Education Dept. opens inquiry into Harvard legacy admissions | Hacker News Reader

Education Dept. opens inquiry into Harvard legacy admissions

nytimes.com

64 pointslsllc58 comments

Was recently reflecting on this about my own undergrad admissions cycle. Got me wondering: what percent of students at these institutions are there simply off of academic talent and not some of the larger extraneous factor such as legacy/sports recruitment/family donated a building?

Because that was me, just some regular lower class guy who had good grades and a not particularly unique angle. It used to bother me a lot that somehow these other people were "better" than me but I realized not too long ago that in reality, these schools are simply not meant for people like me but instead they are for the elites.

In retrospect, I wish I had spent more time learning about and pursuing the high ranking "techy" type schools like MIT/UMich/Caltech/Cal and less time chasing after these "prestigious" ivies. Plus, out of my generation of cousins (n=30+) only 5 went to an Ivy League school or equivalent and 2 of them went to the same high school as Bill Gates and the other 3 were sports recruits. Anecdotal of course but even amongst my high school class the only people who went to an Ivy league had 1) Ivy league professors as parents or 2) multi-millionaire levels of wealth.

> what percent of students at these institutions are there simply off of academic talent and not some of the larger extraneous factor

Very few actually get in purely based on academics. Very, very few.

Most folks who are admitted have good enough academics (with “good enough” being relatively high but not unreasonable) with something else that sets them apart. Usually this is something that sets them apart at an international, national, or (maybe) regional level, or some sort of demonstrated ability to do something interesting (broadly defined), especially if in a leadership role.

> and a not particularly unique angle

You probably did not realize what your actual unique angle was, or you grossly undervalue that unique angle.

I suspect “good enough” is approaching the sensitivity of the measurement approach. Grades and test scores give a widely over stated level of precision for academic aptitude.

> only 5 went to an Ivy League school or equivalent and 2 of them went to the same high school as Bill Gates and the other 3 were sports recruits

We've been touring some high schools that include the one Gates went to. They love to tout their Ivy admission successes, but really don't love to be asked how many of those admits are legacies.

It's more and more clear that it's a racket for the elites. I will do everything in my power to make sure that my kids recognize it for the bs that it is.

In my experience rubbing shoulders in these circles, kids going to the top tier prep schools are often just really impressive--the culture at these schools normalizes an expectation of high achievement across multiple domains. Not uncommon to see the same kid be a starting quarterback on the football team, an award winning painter, and a nationally ranked debater. I got into an Ivy equivalent college by enthusiastically pursuing my interests at a less competitive high school, and frankly, I think I might have cracked under the pressure at one of these top tier prep schools.

I completely believe that there are many majors/programs at Harvard no more rigorous/educational than those at decent large state universities, but make no mistake, these top tier prep schools are often leaps and bounds more difficult/rigorous than well ranked suburban public high schools, outside of the nationally exceptional magnets like Thomas Jefferson or Bronx Science.

only 5 ? Thats a lot. Most families don't even have 1.

> Anecdotal of course but even amongst my high school class the only people who went to an Ivy league had 1) Ivy league professors as parents or 2) multi-millionaire levels of wealth.

I once did a LinkedIn search on my cohort of I.B. students from middle and high school, saw the exact same thing play out. The children of doctors and professors went to Ivies for undergrad, but nearly everyone went to competitive public schools (UNC, GA Tech) or "nearly ivy" (ex: Duke) and a large number now have advanced degrees from great schools. I don't think the Ivy kids actually did much better from what I can tell. But I think it's cultural/regional too, I don't think I ever met anyone growing up who went to an Ivy. I basically chose my top-choice college based on my Mom's favorite in-state basketball team (NC State) and never even considered non-public an option.

5 cousins - are you sure you are not a legacy yourself?

Scott Alexander has an interesting take on legacy admissions[1]: the idea is to admit some privileged kids, and some smart kids, so that each can benefit from the other's presence. In other words, if you're a smart kid trying to pick a college, the fact that at Harvard you can become drinking buddies with the kids of industry tycoons, federal judges, senators, etc. is exactly what you want. You're not upset that those privileged kids get in automatically, it's actually a perk to you that they do.

[1] https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/why-match-school-and-s...

Curtailing legacy admissions would push some privileged kids to second tier schools and cause more of this happen, instead of concentrating it at a small handful of top schools.

The event where some kid of humble origin connects with a kid of the Social Register crowd and forms a lifelong bond comes from mostly odd chance, and it tends to recedes after the initial mix of roommates and floormates are assigned. Social circles gel and people start sorting themselves almost right away.

Absolutely wild how often Scott writes a much better articulated version of a take I've already had.

Politicians from both parties are doing a masterful job crucifying the likes of Harvard (which admits 1,900 students per year) for the state of higher education in the country while simultaneously cutting state-level university funding down to nothing over the last 15 years.

If people directed their outrage at their state school system or city college instead the problem would be a lot closer to getting fixed, but Harvard is a much more exciting battleground to make a political statement. It has never really been about little Timmy's education, but just sticking it to the other side.

What do you mean by "cutting state-level university funding down to nothing over the last 15 years"?

I mean exactly that. Every state in the country reduced funding to their public university system during the 2008 financial crisis. 32/50 states have yet to restore that funding. Universities must make up for the shortage by increased tuition and increased reliance on international students (who pay significantly more).

Ivy League colleges aren't meant to educate the masses, but people somehow aren't able to come to terms with that. Your kid is significantly more likely to find a place at the local U, but now they must take crazy loans for it and compete with a rich chinese kid for the spot, all while you are fighting big bad Harvard.

"Exactly that" hardly. Reducing funding to a level of a year ago is hardly "nothing" and most states didn't even go that far.

This appears to be your source [0]. I'm posting it because it's easier to have a conversation about the full report than about your extracts from the report.

[0] https://www.nea.org/sites/default/files/2022-10/nea-he-rolle...

It's not quite that bad, but UC/ Cal State tuition used to be next to nothing. In my mother's time it was effectively free. Now your out 14k for a UC and 8k for a Cal State.

Tuition at uc/cal state is free for residents, by law.

You must mean “fees”

People like to discuss who they think deserves to get into Harvard but almost no one ever tries to model what functions Harvard admissions are attempting to maximize. I really don't know and have never read an explanation. Could easily be they are trying to maximize prestige of graduates and future donations. Also not sure why everyone thinks getting certain people admitted to Harvard will solve society wide problems. Don't some studies show the intuitive point that getting into a top tier school matters more than going to a top tier school, i.e. top tier schools are good at identifying high potential high school students.

The complaint is below for reference.

http://lawyersforcivilrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/...

Just call it a Historically Rich College and have the education dept focus on other issues with public schools

Meritocracy is good. My family has Harvard legacy and I support this

As a (weak) Harvard affiliate, I have to say that grandfather clauses have extensive legal precedent, and have extensive case law supporting their use from 1890-1910, many argued by Harvard graduates. Indeed, similar clauses were commonly included in many state constitutions at the time.

If there is racism here, Harvard has long since paid the necessary reparations. Harvard set aside $100M, or an entire 0.2% of its endowment, to pay off any racial harm it has done. It did so after an in-depth analysis about the value of the lives it has impacted, and the relative value of those impacted and those impacting.

Indeed, it's clear there's nothing to see here. Carry on.

A friend at Princeton told me they're having the opposite scandal. Apparently the student newspaper did some data analysis and found that legacy students had both higher SATs and better GPAs. That sort of breaks the narrative.

The feeling is that the trustees have capped the number of legacies at around 10-12% and so it's a bit tougher to get in if you're a child of an alumnus. Apparently they treat the pools fairly independently.

https://www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2023/07/princeton-...

> that legacy students had both higher SATs and better GPAs

Then they can get in without legacy admission.

Isn't admissions into the Ivies mostly a crapshoot after you reach a certain GPA/SAT threshold?

You have to show you are unique through essays and ECs, and that you will be an asset to the university community?

Or that you have chosen good parents?

Curious about this too. Sort of a popular logic I've never sincerely questioned that most people applying to these schools have the test scores/GPAs etc so you're sort of lost in a sea of 'excellence'. (Only put quotes because it would only be one narrow definition - I was excellent at Unreal Tournament, setting up LAN parties, and eating Jack tacos).

> I was excellent at Unreal Tournament, setting up LAN parties

Interestingly, with good enough scores and grades and a slight spin on this skill set (e.g., setting up large scale LAN tournaments, being world ranked in UT, etc.), you would distinguish yourself from the “sea of excellence” (you are correct that scores and grades are a narrow and incomplete definition by Ivy admissions standards).

> Isn't admissions into the Ivies mostly a crapshoot after you reach a certain GPA/SAT threshold?

In general, it is not a crapshoot.

There are some things that are very doable by any reasonable Ivy admit that will set them apart. Cal Newport has written quite a bit about this, and I agree with most (if not all) of what he says.

It may seem like a crap shoot, because some/many folks don’t realize what it is about a successful admit’s application that sets them apart. Fwiw, it’s not “better SAT and GPA” or “one more extracurricular”.

Why not offer them a fast track if they are actually qualified?

> Then they can get in without legacy admission.

Not necessarily. Apparently there are a bunch separate pools: one for the athletes, one for the professors' kids, one for the orchestra etc. If the kid is merely a legacy with good SATs, they're not eligible for the other pools.

Harvard has 23,000 students - I find it hard to believe the orchestra is more than 1% of that.

Aren’t we talking about undergrad admissions selection process? That’s a little under 2K per year.

Probably because they didn’t control for race

No surprise there. They probably grew up in wealthier households and had all the positive network effects

It was a big surprise to me. The standard story in all of the papers is that legacy admission is affirmative action for white people. In other words, they let in dolts with low SAT scores merely because they had parents who attended the school. The newspapers say this all the time. But the statistics say something different. The Princeton admissions office apparently has so many legacies that they can pick and choose the most amazing.

They actually did modelling of this during the trial. It was found that removing legacy and affirmative action causes negligible change in the white population.

Which the evidence suggests is at most a small effect compared to genetic intelligence, but of course we have to brush that under the carpet.

What’s genetic intelligence can you explain it to me?

A longer way of saying "intelligence," more or less.

I believe they're referring to the heritability of IQ. I think they're asserting that genetics have a much larger effect than environment on IQ scores. I haven't read any recent research on the subject, so I can't vouch for the accuracy of that assertion.

I meant intelligence (the underlying "g" factor) rather than IQ specifically, but other than that, yes.

Why would we have to brush something like that under the carpet?

To put a big fat disclaimer on this - N is <50% of the entering Freshman class, data is self-reported, the statistics (like self-reported race) do not line up with official Princeton statistics.

My guess is that if you're a legacy that had bad grades, you are certainly not going to admit that in your first month on campus to the student newspaper.

I was curious if that held once one accounted for means, and sure enough they have an income graph. Interesting article!

Harvard's admits that have legacy status also have better SAT/Grades I believe

> And a Harvard spokesperson told me that admitted legacies tend to have higher median test scores and grades than the rest of admitted students.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/04/legacy...

Class of 2025 student profile:

> Legacy students also had a higher average SAT score than non-legacy students, at 1523 for legacy students and 1491 for non-legacy students.

https://features.thecrimson.com/2021/freshman-survey/academi...

Guess you didn't read the point underneath

"Just under a fifth of respondents — 19.5 percent — reported cheating in high school. The wealthiest students reported the highest rates of cheating, with 25.2 percent of students with families making more than $500,000 a year having engaged in academic dishonesty. "

The actual base rate of academic dishonesty is unknown. Maybe these students are especially honest about their dishonesty?

This could easily be skewed by self-reporting bias. Perhaps wealthier students feel they have less to potentially lose by answering the survey honestly.

How many of the legacy students get unlimited time on the SAT? 20% of Harvard students do through claiming a learning disability, though the odds of 20% of the top ~.05% of students (Harvard students) all happening to have learning disabilities are insanely low, it is a higher rate than state schools. They do it because they have admissions advisors etc. that coach them to getting a diagnosis from the doctor for ADHD to get unlimited time.

I had absolutely no feeling of time pressure on the SAT. If anything, I already had too much time and the boredom of waiting to start the next section was more negative than any other effect.

I think the same is true of the overwhelming majority of people scoring 1500+.

I don’t think unlimited time is much of a cheat code if you’re faking (or getting a “light” diagnosis) and trying to break into Harvard level of SAT scoring. More time isn’t going to transpose the middle digits on a 1450.

On the math section you can for example plug and chug each option rather than use elimination heuristics etc. that are mostly required to complete in the time limit. You can also go back and triple check all your work.

That's not a huge range - a handful of missed answers - and, I believe, lower than it used to be. I distinctly remember being, at 1490, in the bottom quartile of "Harvard-bound scores". Without any proof, I imagine that Harvard et al. dropping standardized test scores from their admissions requirements has skewed who actually submits them. Legacies will only do so if it doesn't hurt their otherwise venerable pedigree; non-legacies will say, "Well, every bit helps."

Everyone comparing SATs and GPAs has completely missed the point. Princeton would rather accept for example someone who became a nationally known political figure before graduating high school than someone with a 4.0 1600. The "what sets you apart" part of the application is much more important than your grades.

These ivies bank on 1% of their class doing something great and they optimize like 50% of their class to find the 1%, the rest of the 50% is just to preserve old power structures (children of rich people, politicians etc..).

> much more important than your grades.

.. once your grades and test scores are above the level that makes them reasonably confident you can handle the coursework.

Coursework at ivy's is a joke. 90% of my (gifted with affirmative action and thousands of students) highschool could've gotten a 3.0 at princeton

If you did engineering or math or sciences at Princeton, I doubt you would say that.

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