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Have colleges totally lost their value as a signal?
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Anonymous
A faulty premise. A faulty premise just makes you, Op, sound less intelligent. There are some state university students, at all state universities, at all kinds of colleges, who could have been admitted to an ivy. |
Anonymous
Grades don’t mean as much anymore. |
Anonymous
My roommate-who is now a professor at a school covered in DCUM-land-was accepted to Harvard but ended up at UMD (Honors) bc of cost/family issues. |
Anonymous
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Too many anecdotal experience or observations from too long ago (1950!?!) being made while ignoring the data, which does exist for anyone who wants to spend some time going down the google rabbit hole.
In short, what has happened since the 1990s is that the elite Ivies students have both grown richer while simultaneously having more first gen/working class kids. How is this possible? A dimorphic student body that seems almost entirely wealthy students and full financial aid students. The middle cohort, the middle class kids, the UMC but not wealthy kids, have been squeezed out significantly. All this data is out there thanks to researchers and the infamous Harvard lawsuits. So it does lend credibility to the argument that meritocracy has declined. Some of it is surely related to costs. The growing donut hole gap covers a bigger range of incomes compared to 20 years ago. Ivies seem to prioritize more first gen/URM students on massive fin aid packages instead of more middle/lower UMC kids on middling fin aid packages. Probably because the former provides the equity and diversity while the latter doesn't. |
Anonymous
Do you know what correlation means? There are always exceptions, perhaps many, but the point is there is a strong relationship. Yale kids were on average smarter than Wash U kids who were smarter than UMD kids. That relationship still holds but is now much weaker. |
Anonymous
Like a PP said, once the grades and test scores have surpassed a certain very high threshold, the vast majority of colleges don't care where above that threshold you are and look to meet other institutional priorities instead. Sorry if that truth is inconvenient for you. |
Anonymous
| Op is downgrading her argument to language that is more reasonable |
Anonymous
Like a PP said, it's because there are way more smart/qualified kids in the college applicant pools now than there used to be. Really that simple. |
Anonymous
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Data:
“ Asian Americans in the Harvard Class of 1995 have the highest average SAT scores of the groups within Harvard College, according to the report. The study also shows that Blacks in the Harvard Class of 1994 were admitted to the College at a higher rate than any other minority group. Harvard's Black students in the class of 1995 have the lowest average SAT scores, and Asian and Native Americans in the class of 1994 were admitted at rates below the overall average, the report says. Harvard's Asian Americans in the Class of 1995 have average SAT scores of 1450, Blacks averaged scores of 1290, whites scored 1400 and Hispanics averaged 1310, the report states. Overall, students in the Harvard class of 1995 averaged 1390 total on the test. Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons '67 said this is the first time ever that a mean SAT score for Harvard has been disclosed. Harvard's average SAT scores for the class of 1995 rank the highest out of all polled institutions, with Yale second at 1350, and Princeton third at 1340, according to the study.” https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1993/5/7/report-discloses-sats-admit-rate-pa/ |
Anonymous
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And data for Yale:
https://oir.yale.edu/sites/default/files/w032_firstyears_sats.pdf |
Anonymous
In what way? The argument remains the same. There is more parity among the student bodies of the top schools. This is a function of a very large number of highly qualified students (way too many for the historically top schools to accommodate), the donut hole phenomenon (cost of attendance has outstripped wage growth for decades) and DEI related scrambling of merit criteria. This doesn’t mean very top students didn’t attend state U thirty years ago. |
Anonymous
DEI initiatives doubled the number of URM students on Harvard's campus. Only Penn and Princeton had similar numbers in the 1990s. The other Ivy schools had less in the 1990s. The percentage of Black students in the 1990s at Harvard averaged 7% and Hispanics 4%: https://www.thecrimson.com/article/1998/9/8/harvard-leads-in-black-enrollment-pthe/ The current average percentage of Black and Hispanic students is 20%: https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.harvard.edu/dist/6/210/files/2023/06/harvard_cds_2022-2023.pdf |
Anonymous
OP here: This was a core premise of the original post. The post was less about dei (which was offered as a supporting factor) and more about the declining value of elite degrees as a signal of intelligence, talent, etc. |
Anonymous
Both grades and test scores are overinflated these days compared to 20 and 50 years ago. |
Anonymous
But you're writing as if each of these factors is contributing equally to the increased parity. |