Reply to Princeton admissions info and what it shows about legacy and athletic recruits

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Princeton admissions info and what it shows about legacy and athletic recruits"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]This info is pretty fascinating if you look at the breakdown of test scores relative to legacy and athletic recruits. (And we all know that athletic recruits at Princeton mostly = privileged white people doing sports like crew, lacrosse, etc.):

https://projects.dailyprincetonian.com/frosh-survey-2028/academics.html

[/quote]

How do “we all know” that? Is it in the data? I thought black people could be good at crew and lacrosse and I would definitely expect the average track team or basketball team to include a lot of black people too.[/quote]
+1. We don't all know that athletic recruits are mostly privileged white people.  In fact, "we" know that many aren't.  [/quote]

Ivy league schools all make their athletic rosters public, including photos and high school. Look through several of these, and it's very clear that they are majority white kids who either attended private schools or attended public schools in very affluent zip codes.[/quote]

This was well covered in Jeffrey Selingo's book Who Gets In and Why:

Early in the 20th century, elite universities like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton developed modern admissions systems to address a perceived "Jewish problem." The number of Jewish students applying and being accepted to these schools had increased significantly, leading to concerns among the predominantly WASP administrations.
To limit the number of Jewish students and promote the enrollment of more wealthy, white Protestants, these universities introduced new admissions criteria that were seen as proxies for wealth and social class. These included:
 * Athletics: Prioritizing athletic ability in admissions favored wealthy, white students who had attended private preparatory schools with robust sports programs. The search for the "all-around boy" was a way to de-emphasize academic performance, which was a strength of many Jewish applicants, and instead reward participation in sports.
 * Legacy Status: Granting a preference to the children of alumni ensured that the university's demographics would remain consistent over time, favoring wealthy, established families.
[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics