Why the Fuck Do You Trust Harvard?
freddiedeboer.substack.com
freddiedeboer.substack.com
The core argument of "If they wanted someone, they can let them in regardless of their SAT" is fairly solid. Academic success is the hardest thing for an elite family to game - so this change is neutral to good for them.
The reason this school and others want to get rid of the SAT is that it is a quantifiable measure that can be brought up in court (and has been brought up in court) measuring exactly how much they discriminate against certain minorities. If they wanted to stop discriminating right now, nothing stops them from doing so. (Like Caltech is doing, for instance.)
Harvard could easily educate 1-2 orders of magnitude more students than they currently do with their resources. They explicitly choose not to. There are far more students capable of handling and benefiting from a Harvard-level education than currently have access to it.
And for those who are going to respond something akin to that's not the objective Harvard is optimizing, I'm well aware. I'm just lamenting the way things currently are.
Harvard took 57,435 applications and admitted 1,968. In the span of about 3 months, do you really think Harvard admissions offers can fairly and thoroughly review 57,435 applicants? I'm certain more than they can admit of these applicants have near-perfect or perfect GPAs and SAT scores, great extra-curriculars, and everything else "perfect".
At the end of the day you can't expect or depend on getting into X or Y college. It's not even that important. It is important to get into a college that has a a good X program if you plan to study X, but I don't believe there are issues as plenty of under-recognized state schools have a variety of good programs.
Harvard wants to retain their elite ranking in US News/etc. They face a tradeoff between admitting a more racially diverse student body and admitting a student body with very high SATs. When they make tests optional they can admit more Black students without having to report their test scores.
> You think Harvard gives a single merciful fuck about poor Black teenagers?
They do to some extent. They also want to be able to showcase a racially-diverse student body.
I want to make explicit that what you're describing here is racism, because I think many people have kind of lost sight of this lately.
You're saying that nothing other than the immutable biological character of one person (Black) versus another (Asian) should form the basis of preferential treatment. I find this abhorrent and wholly incompatible with the notion of a civilized, modern society.
Discrimination in favor of Blacks is racism. Period. What the author was attempting to point out (that you ignored) is that very often the Blacks being admitted are the privileged ones anyway, while highly underprivileged yet talented Asians are completely screwed over.
But no one cares, because the whole thing is a farce. It just needs to look good enough to appease the various despotic progressive forces dedicated to re-institutionalizing racism. This kind of system will never work. It is morally bankrupt in the extreme and it makes me sick just reflecting on it.
My comment was not normative. It was descriptive. I was just describing what Harvard seems to be trying to do. Harvard wants to have its cake and eat it too. They want to have a very high average SAT. They also want to admit more Black applicants. This is one way to do that.
We don't know what the unintended consequences will be. If they put too much of a thumb on the scale, potential employers may adjust their recruiting strategies to compensate.
When the armed forces makes an “elite” unit do they let a 400lbs man in just because his dad was Navy Seal? Nope.
Places like Harvard are not elite, they are elitist.