Reply to Stunningly Impressive BASIS College Results

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I find it hard to believe that BASIS DC is full of Ivy League legacies [/quote]

My kids aren’t at an age where BASIS is an option but it sure seems “good enough” to send my kids there. It’s a threshold, not a continuous variable. This seems to be the case with a lot of alums I know who want to stay in the city? If a kid is driven enough, the school is good enough (same with Walls and JR).

I don’t anticipate legacy will be a thing though by the time my kids graduate, at least at my former institutions [/quote]

And also - as someone who works at a university - sorry, the "legacy" trope is moronic. (That's the nicest word I could come up with.) Every time I hear it, I have an instant Princess Bride "you keep using that word, it does not mean what you think it means" reaction. Look, I get that the misperception lingers in large part because it's a useful "whatabout whatabout whatabout" rhetorical device for people who support traditional affirmative action. The implication is that the legacy kids are all homogenous morons and their parents buy their way in or otherwise leverage connections to give them an advantage over more objectively qualified candidates. That these action somehow represent a determinative thumb on the scale, and a high legacy acceptance rate indicates...something or other nefarious or unfair, for reasons.

But the reality - and this fact may shock you, hope you're seated - is that people whose parents were motivated, intelligent and accomplished enough (and yes, in all likelihood, privileged enough, with all the educational and upbringing advantages that brings) to graduate from a selective university within the past 20-30 years or so are likely to both 1) be fairly diverse, 2) have children who achieve similar attainment in those categories and 3) understand the specific attributes their target school seeks in an applicant in a deep and exceptional way that parents who did not attend that institution may not. iow: smart parents have smart kids, and people who lived in a culture for several of their formative years understand it organically in ways those who did not have that experience can't. Film at 11.

When people say "legacy" they make it sound like they're talking about, I don't know, C-student dumb as rocks Jared Kushner's dad buying his kid's way into Harvard. Which he did. You know where Jared Kushner's dad went to school? Hofstra. (those of you who didn't grow up in the NYC area may have to google this one. Let's just say: not a selective institution.) Malia Obama - who by all accounts sounds like a brilliant and accomplished young woman with a stellar pre-college education, even if her last name were "Smith" - was a "legacy" and Jared Kushner was not. Should Harvard NOT admit Malia Obama, because "omg legacy UNFAIR!!1!" ? Give me a freaking break.

The legacy admittance rate is just a reminder that we don't live in a classless society and that exceptional attainment is not achieved in a vacuum. Are the SAT scores, GPAs, extracurriculars, application essays for legacies generally of significantly lower quality than the general student population? It's actually the opposite where I work. And for those cases where they're on the bubble, the interview is almost always stellar in terms of demonstrating their sincere commitment to attend the specific school to which they're applying if they're admitted - which is actually the top currency for admissions offices...and again, this is where parental advantage in preparation comes in. And if you have a problem with this, again: please take it up with capitalism, but there's nothing unethical about it. Their parents prepared them well, so they performed well on a critical metric. Full stop.

[Thank you for attending my annual TED rant on this topic][/quote]

This has nothing to do with BASIS; congratulations to all the kids who graduated from there and are going to any colleges, but especially the elite ones mentioned here.

But come on, it's ridiculous to try to claim legacies don't get extra edges. I went to an Ivy League university, and I'm sure the main reason I got in was because my parents had both gone there. I did score very well on the SATs, and my weighted HS GPA was over 4.0, but still: My odds of getting in with the exact same stats and resume were significantly higher because of the family connection. (My parents did not give much to the school, maybe a few hundred dollars a year, but I don't think the legacy admission odds went DOWN because you didn't donate.)

My alma mater, like many others, has stopped giving legacy applicants any additional edge in the formal admissions process, and I think that's good for precisely the reasons you note here: Most legacy kids already have plenty of other advantages baked in. There's no reason we need any additional ones. [/quote]

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