4 X more "unqualified" white students admitted to Harvard than black students

[ruby sparks]

Ok, let's first go back a step, from (a) donations, (b) by how much do legacy admissions actually result in them and (c) whether the money thus created is used to provide more student places.

The number admitted has grown over the years.

Citation?

 

[KeepTalking]

Harvard rejects 95 per cent of its applicants, most of whom, if successful, would be full-fee paying students. Donors do not 'expand' Harvard because it has never exploited such money to 'expand' its student base, which would diminish its prestige. Part of worldwide 'university rankings' is the amount of money alumni and donors give to a university, a grossly perverse incentive which Harvard is well aware of.

Very well put.

Harvard, like many institutions of higher learning in America, is between two worlds. The heady grip of financial, capitalist success, which legacy admissions serve a large part in, and the more ephemeral pleasures of its diversity religion, which intoxicates its faculty and administrators with religious ecstasy and fuels its affirmative action policies.

Then you had to go jump off into the deep end. Your description is quite colorful, I will give you that, but I see no factual basis for the accusations of religious thinking you are tossing around here.

 

[Elixir]

Harvard rejects 95 per cent of its applicants, most of whom, if successful, would be full-fee paying students. Donors do not 'expand' Harvard because it has never exploited such money to 'expand' its student base, which would diminish its prestige. Part of worldwide 'university rankings' is the amount of money alumni and donors give to a university, a grossly perverse incentive which Harvard is well aware of.

Very well put.

Harvard, like many institutions of higher learning in America, is between two worlds. The heady grip of financial, capitalist success, which legacy admissions serve a large part in, and the more ephemeral pleasures of its diversity religion, which intoxicates its faculty and administrators with religious ecstasy and fuels its affirmative action policies.

Then you had to go jump off into the deep end. Your description is quite colorful, I will give you that, but I see no factual basis for the accusations of religious thinking you are tossing around here.

Can't speak to Harvard. But definitely, Yale fits the description - hyperbole and all. Of course the fervor is not overtly religious, but other than that, Meta nails it quite well. At least it fits 100% with what my brother relates to me ...
He was a legacy admission to Yale, graduated magna cum laude, right into med school, residency ... by which time he was so jaded he took his skills to Hispaniola, Central and South America, serving a "guilt sentence" of service to the poor for a number of years. Then he set up shop in one of the most economically polarized areas of the country where he continues to this day (@ 73 yrs old) treating mostly impoverished (largely Native American) COVID patients. Worries me sick.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

The number admitted has grown over the years. Money is fungible. Thus donor admits than bring in more than the cost of growing the system by one are a net benefit to all the students as the school now has more money per student. Donor admits that bring in less are a bad deal and shouldn't happen. If the numbers are equal it's basically neutral but I would favor not admitting them in that case.



In any one year you are right. Overall, you are wrong. Donor admits bring in money that can be used for expansion.

You talking about donors bringing in money that can be used for expansion, but you never show your work. You need to show us that this happens at the frequency you claim, and that a donor that donates enough for their student and another student will necessarily cause another slot to open up for a deserving student.

Then again, even if you did show that, unless it happens the very same year, you still have a qualified student getting passed over due to the unqualified donor admit. And you think this is just dandy as long as this means another slot (that can potentially be used for another donor admit) will open up some time in the future. There is also the issue that schools like Harvard tend keep their class sizes smaller than they could given the amount of money they take in, in order to make their diplomas more prestigious.

Hey, quit messing with the goalposts!

I have said that donor admits that bring in enough money are neutral or beneficial. I have specifically not said that all donor admits reach this threshold, only that they should reach that threshold. I don't know if they're doing it right or not.

 

[KeepTalking]

The number admitted has grown over the years. Money is fungible. Thus donor admits than bring in more than the cost of growing the system by one are a net benefit to all the students as the school now has more money per student. Donor admits that bring in less are a bad deal and shouldn't happen. If the numbers are equal it's basically neutral but I would favor not admitting them in that case.



In any one year you are right. Overall, you are wrong. Donor admits bring in money that can be used for expansion.

You talking about donors bringing in money that can be used for expansion, but you never show your work. You need to show us that this happens at the frequency you claim, and that a donor that donates enough for their student and another student will necessarily cause another slot to open up for a deserving student.

Then again, even if you did show that, unless it happens the very same year, you still have a qualified student getting passed over due to the unqualified donor admit. And you think this is just dandy as long as this means another slot (that can potentially be used for another donor admit) will open up some time in the future. There is also the issue that schools like Harvard tend keep their class sizes smaller than they could given the amount of money they take in, in order to make their diplomas more prestigious.

Hey, quit messing with the goalposts!

I have said that donor admits that bring in enough money are neutral or beneficial. I have specifically not said that all donor admits reach this threshold, only that they should reach that threshold. I don't know if they're doing it right or not.

And I specifically said "a donor that donates enough for their student and another student", I even bolded it for you above. Care to try again?

 

[KeepTalking]

Very well put.



Then you had to go jump off into the deep end. Your description is quite colorful, I will give you that, but I see no factual basis for the accusations of religious thinking you are tossing around here.

Can't speak to Harvard. But definitely, Yale fits the description - hyperbole and all. Of course the fervor is not overtly religious, but other than that, Meta nails it quite well. At least it fits 100% with what my brother relates to me ...
He was a legacy admission to Yale, graduated magna cum laude, right into med school, residency ... by which time he was so jaded he took his skills to Hispaniola, Central and South America, serving a "guilt sentence" of service to the poor for a number of years. Then he set up shop in one of the most economically polarized areas of the country where he continues to this day (@ 73 yrs old) treating mostly impoverished (largely Native American) COVID patients. Worries me sick.

I was referring more to the bit about religious ecstasy with regard to affirmative action.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

What percent of donors demand that an unqualified descendant be admitted to the school? Are their donations in sum total less than inessential operating expenses?

 

[laughing dog]

The number admitted has grown over the years. Money is fungible. Thus donor admits than bring in more than the cost of growing the system by one are a net benefit to all the students as the school now has more money per student. Donor admits that bring in less are a bad deal and shouldn't happen. If the numbers are equal it's basically neutral but I would favor not admitting them in that case.



In any one year you are right. Overall, you are wrong. Donor admits bring in money that can be used for expansion.

You talking about donors bringing in money that can be used for expansion, but you never show your work. You need to show us that this happens at the frequency you claim, and that a donor that donates enough for their student and another student will necessarily cause another slot to open up for a deserving student.

Then again, even if you did show that, unless it happens the very same year, you still have a qualified student getting passed over due to the unqualified donor admit. And you think this is just dandy as long as this means another slot (that can potentially be used for another donor admit) will open up some time in the future. There is also the issue that schools like Harvard tend keep their class sizes smaller than they could given the amount of money they take in, in order to make their diplomas more prestigious.

Hey, quit messing with the goalposts!

I have said that donor admits that bring in enough money are neutral or beneficial. I have specifically not said that all donor admits reach this threshold, only that they should reach that threshold. I don't know if they're doing it right or not.

So, in simple terms, you literally made it up.

 

[ruby sparks]

The point is donor money can be used to expand the number of students they can admit. To the extent that it does donor admits are a very minor issue.

Have you checked if this happens, and if so how often?

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The point is donor money can be used to expand the number of students they can admit. To the extent that it does donor admits are a very minor issue.

Have you checked if this happens, and if so how often?

Related questions...

I am trying to differentiate 2 things in each of two sets of things. (See previous post).

These guys keep saying donors and donations. My wife is a college donor. She hasn't demanded an unqualified descendant be admitted to her alma mater, though. So there are unentitled donors with scruples as well as other donors. Thus, what percent of donors are trying to get their dumb kids breaks, to put it bluntly?

Next, not all revenues go toward expenses of space and professor salary. Some goes to parties for wealthy donors to reward themselves for donating, athletics, inessential research, the ark of the covenant in the Harvard museum, salaries of people who shouldn't be making that much, greasing the wheels of capitalism, fraternity oversight, and a whole host of other inessentials. So, next, does the sum total of people's money trying to bribe the system exceed inessentials? i.e., can we drop both briberies and some subset of inessentials?

If the revenue from bribes is less than the operational expense of inessentials, then can one really argue those bribes are needed for poor people?

 

[ruby sparks]

My wife is a college donor. She hasn't demanded an unqualified descendant be admitted to her alma mater, though.

Then it doesn't involve a donor admit, I guess.

As to the percentages, I've googled around, and I couldn't find good data. I suspect it's possibly not the sort of thing that might be made openly available. As far as I can see, it seems that some donations are made in order to get, or enhance the chances of getting, an admission, and some aren't.

Loren may be running with a hypothetical scenario here without making that clear, which would be odd, because then, although he says it's the point, it would not, in fact, be the point, because he wouldn't be talking about either actual legacy admissions or actual donations. If it is something he's just thought up wishfully and not something that happens, or something that doesn't happen much, then the way he's presenting it (see the part of his post I bolded just now), as a quasi-defence of the nature of the system of donor admits, rather than an imagined desirable alternative, it's a bit peculiar, imo.

He also seemed to miss me asking for a citation that student numbers have been rising. I'm assuming he did at least check that fact. I read that overall numbers in the US are down by 2 million in the last decade. Perhaps they have been rising at colleges where there are more, or greater donations. That's the sort of correlation that would be interesting.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

My wife is a college donor. She hasn't demanded an unqualified descendant be admitted to her alma mater, though.

Then it doesn't involve a donor admit, I guess.

As to the percentages, I've googled around, and I couldn't find good data. I suspect it's not the sort of thing that might be made readily available. I think it's fairly clear that some donations are made in order to get, or enhance the chances of, an admission, and some aren't.

In context of thread op, I think we care more about bribing for an unqualified admission which is an even smaller subset??

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I'd like to also point out another distinction. Legacies are not necessarily donors/have relatives donating. So not only is the whole but-donations-help-poor-people mantra unproven, it's also not relevant to all of the findings and the op author's claim of hypocrisy. RB pointed out that donors and legacies are not the same thing on page 1. Here, too, is a paragraph from his linked article:

The study also found that a white applicant who did not fall under any of the privileged categories with a 10 percent chance of admission would see a five-fold increase in the chance of admission if they were a legacy, a more than seven-fold increase if they had relatives who donated to Harvard, and a near certainty of being admitted if they were a recruited athlete.

 

[Derec]

Who said I was? Can you read what I wrote again? I said, repeatedly, that legacy admissions are a bigger problem, not that they are the only one.

I thought you were agreeing with ronburgundy on that as well.

Be that as it may, I disagree that legacies are a bigger problem because:
- The "unqualified" percentage is higher among blacks than whites. That should definitely matter when looking at the quality of the student body.
- Legacy admissions are used at fewer schools than racial admissions. Sure, Harvard has legacies, but University of Texas doesn't. But they do have racial preferences.
- a student may have legacy advantage at one or two schools that his parents went to, but a black student will have racial advantage at any of the 1000s of colleges that consider race.

 

[Bomb#20]

Harvard rejects 95 per cent of its applicants, most of whom, if successful, would be full-fee paying students. Donors do not 'expand' Harvard because it has never exploited such money to 'expand' its student base, which would diminish its prestige.

How do you know?

The number admitted has grown over the years.

Citation?

I went Googling for statistics, which seem hard to find; but I found one data point: in 1910 the Harvard undergraduate class was about half the size of its recent classes.

 

[Bomb#20]

Where the bejesus do you imagine you saw me indicate that I "think the OP is about the long run"?

Forgive me, you are the one positing long-run fantasies as rebuttals, not me.

Why would I forgive you when you show no sign of interest in mending your ways? You are a persistent pedlar of illogical disparaging imputations about other posters.

What I wrote wasn't a fantasy; and the fact that I wrote about the long run and the OP didn't in no way conflicts with my post being a correct rebuttal. The OP contained an illogical inference. That inference was based, in part, on a short-term consideration, and was illogical, in part, due to the fact that it unreasonably failed to consider the longer term. Pointing out that an argument is wrong because it fails to take something important into account does not qualify as evidence that "I need to show my work why I think the OP is about" whatever important consideration I pointed out it had failed to take into account. Duh!

Or, in the words of the master, "Why don't you just admit you were wrong for once and be done with it?"

The OP is not about the long run. The OP is not about the short run. The OP is not about any run. The OP is about "This reveals a lack of principled commitment to actual fairness, and a racial ulterior motive by such conservatives." Whether rb was talking about concurrent substitution is entirely irrelevant.

No, it is not. The OP is about a concurrent substitution effect. Your imagined long-run effect is irrelevant to his argument.

No, it is not. The OP is about rb's false dilemma fallacy. The OP can be fairly summarized as "Those people don't think like me; logically therefore, they necessarily must think like my cartoon-villain conception of them." Pointing out a third possibility is sufficient to refute a false dilemma fallacy. So it doesn't make a particle of difference whether the OP considers only a concurrent substitution effect, or whether you think my long-run effect is "imagined", or even whether the long-run effect really is "imagined" -- it remains a viable third possibility for what's going on in rb's outgroup's minds. Even if there really were no such long-run effect, that would merely make the conservatives who think donor admissions aren't unfair to other students mistaken. It would not make them racist.

First, the unsubstantiated notion that a donor admission that allows a less qualified student to take the place of a more qualified student today but permits a larger number of students (qualified or unqualified) to be admitted 5 to 20 years in the future is a bizarre notion of fairness since it does not address their central point of the unfairness to the current denied more qualified the denied student.

You have an odd notion of fairness. You call it "the place of a more qualified student today", on what grounds? Donor admissions are not a new thing at Harvard. It's policy. Rich people have been buying admission into that place for centuries. It's part of Harvard's strategy for maintaining its economic viability and maintaining the lifestyle to which it has become accustomed. And, as noted upthread, Harvard's class size has expanded over those centuries. So what basis is there for supposing those "places of a more qualified student today" would have existed in the first place if that policy hadn't been their practice all along? Without the policy, Harvard would have been poorer. To presume it would have been poorer but would nonetheless have had the same number of class slots would be a peculiar economic theory. So those places aren't "places of a more qualified student today"; they're "places of making the wildly successful financial strategy continue to work".

You might as well argue that since somebody didn't get a golden egg because the farmer only gave out as many as his goose had laid, it's unfair of the farmer not to kill the goose in order to get some more golden eggs out all at once. Wait, here's a metaphor you'll probably grok better: you might as well argue that it's unfair of the university to siphon away a percentage of your research grant as overhead.

Second, it is up to you to show that this presumed long-run effect does address racial fairness in the long run. Otherwise it is just some story that has no relevance to the discussion.

What the bejesus is your reasoning for that? If conservatives can figure out that it's stupid to put positive cash-flow seats in the same mental box with negative cash-flow seats, then that means they must hate black people unless I can prove Harvard will spend the extra money on black people?

Third, it is up to you to show that all of people who rb describes make such arguments and have actual data to substantiate their fanciful claims. Otherwise, assuming your theory is accurate for some, it simply carves out a possible exception for some of them.

What?!? Where do you get this stuff? Why the heck would it make a bloody bit of difference whether they make such arguments or have actual data?

It's obvious to me that it's stupid to put positive cash-flow seats in the same mental box with negative cash-flow seats. It's probably also obvious to most conservatives, and obvious to most centrists, and even obvious to most leftists when they aren't willfully blinding themselves with bigotry against their outgroups, that it's stupid to put positive cash-flow seats in the same mental box with negative cash-flow seats. People don't have to make arguments and have actual data in order to have something be obvious to them; that's kind of what distinguishes the obvious from the unobvious. Having it be obvious to someone that it's stupid to put positive cash-flow seats in the same mental box with negative cash-flow seats is an entirely ordinary phenomenon, and it's entirely adequate as an explanation for why somebody who objects to non-merit-based distribution of negative cash-flow seats would have no objection to non-merit-based distribution of positive cash-flow seats. An additional hypothesis of racism is superfluous; therefore the inference of racism is a non-sequitur.

Or in other words, you're reversing burden of proof. rb is the one who made the positive claim; it's up to him to show his cartoon conservatives are thinking about keeping blacks out rather than thinking it's stupid to put positive cash-flow seats in the same mental box with negative cash-flow seats.

Fourth, your "explanation" ignores the effects of legacy admissions and athletic scholarships.

Oh for the love of god! I wrote a long post addressing all of rb's contentions; you're the one who chose to focus on donor admissions.

 

[laughing dog]

Why would I forgive you when you show no sign of interest in mending your ways? You are a persistent pedlar of illogical disparaging imputations about other posters.

The irony of your adhom false allegations is amusing.

What I wrote wasn't a fantasy; and the fact that I wrote about the long run and the OP didn't in no way conflicts with my post being a correct rebuttal. The OP contained an illogical inference....

No, it did not. Disregarding an irrelevant assumption is not illogical. If person A takes the space of person B, it doesn't matter to person B that there may be more spaces sometime in the unspecified future.

No, it is not. The OP is about rb's false dilemma fallacy....

We disagree. I have the actual content of the post, you have your long-run story,

YYou have an odd notion of fairness. You call it "the place of a more qualified student today", on what grounds?

Why would a student need to be admitted as a donor admittee if they were qualified? So, the student as an donor admittee is taking the place of someone else who would have gotten in (a more qualified student).

What the bejesus is your reasoning for that? If conservatives can figure out that it's stupid to put positive cash-flow seats in the same mental box with negative cash-flow seats, then that means they must hate black people unless I can prove Harvard will spend the extra money on black people?....

Where do you come up with such inanities? In any case, I see no point in trying to discuss that point with you any further.

What?!? Where do you get this stuff? Why the heck would it make a bloody bit of difference whether they make such arguments or have actual data?

If people are not making those arguments, then why would anyone think they are basing their opposition on those arguments. One would think that is bloody obvious. It is up to you to show that conservatives as a group understand and agree with your argument. Otherwise, you are simply pointing out that the generalization of "conservatives" does not necessarily include every single conservative.

One would think it is obvious that claims of fact require substantiation in order for those claims of fact to help make a convincing argument. In the case of long-run effects of donations on seats, I grant that any data is suggestive at best.

Oh for the love of god! I wrote a long post addressing all of rb's contentions; you're the one who chose to focus on donor admissions.

Your post did not address the legacy or athletic admissions effects on OP topic of seat substitutions.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

The irony of your adhom false allegations is amusing.
No, it did not. Disregarding an irrelevant assumption is not illogical. If person A takes the space of person B, it doesn't matter to person B that there may be more spaces sometime in the unspecified future.

No, it is not. The OP is about rb's false dilemma fallacy....

We disagree. I have the actual content of the post, you have your long-run story,

YYou have an odd notion of fairness. You call it "the place of a more qualified student today", on what grounds?

Why would a student need to be admitted as a donor admittee if they were qualified? So, the student as an donor admittee is taking the place of someone else who would have gotten in (a more qualified student).

What the bejesus is your reasoning for that? If conservatives can figure out that it's stupid to put positive cash-flow seats in the same mental box with negative cash-flow seats, then that means they must hate black people unless I can prove Harvard will spend the extra money on black people?....

Where do you come up with such inanities? In any case, I see no point in trying to discuss that point with you any further.

What?!? Where do you get this stuff? Why the heck would it make a bloody bit of difference whether they make such arguments or have actual data?

If people are not making those arguments, then why would anyone think they are basing their opposition on those arguments. One would think that is bloody obvious. It is up to you to show that conservatives as a group understand and agree with your argument. Otherwise, you are simply pointing out that the generalization of "conservatives" does not necessarily include every single conservative.

One would think it is obvious that claims of fact require substantiation in order for those claims of fact to help make a convincing argument. In the case of long-run effects of donations on seats, I grant that any data is suggestive at best.

Oh for the love of god! I wrote a long post addressing all of rb's contentions; you're the one who chose to focus on donor admissions.

Your post did not address the legacy or athletic admissions effects on OP topic of seat substitutions.

Exactly.