New paper on determinants of college admissions…

[Anonymous]

…to highly selective colleges (8 ivies, Stanford, MIT, UChicago, Duke)

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

The analysis shows that highest income applicants (top 1 percent) have an admission advantage over the average applicant due to: 1) legacy admissions; 2) athletic recruitment; 3) non-academic factors (e.g., private school extracurriculars). In fact, legacy admissions explain about half of the gap between acceptance rates between highest income and average applicants.

Also, attending IvyPlus colleges does improve earnings and leadership prospects after colleges. The authors do a nice job of identifying the causal effect of IvyPlus attendance.

Putting these findings together, the implication is that more socioeconomic diversity can be achieved without sacrificing academic quality by eliminating legacy admissions and athletic recruitment.

[Anonymous]

Of course. But powerful people propping up these institutions WANT legacy admits to continue. Athletic recruits are a financial concern.

[Anonymous]

"Together, these three changes in admissions practices would reduce the share of students from the top 1%
at Ivy-Plus colleges by approximately 40%, from 15.8% to 9.9%."

[Anonymous]

"The share of students from families in the bottom 60% of the parental income distribution
would increase by 4.3 pp and the share from the bottom 95% would increase by 8.8 pp."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course. But powerful people propping up these institutions WANT legacy admits to continue. Athletic recruits are a financial concern.

????

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:…to highly selective colleges (8 ivies, Stanford, MIT, UChicago, Duke)

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

The analysis shows that highest income applicants (top 1 percent) have an admission advantage over the average applicant due to: 1) legacy admissions; 2) athletic recruitment; 3) non-academic factors (e.g., private school extracurriculars). In fact, legacy admissions explain about half of the gap between acceptance rates between highest income and average applicants.

Also, attending IvyPlus colleges does improve earnings and leadership prospects after colleges. The authors do a nice job of identifying the causal effect of IvyPlus attendance.

Putting these findings together, the implication is that more socioeconomic diversity can be achieved without sacrificing academic quality by eliminating legacy admissions and athletic recruitment.

Actually it does not say that. Might want to actually spend some time with it before you type.

[Anonymous]

Ho hum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:…to highly selective colleges (8 ivies, Stanford, MIT, UChicago, Duke)

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

The analysis shows that highest income applicants (top 1 percent) have an admission advantage over the average applicant due to: 1) legacy admissions; 2) athletic recruitment; 3) non-academic factors (e.g., private school extracurriculars). In fact, legacy admissions explain about half of the gap between acceptance rates between highest income and average applicants.

Also, attending IvyPlus colleges does improve earnings and leadership prospects after colleges. The authors do a nice job of identifying the causal effect of IvyPlus attendance.

Putting these findings together, the implication is that more socioeconomic diversity can be achieved without sacrificing academic quality by eliminating legacy admissions and athletic recruitment.

Actually it does not say that. Might want to actually spend some time with it before you type.

Not OP and not reading it.

What do you think it says?

[Anonymous]

What schools are "ivy plus"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course. But powerful people propping up these institutions WANT legacy admits to continue. Athletic recruits are a financial concern.

Yes, the fencing team is really bringing in the bucks! School spirit would drop without it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:…to highly selective colleges (8 ivies, Stanford, MIT, UChicago, Duke)

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

The analysis shows that highest income applicants (top 1 percent) have an admission advantage over the average applicant due to: 1) legacy admissions; 2) athletic recruitment; 3) non-academic factors (e.g., private school extracurriculars). In fact, legacy admissions explain about half of the gap between acceptance rates between highest income and average applicants.

Also, attending IvyPlus colleges does improve earnings and leadership prospects after colleges. The authors do a nice job of identifying the causal effect of IvyPlus attendance.

Putting these findings together, the implication is that more socioeconomic diversity can be achieved without sacrificing academic quality by eliminating legacy admissions and athletic recruitment.

This is a great paper, and really interesting. Thanks for sharing! However, it does not say the bolded. They do not weigh in on "academic quality" of the student in college. The only measure they use is future earnings of the student. The problem with that measure is that I know many students from wealthy backgrounds who do not chase high-income careers, but choose public service, arts, or research careers instead. This does not mean they were not the engaged or intellectually curious students who contributed to academic quality of the college. It just means that they didn't earn as much later on.

[Anonymous]

"Abstract

We use anonymized admissions data from several colleges linked to income tax records and SAT and ACT test scores to study the determinants and causal effects of attending Ivy-Plus colleges (Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Duke, and Chicago). Children from families in the top 1% are more than twice as likely
to attend an Ivy-Plus college as those from middle-class families with comparable SAT/ACT scores. Two-thirds of this gap is due to higher admissions rates for students with comparable test scores from high-income families; the remaining third is due to differences in rates of application and matriculation. In contrast, children from high-income families have no admissions advantage at flagship public colleges. The high-income admissions advantage at Ivy-Plus colleges is driven by three factors: (1) preferences for children of alumni, (2) weight placed on non-academic credentials, and (3) athletic recruitment. Using a new research design that isolates idiosyncratic variation in admissions decisions for waitlisted
applicants, we show that attending an Ivy-Plus college instead of the average flagship public college increases students’ chances of reaching the top 1% of the earnings distribution by 50%, nearly doubles their chances of attending an elite graduate school, and almost triples their chances of working at a prestigious firm. The three factors that give children from high-income families an admissions advantage
are uncorrelated or negatively correlated with post-college outcomes, whereas academic credentials such as SAT/ACT scores are highly predictive of post-college success."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course. But powerful people propping up these institutions WANT legacy admits to continue. Athletic recruits are a financial concern.

For Duke and Stanford only, and only for a few sports. D1 men’s basketball, by the way, only gets 15 roster spots across all class years. That’s way less than every other sport, including ones that don’t bring in money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:…to highly selective colleges (8 ivies, Stanford, MIT, UChicago, Duke)

https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

The analysis shows that highest income applicants (top 1 percent) have an admission advantage over the average applicant due to: 1) legacy admissions; 2) athletic recruitment; 3) non-academic factors (e.g., private school extracurriculars). In fact, legacy admissions explain about half of the gap between acceptance rates between highest income and average applicants.

Also, attending IvyPlus colleges does improve earnings and leadership prospects after colleges. The authors do a nice job of identifying the causal effect of IvyPlus attendance.

Putting these findings together, the implication is that more socioeconomic diversity can be achieved without sacrificing academic quality by eliminating legacy admissions and athletic recruitment.

Actually it does not say that. Might want to actually spend some time with it before you type.

OP here. I have actually read the paper. What I wrote above is my summary of the findings (rather than a direct quotation). And yes, I am qualified to summarize an economics paper

[Anonymous]

I’m having a hard time believing that eliminating athletic recruitment will change things unless they really mean eliminating most athletics.

Even if they tell coaches they can’t recruit, if they are going to field a squash team or a fencing team as examples, then they will still look for kids with squash and fencing championships who are going to come from the top 1%.