The 1 Percent’s Ivy League Loophole
1st June 2015
Salon is being Crustian again.
Legacy preference in college admission, or the practice of selecting the offspring of alumni over other qualified candidates, was originally a strategy developed to grandfather Jewish applicants out of admission. Though the policy’s intention has changed, it remains the reality that as American students head back to campus this fall, 10 to 25 percent of them do not deserve their spots. They’re “legacy admits,” the kids who got a boost via birth.
Yet not a word about the 10 to 26 percent ‘diversity admits’, who also ‘got a boost by birth’, and who also ‘do not deserve their spots’. Funny how that works.
June 1st, 2015 at 11:01
The depth and breadth of these policies are stunning. This is not something done at Harvard or the Ivy League or just private colleges. All of the schools are subject to the financial and political pressures that breed these policies. Name a university that says, “Screw all that. Everyone’s application will be evaluated in the blind and admittance will be based on qualifications only.”
June 1st, 2015 at 18:20
The reason that they went to the ‘whole student’ evaluations rather that just admit people on their entrance examination scores was because if they just admitted on exam scores too many Jews would get it; this was started by James Conant at Harvard. You can look it up.