[HN Gopher] Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins
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Ending Legacy Admissions at Johns Hopkins
Author : vo2maxer
Score : 59 points
Date : 2020-01-18 17:19 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| rb808 wrote:
| I think legacy admissions are a good thing for the organization
| and the other students who go there. People in the US have a
| close attachment to their university, they would like their
| children to go there and they donate a lot of money.
|
| Take away legacy admissions and you just get people who want to
| go there for the reputation and endowment. The endowment quickly
| fades because people are less likely to donate, and when your
| reputation slips suddenly your students dry up and there is no
| loyal customer base of families who are committed.
|
| Legacy admissions are a great way to generate loyal customer
| base. Top schools would be crazy to give this up.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _People in the US have a close attachment to their
| university, they would like their children to go there and they
| donate a lot of money_
|
| Why link first two to the last?
|
| Pride in one's _alma mater_ , and encouragement towards one's
| children to attend, can remain without a codified edge in
| admissions.
|
| There are numerous advantages a parent familiar with the
| process and people at an institution can give their kids.
| Adding to that edge is superfluous.
| rayiner wrote:
| Endowments and reputation fading is a good thing. One of the
| things that drives up cost of college is the competition among
| universities. If we are going to publicly subsidize higher
| education, through loans or otherwise, we need to reduce
| differentiation. Obviously there will be better or worse ones
| still, but going across the country to attend a "top 50 school"
| is not something we should be encouraging. (And that phenomenon
| is much less common in Europe, where going to a local school is
| typical even for good students.)
| wbl wrote:
| Caltech doesn't have legacy admits. They have a top notch
| reputation while Harvard somewhat unfairly has a reputation of
| being easy.
| akhilcacharya wrote:
| > The endowment quickly fades because people are less likely to
| donate, and when your reputation slips suddenly your students
| dry up and there is no loyal customer base of families who are
| committed.
|
| This is great! I hope more elite universities follow suit (or
| preferably are forced to) if that's the case.
| sweeneyrod wrote:
| I'm sure Harvard's reputation would be fine without admitting a
| load of thick kids who happen to come from privileged
| backgrounds (the smart ones would get in anyway). Maybe their
| endowment would suffer, but since they currently have about as
| much money as the whole of Latvia I expect they'd survive.
| rb808 wrote:
| Harvard and the Ivies have been doing what they do for
| centuries and they're still successful. I'd suggest they know
| what they are doing when they let in privileged kids. If I
| could get into an Ivy I'd probably like to have some "thick"
| privileged kids in my class too to help fund my startup.
| notlukesky wrote:
| So long as admissions are not solely test based (like in many
| countries) then it will be gamed. The 2019 college admissions
| bribery scandal is the tip of the iceberg.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_college_admissions_briber...
|
| There are also other ways of getting easier admission to
| selective schools in the US by saying you are for example Native
| American.
| eesmith wrote:
| Enough people falsely believe they are Native American - the
| "Cherokee princess" myth; http://www.native-
| languages.org/princess.htm - that I can't believe that simply
| saying one is Native American is enough to get easier
| admission.
|
| Here's how I envision it. I write in my essay that "I'm proud
| that I'm part Native American. My grandmother told me that her
| great-grandmother was Cherokee. My ancestors were forced off
| their land, and I think that's a tragedy.", etc.
|
| Admissions officer reads it, rolls eyes, then plops it into the
| rejection pile.
|
| Do you have something more substantial in mind than just
| "saying" to get easier admission?
| yostrovs wrote:
| Please review the case of Elizabeth Warren. She became a
| Harvard professor by saying she's a native Cherokee.
| eesmith wrote:
| notlukesky was talking about admissions to selective
| universities, not employment as a professor.
|
| Following your tangent, yes, I have reviewed it, and not,
| she did not. There is no evidence, despite considerable
| review, that that happened, and you are repeating false
| propaganda.
|
| Eg, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elizabeth-warren-
| wealthy-n... :
|
| > But specific evidence that she gained her position at
| Harvard (at least in part) through her claims to Native
| American heritage is lacking. Warren denied applying for
| special consideration as a person of Native American
| heritage during her career, and when the matter was
| examined in 2012 in response to Brown's claims, people with
| whom Warren had worked similarly denied her ancestral
| background's factoring into the professional opportunities
| afforded her ...
|
| > In the most exhaustive review undertaken of Elizabeth
| Warren's professional history, the Globe found clear
| evidence, in documents and interviews, that her claim to
| Native American ethnicity was never considered by the
| Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her,
| or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other
| law schools. At every step of her remarkable rise in the
| legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw
| her as a white woman.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Snopes is not what it once was.
|
| You can clearly see her false claim in her own hand
| writing here:
|
| https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-
| ed/article237751529.h...
| RobAtticus wrote:
| Nobody, not even her, denies that she claimed to be
| Native American. Snopes is fact checking whether it
| helped her achieve her position at Harvard. And their
| conclusion, despite being investigated, no evidence has
| emerged that it did aid her.
| tomohawk wrote:
| Given that she refuses to release the personnel files
| that would show what she claimed, I guess we'll never
| know.
| lmkg wrote:
| But test-based admissions can _also_ be gamed. And the scandal
| that you cited has quite a few examples of that.
| protomyth wrote:
| Hopefully, the admissions office requires you to furnish your
| tribal ID or paper showing you are an enrolled member. There
| are plenty of articles showing blood tests are inaccurate and
| basically showing ignorance of the whole issue.
| walshemj wrote:
| Coaching students for Oxbridge in the UK is another example
| rm999 wrote:
| Really happy to hear this. As someone who went to Hopkins I would
| fully encourage my children to apply (I had a great time and got
| an amazing education). But the idea that I spent a few years of
| my life there 40 years ago feels irrelevant to the admissions
| process. Any advantage given would be counterproductive in
| several ways:
|
| 1. It would coddle the child at a time in their life when it's
| essential to learn independence. This can't be good for the
| values they are developing.
|
| 2. It has no correlation to their success at the school. Getting
| admitted to a tough school like Hopkins if they are not prepared
| would be incredibly stressful and would probably be negatively
| correlated to their future success. I saw a few students who got
| special admissions crash and burn their freshman year and
| transfer out.
|
| 3. The article goes into this a lot, but it's not good for
| equality and encourages stratification. This isn't good for
| society. And it decreases diversity which is probably bad for the
| university.
| virtuous_signal wrote:
| >The year I arrived, Hopkins had more legacy students in its
| freshman class (12.5 percent) than students who were eligible for
| Pell Grants (9 percent). Now those numbers are reversed--3.5
| percent of students in this year's freshman class have a legacy
| connection to the university, and 19.1 percent are Pell-eligible
|
| This change happened in _five years_. Such a policy change would
| be extremely popular. For proponents of race-based affirmative
| action, this would serve as somewhat of a proxy due to the
| correlation between race and class. For opponents, removing
| legacy preferences makes admissions more meritocratic.
|
| The only groups with something to lose are (i) mediocre children
| of alumni, and (ii) the university's endowments if alumni
| decrease their donations. I don't believe (i) is a strong factor
| in a university's calculations, which leaves (ii). I believe
| universities are happy to see the public fighting about race-
| based affirmative action: indeed, dividing and pitting the low-
| and middle-income groups against each other over their limited
| subset of the pie, means they will not be working together to
| increase their overall share of the pie.
|
| (I think this issue could and should be considered _orthogonal_
| to race-based affirmative action. Race-based AA was never put on
| a stable enough legal footing and will continue to bounce back
| and forth in the courts until it 's resolved, while this could be
| resolved quickly and uncontroversially.)
| jostmey wrote:
| Another way to look at it: The number of legacy students has
| fallen almost to zero, so now Johns Hopkins announces they are
| getting rid of legacy students, not before.
| nugget wrote:
| Yes this seems more like an attempt to capitalize on a
| negative trend (legacies no longer applying and
| matriculating) to achieve positive brand association (Hopkins
| is now leading the way towards a meritocratic future). I'd be
| curious what led to the fall in legacy students in the first
| place.
| virtuous_signal wrote:
| This totally might be the case. However it's still a good
| change and might lead to other colleges following suit. I'm
| reminded of a recent trend among the Ivies where Princeton
| was the first to eliminate loans from its financial aid
| packages[1] and instead offer only grants. Of course they
| have the largest endowment per student in the country, so
| the amount they collected from low-income students via
| loans was probably trivial. However it did seem to kick off
| a trend to the extent that all of the ivies[2] (dartmouth
| and cornell being more stringent) have replaced loans with
| grants for low-income students.
|
| [1] https://paw.princeton.edu/article/no-loan-pledge-
| decade-late... [2] https://blog.collegevine.com/does-the-
| ivy-league-offer-schol...
| bradj wrote:
| It would be interesting to study the effect of this on
| donations and the endowment. There should be some measurable
| effect. Additionally, if there is an effect on donations and
| the endowment, it would be interesting to study the effect that
| that change has on endowment payouts. Does lower donations, due
| to lower legacy admissions result in less funds for University
| operations?
| virtuous_signal wrote:
| I haven't heard of studies on this but I would say the effect
| is potentially huge. For instance, just going by numbers of
| legacy admits at Harvard: www.cnbc.com/2019/04/07/harvards-
| freshman-class-is-more-than-one-third-legacy.html
|
| And any natural experiment that could have been done due to
| JHU's change was probably messed up by the largest donation
| to a university, ever: www.nytimes.com/2018/11/18/us/michael-
| bloomberg-johns-hopkins-donation.html
| jnwatson wrote:
| My single datum indicates it results in a 100% drop in
| donations from families with a rejected student.
| hooloovoo_zoo wrote:
| Another group that stands to lose are those students who were
| admitted on merit and no longer have access to "mediocre"
| students with good connections.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| This relies on a correlation between "legacy" and "good
| connections". But if it's about good connections, why not
| just have a policy like: "if you're sufficiently good you get
| in and if you don't have a ton of money we can provide
| scholarships to make things more affordable or free; and if
| you're ok but rich, you can pay 2x the usual rate for
| admission up to some quota of these admissions"
|
| You could even replace "rich" with "rich and well-connected"
| though it may be hard to determine the second part.
|
| This seems like a more honest system and it doesn't strike me
| as obviously unfair or unreasonable to have. Someone paying
| double fees isn't taking someone else's place so much as
| providing for someone else's place.
| virtuous_signal wrote:
| That's true, and in addition to the claim that legacy admits
| make the entire college experience more affordable for
| everyone else, is probably the strongest objection.
|
| I would venture the following: if we agree on the norm that
| "power should stop being transferred dynastically or through
| nepotism in a modern civilized society", and abolishing
| legacy preferences bring us closer to this norm, then the
| negative effects will be transient, and worth it.
| protomyth wrote:
| That's never going to happen unless you truly change human
| nature. We are tribal and protect our families. Nepotism is
| a family member making life better for other members of the
| family. I'm not sure we will still be a society if we
| eliminate family bonds.
| throwawayjava wrote:
| _> I 'm not sure we will still be a society if we
| eliminate family bonds._
|
| There's a significant difference between nepotism and
| eliminating family bonds.
|
| _> We are tribal and protect our families._
|
| Many of virtuous_signal's arguments boiled down to the
| observation that protecting your family via nepotism or
| dynastic preference isn't even necessarily good for the
| effected family member in the long run. I think that
| poster makes a good argument that dynastic preference in
| university admissions is a net negative for its
| beneficiaries.
|
| The negatives of nepotism also show up in business,
| where, with rare exception, nepotism tends to genereate a
| huge drain on both productivity and external respect.
| mobilefriendly wrote:
| "mediocre children of alumni" This is an unfair description of
| the advantage of legacy at an elite school. It's typically an
| edge, like playing a sport or belonging to an under-represented
| demographic.
| virtuous_signal wrote:
| I'm aware that it's typically an edge; what I mean by
| "mediocre" is not a personal description, but rather the
| state of being quantitatively less meritorious than those
| students who gained admission without the legacy edge.
| [deleted]
| CydeWeys wrote:
| The non-mediocre children of alumni can still get in.
| "Mediocre" is being used here in a relative sense.
| bradleyjg wrote:
| > (ii) the university's endowments if alumni decrease their
| donations.
|
| The tax law says you aren't supposed to be able to deduct
| contributions to charitable organizations if you get something
| in return.
|
| Edit: Point being that this system is illegitimate in the first
| place, not that it doesn't happen.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I'm not sure that's true. There are rules about explicit
| quid-pro-quos, and although they're not entirely banned (if
| you donate $250 for a concert ticket worth $50 you can deduct
| the $200) there are rules that clearly aren't being followed
| in this case. But tax law doesn't (and probably couldn't)
| attempt to restrict vague returns like "the recipient sees
| you and your family in a more favorable light".
| peterwwillis wrote:
| There's huge waiting lists for international students to get into
| Hopkins. What this will probably result in is that it makes
| headroom for more international students to get in (because if
| you're sourcing "qualified and promising students from all
| backgrounds" there's probably gonna be more of those across the
| whole globe rather than locally).
|
| Also, the Pell Grant averages just over $4K, going up to about
| $6K. The tuition for JHU is about $52K, but with room and board,
| books, and other misc living expenses this goes up to $69K.
| [deleted]
| Bostonian wrote:
| The principle that you should not be penalized by the family you
| are born into would also prohibit racial preferences, but I don't
| see that addressed in the article.
| eesmith wrote:
| The article doesn't seem to have anything to do with the
| "principle that you should not be penalized by the family you
| are born into".
| iecheruo wrote:
| When deeply accustomed to privilege, attempts to restore merit
| often present as penalty.
|
| Removing legacy preference in favor of merit is not
| penalization.
|
| The article does not advocate admission based on racial
| preference. It does point out that a level playing field allows
| more applications of merit from races that would traditionally
| be displaced.
| Bostonian wrote:
| "Removing legacy preference in favor of merit is not
| penalization."
|
| Yes, but almost all selective U.S. schools do have racial
| preferences in admissions, which do disadvantage students who
| do not receive those preferences. My son is applying to
| college this year. He will benefit from legacy preference at
| one school he is applying to, but at every other school, he
| will be discriminated against because he is not an under-
| represented minority and because his parents are well-
| educated -- he will not be a "first-gen" college student.
| Today the Left is inconsistent in its advocacy of merit-based
| admissions, opposing legacy preferences but not other
| preferences.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| Oh no, do you think he'll be okay? :'(
| motohagiography wrote:
| Commenting to register disappointment at this outcome, but no
| point in arguing a forgone conclusion. The opportunities this
| creates will be in how to satiate the need for validation for
| this new class of burghers. Imposter syndrome is a trillion
| dollar opportunity.
|
| Surely there is some new thing we can invent for them to take
| pictures of themselves with?
|
| Edit: the author is using the Atlantic to take a victory lap
| after having infiltrated, destroyed and dismantled something.
| Their cant deserves scorn.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Legacy admissions for nonprofit institutions are a scam on the
| public.
|
| If a university wants to keep legacy admissions, fine, that's
| their right. But no more tax exemption for their revenues,
| property or endowments. (And no more, I'd argue, publicly-
| subsidised loans for its coffers.)
|
| Same for "institutional advancement," _i.e._ granting the progeny
| of the rich seats in exchange for patronage.
| lgleason wrote:
| Admissions should be 100% merit based. No special favors for
| anybody.
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