NYT article: Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

Yeah, they're white. Thirty percent of Harvard admits are legacies, at a school was overwhelmingly white at the time when the parents of today's applicants were attending. Today's college applicants were born around 1999. Assuming an average parental age of about 35 for your highly educated parents, those kids had parents attending Harvard in the mid-1980s. The percentage of Black students at Harvard then? Under 5 percent.

The single biggest advantage an applicant can have is legacy status, but the group of Black and Latino applicants who can claim that advantage is incredibly low. Thus is privilege perpetuated.

BS. My DS didn't get into Dartmouth where his dad attended but somehow was good enough for Stanford.

That stikes me as odd. To what do you attribute that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Legacy status generally only applies to a small percentage of highly-affluent people: the Bushes, the Trumps, etc.

The overwhelming majority of whites and asians either have parents without degrees, or are attending different schools than their parents did, or are attending schools where legacy status is irrelevant.

The Harvard statistic is directly from their website. 30% of Harvard admits are legacies. Now, you can argue those are all Trumps and Bushes, but they're not and that doesn't even take into consideration folks like the PP whose parents attended a different Ivy. Again, according to Harvard's own statistics, about 15% of its students are first generation college graduates and most of THOSE are Black/Latino. So, no. You're wrong, at least about Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

Yeah, they're white. Thirty percent of Harvard admits are legacies, at a school was overwhelmingly white at the time when the parents of today's applicants were attending. Today's college applicants were born around 1999. Assuming an average parental age of about 35 for your highly educated parents, those kids had parents attending Harvard in the mid-1980s. The percentage of Black students at Harvard then? Under 5 percent.

The single biggest advantage an applicant can have is legacy status, but the group of Black and Latino applicants who can claim that advantage is incredibly low. Thus is privilege perpetuated.

underegrad is about 12-13%. And of course it's not blacks and Latinos hurt by this, it's Asians.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/11/admissions-fitzsimmons-legacy-legacies/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

Yeah, they're white. Thirty percent of Harvard admits are legacies, at a school was overwhelmingly white at the time when the parents of today's applicants were attending. Today's college applicants were born around 1999. Assuming an average parental age of about 35 for your highly educated parents, those kids had parents attending Harvard in the mid-1980s. The percentage of Black students at Harvard then? Under 5 percent.

The single biggest advantage an applicant can have is legacy status, but the group of Black and Latino applicants who can claim that advantage is incredibly low. Thus is privilege perpetuated.

underegrad is about 12-13%. And of course it's not blacks and Latinos hurt by this, it's Asians.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/11/admissions-fitzsimmons-legacy-legacies/

How are Blacks and Latinos not hurt by the legacy boost? This isn't the Oppression Olympics. Asians can be hurt at the same time as Blacks and Latinos.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

Yeah, they're white. Thirty percent of Harvard admits are legacies, at a school was overwhelmingly white at the time when the parents of today's applicants were attending. Today's college applicants were born around 1999. Assuming an average parental age of about 35 for your highly educated parents, those kids had parents attending Harvard in the mid-1980s. The percentage of Black students at Harvard then? Under 5 percent.

The single biggest advantage an applicant can have is legacy status, but the group of Black and Latino applicants who can claim that advantage is incredibly low. Thus is privilege perpetuated.

underegrad is about 12-13%. And of course it's not blacks and Latinos hurt by this, it's Asians.

http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2011/5/11/admissions-fitzsimmons-legacy-legacies/

How are Blacks and Latinos not hurt by the legacy boost? This isn't the Oppression Olympics. Asians can be hurt at the same time as Blacks and Latinos.

O.k., good point. They can all be hurt, theoretically,.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Legacy status generally only applies to a small percentage of highly-affluent people: the Bushes, the Trumps, etc.

The overwhelming majority of whites and asians either have parents without degrees, or are attending different schools than their parents did, or are attending schools where legacy status is irrelevant.

The Harvard statistic is directly from their website. 30% of Harvard admits are legacies. Now, you can argue those are all Trumps and Bushes, but they're not and that doesn't even take into consideration folks like the PP whose parents attended a different Ivy. Again, according to Harvard's own statistics, about 15% of its students are first generation college graduates and most of THOSE are Black/Latino. So, no. You're wrong, at least about Harvard.

This is untrue. Legacy admit rate is about 30% but they make up 12-13% of the class.

[Anonymous]

I realize that this thread was originally about Harvard, but this is obviously not representative of a typical college student.

Most white people attending Harvard are from, at a minimum, upper-middle class backgrounds, with parents that both have degrees from very good schools. This is NOT typical of white people (or asians).

Legacies hurt everyone except for well-off white people. Lower-middle class, working class and poor white people don't have this advantage and are typically hurt by affirmative action programs because they lack financial advantages that are often incorrectly attributed to them, while still being forced to defer to other races.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

Yeah, they're white. Thirty percent of Harvard admits are legacies, at a school was overwhelmingly white at the time when the parents of today's applicants were attending. Today's college applicants were born around 1999. Assuming an average parental age of about 35 for your highly educated parents, those kids had parents attending Harvard in the mid-1980s. The percentage of Black students at Harvard then? Under 5 percent.

The single biggest advantage an applicant can have is legacy status, but the group of Black and Latino applicants who can claim that advantage is incredibly low. Thus is privilege perpetuated.

BS. My DS didn't get into Dartmouth where his dad attended but somehow was good enough for Stanford.

That stikes me as odd. To what do you attribute that?

No clue. Maybe Dartmouth didn't think we donated enough $.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
BS. My DS didn't get into Dartmouth where his dad attended but somehow was good enough for Stanford.

That strikes me as odd. To what do you attribute that?

Not odd. My DS was rejected from all the Ivies and Stanford. He's a freshman at UChicago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
BS. My DS didn't get into Dartmouth [b]where his dad attended but somehow was good enough for Stanford[/b].

That strikes me as odd. To what do you attribute that?

Not odd. My DS was rejected from all the Ivies and Stanford. He's a freshman at UChicago.

? Was he a legacy? We were talking about legacies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

Race and ethnicity is a factor in admissions at every private school in the country and many public schools as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

Yeah, they're white. Thirty percent of Harvard admits are legacies, at a school was overwhelmingly white at the time when the parents of today's applicants were attending. Today's college applicants were born around 1999. Assuming an average parental age of about 35 for your highly educated parents, those kids had parents attending Harvard in the mid-1980s. The percentage of Black students at Harvard then? Under 5 percent.

The single biggest advantage an applicant can have is legacy status, but the group of Black and Latino applicants who can claim that advantage is incredibly low. Thus is privilege perpetuated.

BS. My DS didn't get into Dartmouth where his dad attended but somehow was good enough for Stanford.

So are you denying that 30% of Harvard admits are legacies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Legacy status generally only applies to a small percentage of highly-affluent people: the Bushes, the Trumps, etc.

The overwhelming majority of whites and asians either have parents without degrees, or are attending different schools than their parents did, or are attending schools where legacy status is irrelevant.

The Harvard statistic is directly from their website. 30% of Harvard admits are legacies. Now, you can argue those are all Trumps and Bushes, but they're not and that doesn't even take into consideration folks like the PP whose parents attended a different Ivy. Again, according to Harvard's own statistics, about 15% of its students are first generation college graduates and most of THOSE are Black/Latino. So, no. You're wrong, at least about Harvard.

This is untrue. Legacy admit rate is about 30% but they make up 12-13% of the class.

??? Why is this relevant? It doesn't matter if the entire class is made up of purple people from Mars. What matters is the admit rate. Those are the students who get to attend if they want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"Young, Gifted, and Not Getting Into Harvard" means one thing for sure...

The kid is Asian or White.

That is just complete bullshit. I think people who make statements like this must have a very shaky grasp of basic math. There are THOUSANDS of gifted students nationwide. Harvard only accepts about 1900 of them each year.

yes, but who are they accepting -- and what edge do THEY have. My guess is race/ethnicity is definitely a factor.

If race is the predominant factor, can anyone tell me why minorities are not the majority in HYP and others and representation is usually in the low percentage?

Even if you were to fill every seat with white and Asian students with perfect gpa and test scores (disregarding other holistic factors), there would still be arguments over qualifications. The best university in Shanghai has to turn away thousands of students from the SAME ethnic group. So what would the rational argument be? I would think so many qualified students and just not enough seats.

I am a proponent of holistic admissions but I also realize that no premier college is going to admit someone who can't do the work. HYP (not the only game in town) is not going to risk their reputation of being academic powerhouses by admitting subpar students who can't handle the work.

There just aren't enough seats for everyone wanting HYP et al but with over 3000 colleges, there ARE seats available.

+1