L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in Admissions Scandal

There should be a fair evaluation of students, designing that fair evaluation isn't trivial, but it's something we can work toward.

My understanding is that research shows very low levels of social mobility in the USA.

I also don't understand why a three person class with one ethnically Chinese person, one ethnically Arab person, and one ethnically Indian person would be considered to have no racial diversity at all. Why is "Asian" one big race, but (for example) Caucasian and Hispanic two different races? It just seems so arbitrary.

Do you have an opinion on Stuyvesant's admission policy? Your comment seems rather pointed but stops short of condemning it.

Also, if one is of mixed race, say white and Asian, are they considered to be from a racially diverse group or are they not?

When people discuss the merits of Diversity (capital D), the implication is that they are referring to the value of bringing in people from a variety of walks of life that might bring with them a variety and breadth of unique/disparate experiences to bear and to share. That is not often the case. People want to SEE photographic diversity. Unfortunately, varieties of experiences do not always correlate with varieties of skin color or ethnicity (though, they certainly can).

For example, my undergrad institution (a private, competitive engineering school) had a diversity policy that manifested itself in the student body. We had very few "under-represented minorities." The ones we did have were overwhelmingly international and wealthy.

It's important to point out that these folks DID bring diversity to the cohort, but it was because they were international, not because they had a certain color of skin. Their wealth actually made them the opposite of diverse economically-speaking. Still, they would always get photographed for the website, brochures, and other marketing material... The brochure would make you think that our school was a bustling melting pot of kids from Philadelphia, Compton, or the south side of Chicago when in fact these folks were kids of Latin American oligarchs and African quasi-royalty.

The school needed ACTUAL kids from the south side of Chicago to be able to REALLY check the economic diversity box (and poor white trash like me, of course).

In short, economic diversity is no less important than racial diversity. At least for issues where the sharing of experiences and perspectives is the goal, I think it represents a higher bar than brochure-diversity.

If that rich family didn't end up having a kid that needed to get into that school then the building would never be built - but the family is certainly able to afford funding the construction of that building. I think that's unfair in it's own way on all parties involved.

Edit: sorry that was rushed. Source of my skepticism - worked with grads from both, tech-wise CalTech is way better and therefore comp follows.

The state schools in the midwest are an example of this - say, Kansas State University. Another one: Catholic schools -- St. Louis University; huge regionally, but not nationally. I was not marinated in NY State, but my impression is that the SUNY schools have some of this too.

Really, I think there are a lot of colleges with a big regional reputation, but not so much nationally.

If you know international students, you can see the same kind of thing play out in a larger stage -- universities that are top nationally, but not so well-known outside the country. Say, Seoul National University, or Tsinghua, or ENS, or some of the IITs or IISc. And incidentally, for these excellent schools, it's not their fault that their quality is not well-known outside their host region.

The difference between these two UCs is not as great as you might think. Neither has the elite status of ivy league schools, but most people I've run across on hiring committees viewed the two ad fairly comparable.

Note: I went to UCLA for grad school and have many family members that have gone to Cal.

https://dailytrojan.com/2019/03/28/usc-fall-acceptance-rate-...

I’m happy these parents are being prosecuted, but I don’t think there were any tragedies here.

Without the first (in aggregate, over generations), the others don't even have the option.

That does not mean admissions would be oligarchic in its entirety. It would not have to affect the "meritocracy" by which the remaining seats are won. Being willing to accept profoundly large donations in exchange for a seat is not the same as turning the whole admissions process into an auction. There are not enough people willing to give such donations for a seat.

Or, maybe a slightly more cynical take? Look at the parental wealth distribution of private colleges, and you'll notice that it already is "oligarchic." I mean in the sense that children of relatively wealthy parents are by far more likely to make the cut to get in in the first place.

If a university promises fairness and that's a lie, then it is fraud against the students / applicants.

In terms of research output, it's true that elite institutions are at the top... but not if you adjust for their revenue and assets. We'd get way more bang for our buck socially and scientifically by spreading those billion dollar endowments around, and properly funding state institutions like most other sensible countries.

It wasn't a perfect meritocracy but it was at least oriented towards merit. But my initial point remains: the idea of the meritocracy is necessary.

I don't think universities can exist without it, at least not in this form.

This a paraphrase of what I wrote.

> Universities are not certainly not meritocracies, and the justice system certainly does not treat everyone equally.

Neither is perfect. But it's not like they're random. In universities there is correlation between "being smart" and "getting in/excelling at universities" and in the justice system there is a correlation between "killing someone" and "going to jail".

> So I think it is by all means good to support moves towards the ideals that these institutions make, but there may be a practical middle ground where in recognition that they do not in fact meet these ideals, resources could be captured and used in ways that address this imbalance somewhat?

The middle ground is understanding that the institutions aren't perfect and constantly working to shore them up.

But my feeling is that if we go from understanding that the institutions aren't perfect to throwing out the ideals completely then the institutions will crumble. My sense is that we can't do without the ideals. People aren't rational agents.

I think affirmative action is tricky, because we single out some reasons for 'sub-potential' performance, but we ignore a lot of others. But even if I think it's tricky, I tend to be in favor of it.

My biggest issue with these programs is that they should really have some built-in "off-switch", when the program should be dismantled because there's no longer a pressing need for it. I don't think we're there yet, but hopefully we will get there - and then what?

I think affirmative action is a bad idea for exactly this reason. It has eroded the narrative. It's trendy for left-wing types to argue things like "Harvard isn't a meritocracy" or to sneer at the idea of a meritocracy altogether (don't get me started on the right-wing types).

> More importantly, this policy wouldn't destroy those narratives. You can make the scale very steep such that you have to pay quite a bit to get your average student in, and the steepness of that curve will be determined by the eliteness of the institution. You have the same meritocratic rules, they're just tempered by money.

I think doing this in the open would be a disaster. What won't destroy the narratives is implementing your idea in the background. This has already happened to some degree. Most students at Harvard don't pay very much. Their education is subsidized by rich families one way or another.

But I don't think that's a good thing. Somewhere along the line our institutional narratives have become cliched in people's minds. Maybe this will lead us to a wonderful new world where we can be perfectly rational and implement ideas like yours. But I doubt it. I think if we lose the institutional narratives we're going to lose the institutions. Maybe the new institutions will be better, who knows? (I'm not optimistic).

Unfortunately a lot of America is on the vengeance path when it comes to punishments for crimes. We need a lot more criminal justice reform but, please, let's not start by giving the elites a pass - justice is already inequal enough.