Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard [pdf]

http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/legacyathlete.pdf

by ibobev • 7 years ago

77 50 7 years ago

public.econ.duke.edu

jimbob45• 7 years ago

There was no reason to single out whiteness among ALDCs (athletes, legacies, Dean's interest list, and children of staff). This seems like it's trying to lie with statistics.

octonion• 7 years ago

They're overwhelmingly white, and the lie is pretending otherwise.

mieseratte2• 7 years ago

Would help if the abstract didn’t uses phrasing like “benefits whites.”

It doesn’t benefit whites, it benefits kids with rich parents. Similarly, Affirmative Action benefits kids with lesser academics, but explicitly based on their race.

Perhaps if they want to draw apples-to-oranges comparisons they would do well to point this out.

bksenior• 7 years ago

Yea, but the point is that its not necessarily causal. It would be like looking at people who died of cancer and determining weight-loss as one the best correlated culprits to ID it. It would probably catch a ton of people who were really sick, but it seems to ignore some of the deeper casualties.

The white thing certainly is problematic culturally, but it's not REALLY the problem its more of a symptom of previous power choosing future power.

abhisuri97• 7 years ago

It's refreshing to see a statistical analysis that is free from the whole "affirmation action" rhetoric that's posted in articles about this case. Though I always had a general sense that ALDC's were admitted at a higher rate, I never knew that it was this high.

mieseratte2• 7 years ago

Did you not read the paper? They make direct comparison to AA in the first paragraph.

sappapp2• 7 years ago

No it does not. I just reread the opening paragraph three times and there is no comparison being made to AA. Did you not read the paper?

_edo4• 7 years ago

Table 5 and 6.

If you're a random (non-ALDC) African American in the 30-40% (4th decile) range for academics you have the same chance of getting in as an Asian American in the top 10%. They each have about a 12% chance.

Our model of admissions shows that roughly three quarters of white ALDC admits would have been rejected if they had been treated as white non-ALDCs.

If we're looking at how group membership affects acceptance rates, why not ask how many white ALDC admits would get in if treated as African American non-ALDCs? Why not ask how many Asians would get in if treated like Hispanics? Why not ask how many African Americans would get in if treated like Asians? The whole paper looks like a reflection of the cultural value that it's a good thing to go after rich white people, a bad thing to go after anybody else.

The interesting comparison is in Table 6 Panel B: White LDC vs African American non-LDC. For the top 60% academically just being black carries about as much advantage as being in the elite 4% (roughly) of white people who have some form of deep connections to the school. If you're in the bottom 40% you're better off being white with connections.

kaitai3• 7 years ago

I guess I don't agree with your idea that this is a reflection of the idea that it's a good thing to go after rich white people. The problem with analyzing college admissions to this point is that there's no one else to go after. By percentage, who else can you rag on? There's just no other demographic that's been going to college as long. In 2016 at least 57% of college students described themselves as white, which has fallen since the 1976 level of 84% [1]. And college has always been for the well-off, not the poor.

If you want to you could figure out how many white ALDC admits would get in if treated as African American non-ALDCs; I'd encourage you to then normalize across high school quality and expense, too. And looking at the lot of Asian-Americans in US college admissions is certainly important right now. For a quick peek, just look at Caltech's admits, since they have historically ignored legacy and race unlike everyone else.

But again, who else are you going to rag on if you're going to investigate the effect of legacy admissions and prof's children admissions? Due to the historic legal structure of the US it's just going to be really white. Fortunately for us ladies, men have daughters at a relatively high rate and we're allowed to go to college now so we can now benefit from unfair advantages too. (Again, it's instructive to look at Caltech, which did not admit women until the early 1970s and famously did not hire Emmy Noether because she was female. The percentage of women students has risen steadily as access to math and science education has become more available to the girls of the college-going classes of the US.)

[1] https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=98

_edo4• 7 years ago

look at Caltech...[who] famously did not hire Emmy Noether because she was female

What? I'm having trouble finding a reference. I know the story that she faced discrimination and Hilbert vouched for her, but that was in Germany. I didn't know there was any from Caltech.

Why is it assumed that we have to rag on people? If we are ragging on people, what standards are we using? Obviously it's still ok to get artificial help to the top if you're in some groups, but not in others. That means it's ok to be discriminated against if you're in some groups, too.

Speaking of Caltech, female applicants have 3x the chance of getting into Caltech as male applicants[0]. It's almost certain that qualified males aren't getting in because they're males. That was the problem with Emmy Noether: she was qualified but couldn't get in because she was female. If the discrimination right now is against the males, why are we talking about Emmy Noether being forced to audit classes in 1903 on the other side of the world?

If we assume "equality" in the groups of male and female students applying to Caltech for 2016-2017, meaning they both should have the same acceptance rate, then 134 seats were taken from the guys because they're guys and given to the girls because they're girls. Maybe you can argue the girls only apply if they're really serious, but 3x?

[0] https://www.parchment.com/c/college/college-178-Caltech.html...

edit: here's a better data source: https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=caltech&s=CA&l=93&id...

It shows 3x admissions advantage for females with over 2x enrollment advantage. Everybody's saying they don't do affirmative action but it's hard to believe at least for gender. But the racial demographics are extremely different from Harvard's so maybe the female applicant pool really is 2x as likely to be qualified. I need more data.

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xenocyon• 7 years ago

Socially we are conditioned to not question legacy admissions, while being very critical of affirmative action. Your comment is an example of this.

Consider: Table 6, which you cited, shows that legacy dunces (3rd decile) have a better chance of getting into Harvard than academic toppers (top decile) who aren't legacies. Yet you chose to focus on the much smaller gap between admit rates of African Americans and Asian Americans.

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nugget• 7 years ago

Doesn't legacy admissions have a racial impact since the racial mix of students has been changing so rapidly? That is, white applicants benefit the most simply because the % of white Harvard alums (relative to all alums) is greater than the % of white applicants (relative to all applicants)...but in a steady state system where race was the same over a couple generations, that impact would cease. I'm not a fan of legacy admissions in general but if you wanted to keep it in place, the fairest way might be to silo its impact within each racial group, so that a white legacy has an advantage over non-legacy whites but no advantage over non-legacy applicants of other races.

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_edo4• 7 years ago

Table 6.

The numbers you pointed out:

White LDC 3rd Decile: 16.67% White non-ALDC 10th Decile: 15.27%

The "much smaller gap" that I chose to focus on:

African American non-ALDC 4th Decile: 12.76% Asian American non-ALDC 10th Decile: 12.69%

3rd vs. 10th decile in one case is worth an academic paper with 3 authors collaborating from 3 different universities. Plus their associations with NBER and IZA.

4th vs 10th decile in the other case is something I was socially conditioned to see and is not worth focusing on at all.

I think that if the study's authors had completely messed up a spreadsheet and replaced the numbers for the White LDC/White non-ALDC columns with the numbers from the African American non-ALDC/Asian American non-ALDC columns, you would suddenly find those numbers to be troubling.

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Spooky232• 7 years ago

There’s too much focus on credentialism. Personally, I think it’s fine to have mediocre rich people at Harvard.

If anything, it’s better for society to get smart people in other colleges. Too much brainpower is wasted on the investment banking and consulting mills that the Ivy League is sending people into these days.

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mav3rick8• 7 years ago

Top universities have top funding and research that if it meets top talent can be extremely useful for the world.

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thesausageking• 7 years ago

This is a great example of beating numbers to fit the author's narrative. Take this statement:

The advantages for athletes are especially large, with an average admit rate for recruited athletes of 86%

Athletes at Harvard are recruited by coaches who look for students who are good athletes and also will be admitted. They know what the admissions committee looks for and won't recruit any student who doesn't have a strong chance of getting in.

I'm sure recruited athletes have an advantage, but saying it's "especially large" because a pool of applicants hand picked by coaches have a high admit rate doesn't make any sense.

For the record, I believe colleges like Harvard should stop giving a boost to legacies and athletes. But we need to a have fact-based discussion about it. Papers like this pretending to be research that are really op eds, don't help anything.

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WillPostForFood2• 7 years ago

I'm sure recruited athletes have an advantage, but saying it's "especially large" because a pool of applicants hand picked by coaches have a high admit rate doesn't make any sense.

They are doing more analysis than you suggest. They are looking at Athlete admits, and comparing their scores in other categories like academics, and noting they are much lower than other admits. I.e., the paper is not just looking at admit rate.

Recruited athlete admits are universally weaker than non-ALDC admits on these ratings. This is not surprising, given that we know athletes are stronger on the athletic rating. But for some race and rating combinations, the differences are striking. At most, 28% of white athlete admits receive a 2 or higher on the academic rating. In contrast, 89% of white non-ALDC admits receive a 2 or higher on the academic rating. 78% of Asian American non-ALDC admits receive a 2 or higher on the extracurricular rating, while at most 12% of admitted Asian American athletes receive a similarly high extracurricular rating.

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Retric• 7 years ago

The critical factor when considering these numbers is schools chose metrics that fit their desires not the other way around.

The direct weights given to each category is only part of the story, it’s also where the breaks exist within each category. Allow more people to hit rank 1 in a category directly reduces the impact of that category. Basically, does an academic 5 start at 27 and below ACT or 25 etc etc.

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xiaolingxiao2• 7 years ago

THIS. schools have mandates on revenue, for T1 research place like Harvard 1/3 is from tuition and 1/3 from alum donation, so that’s wealthy kids, and incentive for their parents to donate. Overtime schools realize there are polite metric to measure for wealth and likelihood of parents donating, and use these metrics to hit their revenue mandate. Also recruiters come to Ivies looking for cultural fit, so you have to serve up a certain kind of product (people) to appease your recruiters

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extra88• 7 years ago

I don’t know about the whole University but only ~25% of the operating budget of the Harvard school that includes Harvard College comes from students (tuition, room, & board) and that has been on a decline as more and more of admitted students receive financial aid.

Donations used directly for operations is way, way less than 1/3rd. A little over half the operating budget comes from interest on the endowment, I don’t know how to figure how much of that can be attributed to donations rather than investments, patents, etc.

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the_reformation• 7 years ago

Dumb question- why is 1/3 from donation when the endowment is so massive?

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akhilcacharya7• 7 years ago

I did my undergrad at a school with very relaxed admissions requirements and never got into any schools that use “holistic admission” like Harvard (or for that matter Duke, where I got rejected) does.

It’s clear to me that any attempt to make these admissions criteria is doomed to fail because *there is no good definition of “qualified”, and there can’t be. I’d wager if you dropped any 75th percentile student from NC State at MIT they’d probably perform well enough to graduate. Not 5.0, but with enough grit they’d do it.

I think more people should accept that all selective admissions is at some level social engineering. Making it more “equal” is a noble goal - but it’s still social engineering. These efforts would be better spent improving institutions that lead to actual class mobility rather than arguing whether 20% or 30% of Asian applicants to Harvard should get in for nebulous reasons.

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sokoloff• 7 years ago

Getting into MIT is hard; graduating is not particularly difficult.

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akhilcacharya7• 7 years ago

It’s like this at most elite institutions.

NC State has a graduation rate of 75%. Duke (where I was rejected for being an inferior candidate) has one that’s 95%.

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mav3rick8• 7 years ago

I've worked with both MIT and NC State grads and in all 3 cases MIT was far ahead. Now whether it was the CS program that was better or the raw smarts of the grads or both, I don't know.

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akhilcacharya7• 7 years ago

Can you expound on this? In what way were they "far ahead"? Under which circumstances?

I went to NC State, for the record. Am I just "far behind"?

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projektfu• 7 years ago

I think that's missing the point because the question is whether the NC student would do well at MIT, not whether the result of the program is better.

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Legacy and Athlete Preferences at Harvard [pdf]

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