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Username Post: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant        (Topic#412)
Chuck 
Masters Student
Posts: 995
Chuck
Reg: 11-21-04
01-11-05 04:09 PM - Post#2186    

38, I think you dramatically underestimate the impact of environment on who does and who does not get admitted into an Ivy institution. I would go beyond what Chip is saying, its not simply that the Ivy educated (or equivalent high profile C/U) have a better understanding of the process. Parents from these backgrounds are much more highly focused on where their children will attend college (and from a much earlier date) than children of parents who don't come from these backgrounds. Moreover, their resources are so much greater (on average) than parents without a college education that the environment they can put their children in isn't remotely comparable.

The sad and somewhat bizzare part of Ivy undergraduate admissions is that it, somewhat of necessity, tends to trend towards outcomes that reflect the applicant's environment much more than the individual applicant's potential.

Addressing this built-in bias is very difficult. For some minority groups there are compensatory mechanisms in the admissions process. However, for the great 'unwashed masses' of truly middle-class/working class families there are no compensatory processes at work. Apply to any Ivy from a HS without a track record of admittees, with a 12-1300 SAT and a 3.5 GPA and you have virtually no chance of admittance unless you are identified as one of the minority groups mentioned.

Yet, does a kid with those credentials coming from a background where elite higher education is only a vague notion, where the school environment is not stimulating (neither the teachers nor one's fellow students), where parents were not planning out a 'college admissions campaign' from the age of 8 or 10, really possess less 'merit' for admission? I think not...

Unfortunately, the system (the way it currently works) is creating exactly the kind of pseudo-aristocracy that the Economist article discusses.

I see this phenomena at work every day in the law school environment. Admissions to 'top 10' law schools are dominated by graduates of elite institutions. Graduates of 'top 10' law schools overwhelmingly dominate in the selection of who is offered positions in top law firms, who clerks for federal judges, who gets employed in U.S. Attorney's offices, etc. In turn, these are the very people who become federal judges, U.S. prosecutors, the partners in major law firms, etc. Their children will be the next generation of advantaged admits to elite institutions and the cycle starts all over again.

I think the root cause of all this is the very American delusion that what we have achieved in life is largely a result of our individual efforts and abilities, rather than a much more complex dynamic that accounts for not only what the individual has brought to the table, but also, what their environment contributed.

My personal opinion is that the Ivies (and all elite institutions) should take a 'banding' approach to all admits, have more rigorous academic standards (yes, actually flunk people!!) and accept higher attrition rates among students (especially after they have had one year to adapt). In the end, this would serve society better and these institutions better...

 
Chip Bayers 
Professor
Posts: 6997
Chip Bayers
Loc: New York
Reg: 11-21-04
Re: Annual Big Time College Sports Rant
01-11-05 04:41 PM - Post#2187    
    In response to Chuck

I've been wondering how many times I have to write the name "Lehmann" for P38 to understand that this is not "my" theory or hypothesis, and that it is certainly not "pulled out of thin air." Thanks to Chuck for pointing out that this is not the Bayers Theory of Admissions Biases.

Nicholas Lehmann is among the most recent who has written extensively about this subject. He based his reporting in The Big Test on research done by many others. And he's not the only writer who has investigated some of the issues involved, as LBH notes with his link to Malcolm Gladwell's story on Stanley Kaplan.

And by "this subject" I mean generally fairness in admissions - not, as P38 seem to think, the relative fairness of legacy admissions. The rise in legacies is merely an indicator of the bigger problem identified by Lehmann and others, and reiterated here by the Chuckster. Or as I said earlier, a symptom.

If you want to familiarize yourself with some of the available literature, before indulging the impulse to make further blanket statements based on mistaken assumptions about what "99%" of Harvard applicants know, or about how admissions officers actually do their jobs, Lehmann's book is a good place to start. But it's not a sole source:

Lehmann's The Big Test

There are a bunch of useful titles you can find via the Amazon page on Lehmann's book. Jonathan Kozol's writing on elementary and secondary education provides useful perspective on what Chuck's talking about regarding the non-minority "unwashed masses," for example.

I think LBH screwed up the URL for the Gladwell article, so here it is again:

Gladwell on Kaplan


 
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