Reply to If it’s harder then ever to get into top colleges, why do professors complain students now are bad?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you listen to any admissions officers’ podcasts, they are all trying to save people. They all sound like lovely humans who mean well, obviously got into this profession to make a difference, but you can tell they are also a little too idealistic and naive (so many sound so young, in their mid to late 20’s, but even the older ones sound idealistic). They talk so much about “distance traveled”, placing a lot of emphasis on helping first-gen, low income, and especially rural kids.

In principle I agree with them too, but it sounds like in reality, a lot of these kids are just not ready when they come on campus. A lot of resources are being spent on outreaching to these kids, flying them in all expenses paid, paying for college prep experiences for them during the summer after they are admitted, and setting aside special mentors and remedial classes for them once they arrive. Professors are complaining, but they also want to help these kids. I support efforts to advance upward mobility (the world is too unfair) and hope some of these kids do come out swinging on the other side, but there will be some who won’t make it. This is not a movie and life is not The Blind Side, but I understand why they try. In the long run, their well-intended crusade could end up fracturing long-standing institutions; you can already see that happening on campuses. I guess to them, that’s a risk worth taking.

America is an idealistic country and a young country so we always try to force things to happen sooner. In general, I tend to think that’s a good thing. In countries that have been around longer and are more practical like the UK, they let poor kids rise to the top on their own and somehow make it to Oxbridge from dirt poor families, but those kids are rare and typically white. Tuition is also much lower there so the economic barriers are not as high if the universities don’t go out of their way to manufacture a special path for the poor kids. [/quote]

FGLI encapsulates the issue.

First Generation - Why would you give a preference to less prepared kids whose parents did not go to college?  If they have the initiative to apply to college at all, there is a college somewhere that will take them. Community college if nowhere else.  And then the next generation after them will reach a little higher on the ladder and the generation higher still until they become UMC parents that start worrying about downward social mobility.  Why does all the social mobility have to happen in one generation?  Why do they need to be represented beyond their ability warrants at the most selective colleges and universities in America?

Low income - I understand that low income students need money to attend college but once again, but why do they have to attend colleges that are more selective than their abilities would warrant?  Why can't this happen over several generations?  Make colleges more affordable, sure, have lower standards based on income?  Why?  Sure it is harder for people with fewer resources to achieve the same level of mastery but they have in fact only achieved their actual level of academic mastery.[/quote] 
Low income students have less options for college, and most colleges are not as cheap as the top colleges will be for them. They also typically can’t take on steep loans, because their parents’ credit is poor. State schools can actually put many into a decent amount of debt compared to going to a top college. There’s also no evidence they are less prepared, that’s just dcum classist nonsense. Please read the privileged poor.[/quote]

DP here. There’s lots of evidence that they aren’t prepared. State testing scores, math and reading levels, placement test results and performance once they are in college. Kids from low performing schools with uneducated parents as a whole don’t catch up once they go to college. The gap in missing skills is too big.

People forget that the path to immigration for Asian immigrants has been graduate school, H1B or E something. This doesn’t mean that all Asians are more intelligent because of their race, far from it! It does mean that the population of Asian Americans in the US has a far higher IQ range than Hispanic Americans whose path was different. If the pathway to the US from Latin American countries was highly educated professional skills rather than manual labor it would be different. This can change over generations but not as fast as the education system is falsely portraying.[/quote]
Once again, please read the privileged poor. You don’t know where these kids are coming from. They’re not just random low income students chosen out of a hat. Most are nowhere near inner city youth either. Please stop assuming you know everything about a population based off of a few statistics. You need to actually research into the class of poor students that are evaluated and chosen to enter Ivy League institutions and the like.[/quote]

Please enlighten us...[/quote]
Well for starters, many come from top magnets and boarding schools. They’re educationally privileged.[/quote]

At least these kids are qualified and can do the work. It sucks for the non FGLI kid who performed better yet got rejected but this is no different than getting bumped for a donor kid.

It used to be that athletes were the only unqualified kids being admitted. There weren’t that many and many schools offered special classes for them.  Most major donor kids had access to private schools and tutors. While they got in over higher IQ middle class kids, they weren’t really dragging down the classes. The unqualified FGLI kids are dragging down the quality.[/quote]

Athletes were never unqualified, they just have skills that your little grinder will never have and you resent that. Some of them may not be at the top of the distribution but they are well qualified at any Ivy, Patriot, UAA, NESCAC, etc. [/quote]

I don’t object to the athletes getting in at all. They raise money for the school and build school spirit, alumni stay more engaged giving the academic students more networking opportunities. They give more than they take. The FGLI students just take and provide no benefit.[/quote]

Most athletes provide no benefit. They used to provide an alumni donor benefit but now that benefit no longer exists except to the extent they are donating restricted funds to subsidize their own sport.[/quote]

Any data to support this? Didn’t think so. Your fact free uninformed opinion oozes with resentment.[/quote]

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