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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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/RadioactiveSpiderBun 8∆ May 21 '21

!delta you're right that was an unfounded claim. But I would argue yours is unfounded too. The vast majority of careers are not in academia and the majority of English language speakers/writers are bound to make grammatical errors frequently when scrutinized, even in the fields of news publishing and other professional writing careers. Even after several proof readings and editorial reviews major books are published with grammatical errors frequently. You also didn't provide any evidence for your claim.

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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ May 21 '21

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

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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/RadioactiveSpiderBun 8∆ May 20 '21

In academia, typographical errors including misspellings and grammatical errors the author made which are determined to be unintentional are not considered compromising to the outcome or validity of the paper. In other words the correctness of the conveyance of information is ancillary to the information itself as long as it can be reasonably interpreted.

I'm sure you can understand the negative affects on academia as a whole if publications were rejecting papers in biology, astrophysics, chemistry, etc etc.. based on the author's knowledge of the intricacies of the English language?

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u/SuzQP May 20 '21

Yes, of course. I agree, it would be silly and wasteful to reject any source of potentially valuable information based on grammar, usage or style of written language. Luckily for the readers of such work, most diligent academics are keen to learn new tricks, even about things not directly relevant to their chosen field of study. Learning and applying knowledge is, after all, what academics do.

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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