Here's how much legacy/athlete preferences matter at Harvard

[Anonymous]

"The lawsuit Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard University provided an unprecedented look at how an elite school makes admissions decisions. Using publicly

released reports, we examine the preferences Harvard gives for recruited athletes, legacies, those on the dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs). Among

white admits, over 43% are ALDC. Among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each. Our model of admissions

shows that roughly three quarters of white ALDC admits would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs."


http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf

[Anonymous]

Check table 11, buried on page 49. I guess they didn't want to talk about that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Check table 11, buried on page 49. I guess they didn't want to talk about that.

What’s your point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
"The lawsuit Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard University provided an unprecedented look at how an elite school makes admissions decisions. Using publicly

released reports, we examine the preferences Harvard gives for recruited athletes, legacies, those on the dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs). Among

white admits, over 43% are ALDC. Among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each. Our model of admissions

shows that roughly three quarters of white ALDC admits would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs."


http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf

That's what we call manipulating stats. I don't doubt it's true. But at the same time AAs and hispanics are held to wholly different admissions standards that makes it an apples and oranges comparison. I'll bet most of the AA and Hispanics would have been heavily rejected at higher numbers had they been of white or Asian heritage instead. And when one looks at the stats (scores and grades) it's pretty clear it's what happens.

What it does confirm is if you're an unhooked white applicant, it's very, very difficult to get into Harvard too.

Here's another angle of looking at it.

Currently school age kids under 18 are approximately 49% white (probably slightly less now as the 49% is from 2015). AAs are 15%, Hispanics 26% and Asians 5%.

The white and AA share of ALDCs doesn't seem markedly different from their national student demographics. Hispanics are the underrepresented ones while Asians are grossly overrepresented. One can argue for the former it's because they are still a largely newish racial demographic and it's a matter of time before it catches up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
"The lawsuit Students For Fair Admissions v. Harvard University provided an unprecedented look at how an elite school makes admissions decisions. Using publicly

released reports, we examine the preferences Harvard gives for recruited athletes, legacies, those on the dean’s interest list, and children of faculty and staff (ALDCs). Among

white admits, over 43% are ALDC. Among admits who are African American, Asian American, and Hispanic, the share is less than 16% each. Our model of admissions

shows that roughly three quarters of white ALDC admits would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs."


http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf

That's what we call manipulating stats. I don't doubt it's true. But at the same time AAs and hispanics are held to wholly different admissions standards that makes it an apples and oranges comparison. I'll bet most of the AA and Hispanics would have been heavily rejected at higher numbers had they been of white or Asian heritage instead. And when one looks at the stats (scores and grades) it's pretty clear it's what happens.

What it does confirm is if you're an unhooked white applicant, it's very, very difficult to get into Harvard too.

Here's another angle of looking at it.

Currently school age kids under 18 are approximately 49% white (probably slightly less now as the 49% is from 2015). AAs are 15%, Hispanics 26% and Asians 5%.

The white and AA share of ALDCs doesn't seem markedly different from their national student demographics. Hispanics are the underrepresented ones while Asians are grossly overrepresented. One can argue for the former it's because they are still a largely newish racial demographic and it's a matter of time before it catches up.

One could also argue that Hispanics are underrepresented because they are being systematically descriminated against.

[Anonymous]

Could also just compare to similar schools that don't have such preferences -- Cal Tech, Berkeley, etc.

[Anonymous]

As someone who spent many years there, this is unsurprising. Certainly there are many exceptional kids there, but the student body as a whole is much less academically inspired and inspiring than the aura of the school would suggest. A randomly selected group of students from a top liberal arts college would smoke a group of Harvard students in an academic decathlon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Check table 11, buried on page 49. I guess they didn't want to talk about that.

What’s your point?

NP here so I'm not sure what PP meant but it's "Table 11: Total Admits by Race under Different Admissions Policies, Expanded Sample" that jumped out at me. If you remove all preferences, about the same number of white students are admitted, but way more asians are admitted, at the expense of african americans and hispanics. Politics of the moment aside, this is really a story about asians versus those other two minority groups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Check table 11, buried on page 49. I guess they didn't want to talk about that.

What’s your point?

NP here so I'm not sure what PP meant but it's "Table 11: Total Admits by Race under Different Admissions Policies, Expanded Sample" that jumped out at me. If you remove all preferences, about the same number of white students are admitted, but way more asians are admitted, at the expense of african americans and hispanics. Politics of the moment aside, this is really a story about asians versus those other two minority groups.

Please stop trying to pit Asians against other minority groups. I am black and SO sick of this trope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Check table 11, buried on page 49. I guess they didn't want to talk about that.

What’s your point?

NP here so I'm not sure what PP meant but it's "Table 11: Total Admits by Race under Different Admissions Policies, Expanded Sample" that jumped out at me. If you remove all preferences, about the same number of white students are admitted, but way more asians are admitted, at the expense of african americans and hispanics. Politics of the moment aside, this is really a story about asians versus those other two minority groups.

Please stop trying to pit Asians against other minority groups. I am black and SO sick of this trope.

[Anonymous]

I'd be willing to bet Harvard's Admissions Office has a multiple regression model of the expected net present value of an applicant's donations to Harvard's endowment (now $39 billion)... and that those pesky white legs and jocks are the biggest donors.

[Anonymous]

Table 6 from the paper is most illustrative -- when matched on "Academic Index", white applicants in one of these privileged categories are about comparable to black applicants with *no* connections.

Blacks with connections, of course, have the highest acceptance rate of all.

So for a white person to have the same odds of acceptance to Harvard as his comparable black peer, they have to have a parent who works at the school, or wrote a giant check.

Remember, we can only see this racial discrimination in such detail because a lawsuit forced the release of these data.

Your white child with top marks is one fifth as likely to get in as his black peer - and they want this kept secret.

Simply being black provides a larger boost to your chance of Harvard admission than being a double legacy, on the Dean's list, or having family who work at the school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Check table 11, buried on page 49. I guess they didn't want to talk about that.

What’s your point?

NP here so I'm not sure what PP meant but it's "Table 11: Total Admits by Race under Different Admissions Policies, Expanded Sample" that jumped out at me. If you remove all preferences, about the same number of white students are admitted, but way more asians are admitted, at the expense of african americans and hispanics. Politics of the moment aside, this is really a story about asians versus those other two minority groups.

Please stop trying to pit Asians against other minority groups. I am black and SO sick of this trope.

Asians are taking the seats of White students. There are very little Blacks and Hispanics in higher education to make any difference to Asians or Whites, and no one in power would care if Asians took the place of Blacks and Hispanics and vice versa.

The whole discrimination effort is due to Asians taking seats from so-called "bright" snowflake White students, who were actually quite inferior. Blacks and Hispanics are just the excuse the Whites give to deflect anger from themselves. Its the tried and tested divide and conquer of the White people.

- Asian-American

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Check table 11, buried on page 49. I guess they didn't want to talk about that.

What’s your point?

NP here so I'm not sure what PP meant but it's "Table 11: Total Admits by Race under Different Admissions Policies, Expanded Sample" that jumped out at me. If you remove all preferences, about the same number of white students are admitted, but way more asians are admitted, at the expense of african americans and hispanics. Politics of the moment aside, this is really a story about asians versus those other two minority groups.

Please stop trying to pit Asians against other minority groups. I am black and SO sick of this trope.

Asians are taking the seats of White students. There are very little Blacks and Hispanics in higher education to make any difference to Asians or Whites, and no one in power would care if Asians took the place of Blacks and Hispanics and vice versa.

The whole discrimination effort is due to Asians taking seats from so-called "bright" snowflake White students, who were actually quite inferior. Blacks and Hispanics are just the excuse the Whites give to deflect anger from themselves. Its the tried and tested divide and conquer of the White people.

- Asian-American

Your view from of “Blacks and Hispanics in higher education” is very weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could also just compare to similar schools that don't have such preferences -- Cal Tech, Berkeley, etc.

Cal Tech is a private institution.