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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous] So you only need to be in the 93rd percentile to play sports in college? I had no idea the number was that high. Thanks for making my point. Do you only need to be in the 93rd percentile on your SAT (that's a 1360)?[/quote]

WTF are you talking about now?

You said "mediocre".  93rd percentile is not the definition of mediocre by any reasonable math.  I am truly here with my jaw on my desk by this comment.

[quote=Anonymous] So, on the legacy admissions, let me understand this since I don't know what I'm talking about.

The argument (with no support whatsoever) is that legacy preference leads to higher donations leads to greater endowment and that is the sole and overriding concern of a college president.

I've seen nothing that makes me think this is true and the actual data may be hard to come by. But you know who does have the data? College presidents.

I note that MIT and Texas, both colleges with presidents, who supposedly care about the endowment over everything else, choose to leave all this money on the table and not give a preference to legacies. Seems to me to be a real world example that someone out there doesn't think the two are tied. And they're not the only ones. Amherst just said they were doing away with legacy admissions. I would think the president of Amherst (or CalTech or Johns Hopkins) would consider this point with the reams of donation data and surveys that they have of their alumni. And they decided to eliminate it.[/quote]

Again, none of this disproves the point that this is why they do it.  You can have the opinion that they shouldn't do it, or that it is unfair, or ineffective, but your point remains a strawman.

[quote=Anonymous] Look I'm just a stupid person, but at least I try to think through the problem, rather than just asserting my gut feeling and claiming that I'm right.[/quote]

I will not comment on any of this.[/quote]

I originally used the phrase 'relatively mediocre' and was told it was grammatically awful. My point is and always has been that among the athletes who play college sports, these guys aren't that special so why are you treating them as such. And your point reinforces that. Being in the 93rd percentile is nice, but should you be rewarded with automatic entry into a college with a sub 5% acceptance rate?

Again, if you showed up with 93rd percentile SAT scores, what do you think the chances are of getting admitted?

I honestly don't care if Harvard prefers athletes. They can do what they want. Put those people shouldn't look down their noses at anyone else who gets an admissions advantage because Harvard has determined it is something they value. They didn't 'earn' it nor did they deserve admission. The reality is that Harvard decided that they have a need, they fill it and the honest truth is that without it, they probably wouldn't have gotten in.

On the legacy point, you keep asserting it's true, but that's not an argument. It's a theory. Harvard might think it's true, but counterfactuals exists that at least call that into question. [/quote]

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