy for their endowments, and allow
| them to gold-plate their administrative salaries. The
| steeper the line goes up and to the right, the better for
| them. No organization, private or public, profit or non-
| profit, turns down money they could potentially get.
| LorenPechtel wrote:
| I don't see that he's saying it's not a reason to do it, but
| to expect that they will try to get around the rule.
| FredPret wrote:
| "Culture fit"
| hiddencost wrote:
| "disparate impact"
|
| This is a known and solved problem for the most part.
| berbec wrote:
| This is how the insurance industry has operated for ages. They
| can't charge higher rates due to race, so they find ways around
| it: "credit-based insurance score, geographic location, home
| ownership, and motor vehicle records" [1]
|
| 1:
| https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220310005380/en/NEW...
| gotoeleven wrote:
| It is quite nefarious of these insurance companies to use
| measures of insurability for pricing insurance.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Well I think that insurance companies are predatory
| parasites and that the government should introduce more
| regulations to prevent them from profiting off of poor
| people, even if doing so reduces their profit margins.
| __turbobrew__ wrote:
| Some geographical regions have higher rates of accidents and
| crime, if that region correlates with a larger number of
| minority inhabitants that is not racial bias. As long as the
| insurance is measuring rates of claims per geographical areas
| and not rates of minorities I don't see a problem with that.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _private universities can come with a solution: remove
| legacy; add a new dimension, let 's say X, to evaluate
| applicants. Hire legacies because they have higher X_
|
| You'd have turned a toothless reporting requirement into
| criminal conspiracy and wilful intent to file false reports.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Inconvenient fact for lots of commentators here is that at most
| Ivy Leagues, the legacy students generally have better scores
| across most stats than the median admit.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| I can't see any way this holds up in court. What am I missing?
| htrp wrote:
| research grants and preferential tax status I'm assuming are
| the carrots/sticks here
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| pretty much all research grants are federal, so the state has
| no real leverage there
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| What you are missing is they didn't actually ban it. It is a
| name and shame law.
| sparker72678 wrote:
| That's it! Thank you!
|
| Found the text: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/bill
| CompareClient.x...
| detaro wrote:
| Turning it around, what's the obvious challenge that will be
| guaranteed to work in court in your opinion?
| twoodfin wrote:
| Freedom of association is in the First Amendment with the
| other biggies.
|
| If I have a list of people who want to spend $500 to join my
| weekly poker night club, it's my Constitutional right to
| choose whom to let in, assuming I'm not discriminating in a
| way that has 14th Amendment problems.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| "You can only get into our club if your great grandparents
| would legally be allowed to marry a white person before
| 1967 in Alabama"
| DiscourseFan wrote:
| This is why the law is fair
| nonameiguess wrote:
| Really need a Constitutional scholar or attorney to chime
| in, but as far as I understand, you can base admission to a
| private club on protected characteristics as well. The
| cases in which you can't are businesses commonly understood
| to be public access, like restaurants and barber shops and
| what not that have street fronts. But Augusta National
| never had to admit women. They caved to public pressure and
| Master's sponsors withdrawing money, not to the law.
|
| This is, of course, why all boy's schools and all girl's
| schools can still exist, too. If HBCUs wanted to formally
| ban white people, I'm sure they'd face some backlash, but I
| think it would be legal to do that. All-male priesthoods
| are still normal and common. The Church of Jesus Christ,
| Latter Day Saints had an all-white priesthood up until 1978
| and that was legal, just another case of responding to
| public pressure.
| anon291 wrote:
| You're correct. However, there's no mechanism for
| enforcement, so no one here will have any standing. It's
| like the laws making it illegal to desecrate an American
| flag. unenforceable, but sometimes on the books.
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| It's a private university.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Okay then they aren't eligible for financial aid or tax
| exempt status
| paxys wrote:
| Considering "they paid a lot so we let them in" is perfectly
| valid and legal selection criteria at private schools and
| universities, I fail to see how legislation like this is going to
| matter.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Just make it outright auction. And release the name of student
| and how much were bid for admission. Seems the fairest route.
| hx8 wrote:
| The Universities select for total donations yes, but they
| also select individuals based on the prestige they are likely
| to bring the University.
| koolba wrote:
| Which is also why they previously had their internal
| diversity mandates. That way their alumni as future leaders
| can legitimately claim they had a black or brown friend in
| college.
| hx8 wrote:
| Maybe I'm naive, but I always thought the purpose of
| Affirmative Action in private universities was to insure
| those black and brown people were given the opportunity
| to become the future leaders.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Eh, I'd go the opposite route. You meet a threshold, you go
| into a lottery. They can all sit there on selection day where
| the hopper spits out the names of admitted students one by
| one.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Most admission should be by that route. Set proper
| threshold and then do lottery. But outright auction for
| some fraction of admission would be good subsidy for rest.
| Set minimum at proper level say at least 2-5x normal
| unsubsidised tuition cost.
| somat wrote:
| Are not all universities "they paid a lot so we let them in"? I
| mean, there are subsidies and scholarships, but by and large it
| is pay to play.
|
| now... when it is "they paid a lot so we gave them a degree"
| that is when you have a problem.
| hiddencost wrote:
| Sadly half a million dollars isn't a lot of money any more.
| criddell wrote:
| > Are not all universities "they paid a lot so we let them
| in"?
|
| No.
|
| Being able to pay tuition and all the other expenses is
| necessary but not sufficient to gain admittance.
|
| My preference for admission is a lottery system. Have the
| school set the bar for admission (which can still contain
| some qualitative criteria) and then after that, it's a
| lottery for all that exceed that threshold.
| dhosek wrote:
| Harvey Mudd College has need-blind admissions so being able
| to pay tuition and other expenses is in fact, _not_
| necessary to gain admittance. They make up the difference
| through financial aid. Many other highly-selective schools
| also do need-blind admissions. Even those that don't may
| still admit students to whom they will give generous
| financial aid to make up the difference between what their
| family can pay and what the school nominally charges.
| blendergeek wrote:
| How about this system:
|
| Set the bar for admission as you described. Have two
| options for admissions for those who meet the bar. You can
| choose one and only one of the two systems per admissions
| cycle.
|
| Option 1: Lottery. Every student is entered into a drawing.
|
| Option 2: Auction. The highest bidders get admitted.
|
| The proportion of slots available for auction or lottery is
| the same as the proportion of students choosing auction vs
| lottery.
|
| This allows the rich to buy their way into the school while
| keeping the majority of the slots available for everyone
| without extreme wealth.
|
| Now I know what you are thinking, "why should the rich get
| to buy their way in?" To which I reply, why not? We only
| sell a small percentage of the slots, only to otherwise
| qualified applicants, and only to the highest bidders
| (meaning they necessarily overpay per the winners curse).
| glitchc wrote:
| The dual option scenario is status quo as a matter of
| fact.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| You're describing the current system. It's a blind
| auction. It's how private universities in America are
| funded.
| nostrademons wrote:
| I'd argue that it's _not_ the current system, and also
| not how the power-brokers who designed the current system
| want it.
|
| One of the important functions of the current university
| system is to cherry-pick the smartest, most charismatic,
| most driven, and most ambitious _poor_ children and give
| them a seat at the table, indoctrinating them in the ways
| of the well-to-do and providing them opportunities within
| polite society. Basically, take anyone who rolled an 18
| on one of their D &D attribute scores and make them a
| lord. By doing this, you decapitate the leadership of any
| potential revolution. Anyone who has enough charisma,
| intelligence, ambition to organize the poors into a
| movement that actually has a chance of success instead
| has a much easier pathway of going to university, getting
| a degree and a middle-class job, and enjoying a
| comfortable existence without the risk of being killed in
| the revolution. Keep your friends close and your
| (potential) enemies closer.
|
| Pure lottery admissions doesn't have this property. The
| biggest threat is that you _miss_ someone talented, who
| then gets pissed off and overthrows the system. You want
| to have humans looking over the application packets of
| everybody, and you want lots of competing admissions
| departments so that if one of them screws up, that person
| gets snatched up by another university.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Legacy admissions at private universities are not blind
| auction.
|
| It's not only money. It's a American way to have a class
| system.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Legacy admissions at private universities are not
| blind auction_
|
| Donor admissions. I've literally heard Hamptons parents
| timing pregnancies to not overlap with billionaires'
| kids, the theory being a million can buy a seat in an
| "off" year that would cost far more in an "on."
| nabla9 wrote:
| That's BS. Billionaires don't have so many kids.
|
| Legacy admissions take 10 to 25 percent of all
| admissions.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _That 's BS. Billionaires don't have so many kids_
|
| What are you basing this being BS on?
|
| Harvard takes about 2,000 kids a year. The Dean's or
| director's list is about 200 of those [1]. If a few more
| kids come from families giving tens of millions, that
| will absolutely reduce the odds of a family giving high
| hundreds of thousands making the cut.
|
| [1] https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/day-
| three-harv...
| myhf wrote:
| > The proportion of slots available for auction or
| lottery is the same as the proportion of students
| choosing auction vs lottery.
|
| Wow, 99% auction again this year, what a coincidence.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| A lottery is too complicated and can lead to bias, just
| choose based on merits. That not only reinforces the
| prestige of the college but by using qualitative data the
| entire way makes it impossible to claim biases were at
| play.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| The counterargument is that the large donations (often $10M
| or even $100 M and above) that wealthy doners give to help
| their kids get admitted enables universities to grant
| generous scholarships to smart but not wealthy students.
| nabla9 wrote:
| When you think of it, I'm sure you admit that there are
| better ways than lottery.
|
| a) increase the number of people admitted.
|
| b) increase the bar for admissions so that it matches the
| admissions.
|
| Private Ivy League's are massive hedge funds that
| artificially limit admissions.
|
| For example, Harvard takes 1200 per year, receives 50,000
| applications. Harvard could easily increase the number of
| admissions to 10 - 15 thousand and tighten admission
| criteria little bit.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| No, but it used to be. I got into the first state university
| that I attended that way. When I tried it again some years
| later at a different state university, it no longer worked
| that way.
| anon291 wrote:
| Most of the good universities cover 100% of demonstrated
| financial need.
| golergka wrote:
| The most important thing for a university or a school is it's
| signalling value for a graduate. If people know that "X
| graduate" is a mark of a well-educated, smart person, a
| school will be successful beyond measure. If, however, a
| school starts to admit anyone who's willing to pay and stop
| failing people, then the signal will dilute quickly, as will
| the prestige and applicants, eventually.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Considering "they paid a lot so we let them in" is perfectly
| valid and legal selection criteria at private schools and
| universities, I fail to see how legislation like this is going
| to matter_
|
| (b)(1) "'Donor preference in admissions' means considering an
| applicant's relation to a donor of, or a donation to, the
| independent institution of higher education as a factor in the
| admissions process, including asking an applicant to indicate
| their family's donor status and including that information
| among the documents that the independent institution of higher
| education uses to consider an applicant for admission.
|
| ...
|
| (c) Commencing September 1, 2025, an independent institution of
| higher education shall not provide a legacy preference or donor
| preference in admissions to an applicant as part of the regular
| or early action admissions process."
|
| SS 66018.4(b) and (c) of the California Education Code, as
| amended today
| Zigurd wrote:
| There are universities for which that would be a valid
| argument. They are expensive places to store mediocre children
| of the wealthy and are deigned for purpose.
|
| More prestigious private universities use a lot of government
| funding to fund widely cited research which is what makes them
| prestigious.
| seneca wrote:
| Government funded research is not, at all, what makes them
| prestigious. Harvard was prestigious long before the American
| government even existed.
| 627467 wrote:
| In that case why not just tie government funding to admission
| rule changes, instead of blanket regulate private
| institutions? Are businesses not allowed to pick their
| customers in the US?
| axus wrote:
| Not since the Civil Rights Act of 1964
| RIMR wrote:
| Because that's not what's happening here. They're saying "you
| had a family member graduate here, so we aren't going to expect
| the same academic prerequisites for your entry".
|
| That means that a high-achieving student with uneducated
| parents will get rejected, while a low-performing student with
| a parent who is an alumni still gets admitted.
|
| This, for an institution that is accredited by the state, that
| offers credentials that are widely treated as societal merit,
| represents a profound form of economic discrimination. It also
| completely destroys any illusion that the college's application
| process is meritocratic, which is a fundamental assumption of
| the system at large.
|
| This system in inherently racist, because there are plenty of
| kids getting admitted because their parents or grandparents are
| alumni. That means that white kids are getting an easy entry to
| an elite school because their white parents or grandparents,
| who were born before the end of segregation, attended and
| graduated from that school before Black Americans were even
| allowed to enroll.
|
| With our extremist SCOTUS now stripping Black Americans of the
| benefit of Affirmative Action, the only measure that actively
| leveled the playing field, tearing down this discriminatory
| system is more important than ever. Especially since these
| elite schools largely require familial elitism and
| socioeconomic superiority to qualify for admission, leading to
| the demographics of students at these schools to sway far
| whiter than the general college-attending population (because
| Black people are actively being discriminated against because
| of the nature of their familial history).
| dgacmu wrote:
| I found myself wondering how in the world they'd actually manage
| this and not be violating the universities' 1st amendment rights,
| and the answer seems to be:
|
| > Republicans as well as Democrats in the California Legislature
| voted for Mr. Ting's latest proposal, which will punish
| institutions that flout the law by publishing their names on a
| California Department of Justice website.
|
| and from the latimes report:
|
| > Although the California law makes legacy and donor admissions
| illegal, it does not specify any punishment for universities that
| violate it.
|
| Which answers the question but certainly raises some questions of
| what it means for something to be "illegal" with no actual
| consequences.
| Spivak wrote:
| There's plenty of laws like that. They're a statement about
| what someone oughtn't do in the hopes that people follow it
| simply because it's the law. I think it's a good solution to
| the situations where we want to establish a norm but it's
| beyond the scope of government to enforce it.
|
| Assuming laws _require_ enforcement is the secular version of
| "if you're an atheist and don't fear eternal punishment in
| hell, why are you good?"
| winwang wrote:
| Isn't this confounding legality and morality? But I do agree
| with the idea of trying to establish a norm somehow, since
| legality is a decent proxy.
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| Well, most laws are made on moral principles.
| jjmarr wrote:
| The legal system is partly the codification of society's
| views on what constitutes unethical behaviour.
| Specifically, things that harm society as a whole.
|
| Making an action against the law expresses a very strong
| disapproval of that action.
| snickerbockers wrote:
| >I found myself wondering how in the world they'd actually
| manage this and not be violating the universities' free speech
|
| One of the primary justifications I keep hearing for
| Affirmative Action is that legacy admissions are predominantly
| white, so minorities need an extra edge in non-legacy
| admissions to balance out the race quotas. If we take this to
| be true and assume that Affirmative Action is off the table
| then naturally it's necessary to eliminate legacy admissions.
|
| Of course, you're right that there's no real point in enacting
| laws if they aren't going to punish institutions who violate
| them.
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Well, how is legacy admissions free speech and affirmative
| action "prejudice" and illegal according to the Supreme Court?
| Neither is based on merit alone.
|
| No I am not arguing for or against affirmative action in
| college admissions. I am Black and graduated from an HBCU. I
| haven't had a reason to think about affirmative action deeply
| enough to have an informed opinion.
| dgacmu wrote:
| Don't get me wrong: I think legacy admissions should be
| eliminated. And my understanding is that my university
| (Carnegie Mellon) has stopped considering legacy status as
| part of admissions.
|
| But the answer is that legacy is a one-hop removed racial
| bias instead of a direct one, where the schools engaging in
| it can claim that it's based on a purely financial incentive
| and that it applies equally to all of their legacies. It's
| like money laundering for bias: Finding a proxy metric that
| happens to correlate extremely well with race but never
| explicitly mentions it. With the current supreme court, that
| laundering seems kinda likely to succeed.
| dmayle wrote:
| You actually have it backwards. Your claim is that legacy
| admissions bias in favor of the predominant race might be
| true for a school that had race-blind admittance criteria.
| In the opposite case, however, legacy admissions bias
| _against_ people of the predominant race (for the general
| student).
|
| Since legacy admissions come first, schools which practice
| affirmative action have a heavy bias against the
| predominant race (because those slots are all filled by
| legacy candidate). Which means that if you're of the
| predominant race, you have next to no chance to be accepted
| by these universities... (I mean, everyone has next to no
| chance, but for people of the predominant race, they are
| discriminated against severely).
|
| In general, though, college admissions are pretty
| terrible... Having spoken with someone who worked in
| admissions at one of these universities, if you have a
| bright kid, you're better off moving to the middle of
| nowhere to make sure they're the valedictorian, rather than
| trying to send your kid to a great high school where why
| might only be salutatorian. Why? For smaller schools they
| rarely take more than one student from that school in any
| given year, so when the valedictorian who filled out
| applications to 10 top schools gets in to all 10? The
| salutatorian doesn't...
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Disparate Impact
|
| https://www.justice.gov/crt/fcs/T6Manual7
| dgacmu wrote:
| Hence my comment that "With the current supreme court,
| that laundering seems kinda likely to succeed."
|
| I don't disagree with anything you're arguing from a
| moral perspective. I'm not a big fan of what's happening
| at the supreme court these days.
|
| We may get to find out:
| https://www.npr.org/2023/07/26/1190123323/department-of-
| educ...
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Race is a protected class. Wealth is not. A bank can require
| a certain amount of money to be deposited in a checking
| account to qualify for certain cards and benefits. They can't
| just say "this card is for X race only".
| scarface_74 wrote:
| Fine. If it's not in the public interest. A "private"
| college shouldn't be eligible for federal financial aid,
| tax exempt status, etc just like a bank isn't. We should
| tax earnings from their endowments too
| Manuel_D wrote:
| "Public interest" isn't an excuse to strip tax exempt
| status or withhold funding on a whim. The government
| cannot simply remove the tax exempt status of the NRA or
| Planned Parenthood because it decides that the
| organization doesn't serve public interest.
| Supermancho wrote:
| > The government cannot simply remove the tax exempt
| status of the NRA or Planned Parenthood because it
| decides that the organization doesn't serve public
| interest.
|
| The (aggregate) government is the only one who can, as
| it's the only one who granted the status. The idea that
| something is ironclad because it's enshrined in law, is a
| failing to consider history. Laws change.
|
| If you want to argue that it's unlikely, this also
| depends largely on those who have the money (or power) to
| fight for the change. I would agree there is not enough
| public sentiment, despite the wealth inequality
| implications, for private universities. Planned
| Parenthood? I think we got awful close.
|
| Either way, it could be done. It is important not to
| dismiss the possibility.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| Stanford alone has an endowment upwards of 30 billion
| dollars. They absolutely have the resources to fight the
| change.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Admittance isn't speech. (There _might_ be an argument for
| assembly. But we already have precedence in _e.g._ the Civil
| Rights Acts that it can be regulated.)
| vineyardmike wrote:
| It _absolutely_ is assembly.
|
| Also, "businesses" have the right to pick their customers (in
| compliance with laws like fair housing).
|
| I don't have a strong preference for/against legacy
| admissions, but I think it makes no sense that saying "we can
| admit only people of religion X" is ok but its wrong to say
| "we can admit people preferentially who have a family
| connection". Same with affirmative action vs race-based
| admissions.
|
| There are so many sticky issues with the legality and
| meritocracy of admissions, that targeting a few rich kids
| seems like the wrong battle.
| dgacmu wrote:
| I agree, I should have said 1st amendment rights more
| generally. I've edited my post to update that - thank you.
| jjmarr wrote:
| There's still a non-zero cost for compliance because
| universities have to report their legacy statistics.
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| > which will punish institutions that flout the law by publishing
| their names on a California Department of Justice website
|
| Important to note that this is the _only_ enforcement mechanism.
| You get put on a naughty list.
|
| Will be interesting to see how important that is to the selective
| universities in the state. I don't see how being named and shamed
| on an official government website is much different than the
| status quo of being named and shamed in a media report on legacy
| admissions.
| gambiting wrote:
| Or it ends up acting like an advert for those universities.
| kurisufag wrote:
| yeah, the legacy option is a big reason to go to Harvard or
| Stanford instead of MIT or Caltech. the success of your
| lineage will be automatically secured.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Should university acceptance be meritocratic or not? HN
| seems to be suffering from dissonance.
| kurisufag wrote:
| the purpose of Harvard-type monastic institutions and
| MIT-type land grant engineering schools are /drastically/
| different.
|
| the big H isn't even really a school, it's a social
| mixing program for the future 1%. a way for the sons and
| daughters of the elite to make friends with the smartest
| of their generation, to ensure the latter get funding and
| the former are never unseated.
| sangnoir wrote:
| I didn't see this amount of bellyaching when race-based
| affirmative action admissions were eviscerated by SCOTUS.
| Then, HN was almost unanimous in the opinion that it was
| a good ruling, because academic meritocracy is a good
| thing.
| csa wrote:
| > the success of your lineage will be automatically
| secured.
|
| At least at Harvard, this is very much incorrect.
|
| The legacy admission rate is 30-something percent iirc.
| Much higher than the general population, but far from
| guaranteed or "secured".
|
| A few other notes:
|
| - just because someone is a legacy and was admitted, it
| doesn't necessarily mean that they were admitted _because_
| they were a legacy. That percentage is much, much lower.
|
| - I also don't think that legacies having a higher
| admission rate is that surprising. There is a certain type
| of applicant that elite schools prefer. If someone has
| cracked the code on that type, it's not that difficult to
| shape your kid's environment in such a way that they end up
| as this type. FWIW, "helicopter mom" type of stuff, while
| it works sometimes, is definitely _not_ the best way to do
| this.
|
| - Cal Newport has written two or three books on excelling
| in high school and how to be a strong applicant to an elite
| university. They aren't how-to books (the specifics will
| change based on context), but he shows healthy ways to be
| awesome.
|
| - for those looking for a "how-to", my quick and dirty
| comments are: send your kid to a good Montessori school,
| have them do activities like one does in the scouts at a
| high level (like Eagle Scouts), and play _any_ sport at a
| competitive level (ideally national or international, but
| regional is ok for competitive sports). For the last one,
| there is room to be creative -- I met someone whose dad was
| the national small bore hunting pistol champion several
| years running. I wonder how competitive the youth division
| is.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _it ends up acting like an advert for those universities_
|
| Because parents and donors are confused about which two elite
| California schools that observe legacy?
| dpkirchner wrote:
| Stan-ford? Is that a car?
| erikerikson wrote:
| If we're talking in Cal. Tech-nically he could own one,
| it's a big state.
| tzs wrote:
| Caltech does not do legacy admissions.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Cal generally refers to UC Berkeley, _e.g._ the Cal Band
| [1]. (It was the first UC.)
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Californi
| a_March...
| Moto7451 wrote:
| So... is the way for these institutions to "win" by performing
| a large scale Prisoner's Dilemma exercise by all admitting at
| least one legacy student at the next opportunity?
| berbec wrote:
| > You get put on a naughty list.
|
| I don't see it that way. Sounds more like the state is doing
| free advertising. "Here is the list of schools Junior, who got
| a 4.0 in their basket-weaving major in high school, has a
| shot".
| moate wrote:
| 1- I'm 40, and childless, so maybe I'm just out of touch, but
| do high schools do Majors? (Fwiw I'm from the northeastern
| US)
|
| 2- How would that work? Legacy admissions mean your family
| has a legacy. You can't just conjure that up because you have
| a kid who can't meet academic admissions standards.
|
| 3- If you pull a 4.0 in any specialty of academics, no matter
| how much engineers might sneer at you on their message
| boards, somewhere a school will admit you because they're the
| "forefront of basket weaving in the country", and I think
| that's pretty cool.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _do high schools do Majors? (Fwiw I'm from the
| northeastern US)_
|
| There are specialised high schools [1]. Even my generic
| public California high school had unofficial "lines,"
| _e.g._ if you wanted to take certain AP classes in senior
| year you needed certain prerequisites, and some bunches of
| classes naturally went together, socially and academically.
|
| [1] https://www.schools.nyc.gov/enrollment/enroll-grade-by-
| grade...
| abakker wrote:
| This is quite different than the lines people were doing
| at my high school /s.
|
| But seriously, earlier specialization does make sense.
| American education takes too long to get people into the
| workforce if you are in liberal arts.
| spiritplumber wrote:
| In Italy yes, in the US it's more a la carte.
| bluGill wrote:
| while high schools don't do majors they have several
| tracks. I didn't have to take any math or science my senior
| year. there are lots of options for a student to take easy
| courses for a great gpa
| mikeryan wrote:
| There's what two schools an applicant can be a legacy to?
| This isn't rocket science to begin with.
| toast0 wrote:
| Many of the people I know who did grad school went to a
| different school than their undergrad. So up to four, I'd
| think. Although, you could really get an AA, a BS, a MS,
| and a PhD from four separate schools, but getting into a
| community college doesn't require legacy admissions.
| r00fus wrote:
| You know everyone who cared already knew that.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Important to note that this is the only enforcement
| mechanism. You get put on a naughty list_
|
| "In 2019...[Assemblyman Phil] Ting tried to push through a bill
| banning legacy preferences in California. That effort fell
| short. But he did succeed with a measure requiring private
| colleges to report to the Legislature how many students they
| admit because of ties to alumni or donors."
|
| This time, "an earlier version [of the bill] had proposed that
| schools face civil penalties for violating the law, but that
| provision was removed in the State Senate."
|
| This is a battle against powerful people. Wins will be
| incremental. About the smartest things those opposing this
| could have done would have been firing up (a) nihilistic
| elements about how nothing changes and (b) outrage at anything
| short of an absolute ban with criminal penalties and forced
| revocation of degrees to legacy graduates or whatever.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Do universities keep admissions data at that granular of a
| level? I would add a generic "culture fit" component to each
| candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit
| legacies without calling them as such.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Do universities keep admissions data at that granular of
| a level?_
|
| In my experience, yes. (It's an outright question on many
| college applications.) But this law, together with the
| older one, mandate recording and retaining these data.
|
| > _would add a generic "culture fit" component to each
| candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit
| legacies without calling them as such_
|
| This is a good way to turn a reporting requirement into
| criminal conspiracy with intent to defraud the state
| charges.
| kurthr wrote:
| Yeah, I don't think so. There's no paper trail. Whether
| it's in person interviews or not, having a "culture fit"
| isn't what's in the law. Unless, allowing in legacies is
| mandated from above and documented, you're gonna have a
| hard time showing criminal conspiracy. If the form
| doesn't allow you to put in "legacy" commentary, there
| will even be "evidence" that it wasn't. If you want to
| embarrass them, just do it. Spend the capital (political
| or otherwise) to put it in the media, but pretending it's
| going to criminal court is kinda out there without some
| other political motive.
|
| Frankly, there are bigger discrimination problems for
| qualified applicants than legacy for admissions at the
| most selective colleges. Certainly, nobody is going to
| prevent "athletic" ability, "extracurricular" experience,
| or SAT coaching in admissions.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _having a "culture fit" isn't what's in the law_
|
| Sure, alumni interviews may favor legacy, though if
| alumni start broadly asking about it I could see
| legislation targeting that being inspired.
|
| > _allowing in legacies is mandated from above and
| documented, you 're gonna have a hard time showing
| criminal conspiracy_
|
| OP seemed to suggest creating a dummy variable to stand
| in for legacy. If that were to happen, and you could find
| communications basically admitting the purpose of that
| variable is to evade the law, yes, I could see criminal
| charges being brought.
|
| More pointedly, you're describing an issue common to
| anti-discrimination law in general.
| kurthr wrote:
| You seem well versed in this.
|
| Has there been a prosecution for academic criminal
| discrimination or criminal conspiracy to avoid
| discrimination protection in the last 20 years? I mean
| there's Title IX, but the Supreme Court has blocked even
| sex discrimination rules.
|
| https://www.npr.org/2024/08/16/nx-s1-5064627/supreme-
| court-s...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Has there been a prosecution for academic criminal
| discrimination or criminal conspiracy to avoid
| discrimination protection in the last 20 years?_
|
| I don't think anyone has been doing it. Race-based
| discrimination was, until recently, legal.
| kurthr wrote:
| No one has been prosecuting it, or none of the 6000 some
| odd universities/colleges have discriminated in the last
| 20 years?
|
| I can believe the former, but not the latter. If it's the
| former, why do you think they would suddenly start
| prosecuting now for a difficult to prove criminal
| conspiracy to allow legacy admissions? Political reasons?
| microtherion wrote:
| Here's a perfect example of a college essay turning
| legacy into culture fit:
|
| The reasons that I have for wishing to go to Harvard are
| several. I feel that Harvard can give me a better
| background and a better liberal education than any other
| university. I have always wanted to go there, as I have
| felt that it is not just another college, but is a
| university with something definite to offer. Then too, I
| would like to go to the same college as my father. To be
| a "Harvard man" is an enviable distinction, and one that
| I sincerely hope I shall attain.
|
| John F. Kennedy's application essay to Harvard, in its
| entirety (he got accepted, of course).
| MichaelNolan wrote:
| I thought you were kidding at first, but here it is
| https://www.jfklibrary.org/asset-
| viewer/archives/jfkpp-002-0...
|
| Bonus points for brevity I suppose. And to be fair,
| Harvard (and all other colleges) was way less competitive
| back then. 1930s college and 2024 college are worlds
| apart in every way.
| csa wrote:
| Fascinating example, but poor comparison.
|
| University entrance requirements then were nothing like
| they are now.
|
| An essay like this would get turbo-rejected today, unless
| they are on the z-list (and JFK probably would be).
| serial_dev wrote:
| There is no paper trail so there won't be many criminal
| cases...
|
| ...but there is no paper trail so they might not be able
| to "fast track" legacy kids into the university so
| easily, it's logistically hard to cheat for so many kids
| during the many steps of the process without creating a
| ton of evidence.
|
| I don't think it will make the problem go away, but I do
| think it will reduce the number of legacy rich kids
| getting accepted, simply because the bar is put higher
| (for parents' influence).
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| They ask on the admission form if you are a legacy, and
| legacy applicants answer yes because it helps them get in.
| So that's very easy to track. Parents who get their kids
| admitted by donating millions of dollars presumably get a
| more "white glove" service, and I don't know if that's
| tracked in the same way.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Parents who get their kids admitted by donating
| millions of dollars presumably get a more "white glove"
| service, and I don't know if that's tracked in the same
| way_
|
| A lawyer for Students for Fair Admissions "quizzed
| [Harvard College's long-serving Dean of Admissions and
| Financial Aid] on the 'Dean's Interest List,' a special
| and confidential list of applicants Harvard compiles
| every admissions cycle. Though the University closely
| guards the details, applicants on that list are often
| related to or of interest to top donors -- and court
| filings show list members benefit from a significantly
| inflated acceptance rate" [1].
|
| [1] https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/10/18/day-
| three-harv...
| slt2021 wrote:
| if a donor's kid get accepted in exchange for $10 mln
| donation - that funds 20 scholarships to underrepresented
| students - is it a good policy or not???
|
| would you rather have no legacy admits and ZERO
| scholarships whatsoever ?
|
| or would you prefer to have some number of legacies +
| scholarships and new buildings funded from their
| donations ???
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Can you believe that Jared Kushner's father only had to
| donate $2.5 million to get his son into Harvard? That's
| chump change for an institution that rich. They should
| have asked for more.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Harvard _could_ use an international airport.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| My question is can donors buy not only admission but also
| grades? My guess is yes. At that point, why not just buy
| the degree and save everyone a lot of time?
|
| Edit: I guess, though, that the point of degrees from
| schools like these is not the degree, but the
| connections. But I'd guess those could be purchased as
| well.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why not just buy the degree and save everyone a lot of
| time?_
|
| If you do business in the Middle East, you begin to
| notice the kids of the elites all went to weird no-name
| Western schools. Turns out they want a Western degree,
| but don't want to be away from the capital too long. So
| they find random universities who will give them a degree
| for, essentially, no-show remote learning classes. Win-
| win.
| Loughla wrote:
| What is the point of that? They already have the
| connections and power. They're not learning anything.
| What's the point?
| phil21 wrote:
| Pretend prestige. They have the connections and power but
| not pedigree.
|
| As someone without a college degree in tech, and who has
| attempted but failed to get a tradition "corporate" job
| based on skills and track record I can sort of
| understand. Not the same thing at all, but you'd be
| amazed (or not?) at how much importance some folks put on
| having a piece of paper even in casual social settings in
| some circles. Actual skills need not apply.
| rapidaneurism wrote:
| The son of the high ranking individual is appointed in a
| high position in some ministry. Anyone who cries nepotism
| is quickly reminded that he holds a prestigious western
| degree, and that is the reason for the appointment.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _What is the point of that? They already have the
| connections and power_
|
| One could say the same of a billionaire buying their
| idiot kid an Ivy League education. They're clearly not
| going to benefit from it. But it looks good and might
| fool a person here and there.
| gomerspiles wrote:
| Grades are almost guaranteed at Harvard Undergrad. A
| grader who gives out any Bs or less for any properly
| submitted paper can expect an outraged Professor to make
| them stop before he has to deal with the backlash which
| may include a lawyer.
|
| This may vary by department or over time, but I think
| there's no reason to believe a Harvard Undergrad Alumni
| you meet ever did any college level work.
| phaerus_iconix wrote:
| What year did you graduate that you developed this
| opinion? I received many Bs across a variety of
| departments while doing my BA from '96-2000. Getting As
| was significantly harder than it had been in highschool
| because of how much smarter and more hard-working the
| average student was at Harvard than they had been at the
| elite private school I had previously been on a
| scholarship to. The one time I contested a B I got
| rejected by the head of department in a meeting that took
| less than 30 seconds; he was so brutal about my result
| compared to those who got an A I never dared to contest
| another grade again - the curve they graded against was
| very strong in my time...
| skhunted wrote:
| In the old days Ivy league type schools gave "gentleman
| C's". Harvard rarely fails someone. Grade is highest at
| Ivy league type schools.
| cvwright wrote:
| Many years ago, I was a grad TA at a school that is now
| top 10 in the US. Based on that experience, I think
| _everyone_ paying full freight at these schools is buying
| their grades. It was de facto impossible to fail any
| student for cheating, or to punish them in any real way.
|
| Too bad too, since the half of undergrads who weren't
| cheaters were the nicest, brightest, salt-of-the-earth
| people.
| csa wrote:
| > My question is can donors buy not only admission but
| also grades?
|
| This made me laugh out loud.
|
| There are majors at every university that are easy to
| graduate from. Often these are aimed precisely at
| academically unambitious athletes and well-connected
| mediocre students.
|
| Harvard is no exception.
|
| Getting into elite schools is the hard part. Graduating
| is not.
|
| > But I'd guess those could be purchased as well.
|
| Maybe? Not really? If you're already part of that social
| circle and socio-economic status (SES), you don't have to
| buy it. If you're not already in that that SES, then
| building elite connections requires quite a bit of
| cultivation that, imho, is not easy for most college-aged
| kids to pull off, largely due to ignorance of SES/class
| distinctions in the US.
| RajT88 wrote:
| Checking a box is not how real power and influence works.
| Yes, donations are a big one.
|
| But also, those off-the-books social connections are
| another one (how big/common is this - we'll never know -
| that's the point). Making sure the college president
| knows who you are, and that you have 14 other family
| members who are alums. Oh look, my son is applying now
| too, just letting you know!
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > I would add a generic "culture fit" component to each
| candidate score which you could use as a hedge to admit
| legacies without calling them as such.
|
| This is not new. This is a battle as old as time.
|
| Want to keep out poor people? Require them to live on
| campus instead of locally at home. Want to keep out the
| wrong kind of person? Start requiring college essays to get
| a "culture fit". Or add "geographic diversity" to get less
| NYC Jews, or require "well rounded" candidates that do more
| than pass tests to keep out Asian Americans. Or conduct
| interviews so you can see their race in-person without
| asking for it on a form.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_and_higher_educa
| t...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_for_Fair_Admissions_
| v...
| like_any_other wrote:
| Before wringing our hands too much about antisemitism or
| anti-Asian prejudice in universities, this is what the
| demographics of the Ivy League looked like in 2023:
|
| https://archive.org/download/ivy_league/ivy_league.png
| sequoia wrote:
| The point of this law is to reward merit and hard work
| and discourage universities from offering back-doors for
| wealthy donors and alums. The point of it is to encourage
| _fairness._
|
| Unless you're suggesting that Asians are overrepresented
| because their parents are part of an elite old-boys
| network that gives them an unfair advantage, I think
| you're missing the point here. If you want to suppress
| the number of Asians in school because their numbers at
| ivies are out of proportion with their numbers in the
| broader population, it sounds like you want _more_
| legacy-style admissions rules, not fewer. Maybe this is
| what you 're suggesting and I just I'm just
| misunderstanding you.
| like_any_other wrote:
| I'm not suggesting anything, just adding needed context
| to the discussion. E.g. if you want to suggest that these
| institutions are rife with systemic white supremacy, be
| my guest. Just include in your assertions explanations
| for why there are, per capita, 8x as many Asians, 11x as
| many Jews, and 1.4x as many Blacks, as there are non-
| Jewish Whites, in the Ivies, despite Whites' many
| privileges.
|
| Edit: Self-selection is at best an incomplete
| explanation. It fails to explain how, when comparing non-
| Jewish Whites vs Blacks, Whites' 177-point average SAT-
| score _lead_ results in a 1.4x admission _penalty_.
| Meanwhile Asians ' 73-point lead over Whites becomes an
| 8x admission advantage.
|
| Scoring well on the SAT is an advantage for other groups,
| but somehow a _disadvantage_ for non-Jewish Whites.
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| Legacies are not well allocated distributions either
| according to per capita numbers.
| bawolff wrote:
| Arguments like this lead to universities severely
| discriminating against jews in the not so distant past.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota
| like_any_other wrote:
| I haven't made any arguments, I just presented the data.
| slt2021 wrote:
| self-selection.
|
| The population that applies to Ivies is completely
| different from the overall population, and different from
| the population that gets admitted to Ivies.
|
| If there were no requirements to be admitted to Harvard,
| any tom dick and harry could send his application - only
| then you can reasonably conclude that the admitted
| population _should_ reflect the overall population.
|
| But because there are requirements like SAT GPA etc,
| there is some filtering happening and population that
| apply is slightly different.
|
| But the affirmative action zealots require that the
| admitted population _must_ represent the overall
| population, despite the fact that incoming applications
| have completely different distribution IQ /SAT/GPA/race
| wise.
|
| This leads to discrimination, where White/Asian admits,
| who are overrepresented among applications with high
| scores, are clamped at certain threshold and then other
| races are selected with whatever grades they have
| 512 wrote:
| It's not clear what your point is exactly. It's still
| possible that Asians, despite being overrepresented,
| receive some sort of penalty in admissions.
| ryan_j_naughton wrote:
| > require "well rounded" candidates that do more than
| pass tests to keep out Asian Americans
|
| While I agree with you that vague assessments like "well
| roundedness" can and have been use for racial
| discrimination in the past (both intentionally and
| unintentionally), it doesn't mean we should throw the
| baby out with the bathwater and solely use standardized
| tests or test scores to determine admissions.
|
| There is critical value in assessing these hard to
| measure qualities for creating a student body. Each
| student in the university is not simply consuming an
| educational good in isolation from one another but is
| also offering their experience and perspective to the
| community. Having everyone maxed out on test scores at
| the expense of such diversity would be a travesty to the
| thing that makes campus life vibrant.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > This is a battle against powerful people
|
| Powerful institutions especially.
|
| USC is the primary political powerbroker in Los Angeles (and
| by extension Southern California, and thus by extension all
| of California).
|
| They're the largest land developer and one of the larger
| employers in Los Angeles (city and county), and both Democrat
| and Republican mayoral candidates make sure not to cross
| USC's path, and USC has been caught in LA corruption scandals
| multiple times due to this [0][1][2][3][4]
|
| [0] -
| https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-09-11/usc-
| la-m...
|
| [1] -
| https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-12-19/lapd-
| chi...
|
| [2] - https://www.justice.gov/usao-cdca/pr/mark-ridley-
| thomas-foun...
|
| [3] - https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-usc-
| george-ty...
|
| [4] - https://documents.latimes.com/los-angeles-memorial-
| coliseum/
|
| -------
|
| Anecdotally, I and my SO seriously considered doing part-time
| grad programs at USC (something EngMgmt or CS for me and
| Medical for my SO) because of the legacy+donor boost
| (specifically donating to the Athletic Fund, Association
| Chairman Fund, Widney Society, Parent Teacher Circle, and a
| couple other donor programs) which could help any kids we
| might have in the future.
|
| It's not "that" expensive to donate to USC to get the donor
| boost assuming your kid isn't an idiot - it's just a couple
| million total over a consistent period (5-15 years depending
| on when your kid is starting).
|
| Glad to see we probably don't need to worry about that
| anymore, as I expect penalties for offending private schools
| to become stringent over the next 30 years, as us Latinos and
| Asians are underrepresented in legacy admissions but are now
| the plurality in California but also a swing demographic.
|
| We're much happier spending a similar amount in actual
| philanthropy instead.
| csa wrote:
| > It's not "that" expensive to donate to USC to get the
| donor boost assuming your kid isn't an idiot - it's just a
| couple million total over a consistent period (5-15 years
| depending on when your kid is starting).
|
| Do you think your kid will need a $2m+ boost to get into
| USC?
|
| Imho, the degree will largely be wasted on a student not
| smart enough or not motivated enough to get in without that
| help.
|
| The folks who already run around in moneyed/connected
| circles have plenty of less rigorous college options that
| still provide access to social capital, and it's trivially
| easy to get into some masters programs at USC if the
| student is willing to pay and wants the badge (fwiw, this
| is largely true at HYPS schools as well).
| beart wrote:
| > It's not "that" expensive to donate to USC to get the
| donor boost assuming your kid isn't an idiot - it's just a
| couple million total over a consistent period (5-15 years
| depending on when your kid is starting).
|
| That is a staggering amount of money!
|
| > According to research published by the National Library
| of Medicine and the Social Security Administration, the
| lifetime earnings of the average U.S. citizen (over 50
| years from age 20 to 69) vary substantially, depending on
| the various factors we will cover in this article, with an
| overall average median lifetime earnings of $1,850,000 for
| men and $1,100,200 for women.
|
| https://www.theknowlesgroup.org/blog/average-american-
| lifeti...
| bobthepanda wrote:
| There are also laws that primarily rely on adversarial lawyer
| enforcement, even without the possibility of monetary damages
| from the defendants.
|
| The most famous example of a law that gets enforced this way
| is the ADA.
| hammock wrote:
| >You get put on a naughty list.
|
| Might actually help kids pick where to apply and where not to,
| in the unintended way. Which institutions are meritocratic at
| best or "woke captured" at worst, and which are invested in
| perpetuating a ruling class
| whatever1 wrote:
| They could also stop state backed research funding
| odo1242 wrote:
| Heck, they could stop administrative fees (fees the
| university gets to itself) on state backed research funding
| at legacy schools and it would probably be very effective lol
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| The naughty list might actually work if they were required to
| report a demographic breakdown of the legacy admission as well.
| It would probably be extremely bad PR to point out 93% of
| students given a free entry pass were white.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Stanford 2023 incoming class was 23% white, so the change in
| legacy policy will primarily impact future non-white children
| of non-white Stanford graduates. This is a win for fairness,
| not much more.
|
| https://facts.stanford.edu/academics/undergraduate-profile/
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Sure, but based on when college educated people have their
| first child on average, the average legacy admitted student
| in 2024 probably has a parent that graduated in the
| mid-90s.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| I don't when Stanford started being majority non-white,
| but at least 20 years ago, and probably in the 90s. It
| was 41% white in 2006. Whenever the date was, it is a
| benefit that is been accruing to mostly non-White
| graduates for a long time, and about the time they get to
| use it, it is gone. It is good for fairness, but don't
| know that race should even be a part of the winner/loser
| discussion.
| paxys wrote:
| Is it even about shame? Universities are _proud_ of having
| multiple generations of (wealthy) families attend, and will go
| out of their way to advertise it.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I see that as legitimate. Especially for lesser known
| colleges.
| throwawaymaths wrote:
| Yeah that sucks. I'm all for private institutions doing
| whatever they feel like, but schools like Stanford get a _lot_
| of privileges from the state, e.g. they have a charter of
| incorporation to have their own city. The state could revoke
| the city charter and revert jurisprudence to the county, for
| example.
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I think reframing it as a consumer protection disclosure is
| fine
|
| Maybe they only way for them to mandate it was to only gain
| leverage after an action was found, as opposed to forcing them
| to report the action
| ninetyninenine wrote:
| It's possible to sue now. That's my guess. They just wont get a
| lawsuit from the DA.
|
| For example if I'm a clearly qualified and another person
| clearly less qualified then me gets in to Stanford but has a
| father who donated... I can sue for that because the school
| would be in violation of the law.
|
| The listed name will clearly mark the school as a violator of
| the law.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| This is a good incremental step though. Once some colleges are
| on the list, it'll be easier to stir up some populist rancor.
| RajT88 wrote:
| > Will be interesting to see how important that is to the
| selective universities in the state. I don't see how being
| named and shamed on an official government website is much
| different than the status quo of being named and shamed in a
| media report on legacy admissions.
|
| That government website will become ammunition for bad press,
| which will be driven by disgruntled parents (of which there are
| many). The list itself they don't care about, it'll be the
| downstream actors who do something with it which will create
| the problems.
|
| Once those problems start landing, the schools will change
| their behavior to get off that list (but continue their
| selective admission shenanigans however possible).
| pyuser583 wrote:
| There are plenty of lists of "bad colleges" that are
| laughable.
| someperson wrote:
| Tangentially the US immigration system also has "legacy
| admissions" (called family based immigration)
| paxys wrote:
| As does US citizenship
| blitzar wrote:
| Tangentially the US immigration system also has "legacy
| admissions" (called Immigrant Investor Program)
| pimlottc wrote:
| Not going to the same college as your parents is not in the
| same league as not being able to live in the same country.
| mainecoder wrote:
| Yeah Americans should be able to bring their parents to the US,
| they should be able to bring their kids, their SPOUSE ans
| sponser their siblings.
|
| In addition a rich person should be able to BUY the GREEN CARD
| OUTRIGHT at a SET price the investor process is so tiring just
| set the price and sell it without this investor stuff which
| wastes time because people what to do other things with the
| money just set a price that goes straight to the IRS and get
| the green card mailed.
| xpl wrote:
| _> just set the price and sell it without this investor
| stuff_
|
| Another idea is not to set an arbitrary fixed price, but to
| auction green cards off, with a limited annual cap. So the
| market would decide the price (the highest bidder wins).
| mullingitover wrote:
| If this 'ban' doesn't mean they lose their tax exempt status if
| they flout it, it's not really a ban.
| tick_tock_tick wrote:
| The California legislator is just pissed that we the people keep
| voting "wrong". They've been grumpy ever since we voted down
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_16
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Prop 16 wouldn't have touched, and Prop 209 doesn't touch,
| private universities.
| Molitor5901 wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with this, only because it's a private
| university. Public, no question, ban legacy admissions. But
| private? Maybe goes a step too far.
| paxys wrote:
| Stanford received $1.82 billion in public funding in 2023 for
| research alone. The "private" in its name is meaningless. Top
| private universities in the country receive as much or more
| government support than state schools.
| isatty wrote:
| For research. That's not welfare. Research funding is a merit
| and application based process with multiple reviewers. This
| is the same for every university or professor.
| imzadi wrote:
| What if it is just removing state funding from those schools?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The law:
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.x...
| finnthehuman wrote:
| By enforcing fairness in the process, it perpetuates the con that
| the process and its result are worthwhile.
| legitster wrote:
| I get annoyed by legacy admissions as much as the next guy, but
| this strikes me as problematic. An institutions' membership or
| selection criteria is pretty fundamental to their right to exist.
|
| Especially when the whole point of a "private" university is
| their exclusivity. Not only that they will lose their appeal in
| the first place, this has the potential to really mess up their
| endowments.
|
| It's an ironic problem because California's public colleges
| already have an exclusivity problem.
| Zigurd wrote:
| If private universities are doing actual important research,
| it's government funded. This is a reasonable condition of
| funding.
|
| Your other point is valid though: Public universities could set
| an example and compete more effectively for students who would
| otherwise go to a private university by increasing capacity.
| vineyardmike wrote:
| > If private universities are doing actual important
| research, it's government funded. This is a reasonable
| condition of funding.
|
| Sure, but most of that research is done by actual employees,
| who were (presumably) already hired in line with hiring law.
|
| > Public universities could set an example and compete more
| effectively for students who would otherwise go to a private
| university by increasing capacity.
|
| This is certainly already the case. UC's are way bigger than
| private schools, and already some of the best schools in the
| nation. Could be even bigger, I guess.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _institutions ' membership or selection criteria is pretty
| fundamental to their right to exist_
|
| Private universities enjoy tremendous benefits on account of
| their public benefits. If they want to have virtual sovereignty
| in how they admit students, they should be taxed and regulated
| like any other business.
| jessriedel wrote:
| legister is claiming this essentially threatens the
| _existence_ of Stanford in something like it's current form.
| Whether that's true can certainly be debated, but it seems
| glib to say "if Stanford has to be crushed or radically
| transformed, so be it; nothing is more important than
| government-style admission procedures". I think one needs to
| actually argue that it won't be that damaging.
| legitster wrote:
| Not sure if I understand the argument - private universities
| are still non-profit organizations and wouldn't be subject to
| business taxes.
|
| If anything, non-profits generally have less responsibility.
| The Anti-Defamation League should not be forced to admit
| anti-Semites. You wouldn't expect Planned Parenthood to be
| forced to admit anti-abortion providers.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _private universities are still non-profit organizations
| and wouldn 't be subject to business taxes_
|
| Charities have to disclose _quid pro quo_ contributions in
| a way universities do not [1]. That 's before we get to the
| favourable land use, permitting and employment protections
| (see: grad students) universities enjoy, or the student
| financial aid grants California provides private-university
| students or research grants and contracts it gives it.
|
| > _Anti-Defamation League should not be forced to admit
| anti-Semites_
|
| You're conflating being forced to admit people with certain
| characteristics with a ban on considering certain
| characteristics during admission. Very different. The
| analog would be the ADL not being allowed to ask applicants
| about their views on anti-Semitism, which is significantly
| less oppressive than what you suggest.
|
| [1] https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/charitable-
| organiz...
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| But you _would_ expect doctors and hospitals to admit
| pharmaceutical and biomedical sponsorships, and you _would_
| expect accounting firms to admit conflicts of interests,
| and you _would_ expect etc. etc.
|
| Being a non-profit doesn't really have anything to do with
| whether or not the law can demand transparency.
| anon291 wrote:
| Businesses are taxed because they produce income by
| distributing dividends to shareholders. If you tax Stanford
| et al to punish them for legacy (I am categorically against
| legacy admits, BTW), then you'd have to allow them to declare
| dividends and distribute to their shareholders. Fair is fair.
| Truthfully, I doubt Stanford would care.
| bluGill wrote:
| There are a lot of private universities most nobody cares
| about. Without looking it up what is your opinion of Drake
| university? I'm sore most of us the answer is 'who'. (i hadn't
| heard of them either until I moved nearby. they claim they are
| great but who knows - not me)
|
| most of us have heard good things about stanford. They won't
| lose any reputation because that isn't what it is built on.
| Drake isn't in california but even if they were not being on
| this list (if they are not I don't know) wouldn't make anyone
| not go.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Especially when the whole point of a "private" university is
| their exclusivity. Not only that they will lose their appeal in
| the first place, this has the potential to really mess up their
| endowments.
|
| Tell that to MIT or CMU - both of whom do NOT accept legacy
| admissions on principle (George Eastman and Andrew Carnegie
| being self made men).
|
| They're both doing fine.
| whyenot wrote:
| > It's an ironic problem because California's public colleges
| already have an exclusivity problem.
|
| Can you please go into a little more detail about the irony you
| see, because as someone who works at a public university, it's
| not obvious to me.
| legitster wrote:
| UC Berkley and UCLA for example have ridiculously low
| admittance percentages.
|
| These are public universities, but you are still more likely
| to get into a private university, legacy admissions or not.
| anon291 wrote:
| That's ... fine. Any California grade with a certain GPA is
| guaranteed admission into the UC system, which is well-
| regarded on its own.
| throwup238 wrote:
| They're tax exempt organizations. I don't think they have a
| "right to exist" nor to have absolute control of association
| just like we don't allow their directors to self deal.
|
| They are _allowed_ to exist because they provide the public a
| benefit, which is degraded by legacy admissions depriving the
| deserving members of the general public of those slots.
| seneca wrote:
| > They are allowed to exist because they provide the public a
| benefit
|
| This is radical authoritarian nonsense. The government, and
| society at large, do not allow institutions to exist. People
| are, by default, able to create and organize whatever they
| want. Laws place restrictions on the ranges where, arguably,
| reasonable.
|
| Your argument inverts that and claims that individuals are
| allowed nothing but what is granted to them by the
| government. This is radically un-American, and against the
| basis if all modern western thought. Societies based on ideas
| like yours are regressive jails for their citizens.
| jltsiren wrote:
| Institutions, as legal entities, are created by government
| regulations. In the absence of such regulations, all
| organizations would be based on voluntary contracts between
| private individuals. And the people forming the
| organization, regardless of whether you call them members,
| shareholders, or trustees, would ultimately be fully
| responsible for the actions of the organization.
| sangnoir wrote:
| Your reply is reductive: Stanford is not some run-of-the-
| mill LLC - they have a charter legislated into state law,
| granting _privileges_ not given(!) to most other self-
| organized groups in the state. Saying this is not
| authoritarian - that 's just stating historical fact.
|
| You and a few billionaire friends can't incorporate, buy
| land and automatically have the legal cover that Stanford
| has; so no, Stanford has no right to exist in _it 's
| current, highly privileged form_
| throwup238 wrote:
| They're _tax exempt_. If they want to throw off the yoke of
| so-called authoritarianism, they 're free to reincorporate
| as public benefit corporations and pay taxes on all the
| capital they've been hoarding.
| moomin wrote:
| " When you're accustomed to privilege, equality feels like
| oppression."
| kristopolous wrote:
| The students are people who work really hard and those who were
| born right.
|
| That second group, why are they there?
|
| Let's not let some abstract amorphous principle about some
| legal fiction prevent us from fixing things.
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| > The students are people who work really hard and those who
| were born right.
|
| You forgot the third group: those that got a free pass due to
| diversity hiring. These didn't need to work hard at all.
| Spivak wrote:
| That's not how this works at all. Do you think someone with
| a 2.5 GPA in high-school and not much else outside that is
| getting into Harvard because they're hispanic or whatever?
|
| They're sitting on a stack of applicants to the ceiling of
| 4.2 GPAs and good looking extracurriculars and volunteer
| work of all backgrounds. Literally all of them meeting the
| bar to be successful at $PrestigiousUniversity. Affirmative
| action is choosing how to pick from that stack.
| cortesoft wrote:
| They are still free to choose their membership however they
| want.
|
| The 'punishment' for breaking this law is to be listed on a
| website, so no one is stopping these schools from doing
| whatever they want, they will just be on a public list.
| bjourne wrote:
| > I get annoyed by legacy admissions as much as the next guy,
| but this strikes me as problematic. An institutions' membership
| or selection criteria is pretty fundamental to their right to
| exist.
|
| Eh, it's pretty fundamental to KKK's right to exist! Businesses
| (e.g., US colleges) have to comply with Title VII of the Civil
| Rights Acts which curtail what they can set as their selection
| criteria.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| Title VII has nothing to do with legacy admissions.
| legitster wrote:
| Civil Rights Act only excludes discrimination against
| protected statuses. Organization legacies are not one of
| them.
| mayneack wrote:
| IANAL, but this is from the linked bill text:
|
| > (2) "Independent institution of higher education" means a
| nonpublic higher education institution that grants
| undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees, or both, that is
| formed as a nonprofit corporation in this state, that is
| accredited by an agency recognized by the United States
| Department of Education, and that receives, or benefits from,
| state-funded student financial assistance or that enrolls
| students who receive state-funded student financial assistance.
|
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billCompareClient.x...
|
| Seems like an institution is free to be fully private (not take
| state funded financial aid) and do whatever they want.
| legitster wrote:
| That's kind of a weird distinction because my understanding
| is that the Cal Grants go to the student. The intent of the
| program is that it goes to the student's choice of qualifying
| institution. The state is free to rewrite their eligibility
| requirements however they want.
|
| I'm not sure if the intended outcome here is that Standford
| stops accepting low income students on financial assistance.
| Duwensatzaj wrote:
| For example, Hillsdale College and Grove City College do not
| accept government financial support so they're not bound by
| various legal requirements.
| cherryteastain wrote:
| Every private university takes tons of public cash for
| research. The most prestigious and exclusive private
| universities take the greatest amount public research funding.
| If an institution wants to play the "but we're private!" card,
| I'd say let them, but only if it means they are not eligible
| for public research funding.
| IvyMike wrote:
| I went to a state school, but I understood that the system in the
| Ivy League is:
|
| The smart kids get to take advantage of the rich kid's money and
| access, and rich kids get to take advantage of the smart kid's
| smartness. Depending on your point of view this is symbiotic or
| parasitic, but either way, it's a big part of why they have
| legacy admissions.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| That's the beauty of the system. It's mutually beneficial.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| Is it? It seems like the rich kids are still playing a heads
| I win tails you lose game with the smart kids.
| zanellato19 wrote:
| If those were the only two kinds of people who existed, sure.
| mtv43 wrote:
| Never change, HN.
| dclowd9901 wrote:
| This is a fun platitude but what does it actually mean? How
| does this... relationship play out?
| cthalupa wrote:
| Rich kid's tuition and endowments from their families fund
| the school to a high level allowing them to pay for highly
| talented individuals and prestigious research. They might not
| do as well academically, but still get to trade on the name
| of having gone to the school
|
| Smart kids get in on scholarships and grants and help uphold
| the prestige of the university name while getting access to
| the highly talented professors. They are able to take
| advantage of this access, do well in the school, and have
| prestigious results in the real world, move on to be involved
| in that prestigious research, etc.
|
| You also have the elbow rubbing of the moneyed elite with
| people that might be very well suited to take that money and
| help grow it to even larger levels.
|
| That's the idea, anyway. Whether or not it's reality, I don't
| know. I didn't attend an Ivy League (or quasi-Ivy League in
| Stanford's case) school. They also of course receive
| significant money from the government via grants as well, so
| it's not entirely all coming from the pockets of the rich.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Rich kid 's tuition and endowments from their families
| fund the school to a high level allowing them to pay for
| highly talented individuals and prestigious research_
|
| Are you predicting donations to Stanford and USC will
| crater to a level that existentially threatens either
| institution?
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| God don't threaten me with a good time...
| cthalupa wrote:
| I'm predicting nothing. I replied to someone who asked
| for further clarification on how this theory is supposed
| to work.
|
| I haven't put enough thought into it to have strong
| feelings one way or the other - I'm just aware of the
| argument being made.
| mushufasa wrote:
| yep it pretty much works this way in practice. can confirm.
| bsimpson wrote:
| It's wild that the shorthand for "good school" is what
| sports division some schools in/around Massachusetts are
| in.
| reducesuffering wrote:
| It's intelligence signal laundering. Take 80% really smart
| people. Now pay $$$ to throw your rich kid in. Out comes 5
| Harvard degrees. Your rich kid looks smart now.
| csa wrote:
| That's a great question.
|
| Here is a good example:
|
| A friend of mine from a humble background in Michigan decided
| he wanted to go to NYC and make it in finance. He eventually
| did.
|
| After paying his dues in lower-ranked jobs in finance, some
| of his professional acquaintances were starting a hedge fund,
| and a key part of their strategy had to do with parts
| suppliers to Detroit car manufacturers.
|
| They immediately realized that they needed a "local" to be
| their boots on the ground there. Northeast corridor (NEC)
| elites may have high social standing in the NEC, but they
| come across as pompous city slickers outside of the NEC.
| People were reluctant to share information with them due to
| lack of trust. My friend was able to develop that trust, so
| he was basically a go between for the Michigan parts
| suppliers and the NYC financiers.
|
| That symbiotic/parasitic relationship netted him an 8-figure
| exit and an early retirement in his 40s, with a comparable
| bump for his NEC-born partners.
| paxys wrote:
| California does not have any Ivy League universities.
| slater wrote:
| Stanford?
| nilespotter wrote:
| California does not have any Ivy League universities.
| tacticalturtle wrote:
| The Ivy League is a northeastern athletic conference:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League
| vectorhacker wrote:
| Stanford was setup by people who came from that tradition.
| karaterobot wrote:
| True, but that was not their point, and correcting it does
| not affect their point.
| ransom1538 wrote:
| Why are you downvoted? California does not have any Ivy
| League universities.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| unfortunately for this narrative, there are lots of smart rich
| people, for obvious reasons
| ayakang31415 wrote:
| The problem with this approach is that the private universities
| still get benefits of federal funding through student aids and
| research grants. If no federal money was used for the
| undergraduate students, I would have no problem with this.
| Private university can do whatever they want with their
| admission as long as no public money is spent on the admission
| process and the admitted students.
| throwup238 wrote:
| The funding and grants mostly benefit the students and
| researchers though.
|
| The bigger problem is their endowments and tax exempt status.
| The amount of wealth going through top universities is
| insane, with schools like Stanford and Harvard becoming
| appendages to giant hedge funds.
| odo1242 wrote:
| To add, a lot of universities will reimburse
| education/administrative/maintenance fees on top of
| research contracts, so about 30% of the money they get for
| research actually doesn't go towards research. While this
| is old, there was a 1988 event where a Stanford
| administrator bought a yacht from research funds.
| ayakang31415 wrote:
| I don't care how the money is spent as long as it is their
| money. But the federal funding is not; it is tax payer's
| money. Tax money should be allocated based on decision made
| by the congress, which is the will of the people in the
| country. but to me it looks like the tax money the private
| universities get is spent on their terms, not the citizen.
| throw4847285 wrote:
| Luckily, one of the greatest movies of the 21st century is
| about this very dynamic. It's called The Social Network. It has
| very little to do with the real historical personage of Mark
| Zuckerberg but it totally captures the toxic parasitic
| relationship between the upwardly mobile regular rich kids and
| the aristocracy at an institution like Harvard. It doesn't end
| well for anybody.
| ralph84 wrote:
| It ended spectacularly well for all of the people who got
| Facebook equity.
| shemtay wrote:
| Also, the presence of multigenerational participants in an
| institution help it to develop unique traditions and culture
| that improve it in ways that are hard to articulate and
| measure, which I will artlessly describe as the opposite of the
| feeling you get from going to the DMV to renew your driver's
| license.
| elintknower wrote:
| Great, now actually follow through and deliver on the state's
| promise to do away with affirmative action as well.
|
| You should be admitted due to your brain, not race or legacy.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| I'm beginning to question how feasible it is to enforce these
| non-discrimination laws in university admissions. Yale's first
| class after SFFA vs. Harvard saw a dip in Asian enrollment,
| despite ample evidence to suggest that removal of race-based
| affirmative action would show in an increase in Asian enrollment
| [1]. Universities had previously insisted that race-based
| affirmative action was the only way to maintain appreciable
| amounts of diverse students. Yet after its removal, the only
| ethnic group that saw a significant decline was Asians.
|
| 1. https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2024/09/04/in-first-yale-
| clas....
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _the only ethnic group that saw a significant decline was
| Asians_
|
| Eyeballing the chart, the decline looks indistinguishable from
| noise. About all we can conclude is no significant effect.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| But this isn't just a typical year. This immediately after
| racial discrimination was banned. Yale had previously
| insisted that absent race-based affirmative action there'd be
| an even larger overrepresentation of Asians and reduction in
| diverse student enrollment. This is what was observed at
| other universities, like MIT [1].
|
| Instead the group that the Supreme Court had determined was
| being discriminated against in SFFA vs. Harvard saw a
| _decline_ when this discrimination was (supposedly) removed.
|
| Imagine a company is taken to court and found to have been
| discriminating against women. They insist that they've
| resolved the discrimination, but next year their number of
| women hired is even lower. That doesn't look suspicious at
| all?
|
| 1. Before racial discrimination was prohibited:
| https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/composite-profile/
|
| 2. After: https://mitadmissions.org/apply/process/profile/
| tourmalinetaco wrote:
| It's literally not statistically significant at all.
| Numbers of students ebb and flow, as does their makeup.
| Asians are no less represented than they were a few years
| ago, if you believe that non-affirmative action is "racist"
| then how do you explain the previous dips when AA was still
| around?
| Manuel_D wrote:
| For the third time, you're ignoring the fact that this
| the the first year of admissions _after racial
| discrimination was banned_. Many other elite institutions
| saw rises in admissions of Asian applicants. The courts
| found that race based affirmative action suppressed Asian
| representation. Attributing the decline to noise and
| ignoring the fact that this is the first year that anti-
| asian discrimination was supposedly banned is a very
| naive analysis.
|
| Again: Imagine a company is taken to court and found to
| have been discriminating against women. They insist that
| they've resolved the discrimination, but next year their
| number of women hired is even lower. That doesn't look
| suspicious at all?
| whimsicalism wrote:
| > It's literally not statistically significant at all
|
| You have no basis on which to make that claim at all. We
| cannot infer the variance from this chart.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _We cannot infer the variance from this chart_
|
| We _can_ observe similar drops in Asians ' share of
| admission, as well as similar levels, before the race-
| neutral treatment began. That's enough to, at a glance,
| dismiss this as evidence of anything _per se_.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| It's really these sorts of charts that we should be looking
| at:
|
| https://www.thecrimson.com/widget/2018/10/21/sat-by-race-
| gra...
|
| If at Yale it still looks anything like that, I suspect it is
| likely race is still implicitly being considered.
| nostromo wrote:
| There is an administrative "deep state" (for lack of a less-
| loaded word) at all American institutions: government,
| corporate, non-profit, etc.
|
| Corporations and governments and other institutions first and
| foremost serve themselves. Changes in laws and leadership are
| often helpless against an army of creative legal teams, adverse
| middle-managers, and just general bureaucratic resistance.
|
| A new CEO, a new president, a new law, a new supreme court
| ruling -- they'll move the needle a lot if the bureaucracy is
| motivated to change, but will barely move the needle at all if
| not.
|
| I once worked for a CEO and he would frequently talk about how
| it was nearly impossible to change his own company. This wasn't
| even a large company. He just knew that certain ideas would
| meet bureaucratic resistance and would be slow walked until
| they died on the vine -- even if the change was the right one.
| anon291 wrote:
| It's the same reasons why corporate profits go up during
| inflation despite the actual cost of production staying flat.
| This was not the case in every sector, but it was in some.
| Contrary to popular belief. There are bad actors.
|
| While we like to attribute bad actors motivation to purely
| money, in reality, people jockey for status in many more ways
| than money. Money is just an obvious measurement of status for
| which people will compete. In university admissions departments
| and non-profits, a different set of rules governs status and
| people who are status seeking in these environments may act out
| in different ways.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| The reason profits go up during inflation is because
| inflation increases demand which (given fixed supply)
| increases the price markets will bear. In a competitive
| market, firms will generally always price at what the market
| can bear. Pricing what the market will bear does not make you
| a bad actor.
|
| This is completely unrelated to affirmative action.
| anon291 wrote:
| it is related to why asian admissions went down after
| affirmative action bans. Some people hold grudges / want to
| take advantage.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| Are they status seeking or are they holding grudges?
| Grudges aren't why companies raised prices during
| inflation.
| jgalt212 wrote:
| Billionaires fking over the millionaires and middle class yet
| again. Just like their other worn down cudgels ESG and DEI.
| debacle wrote:
| I'm not a favor of legacy admissions. One of our former
| presidents was clearly a legacy admission and that didn't work
| out well for us.
|
| But legacy admissions to private institutions
| seems...exceptionally legal.
| kelnos wrote:
| Everything becomes blurry when institutions accept public
| funding (for research, etc.) as well as accepting tax breaks or
| exemption status.
|
| I'm of the opinion that we actually require far too little of
| organizations that accept public money. We should be getting
| more public-good guarantees to go along with that money. (I'm
| thinking stuff like: any research done with public funding
| should have free-to-access results, published under a
| permissive copyleft-like license.)
| nemo44x wrote:
| The entire reason you want your smart kid to go to these schools
| is so they can become friends with the rich kids from a legacy
| family. By banning the rich kids from them it makes the entire
| institution useless.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _entire reason you want your smart kid to go to these schools
| is so they can become friends with the rich kids from a legacy
| family. By banning the rich kids from them it makes the entire
| institution useless._
|
| Yeah, kids and parents with this motivation aren't those we
| want affiliated with our top universities.
| alexdw_mgzi wrote:
| Without networking opportunities, what possible incentive
| would there be to attend a top university? Especially if you
| aren't directly performing research, you can gain most or all
| of the benefits of a top-dollar education these days by
| reading the necessary literature online.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Without networking opportunities, what possible
| incentive would there be to attend a top university?_
|
| You're describing someone with zero intellectual curiosity
| and only a base form of ambition.
|
| The networking matters. But it's not just about meeting
| legacy families or donors' kids. And broadly speaking, the
| people who are in a room just to meet the rich people
| and/or their kids are plainly obvious from a distance. If a
| kid got into an elite school with that attitude and
| upbringing, one of the most useful things they might learn
| is to grow past it.
|
| > _you can gain most or all of the benefits of a top-dollar
| education these days by reading the necessary literature
| online_
|
| No, you cannot replicate being taught by one of the
| brightest minds in a field by reading their published work.
| alexdw_mgzi wrote:
| > You're describing someone with zero intellectual
| curiosity and only a base form of ambition.
|
| If attending university was merely a means of satisfying
| your intellectual curiosity, we wouldn't be concerned
| about legacy admissions. The problem is that a university
| education is seen as the only viable path to a good life
| and a good career, and elite universities being one of
| the few paths to membership in Western society's elite
| class. So in effect, a lot of young people are pushed
| into getting a university education so that they can have
| a good life.
|
| > No, you cannot replicate being taught by one of the
| brightest minds in a field by reading their published
| work.
|
| Personal mentorship by one of the brightest minds in a
| field is indeed difficult to replicate with YouTube
| videos and online courses.
|
| Undergraduate-level lectures taught by bored TA's? Video
| lectures are almost certainly a superior alternative --
| especially if the student actually has that intellectual
| curiosity and initiative.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _elite universities being one of the few paths to
| membership in Western society 's elite class_
|
| One of the first lessons of the classics is in the danger
| to a society of empowering only those with the most base
| ambitions. To the degree we have elite rot in America,
| it's largely perpetuated by incredibly-wealthy idiot
| dynasties.
|
| More pragmatically, look at our current crop of elites.
| What fraction got there by being proximate to an elite's
| kid in college (versus simply becoming conversant with
| money)?
|
| > _Undergraduate-level lectures taught by bored TA 's_
|
| One, this doesn't describe most classes at Stanford or
| USC. Two, I went to a public university. Behind the bored
| TA is a professor with office hours, research they need
| help with and internship connections.
| alexdw_mgzi wrote:
| Definitely agree that empowering those who's only desire
| is power is not a desirable outcome. As for the current
| crop of elites, I get the impression that there is a
| clear split between business elites and political elites.
| Wealthy but foolish kids are of only limited benefit in
| the world of business, but in politics knowing some
| senator's son opens a lot of doors. (This is not a
| desirable outcome, of course.)
|
| To the extent that eliminating legacies disrupts this
| pipeline, great. The world does not need another
| President Bush.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _To the extent that eliminating legacies disrupts this
| pipeline, great_
|
| This is the root of my thinking on it. The heritability
| of power should not be materially more than the
| heritability of IQ.
| nemo44x wrote:
| America is actually really good at circulating elites.
| You can't be the most powerful country the world has ever
| seen for considerable time without it. It's not practical
| to expect the circulation to cycle in a generation
| though. But it will in due time.
|
| I agree that the system has to allow for elite cycling
| but I probably disagree on the healthy timeframe.
| nemo44x wrote:
| You have it backwards. It's not for smart kids to find
| rich people. It's for rich people to find smart kids.
| searealist wrote:
| Note that they also banned affirmative action admissions, but
| they don't enforce it.
| Animats wrote:
| It's not that big a deal for California schools. Stanford is 14%
| legacy admits. Harvard and Princeton, though, are about 30%
| legacy admits.
| olliej wrote:
| I feel "banning" legacy admissions is not a reasonable approach
| (though it sounds like the penalty for legacy admissions is being
| put on a list of schools that do legacy admissions, but I'm not
| sure how that's a penalty? we already know which schools do
| that?) - these are private institutions.
|
| I think the correct approach is to just say "No institution that
| has legacy admissions, religious restrictions, etc is eligible
| for government funding". Government/tax payer funding should not
| be going to educational institutions that are not equally
| available to all tax payers.
| kelnos wrote:
| Absolutely agreed. And I think we'll get there, honestly. This
| particular bit of legislation feels toothless because it's
| fighting against some of the most powerful, politically-
| connected people in California. But we'll slowly chip away at
| that over time. Maybe it'll take another 20 years, but
| sometimes progress is slow.
| dcchambers wrote:
| I don't understand how the government has any legs to stand up to
| enforce this? Threaten to pull accreditation if they don't
| comply?
| zackmorris wrote:
| If I were a rich kid who got accepted into college because my
| parents paid my way in, I'd be embarrassed. But that's the
| problem today - the wealthy have no shame.
|
| These laws are necessary because it's self-evident that elites
| controlling the status quo can't police themselves.
| truncate wrote:
| The blame here mostly goes to schools and system. If you are
| rich kid, you're still a kid and you see the world they way you
| were taught to see the world.
|
| In some ways it applies to rest of the community as well not
| just rich people. For example the whole school district thing
| in US; where you get to go to a better public school if you can
| afford to live in better neighborhood.
| metaphor wrote:
| > _If I were a rich kid who got accepted into college because
| my parents paid my way in, I 'd be embarrassed. But that's the
| problem today - the wealthy have no shame._
|
| At face value, entitlement was never burdened by the concept of
| shame.
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _If I were a rich kid who got accepted into college because
| my parents paid my way in, I 'd be embarrassed._
|
| I don't think the stereotype that the "rich kid" who got in was
| a C student who's absent parents just paid the right people is
| accurate. A lot of these wealthy students are more than
| qualified, the schools themselves don't have enough seats. On
| paper, they are mostly identical students, credentials-wise,
| and the legacy got in because Dad donated last semester.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| At Harvard, there are two styles of pseudo-'legacy'
| admissions: standard legacy and z-list.
|
| The z-list is very small (on the order of tens of students
| per year) but matches the stereotype.
|
| The typical non-zlist legacy student is qualified to attend
| and has test scores well above the admission median. I am not
| sure they even consider past donation history for these
| admissions. A more important factor is that they feel that
| legacies are more likely to attend vs go elsewhere (the
| 'yield rate'), which lets them lower their admission
| percentages further.
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| Historical note: meritocracy was invented - or first used in
| large scale - in Imperial China some fifteen centuries ago -
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination
|
| About a century ago you could still read American university
| stories mentioning try-hard "black shoe" students, I suppose by
| contrast with the spats-wearing and better socially connected
| ones.
| vasilipupkin wrote:
| it's a terrible idea. It will just result in all things being
| equal, fewer donations from alumni, hurting the very students
| this thing aims to help.
| motohagiography wrote:
| those wealthy people weren't taking up spots at elite schools,
| they were adding value to the spots that others competed for.
|
| it's window dressing that seems easier than dealing with the
| cheating, plagerism, and reproducability crisis' that have done
| way more harm than some wealthy kids have to the school
| reputations. half the point of going to university is to meet
| those wealthy and connected people and this ban reduces the point
| and the continuity a university provides.
| DrBenCarson wrote:
| I'm a first generation graduate of a private California
| university.
|
| I am quite annoyed my children will lose the advantages I had to
| work against to get to where I am. I succeeded against the odds
| of the legacy admissions system only to lose the advantages it
| would award my family for having done so. Long story short, it
| seems legacy admissions policies are working against me in every
| possible way.
|
| That said, I recognize this is long overdue and a positive change
| on the whole.
| olalonde wrote:
| I've always found it puzzling why universities seek information
| beyond a student's academic performance. It seems odd to me.
| Imagine if professional sports teams had "legacy admissions" or
| "affirmative action"...
| thephyber wrote:
| You haven't thought about this, have you?
|
| Money. Status.
|
| The parents of legacies are... alumni. Alumni are the same
| people who are the biggest donors, the biggest cheerleaders
| (spreading the virtues of the university to people they talk
| to), and might even participate in the university application
| process. Frequently alumni will identify high talent kids and
| encourage them to go to their favored school. The joke that
| "daddy bought the new building on campus so Johnny can attend,
| despite low grades" is a trope, but it's not wrong.
|
| Affirmative action was (1) an effort to apply similar
| representation to the university to the wider population in the
| country (2) bring more diversified experience+culture+thought
| to campus and (3) to try and level the playing field after 200+
| years of rejecting people based on things that are irrelevant
| to academic performance.
|
| You seem to think that life is entirely a contest of merit. In
| practice, large groups of people almost never value merit over
| wealth, status, exclusivity.
| nine_k wrote:
| Because what the most selective universities sell is not just
| education, which is usually solid but not necessarily top
| notch. They are selling the exclusively, the promise that the
| student will mingle with the right kind of folks. They sell
| intense networking opportunities with upwardly-mobile folks,
| and with kids from very well-off families.
|
| BTW this is also why such institutions pay so much attention
| to.extracurricular activities, clubs, sports, traditions of
| certain elaborate mischiefs, etc. These all are bonding
| mechanisms that make the alumni networks more tightly knit and
| thus more valuable to the alumni.
|
| This is a significant reason why they are glad to accept legacy
| admissions: it helps keep the links between fresh graduates and
| influential but older alumni, again making the network more
| valuable.
|
| The academic load helps keep those with weak intelligence and
| willpower away. It also provides useful knowledge and a formal
| degree, but it's sort of secondary, technical detail.
| olalonde wrote:
| I understand that's what they do, I just don't understand
| _why_. I imagine that most academics would want to favor
| academic excellence over providing a networking service for
| the rich and well-connected, but I 'm evidently wrong. I
| guess my mental model of what drives US university
| administrators is flawed. By the way, this is mostly a US
| phenomenon as far as I know.
| nine_k wrote:
| I suspect that selectivity of MIT and of Yale are not of
| the same kind.
| walrushunter wrote:
| The Los Angeles Lakers quite literally do have legacy
| admissions. They drafted LeBron James's son even though he's
| nowhere close to being an NBA-level talent just so that they
| could keep LeBron happy.
| sib wrote:
| Let's face it - a lot of universities are pretty much
| professional sports teams, so professional sports team do have
| those things...
| muaytimbo wrote:
| CA wants to control who sits on private company's boards and who
| can be admitted to private school's student bodies. Is there any
| limitation on what CA can require of a non-public entity in the
| state?
| paxys wrote:
| For everyone going on about "but they are private!!!", these
| universities receive billions of dollars in public funds every
| year. Stanford alone got $1.8 billion in federal and state grants
| in 2023, sixth highest among all universities in the country.
| Yale and Harvard are the 9th and 10th in the list. The "private"
| designation does not mean they are not supported by our taxes.
| 627467 wrote:
| Then: tie that funding to rule changes. If you want government
| funds, do as we say. Why do things the other way around?
| karaterobot wrote:
| If you're talking about research grants, those are awarded
| based on a extensive, merit-based process, and require them to
| produce research. These grants have nothing to do with student
| recruitment. You make it sound like they're receiving
| government welfare, when what they did was more like winning a
| competitive contract.
| cherryteastain wrote:
| Would you be more comfortable with the government awarding
| contracts to build bridges to a construction company that
| hires its civil engineers through family connections, or via
| a more objective and technical recruitment process?
| sub7 wrote:
| Great so I've been giving to Stanford all for nothing? How is
| this even legal private schools should be able to admit whomever
| they want and teach whatever they want. If you don't like it,
| don't apply.
|
| Legacy is a huge incentive for giving these colleges money which
| they then use to become a better college. This is a moronic law
| that I really doubt will ever be enforced, but if it is will
| result in slow degradation of educational quality over time.
| Narhem wrote:
| Always thought legacy admissions were kind of off.
| FigurativeVoid wrote:
| Let's see them do children of donors next.
| anon291 wrote:
| Many states have laws against 'false academic credentials'. It is
| illegal to claim you're a graduate of X if you never actually
| graduated for example. This is a fraud claim.
|
| In my opinion, the state should -- retroactively if possible --
| require that anyone who was admitted into a university program,
| public or private, in which legacy plays a role has to note that
| on any resume. So Joe Schmoe who went to Stanford and got a BS in
| Comp Sci, will have to write:
|
| Joe Schmoe, BS Comp Sci at Stanford (note: Stanford uses legacy
| admissions)
|
| on their resume. To not do so would be a crime, because it's
| fraudulent by the new law requiring legacy admissions to be
| correctly advertised.
|
| Universities will quickly end legacy admissions. Moreover, the
| state should probably investigate and be able to label
| universities as having legacy admissions.
|
| This law would apply to anyone who wants to do a job in
| california.
|
| This would end legacy admissions overnight, while not violating
| anyone's freedom. Universities would be free to admit students by
| legacy and grant degrees. Students would be free to tell
| employers about the degree they've earned, but california will
| make sure that the future employer has a full picture of the sort
| of institution from which they graduated.
| Duwensatzaj wrote:
| >while not violating anyone's freedom
|
| Compelled speech is a bright line violation. There are very few
| scenarios where it is allowed by American precedent, and a
| graduate's resume is absolutely not one.
|
| Note that the legacy admission reporting required here is
| dependent on the universities accepting funding. The government
| requiring reports in exchange for funding is very different
| from compelling people at gun point to include information
| about their university on resumes.
| anon291 wrote:
| Presenting false academic credentials is a crime already in
| most states. Yes, you cannot generally portray false
| credentials. The state does get to decide what form that
| might have to take. State regulation of advertising is well
| established, to prevent fraud. Employers are consumers as
| well.
| boringg wrote:
| I have a question: how many students per year get legacy status
| benefits vs how much energy time and money have we spent trying
| to figure this out?
|
| Is this a significant and continuous problem or is this some
| vanity project for a couple of politicians?
|
| Im honestly asking is this a significant enough problem and how
| this solution helps solve our education system challenges?
| 627467 wrote:
| It's really about jealousy and populist measures
| whimsicalism wrote:
| We really have no idea. There are lots of legacy admits at
| universities, but also legacy students are often pretty good
| candidates on their own. At my alma mater for instance, legacy
| students typically had better stats than the median admit.
|
| So it's hard to say how much removing legacy preference would
| change admissions.
|
| But at max, it is only affecting a few tens of thousands
| students per year.
| tedunangst wrote:
| > Those reports showed that the practice was most widespread at
| Stanford and U.S.C., where, at both schools, about 14 percent
| of students who were admitted in the fall of 2022 had legacy or
| donor connections. At Santa Clara University, Mr. Newsom's alma
| mater, 13 percent of admissions had such ties.
| OwseiWT wrote:
| gift link: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/30/us/california-bans-
| legacy...
| taeric wrote:
| I'm torn on this. At large, I'm rather against legacy admissions.
| I'm also against regulations that are not necessarily results
| oriented. To that end, incentives for education facilities should
| probably be more oriented to testing or positive research?
|
| This is like parents that get upset with kids for having a mess
| in their rooms. Which, I mean, sure? Seems a bit more appropriate
| to pay attention to school grades and such, than whether or not
| the kid is getting to sleep in a spotless room by bedtime every
| single night.
|
| Granted, if the grades are already hopeless, it can make sense to
| start with more attainable goals to start. Is that the general
| idea here?
| DrNosferatu wrote:
| What about the merit of my ancestry?
| egberts1 wrote:
| How to keep your populace dumber without a governor saying how to
| keep your populace even dumber.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| College admissions is really messed up. Both colleges and
| students are ranked numerically, and the each tries to get the
| highest scoring counterparts.
|
| This is dehumanizing to students, and makes all colleges look the
| same.
|
| The advantage of legacy admissions is they aren't going to the
| college because it's the best ranked one. They're going because
| they know that college specifically, and want that specific
| experience.
|
| This obviously doesn't apply to top tier colleges, but few
| colleges are top tier.
|
| There are ways around this. Many colleges have "side door"
| admissions policies for students who clearly are interested in
| that specific college.
|
| For example, "I want to study nuclear engineering, and your
| college is the only one in the country that has a live reactor
| for students to use" gets you fast tracked to Reed.
|
| This is completely legitimate.
|
| Of course a legacy admissions would know the side doors. Nothing
| wrong with that.
|
| But I think these rules are really intended towards elite
| colleges, ignoring the fact that few colleges are elite.
| evanb wrote:
| There are functioning reactors at a variety of institutions.
|
| In College Park https://radiation.umd.edu/reactor/
|
| In Cambridge https://nrl.mit.edu/reactor
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I haven't been applying to colleges for some time.
| hintymad wrote:
| > College admissions is really messed up
|
| I actually think that a national entrance exam (ministered by
| individual colleges or by a region is okay) is a better way for
| admission. My fundamental assumption is that the simpler a rule
| is, the harder it is to game. I understand that many people
| believe that a holistic admission is more fare to minorities or
| to economically challenged families, but I'd like to question
| that belief. Holistic admission is so opaque and complex that
| families with means will have more advantage over those who
| don't. Remember the Varsity Blues Scandal? That's just one
| example. How about getting recommendation letters from a
| congress man? Which families have a higher chance to get them?
| And all the consideration about sports? The reality is that
| sports are expensive. A family who can afford private coaches
| and frequent travel will have a huge advantage over those who
| can't. In contrast, everyone can afford good library to get
| access to world-class study materials.
|
| BTW, the ivy schools introduced holistic admission to reduce
| the admission rate of Jewish students back in the 1920s, per
| Malcom Gladwell. Just because a process is institutionalized
| does not mean that the process is fare or efficient.
| golergka wrote:
| If you have a single national exam, that all the schools are
| going to teach is this one exam, an example of horrible
| overfit. If, however, you have a diverse amount of colleges
| with different entry exams, then schools will have to teach
| the knowledge and skills required to pass all the different
| exams -- which is closer to knowledge and skills you want to
| be taught at schools to begin with.
| hintymad wrote:
| > you have a diverse amount of colleges with different
| entry exams,
|
| Yeah, that's what I meant by saying individual colleges
| ministering their exams. This is also what
| Japanese/Korean/Indian colleges do. My key point is that
| holistic admission is full of backdoors and unfairness when
| compared to entrance exams.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| The problem with non-holistic assessment is that each college
| is a very different thing.
|
| Can you imagine West Point admitting students based solely on
| their SATs? That would be insane.
|
| Many other colleges have similar identities. Some have
| specific religious identities. Others have unique cultures
| and curriculums.
|
| It's totally legitimate for a school to try to find someone
| who knows and matched the ethos of the school.
|
| For example, one college I know is does not compete with
| other colleges in athletics, but they offer "athletic-type
| scholarships" for competitive chess players.
|
| Is that so wrong?
| hintymad wrote:
| > The problem with non-holistic assessment is that each
| college is a very different thing
|
| I was actually comparing holistic admission with entrance
| exams. Individual colleges can certainly have their own
| entrance exams, just as colleges in Korea/Japan/India do.
| I'm sure holistic admission has its merits. It's just that
| I doubt that holistic admission can pick more suitable
| students than entrance exams more fairly
| hintymad wrote:
| That's great news. Now do the east coast[1]
|
| [1] My understanding is that legacy admission is more pervasive
| and takes higher percentage of admissions in the east-coast
| private colleges.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| I'm strongly opposed to any legislation that uses elite colleges
| as the "typical case."
|
| Your typical private college is a small, liberal arts college
| nobody outside the state knows exists. It's struggling
| financially, but not compromising on academics.
|
| These colleges are great, and a national asset, but it's not like
| they're a golden gateway to wealth and power.
|
| What is the public interest in preventing them from offering
| legacy admissions?
| DonsDiscountGas wrote:
| The typical non-elite college is not particularly selective
| about admissions so laws like this are irrelevant.
|
| Plus graduates from elite colleges have a disproportionately
| large impact on society, so all this extra focus isn't
| completely misplaced. Should these rules only apply if the
| admissions percentage drops below some arbitrary cutoff?
|
| Colleges are admitting students, not their whole families, so
| legacy preferences never made sense except as a easy to
| gatekeep the upper class. Laws like this do serve the public
| interest, and I don't see why a college should be exempt just
| because it isn't famous
| xbar wrote:
| Overreach into private education, but fine.
| conductr wrote:
| They're not banning legacy admissions, right? They're banning
| that criteria from the admissions process. So they're becoming
| indifferent to it (in theory). That my skim of it, title is
| misleading
| tracerbulletx wrote:
| I'm an extremist on this. No inheritances, no legacy admissions,
| 0 advantages in life based on lineage. The rest of capitalism is
| fine. Start a business, become a billionaire, awesome. No more
| starting on third base, it's just bad game design.
| tamade wrote:
| better idea: let's ban nepobabies in california politics
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