"The school says releasing the information could put it at a competitive disadvantage"
Likely because people might find their policies unethical, which would stop them from making choices that maximize the perceived value of a Harvard degree?
Likely because people might find their policies unethical, which would stop them from making choices that maximize the perceived value of a Harvard degree?
Once the measures for admission are made public they'll cease being good measures as many will teach/live to the measures rather than actually remain high quality students. (Of course the measures may also be bad measures.)
It may be better for the school to have a written system for evaluating or at least reaching an initial coarse filter result which they create and disseminate to external auditors who ensure it has been applied 'fairly' to the data set and which can provide opinions about the process without revealing details that could ruin the effectiveness of the measures.
Additionally they could monitor the applicant pool to see if the applicants are more uniformly reacting to a discovered / leaked measure and thus that it has ceased being a good tool for decision making.
The measures for admission for the rest of the people (I call them very smart but unexceptional "clones") is based on things that benefit the university -- athletes, donors, etc. The "secret" for these folks is just to add value to the university. Some folks are born with it (cough Kushner cough), but others earn it by being leaders, athletes, etc.
Check out Cal Newport's stuff on these matters. He's about as close as it gets to correct, imho.
Which assumptions are you relying on which result in one begetting the other?
Why would it devalue them with their target audience?
Hence, you get a class of people willing to overlook discrimination (such as the beneficiaries of it).
If this were true, wouldn't we already know this?
Largely, it is (esp. for lower level classes).
The professors largely do not care about teaching -- they have research to do. The idea is that they typically point you to some materials, and they assume that smart people will figure it out.
Don't get me wrong. The learning resources are phenomenal, and folks can and do learn a ton from their peers. That said, most of the teaching is awful.
If someone wants to be taught well, don't go to an Ivy -- go to small liberal arts college (lots of good teachers at these schools).
This reminds me of an old joke:
Q. How do you know that someone attended Harvard?
A. They tell you within 30 seconds of meeting them.
This is almost exclusively only true for the people who were one of the (extremely) weaker admits.
There is definitely a way to talking about going to Harvard (usu. only when asked), and saying it directly is not the usual preferred choice.
Google the following and check the top link for a decent read:
Michael Giovinco Harvard Boston quora
> ...[T]his response always strikes me as pointless and condescending. ... Whenever I hear people pull the "I went to Boston" routine--and a lot of Harvard alums do this even when in the exclusive presence of other elite school grads--it does seem like bragging/false modesty, because the implication is "one way or the other, you won't be able to handle the fact that I went to Harvard."
I don't want you to feel awkward, so I won't ask if you went to school in Boston.
Does Bunker Hill Community College count?
Isn't this true of just about every school?
It boggles my mind that hiring managers currently thing that elite school grads are (mostly) selected for merit.
Some of the grads are decent grinders/hoop-jumpers, but the fast majority are not the top 10-30% of the class that gives the school its reputation.