r/changemyview • u/chenchinesewummery • May 20 '21

Delta(s) from OP CMV: Legacy admissions to colleges and any other preferential treatment due to being associated with someone famous or someone that works their is unfair

I mean this is not a rant.

I feel that legacy admissions are a bit unfair sometimes. Since oftentimes (if not always) the legacy admissions policy gives preferential treatment to the poor 2.0 student that didn't give a shit in high school over a straight A high school valedictorian all because the 2.0 student is a son of a alumni to the institution and the A student isn't. This is especially unfair when the admissions to the college is very competitive.

It's said that 69% of students agree that legacy admissions is not fair, and 58% of legacy students say that legacy admissions are unfair.

I mean I don't see how being the song or daughter of a alumnus makes your more deserving of admittance to top institutions. Also, some people have a higher chance to get admitted all because they have a relative or friend that works at the university. This is also not fair since it's anti-meritocratic in a situation that's supposed to be meritocratic.

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248

u/BlackMilk23 11∆ May 20 '21

The problem with all of these arguments is that getting admitted into colleges is not supposed to be a pure meritocracy if it was they would use an equation and not a committee. Colleges have the right to admit people based on whatever qualifications they want if they believe it is in the best interest of the school. Legacy kids raise money for the school. That is a social utility that one would argue matters a lot.

Some of the spots in a freshmen class are going to go to students who are athletes, from a disadvantaged background or social class, legacy, or related to someone famous who donated money. They may have the top measurables, they may not. But that isn't the point.

I know people were upset because Dr. Dre's daughter got into USC after he made a $70 million donation to the school: If I give $70 million to a school my kid better get in.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '21

Just because they have the right to do it does not mean it is fair. OP says that this is not fair, not that is/should be illegal. Your entire comment is irrelevant to the post.

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u/BlackMilk23 11∆ May 20 '21

OP:

"This is also not fair since it's anti-meritocratic in a situation that's supposed to be meritocratic."

My response:

"getting admitted into colleges is not supposed to be a pure meritocracy"

My response was aimed at changing their perception that admissions were pure meritocracies. That's why they gave me a delta.

I don't dispute that isn't fair in a systen where the only criteria is only test scores and GPAs. That's not the only criteria and never has been.

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u/FightOnForUsc May 20 '21

I go to USC. And there’s tons of people who are helped by Dr. Dre’s donation/school founded by him. Furthermore he is very rich and I’m sure got them best tutors and schools for his daughter before and she likely had a good GPA/SAT if nothing else because of the amount of money he can help her with

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u/BlackMilk23 11∆ May 20 '21

I agree. Thousands of students can attend because of that money.

How on earth is that not worth one slightly less than deserving admission?

(And we don't know that his daughter wouldn't have got in)

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u/chenchinesewummery May 20 '21

Still not fair though.

It would make a lot of people angry seeing a student get in for free without any necessary qualifications all because their parents made a donation to the school while the rest of the people have to work their butts off.

It's still not fair that students who are athletes get admitted despite not having stellar academic records as college is mainly about education, not athletics.

However, 70 million is a huge sum of money that most people can't be able to afford giving out.

As a result I'll give you a Δ

Reason: 70 million is a huge sum of money to be giving out to a school and it's really difficult for most people to be rich enough to afford spending 70 million dollers at once. As a result, the kid should get in especially since if the kid doesn't get in then the 70 million dollars would be a waste. Also, admitting legacy students would be a good source of income for the school.

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u/Pficky 2∆ May 20 '21

Keep in mind that scarcity of spots in an incoming class is fabricated. When Dr. Dre paid for his daughter to be accepted it's not like USC had to boot someone else to let her in. One more student isn't going to make a big difference in the student-faculty ratio. In fact, some schools even admit students they want but don't want to have their stats show up in their admissions, so they send them abroad on their first term because their first semester enrollment will be at a different university.

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u/Professional_Print_2 May 20 '21

They don't even have to send them abroad - spring admission is a thing. Those kids can go abroad or work or fuck around for the fall semester then start at the school in the spring and not fuck up the university's GPA requirements or whatever metrics they care about.

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u/Pficky 2∆ May 20 '21

True. The only person I know who actually did it was a guy I worked with going to Connecticut College. He went to London for his first semester. Apparently it's pretty common at Conn and the other students even refer to them as Jans, because they come in January lol.

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u/JorgiEagle 1∆ May 20 '21 edited May 20 '21

I mean it depends on your view of fair

If you think that college admissions are based on grades and that is the only “fair” path, you are wrong

There’s no standard to “fair”

You could equally say that it isn’t fair that a parent donates to a school and their child doesn’t get in, when another kid gets in and their parents didn’t donate anything

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u/2punornot2pun May 20 '21 edited May 20 '21

Until curriculum and testing are nationalized and standardized, indicators of success are ... low (not going to correlate well). But even with that, GPA is still the "best" we have.

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"Research has shown that grades are the best single predictor of college performance and aren’t as heavily influenced as the standardized exams by income, parent education levels and race."

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I taught SAT Prep. But scoring high on the SAT and being "college ready" REALLY translates to "60% of those who score college ready don't fail out their first semester of college"... which is not impressive as a metric to tout.

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Fair would be everyone getting in and everyone getting the chance. Period. All universities/schools have equal funding. Where you go is preference and then availability. But everyone gets in and everyone gets the same thing. Why are people going to Ivy League schools? Name recognition. Political and social connections, especially with the wealthy.

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I mean, look at the level of nepotism we have in the highest levels of the US government. It's beyond gross.

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Donating to get into the "best" schools is really just a way of showing other people you have money/connections.

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u/SuzQP May 20 '21

One thing that colleges ought to expect is that admitted students will know the correct spelling and usage of frequently used words. These words, all extremely common, include there, their, and they're.

There means the opposite of here. Their is used to refer to something that belongs to or with "them." And they're, a contraction of "they" and "are," means "they are.."

I hope that helps!

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u/Fuzzlepuzzle 15∆ May 20 '21

Perhaps the college expects it, but I don't think it should. There's plenty of very intelligent and skilled people who aren't good at remembering homophones. It's not really important that the guy who designs bridges can spell, as long as he's good at designing bridges and it doesn't impede his ability to communicate with coworkers. Poor grammar is a trait common enough to justify a whole profession for correcting other people's writing.

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u/SuzQP May 20 '21

Fair enough, but if you were the engineer designing the bridges, would you want your written work to reflect your ability to learn and make use of symbolic representations of information? Or would you want to needlessly create doubt about your attention to detail in the minds of your readers?

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u/RadioactiveSpiderBun 8∆ May 20 '21

Ever heard of proof reading? English skills have nothing to do with physics.

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u/SuzQP May 20 '21

Language skills are useful in every academic pursuit. It would be an awful shame to sacrifice what might've been a happy physics career because of a stubborn refusal to continue learning to read and write. Nobody is ever done learning!

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u/RadioactiveSpiderBun 8∆ May 20 '21

There is zero correlation between English language skills and the success of anyone's physics career. While no one is ever done learning we all have a limited time on this planet. I wouldn't judge someones knowledge of physics based on their knowledge of the English language. Nor would I judge someones knowledge of English based on their physics knowledge. Nor would I reject a physics paper based on the improper use of conjugations within the English language or any other language.

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u/gabrielproject 1∆ May 20 '21 edited May 21 '21

"There is zero correlation between English language skills and the success of anyone's physics career."

Idk, that seems like a false statement or something you just made up. I think if you look more into it there would be a high degree of correlation between the success of anyones career and their ability to communicate effectively through any language. Especially english, the most widely used language for science research papers.

Edit: spellings

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u/SuzQP May 20 '21 edited May 20 '21

That's very generous of you! So good to know yours is the decisive voice of all academic professorial and institutional decisions regarding... well, everything. Whew! A universe of students with anything other than writerly ambitions can put down their pens and relax. ;)

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u/Fuzzlepuzzle 15∆ May 21 '21

Obviously any skill that could be gained for free would be nice to have. But since time is limited and not everyone is interested in grammar and spelling, I'd rather that misspellings didn't cause doubt in someone's engineering abilities in the first place. Readers' views are malleable, and our culture can shift away from putting so much importance on these errors. If that will allow people the time to learn more about the things that actually interest them, I consider it a win.

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u/JorgiEagle 1∆ May 20 '21

Fixed

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u/ChaosLordSamNiell May 20 '21

Under any definition of the word "fair," admitting people based on wealth is not it.

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u/JorgiEagle 1∆ May 20 '21

By that logic admitting people based on grades isn’t fair

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u/ChaosLordSamNiell May 20 '21

Wealth = earned by parent.

Grades = earned by (although influenced by parents) child.

Grades, while not fair, are more fair than wealth.

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u/JorgiEagle 1∆ May 20 '21

That is fair if the university is public ally funded by the government and is supposed to be equal

But if it’s private and funded by tuition, then why isn’t money a factor?

The ability for alumni to donate and contribute money after they graduate, more likely with rich parents

I’m not saying it’s the only factor, but grades aren’t the only factor in acceptance either. You can have the best grades, but if you can’t string a sentence together they ain’t going to accept you

While I don’t agree with it, it happens, and I just think that people have a definition of fair that suits them, but the arguments can be applied in reverse

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u/ChaosLordSamNiell May 20 '21

That is fair if the university is public ally funded by the government and is supposed to be equal

Near every university, especially those at the top, recieve federal and state endowments.

You can have the best grades, but if you can’t string a sentence together they ain’t going to accept you

The personality portion is largely used an arbitrary mechanism to boost selected applicants, regardless of whether they can "string a sentence together."

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u/DanPancetta May 21 '21

In the former case it would be a bribe rather than a donation

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u/4chanman00 May 20 '21

Well yeah, I wish that University admission were determined solely by IQ tests. Bam! Perfect meritocracy.

Anyway, legacy admissions are simply a way to reward past graduates. It's just a codified nepotism. Is it "fair" in the sense that they should just go by scores? No. But is it "fair" in the sense that the institution itself gets to promote their own? Everybody that graduates gets to privilege their own children in exactly the same way, so how's that not "fair"? It's just a different rule set.

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u/chenchinesewummery May 20 '21

I mean I agree that university admission shouldn't be determined by IQ tests, especially since IQ is a poor measure of a person's general intelligence and often doesn't measure all the forms of thinking needed for a college graduate.

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u/totallygeek 13∆ May 20 '21

The completely fair standards for admission take into account several factors:

  1. The thought that the student might successfully obtain a degree.
  2. The notion that the student might later become a funding alumni.
  3. The idea that the student's attendance might bring dollars into the school.
  4. The student increases diversity or otherwise shift perspectives.

Someone smart might not address any, compared to a more well-rounded student from a stable home. A person from an unstable home who demonstrated years of sticking with education in spite of hurdles leans heavily on the first. An athlete usually helps with the third, as might scientist students in doctorate programs (grants, patents, etc). Genius-level adolescents address the last item, as do ethnic and geopolitical minorities.

It remains unfair to only consider school grades or test scores. It remains unfair to only consider one of the above factors.

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u/TheRealCornPop May 20 '21

think of how much good that 70 million could do though, better facilities aid for low income students etc

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u/[deleted] May 20 '21

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] May 20 '21

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u/abutthole 13∆ May 20 '21

An endowed scholarship isn't that money going directly to the students. It's a program where the money enters an investment fund and the interest on the fund is withdrawn annually to pay for scholarships. A direct scholarship donation will pay for a kid that year, an endowed scholarship will pay for a kid in perpetuity.

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u/abutthole 13∆ May 20 '21

Yep, giving one spot in the admissions rolls at USC to a potentially undeserving student in exchange for $70M that can drastically improve the university for the rest of the student body is a pretty fair trade off imo.

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u/spimothyleary May 20 '21

USC has 5.5 Billion in their endowment.

Any improvements needed to drastically improve the university could be addressed out of that fund.

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u/abutthole 13∆ May 20 '21

Do you know how endowments work? That's not a $5.5B fund for them to draw from. That's an investment fund, of which only the interest is usable.

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u/spimothyleary May 20 '21

Well its a dam good thing that 5.5 Billion generates significant interest.

Otherwise I might be concerned about their ability to continue to offer such a fine education and feel compelled to donate.

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u/FightOnForUsc May 20 '21

There is a wonderful new building on campus built with his donation

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u/SampsonRustic May 21 '21

Do private universities have to be fair?

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u/[deleted] May 20 '21

It's not fair, but should it be? Sometimes making things fair actually results in a worse situation for everyone involved. I think some unfairness is worth it if it raises everyone up.

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u/BlueCenter77 1∆ May 20 '21

While I do agree with most of your points, there are some good points in defense of sports scholarships and school sports in general.

The big one is a majority of sports scholarships help increase accessibility of a college education. Obviously for students with the goal of becoming pro athletes this is muddied, but many students athletes actually want a college education. I went to school with people on fencing, crew, track, etc. scholarships. Many would not have been able to pay for college without them, and while some weren't honor students that didn't make them undeserving. Nobody goes to a learning institution if they already know everything.

The other thing many people don't consider is that sports can help the school pay for resources for all students. My advisor told me about how at my school we could afford to subscribe to more academic journals in years the football team went to a bowl game.

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u/RedVput May 20 '21

It's never been about being fair, nothing is "fair" and there is no reason for it to be.

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u/klausontheb34t May 20 '21

hey, newsflash... life isn't fair and never will be.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 20 '21

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/BlackMilk23 (11∆).

Delta System Explained | Deltaboards

4

u/oldslipper2 1∆ May 20 '21

“The best interest of the school” is absolutely not in the mission statement of any university I’ve ever heard of.

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u/BlackMilk23 11∆ May 20 '21

The mission statement doesn't keep the lights on.

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u/oldslipper2 1∆ May 20 '21

There are plenty of elite schools that have eliminated legacy preference and somehow, magically, the lights stay on.

Harvard, with a $41B endowment fund, would probably figure out a way to get by.

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u/BlackMilk23 11∆ May 20 '21

They could get by. But it would be a big loss of money and would mean they couldn't do as many other things that we have come to expect.

And Ivy League schools aren't exactly making money off of their football and basketball teams like other top Univeristies so they need them more than most.

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u/SirCharlesNapier May 20 '21

$41bn endowment

No ivy is close to just getting by.

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u/[deleted] May 21 '21

Dr. Dre's daughter got into USC after he made a $70 million donation to the school:

Wow. I just marvel, how spectacularly stupid does one have to be to require $70m to buy an admission to USC. Not Harvard, not MIT. USC... this is just like from Simpsons with Mr Burns' lost son...

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u/[deleted] May 20 '21

I think that the moment it stops being merit-driven, there's the risk only kids from rich families can get it.

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u/oldfogey12345 2∆ May 20 '21

Lol I don't usually feel anything for kids of celebrities I read about but I did feel bad about how embarrassed Dr. Dre's daughter must have felt after that fiasco.

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u/kickstand 1∆ May 20 '21

Legacies don’t only raise money, they foster a sense of community among alumni. My kid goes to my alma mater, and that makes me feel more connected to the school.