Is there anything positive about legacy admissions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The answer is very clear : nothing positive for the vast majority of families and students.

So what? Athletic admissions offers nothing positive either. Same with international students. Or Questbridge. Whether it benefits you is a weird yardstick to choose

This.

And for the person saying it should be a transparent process like with private company hiring, wut? Companies can hire who they want.

Companies can't discriminate by race, gender, religion, etc, but they don't have to hire based on some governmental definition of merit. In fact, companies often reject candidates as OVER-qualified.

Companies typically don’t hire based on the last name. Just they hire the most talented person. Otherwise they can generate lower profits.

I’m not sure which is worse, your understanding of how legacy works or how companies hire.

+1

Seriously.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The answer is very clear : nothing positive for the vast majority of families and students.

So what? Athletic admissions offers nothing positive either. Same with international students. Or Questbridge. Whether it benefits you is a weird yardstick to choose

This.

And for the person saying it should be a transparent process like with private company hiring, wut? Companies can hire who they want.

Companies can't discriminate by race, gender, religion, etc, but they don't have to hire based on some governmental definition of merit. In fact, companies often reject candidates as OVER-qualified.

Companies typically don’t hire based on the last name. Just they hire the most talented person. Otherwise they can generate lower profits.

I’m not sure which is worse, your understanding of how legacy works or how companies hire.

Yeah most companies I’ve worked for have a lot of people hiring friends and family, also true for major American companies. Do you have any idea how many Fords work or have worked for Ford Motor Company? Life isn’t fair, colleges that rely on donations like having wealthy legacy families and it doesn’t mean the students aren’t qualified, it means you really don’t understand what they value.

Yeah, ask meta, google, Microsoft, and Apple why the hire it workers from India and not with last name gates. Think about sundar pichai and not tech support people.

They hire IT workers from India because they’re cheap. I promise you the executives at every one of those companies are getting their own kids whatever internships and first jobs their connections allow. Do you really know nothing about how the world works? Do you ever interact with real humans outside of trolling on this website?

Yeah, I am sure Sundar Pichai from google is super cheap.

You are so maddeningly obtuse. You are talking about one person, think of the thousands they hire in India because they are cheap. It’s amazing how long you can argue a stupid point on all of your crazy threads. Are you a foreign troll just trying to drive this forum insane?

Yeah, Jensen huang works in nvidia just because of his last name, talent is secondary. I like your logic.

[Anonymous]

I love the arguments of legacy admissions people. Please keep going. It’s fun to read.

The whole irony of this is that talented kids do not need legacy admissions to begin with. They are admitted anywhere they want because they are talented to begin with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The whole point of going to an elite school is to rub elbows with the “privileged few.” Otherwise we would just administer an IQ test and take the top X%.

It's also why those privileged few get hired: the companies want access to the same connections, especially in finance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The answer is very clear : nothing positive for the vast majority of families and students.

No, it is not clear, it is your opinion. I am fine with legacy admissions.
You all want to strip what make these schools special, and when they are no longer special, you are going to move on to the next set of schools that are prestigious.

If legacy students are truly talented, they will be admitted to top universities on their own merits. So what exactly is the problem with eliminating legacy admissions? Unless, of course, one believes they are not actually that talented.

What's next? The government inserting itself into corporate hiring decisions?

No, open and transparent admissions. In the same way you got your job in a competitive process. Or you got a “legacy” job through connections?

Of course people get jobs through connections. In fact, it is likely that MOST people get jobs through connections.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Personally, a a LMC to MC girl from a small town, first generation college attendee at a then need blind top university, I found having classmates n the dorm who were socioeconomic elites and whose families had gone there for generations to be culturally enriching. I saw how to dress, how to buy wine, what kinds of accessories worked. These were multigeneational alumni families but they got in on their merit, not lower standards. MIT.

If you are saying this was at MIT this is a sad troll. MIT has never done legacy. And no one drinks wine there. Not to say that taste in wine doesn’t matter but OpenAI and Anthropic don’t care about those things. MIT is about actually doing stuff, legacy an uninteresting joke. Signed, MIT alum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, a a LMC to MC girl from a small town, first generation college attendee at a then need blind top university, I found having classmates n the dorm who were socioeconomic elites and whose families had gone there for generations to be culturally enriching. I saw how to dress, how to buy wine, what kinds of accessories worked. These were multigeneational alumni families but they got in on their merit, not lower standards. MIT.

If you are saying this was at MIT this is a sad troll. MIT has never done legacy. And no one drinks wine there. Not to say that taste in wine doesn’t matter but OpenAI and Anthropic don’t care about those things. MIT is about actually doing stuff, legacy an uninteresting joke. Signed, MIT alum.

MIT is an excellent example that you can perfectly have an elite university without legacy admissions. The university just admits the best and most talented kids in the world, and that’s all. No mysteries in the admission process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole point of going to an elite school is to rub elbows with the “privileged few.” Otherwise we would just administer an IQ test and take the top X%.

It's also why those privileged few get hired: the companies want access to the same connections, especially in finance.

Funny that the wage difference between Ivy League and public Ivy graduates is not significant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The answer is very clear : nothing positive for the vast majority of families and students.

No, it is not clear, it is your opinion. I am fine with legacy admissions.
You all want to strip what make these schools special, and when they are no longer special, you are going to move on to the next set of schools that are prestigious.

If legacy students are truly talented, they will be admitted to top universities on their own merits. So what exactly is the problem with eliminating legacy admissions? Unless, of course, one believes they are not actually that talented.

What's next? The government inserting itself into corporate hiring decisions?

No, open and transparent admissions. In the same way you got your job in a competitive process. Or you got a “legacy” job through connections?

Of course people get jobs through connections. In fact, it is likely that MOST people get jobs through connections.

Maybe for some . But you can get fired at any time even with connections. Your last name doesn’t make your productive magically. At the end of the day, profit-making corporations care more if you contribute to the bottom line rather than how many friends you have at the company.

[Anonymous]

Legacy admissions are clearly kind of an anachronism and are on their way out for a host of reasons. They made a lot more sense, I think, at a time when only a few people went to college and where you went to college wasn’t nearly so important as it is now. Back then, it was kind of win-win I think: families had a good idea where their kids were going to go to school, schools had a steady supply of kids emerging from a context of reasonably reliable vetting, people didn’t move around so much, and there was something to the idea that certain families and colleges had a meaningful relationship.

Now, all those conditions have changed. Elite colleges are oversubscribed with qualified candidates; the college process has become a ruthless sorting mechanism in the allocation of various sorts of opportunities, making who gets into elite colleges more important and of more interest to people in general; legacy admissions are ideologically indefensible to a lot of people running colleges now, preserved only really for fundraising reasons and (just a guess) are a lot less consequential in admissions decisions than they were even a couple of decades ago; and there is no meaningful sense of relationships between families and colleges: if you are in a historic context where a family has four generations of Harvard men, you can kind of see why it makes sense to both sides that there ought to be a fifth. But that was a long time ago; things are quite different now and that concept is not a real thing anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole point of going to an elite school is to rub elbows with the “privileged few.” Otherwise we would just administer an IQ test and take the top X%.

It's also why those privileged few get hired: the companies want access to the same connections, especially in finance.

Funny that the wage difference between Ivy League and public Ivy graduates is not significant.

So we should leave colleges alone and let them do their thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, a a LMC to MC girl from a small town, first generation college attendee at a then need blind top university, I found having classmates n the dorm who were socioeconomic elites and whose families had gone there for generations to be culturally enriching. I saw how to dress, how to buy wine, what kinds of accessories worked. These were multigeneational alumni families but they got in on their merit, not lower standards. MIT.

If you are saying this was at MIT this is a sad troll. MIT has never done legacy. And no one drinks wine there. Not to say that taste in wine doesn’t matter but OpenAI and Anthropic don’t care about those things. MIT is about actually doing stuff, legacy an uninteresting joke. Signed, MIT alum.

MIT is an excellent example that you can perfectly have an elite university without legacy admissions. The university just admits the best and most talented kids in the world, and that’s all. No mysteries in the admission process.

Except for athletic recruits. And their process is no more transparent than anyone other college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, a a LMC to MC girl from a small town, first generation college attendee at a then need blind top university, I found having classmates n the dorm who were socioeconomic elites and whose families had gone there for generations to be culturally enriching. I saw how to dress, how to buy wine, what kinds of accessories worked. These were multigeneational alumni families but they got in on their merit, not lower standards. MIT.

If you are saying this was at MIT this is a sad troll. MIT has never done legacy. And no one drinks wine there. Not to say that taste in wine doesn’t matter but OpenAI and Anthropic don’t care about those things. MIT is about actually doing stuff, legacy an uninteresting joke. Signed, MIT alum.

MIT is an excellent example that you can perfectly have an elite university without legacy admissions. The university just admits the best and most talented kids in the world, and that’s all. No mysteries in the admission process.

Except for athletic recruits. And their process is no more transparent than anyone other college.

Sure. So you are saying that since there are athletic recruits, legacy admissions are justified ? Thats some sort of an argumentum ad populum. Think about it and then come back to this thread again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, a a LMC to MC girl from a small town, first generation college attendee at a then need blind top university, I found having classmates n the dorm who were socioeconomic elites and whose families had gone there for generations to be culturally enriching. I saw how to dress, how to buy wine, what kinds of accessories worked. These were multigeneational alumni families but they got in on their merit, not lower standards. MIT.

If you are saying this was at MIT this is a sad troll. MIT has never done legacy. And no one drinks wine there. Not to say that taste in wine doesn’t matter but OpenAI and Anthropic don’t care about those things. MIT is about actually doing stuff, legacy an uninteresting joke. Signed, MIT alum.

MIT is an excellent example that you can perfectly have an elite university without legacy admissions. The university just admits the best and most talented kids in the world, and that’s all. No mysteries in the admission process.

Except for athletic recruits. And their process is no more transparent than anyone other college.

Sure. So you are saying that since there are athletic recruits, legacy admissions are justified ? Thats some sort of an argumentum ad populum. Think about it and then come back to this thread again.

I’m saying MIT doesn’t admit the best and most talented kids in the world. No college does. So stop pretending that they’re something they’re not.

There’s no difference between admitting athletes preferentially and admitting legacies with a preference.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Personally, a a LMC to MC girl from a small town, first generation college attendee at a then need blind top university, I found having classmates n the dorm who were socioeconomic elites and whose families had gone there for generations to be culturally enriching. I saw how to dress, how to buy wine, what kinds of accessories worked. These were multigeneational alumni families but they got in on their merit, not lower standards. MIT.

If you are saying this was at MIT this is a sad troll. MIT has never done legacy. And no one drinks wine there. Not to say that taste in wine doesn’t matter but OpenAI and Anthropic don’t care about those things. MIT is about actually doing stuff, legacy an uninteresting joke. Signed, MIT alum.

MIT is an excellent example that you can perfectly have an elite university without legacy admissions. The university just admits the best and most talented kids in the world, and that’s all. No mysteries in the admission process.

Except for athletic recruits. And their process is no more transparent than anyone other college.

Sure. So you are saying that since there are athletic recruits, legacy admissions are justified ? Thats some sort of an argumentum ad populum. Think about it and then come back to this thread again.

I’m saying MIT doesn’t admit the best and most talented kids in the world. No college does. So stop pretending that they’re something they’re not.

There’s no difference between admitting athletes preferentially and admitting legacies with a preference.

I see that you didn’t think about it. That’s ok. All opinions are welcome.