I signed up for a 2-year stint as a Brown admission officer in 1983 and was so appalled once I saw how the sausage was made that I quit after a year and wrote an op-ed for the NY Times. One of the worst offenses I became aware of was an admission officer hand delivering an acceptance letter to the father of an applicant after enjoying a full dinner with friends at his highly rated restaurant. No surprise, the restaurant owner comped the entire meal. Not to mention the D- scion of a wealthy family who was let in after the first semester ended so he wouldn't bring down the numbers for the class that started in the fall. There's a lot that gets buried with deferred admission. Here's the op-ed I wrote explaining how it works: https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/09/opinion/rejected-by-college.html
I think you're hinting at something I've thought since affirmative action, by whatever label it was called, to avoid saying "quotas", was first being tossed around in the 1970s. It would put a thumb on the scales for the minority applicants who least needed the help in the selection process, and it would be at the expense of the white and white adjacent applicants whose families bore the least responsibility for our terrible history. (And don't you love the category of "white adjacent".)
Selective liberal arts colleges need to decide what they're for and select for that purpose. If their goal is to educate future leaders, to have their name on those leaders' resumes, what they've been doing -- the "deeply unjust system" -- makes some sense. Call it the prep school model.
The old way of selecting for that purpose was privileged background. After all, if you were some sort of scion, chances were that you would be somebody. You were in the club, and the fancy schools were for club members and nobody else, except as the relatively rare novelty or experiment.
But that's not nice, we're much evolved, and so, amid some hand-wringing, the elite colleges opened up the club to more comers in acts of religion-, sex-, race-, ethnicity-, and class-based noblesse oblige. We want to educate the future black leaders of America too, for example, and we will connect them with the scions. We will help build privileged classes that look like America. We will find diamonds in the rough, and we'll happily pay their way. Don't worry, though. The scions will still get in, including or especially the foreign ones.
In this prep school model, academic excellence is certainly more than a mere afterthought, but how much more? Because what if it's not about that, not really? What if it's mainly about building a club? Harvard wants future scholars to be Harvard men and women. But mainly what it wants is for presidents, bank presidents, college presidents, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, princes, "thought leaders," and so on to be Harvard men and women.
After all, this isn't MIT or Julliard where chops are almost all. (MIT, along with Johns Hopkins and CalTech, do not engage in legacy preferences. Performing arts schools, especially in classical music, are mainly about a demonstration of rare talent.) So long as they're not too bad, SAT scores are a lousy way to determine whether you're club material. If we just looked at SAT scores, our classes would look something like the violin sections of a top American orchestra -- lots of East Asians. What's wrong with that, you ask? Why is it okay to discriminate against minorities? Uhhhh.... Wait, wait. I almost got it. Just.... Uhhhh.... Oh, shit.
I said elite liberal arts colleges should decide what they're for. I think they should decide in a certain way. They should decide that they're for developing the most outstanding young minds, and they should barely care about anything else.
Let me suggest a test for your typical non-specialized liberal arts program. It's just a suggestion: (1) Verbal and mathematical acuity; (2) scientific and historical literacy; (3) abstract logical reasoning (like a junior LSAT); (4) an essay portion (taken in test conditions) that asks sitters to well and truly elucidate pro and con arguments on a contentious issue of public policy and ultimately take a position backed by coherent reasons; and (5) a cute curveball essay in the University of Chicago mold (e.g., "Create a new portmanteau and explain why those two things are a 'patch' (perfect match)") that allows sitters to demonstrate creativity. The essay questions would offer options and perhaps be unscored except by admissions officers.
(1) is like the SAT; (1) and (2) together ask you to have absorbed something from your four core high school subjects which are perfectly serviceable as a grounding for serious study, (3) is, to my mind, a demonstration of general intelligence, (4) is a demonstration of what Haidt and Lukianoff in their book called the intellectual virtues and, at the same time, the civic virtues, very important and very underrated and what few kids, even those who are putative Harvard material, are able to do well, and (5) is a flash of personality.
I think it's reasonable to look at applicants' high school resumes, to offer applicants an opportunity to explain transcript badness as with a gap in a job interviewee's resume, to offer multiple shots at the test, to evaluate applicants' weighted GPAs, to look at AP test scores, and other stuff like that. But, I would lean heavily on a good test performance which would be the least bullshitty. Yes, personal statements are bunk. You don't know who wrote them or if they're even true and they encourage a sort of insipid performance of the adolescent's personal journey and supposed travails and so on.
I used to be a lawyer. I now teach high school history -- to wonderful students who, as with most of us at that age, have lots of problems, usually the usual ones, sometimes more serious ones, and I'm sympathetic with them all and love them all. I've found it surprisingly easy to love them all. At the same time, I'm not sure admission to a top school is about overcoming adversity so much as whether you have the mind, whoever you are and whatever your past. If those top universities aren't about intellect above all in an otherwise anti-intellectual world, what the hell is?
Of the several reasons for the orthodoxy’s vehement rejection of Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (1994), principle among them lies in the title. The authors postulated that American society was increasingly becoming stratified, organized along hierarchical lines of meritocracy based upon intelligence. While this represented a more egalitarian arrangement than the old system dominated by inherited position and family connections, it was nonetheless no less exclusive in terms of social and economic stratification, and represented an accelerating trend of economic inequality and the emergence at one end of the spectrum of an intellectually empowered elite contrasting to, on the other end, a permanent and growing underclass of the least gifted. Herrnstein, a prominent professor of psychology at Harvard, had put forth his famous syllogism in his Atlantic article of 1973:
• If differences in mental ability are inherited, and
• If success requires those abilities, and
• If earnings and prestige depend upon success,
• Then social standing (which reflects earnings and prestige) will be based to some extent on inherited differences among people.
IQ or ‘g’ is an elusive concept, but that it correlates strongly to socioeconomic outcomes in a de facto Eurocentric world is incontrovertible. Given the importance of mental ability, as measured by IQ—a measure dismissed out of hand by progressive orthodoxy, but well established among psychometricians and the great majority of biogenetic researchers—and its high correlation with socioeconomic success, the story of race in America may be graphically represented by two overlapping bell curves. The normal distribution of a given variable, taken from a sufficiently large sample, as illustrated in a bell curve graph, will be numerically greatest at its numerical mean (average). The same number of values will lie to the right and to the left of the mean in smoothly diminishing numbers. 68.3% of the sample will lie within one standard deviation (SD) to the right and one standard deviation to the left of the mean. 95% of the sample will lie within two standard deviations from the mean, and three standard deviations will capture 97.5% of the sample. The analytical strength of this statistical ratio is that it is constant through all normal distributions of things within distinct categorical classifications. The mean IQ score for all Americans is 100, that of black Americans approximately one standard deviation, or 15 points, below that mark, or an average of 85. This statistical difference has several consequential effects. If one were to superimpose the graph of black IQ distribution onto a graph of white IQ distribution, the large area of overlap reemphasizes the necessity of seeing individuals specifically, rather than as members of a group defined by generalizations that may statistically apply to that group, but are of limited applicability to its individual members. The converse, however, precludes the assumption of group equality in terms of the chosen metric. At the point at which the graph lines intersect, those points to the left will be disproportionately, relative to population, represented by blacks, those to the right disproportionately by whites. Because of the rightward shift of the white population norm and the numerical minority of blacks, the availability of blacks to fill upper echelon jobs, or elite university admissions, corresponding to IQ requirements of, say one standard deviation above the general population norm and beyond, becomes diminishingly small. In the other direction the disproportionate concentration of blacks at one standard deviation below the norm of the white population may be expected to correlate with disproportionate representation in lower socioeconomic positions as well as to increasingly disproportionate representation by measurements of poverty and associated sociological maladies. Employers or institutions seeking to meet aggressive diversity goals in filling higher echelons may have trouble finding qualified black applicants. They certainly exist in significant numbers but will, in terms of the general population, be underrepresented. There are one eighth as many blacks as whites, but the degree that they are disproportionately underrepresented in the upper half of the IQ distribution makes the difference increasingly greater in terms of individuals available to fill positions correlating to the upper regions of the scale.
Disproportional underrepresentation of backs in higher socioeconomic positions is consistently pointed to as de facto evidence of systematic or institutional racism. Racism cannot be dismissed as a partial or even significant part of the explanation, but it is not a complete or necessarily the most important factor in the creation of the data underlying the statistic. Nor can the outcome be taken as evidence of systemic or institutional racism. We know that American has a long history of racism, beginning with attitudes that permitted the ideology of slavery, and that elements of those attitudes have persisted to the present, but anecdotal and statistical evidence exits to argue that those attitudes have not remained constant, but rather have diminished over time, to the point that one may question the degree to which racism remains systematic or institutional, or how, or to what extent, that phenomenon might be quantified. However, the importance of racism’s historical inertia cannot be discounted when considering the black person’s inertial reality.
The recognition of population differences raises questions relating to policy. Is justice, or fairness, best served by the denial that meaningful differences exist between individuals, or better by policies supportive of individuals finding meaningful roles tailored to their potentials, especially in the area of policy relating to public education and occupational preparation. Presuming the absence of material want, i.e., a reasonable degree of economic security, meaning is perhaps a higher human goal, in terms of personal realization, than material gain or even comparative status. Above all, people seek a place within society in which they enjoy dignity and are respected for their roles as individual humans, as ends to themselves.
Those, who by policy initiative would strive to correct imbalances, to perfect the state of man through social engineering, should approach their task with humility. Much harm is done by the well intentioned application of ‘ought’ or ‘should’ to selected aspects of the human condition, often in the absence of factual understanding of underlying complexity and a tendency in favor of argument from conclusion. Generalities may often be seen as disrespective of individual integrity and data points do not provide an analog of the fabric or reality.
He suggests that we need to square up to the likelihood of genetic differences among populations affecting behavior and cognition. The absence of responsible and accurate discussion will leave a vacuum filled by stereotyping and the sort of hunches and folk "wisdom" and speculation that produces pseudoscientific racism. The respectable answer to such racism cannot be politically correct blank-slate-ism, which is false and has the effect of confirming, because it's not credible, the racist hunches.
His solution is to treat everyone as an individual of equal worth and dignity, ensuring fair opportunities for all. He suggests viewing such differences, to the extent they're discovered and demonstrated in genetic studies, as akin to average sex differences, which we don't find quite so shocking or so taboo to recognize or talk about. Geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden goes a step further in her book The Genetic Lottery, where she argues that because genes are luck, less should ride on them in terms of social and economic inequality.
In any case, I share your instinct about addressing the outcomes of such differences on the back end and agree that educational institutions should not attempt to "correct" for racial disparities, whatever has produced them. For example, it's increasingly popular to "de-track" high school classes (eliminate "advanced" or "honors" levels). I don't think anybody would support this if it weren't for the persistence of racial disparities, because students are better served by curriculums and instruction tailored to their needs. We seem to have become allergic to excellence, which will not serve any of us well!
These days, even recognizing sex differences is taboo. Ask Larry Summer if sex differences are 'generally accepted'. Even the existence of sex is disputed these days. Let me offer a sad data point. At the University of Southern Maine, an instructor (Christy Hammer) dared to say that there are two sexes All but one student (21 of 22) walked out in protest. The one student later caved to the fanatics. Of course, Hammer was entirely correct.
The end of affirmative action. State schools (public) are properly concerned with demographic inclusiveness. As in come and get it for all. Elite (private) schools less so, the pursuit of excellence their mandate. In the pursuit of excellence fairness must fall out of the equation. Life is, as Edward Wilson said, after Darwin, not fair. The game is not over, the equation not resolved. Cultural vitality requires the greatest net achievement of excellence (the good) rather than an equal distribution of diminishing quality.
"Or, far better, university presidents could, after all, seize the opportunity to make radical changes to a system that is broken in many more ways than one."
As you yourself said earlier: what we identify as "broken" is, in fact, a feature of the system. It is desirable to the universities irrespective of its impact on the student body or the larger society.
Why shouldn't universities become honest: e.g., we will admit anyone with SATs over X and pays, say, $2 MM per year, but they get on other preferences? It would take only a few places from others and would help to raise money to be need-blind.
"A 2019 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that “43% of white students admitted to Harvard University were recruited athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean’s interest list — applicants whose parents or relatives have donated to Harvard,” NBC News reported
Diversity might be enhanced by recognition of the difference between public and private schools, the later properly having much more leeway than the former in the design of their product. The public institution is first responsible to the common welfare of its citizens. The private institution’s mandate is first to its own self-formulated mission, while taking care not to infringe on the rights of those beyond its legitimate sphere. If Harvard wants to be a club, or should choose to have its student body made up of athletically endowed decedents of endowers, so be it. Prospective students not attracted to that club might choose another school thereby promoting innovation and diversity in institutional offerings. There does not come immediately to mind a reason that private schools should be directed in their admission programs by public policy.
"Their strength is utterly subjective; the ability to craft a good statement is strongly correlated with cultural capital and a high socioeconomic status; and rich parents can outsource the effort to unscrupulous admissions consultants, like those caught up in the Varsity Blue scandal."
I have hired these consultants. To the best of my knowledge, I have not violated the law. I have also personally written admission statements (which were not used). I have vivid memories of an old (and very wealthy) boss using his (very bright) staff to rewrite that admission essays of his (not so bright) kids.
These days, essays can be generated using ChatGPT. My guess is that the days of college essays are numbered (should be numbered). My guess is that photos will replace essays. One way or another, admission officers will find a way to enforce racial quotas.
As the author points out. The status quo has many flaws.
If you eliminate SATs, the personal statement and race/ethnicity what else do you use as data to make a decision when you have slots for 3-4% of applicants. A randomizer button? I think the elite universities can survive just fine without federal funding and can easily use their private endowments to delink from federal oversight. This will push them to do so.
The elite universities might be able to use endowments to delink from federal oversight, but why would they? The money that comes from the federal government for research is how they grow endowments, power, and influence.
I have mixed feelings. Yes it is unfair. But I would never have been able to afford college without it. The sad reality is that rich folks donate, and rich folks with a link to a college donate more. I made it through by working 20 hours a week and by getting both merit and need based scholarships. The latter would not have been possible without wealthy donors. I figure that I was a financial loss for the school and that they made a profit on Richie Rich.
My guess is that donor preference will end up surviving. This is not a moral statement, just a practical one. There is simply too much money at stake. Is any school going to give up $100 M? Not likely. Are the courts going to force schools to give up $100 M? I would guess not. Legacy admissions seem to somewhat at risk. Donor admissions seem safe for now and probably forever.
I signed up for a 2-year stint as a Brown admission officer in 1983 and was so appalled once I saw how the sausage was made that I quit after a year and wrote an op-ed for the NY Times. One of the worst offenses I became aware of was an admission officer hand delivering an acceptance letter to the father of an applicant after enjoying a full dinner with friends at his highly rated restaurant. No surprise, the restaurant owner comped the entire meal. Not to mention the D- scion of a wealthy family who was let in after the first semester ended so he wouldn't bring down the numbers for the class that started in the fall. There's a lot that gets buried with deferred admission. Here's the op-ed I wrote explaining how it works: https://www.nytimes.com/1983/04/09/opinion/rejected-by-college.html
I'd be curious to read admission essays by the Obama daughters.
I think you're hinting at something I've thought since affirmative action, by whatever label it was called, to avoid saying "quotas", was first being tossed around in the 1970s. It would put a thumb on the scales for the minority applicants who least needed the help in the selection process, and it would be at the expense of the white and white adjacent applicants whose families bore the least responsibility for our terrible history. (And don't you love the category of "white adjacent".)
Which is just what happened with Asians- they are now white adjacent, despite the fact that none of them ever had slaves.
🤣
Selective liberal arts colleges need to decide what they're for and select for that purpose. If their goal is to educate future leaders, to have their name on those leaders' resumes, what they've been doing -- the "deeply unjust system" -- makes some sense. Call it the prep school model.
The old way of selecting for that purpose was privileged background. After all, if you were some sort of scion, chances were that you would be somebody. You were in the club, and the fancy schools were for club members and nobody else, except as the relatively rare novelty or experiment.
But that's not nice, we're much evolved, and so, amid some hand-wringing, the elite colleges opened up the club to more comers in acts of religion-, sex-, race-, ethnicity-, and class-based noblesse oblige. We want to educate the future black leaders of America too, for example, and we will connect them with the scions. We will help build privileged classes that look like America. We will find diamonds in the rough, and we'll happily pay their way. Don't worry, though. The scions will still get in, including or especially the foreign ones.
In this prep school model, academic excellence is certainly more than a mere afterthought, but how much more? Because what if it's not about that, not really? What if it's mainly about building a club? Harvard wants future scholars to be Harvard men and women. But mainly what it wants is for presidents, bank presidents, college presidents, members of Congress, Supreme Court justices, princes, "thought leaders," and so on to be Harvard men and women.
After all, this isn't MIT or Julliard where chops are almost all. (MIT, along with Johns Hopkins and CalTech, do not engage in legacy preferences. Performing arts schools, especially in classical music, are mainly about a demonstration of rare talent.) So long as they're not too bad, SAT scores are a lousy way to determine whether you're club material. If we just looked at SAT scores, our classes would look something like the violin sections of a top American orchestra -- lots of East Asians. What's wrong with that, you ask? Why is it okay to discriminate against minorities? Uhhhh.... Wait, wait. I almost got it. Just.... Uhhhh.... Oh, shit.
I said elite liberal arts colleges should decide what they're for. I think they should decide in a certain way. They should decide that they're for developing the most outstanding young minds, and they should barely care about anything else.
Let me suggest a test for your typical non-specialized liberal arts program. It's just a suggestion: (1) Verbal and mathematical acuity; (2) scientific and historical literacy; (3) abstract logical reasoning (like a junior LSAT); (4) an essay portion (taken in test conditions) that asks sitters to well and truly elucidate pro and con arguments on a contentious issue of public policy and ultimately take a position backed by coherent reasons; and (5) a cute curveball essay in the University of Chicago mold (e.g., "Create a new portmanteau and explain why those two things are a 'patch' (perfect match)") that allows sitters to demonstrate creativity. The essay questions would offer options and perhaps be unscored except by admissions officers.
(1) is like the SAT; (1) and (2) together ask you to have absorbed something from your four core high school subjects which are perfectly serviceable as a grounding for serious study, (3) is, to my mind, a demonstration of general intelligence, (4) is a demonstration of what Haidt and Lukianoff in their book called the intellectual virtues and, at the same time, the civic virtues, very important and very underrated and what few kids, even those who are putative Harvard material, are able to do well, and (5) is a flash of personality.
I think it's reasonable to look at applicants' high school resumes, to offer applicants an opportunity to explain transcript badness as with a gap in a job interviewee's resume, to offer multiple shots at the test, to evaluate applicants' weighted GPAs, to look at AP test scores, and other stuff like that. But, I would lean heavily on a good test performance which would be the least bullshitty. Yes, personal statements are bunk. You don't know who wrote them or if they're even true and they encourage a sort of insipid performance of the adolescent's personal journey and supposed travails and so on.
I used to be a lawyer. I now teach high school history -- to wonderful students who, as with most of us at that age, have lots of problems, usually the usual ones, sometimes more serious ones, and I'm sympathetic with them all and love them all. I've found it surprisingly easy to love them all. At the same time, I'm not sure admission to a top school is about overcoming adversity so much as whether you have the mind, whoever you are and whatever your past. If those top universities aren't about intellect above all in an otherwise anti-intellectual world, what the hell is?
The double bell curve:
Of the several reasons for the orthodoxy’s vehement rejection of Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life (1994), principle among them lies in the title. The authors postulated that American society was increasingly becoming stratified, organized along hierarchical lines of meritocracy based upon intelligence. While this represented a more egalitarian arrangement than the old system dominated by inherited position and family connections, it was nonetheless no less exclusive in terms of social and economic stratification, and represented an accelerating trend of economic inequality and the emergence at one end of the spectrum of an intellectually empowered elite contrasting to, on the other end, a permanent and growing underclass of the least gifted. Herrnstein, a prominent professor of psychology at Harvard, had put forth his famous syllogism in his Atlantic article of 1973:
• If differences in mental ability are inherited, and
• If success requires those abilities, and
• If earnings and prestige depend upon success,
• Then social standing (which reflects earnings and prestige) will be based to some extent on inherited differences among people.
IQ or ‘g’ is an elusive concept, but that it correlates strongly to socioeconomic outcomes in a de facto Eurocentric world is incontrovertible. Given the importance of mental ability, as measured by IQ—a measure dismissed out of hand by progressive orthodoxy, but well established among psychometricians and the great majority of biogenetic researchers—and its high correlation with socioeconomic success, the story of race in America may be graphically represented by two overlapping bell curves. The normal distribution of a given variable, taken from a sufficiently large sample, as illustrated in a bell curve graph, will be numerically greatest at its numerical mean (average). The same number of values will lie to the right and to the left of the mean in smoothly diminishing numbers. 68.3% of the sample will lie within one standard deviation (SD) to the right and one standard deviation to the left of the mean. 95% of the sample will lie within two standard deviations from the mean, and three standard deviations will capture 97.5% of the sample. The analytical strength of this statistical ratio is that it is constant through all normal distributions of things within distinct categorical classifications. The mean IQ score for all Americans is 100, that of black Americans approximately one standard deviation, or 15 points, below that mark, or an average of 85. This statistical difference has several consequential effects. If one were to superimpose the graph of black IQ distribution onto a graph of white IQ distribution, the large area of overlap reemphasizes the necessity of seeing individuals specifically, rather than as members of a group defined by generalizations that may statistically apply to that group, but are of limited applicability to its individual members. The converse, however, precludes the assumption of group equality in terms of the chosen metric. At the point at which the graph lines intersect, those points to the left will be disproportionately, relative to population, represented by blacks, those to the right disproportionately by whites. Because of the rightward shift of the white population norm and the numerical minority of blacks, the availability of blacks to fill upper echelon jobs, or elite university admissions, corresponding to IQ requirements of, say one standard deviation above the general population norm and beyond, becomes diminishingly small. In the other direction the disproportionate concentration of blacks at one standard deviation below the norm of the white population may be expected to correlate with disproportionate representation in lower socioeconomic positions as well as to increasingly disproportionate representation by measurements of poverty and associated sociological maladies. Employers or institutions seeking to meet aggressive diversity goals in filling higher echelons may have trouble finding qualified black applicants. They certainly exist in significant numbers but will, in terms of the general population, be underrepresented. There are one eighth as many blacks as whites, but the degree that they are disproportionately underrepresented in the upper half of the IQ distribution makes the difference increasingly greater in terms of individuals available to fill positions correlating to the upper regions of the scale.
Disproportional underrepresentation of backs in higher socioeconomic positions is consistently pointed to as de facto evidence of systematic or institutional racism. Racism cannot be dismissed as a partial or even significant part of the explanation, but it is not a complete or necessarily the most important factor in the creation of the data underlying the statistic. Nor can the outcome be taken as evidence of systemic or institutional racism. We know that American has a long history of racism, beginning with attitudes that permitted the ideology of slavery, and that elements of those attitudes have persisted to the present, but anecdotal and statistical evidence exits to argue that those attitudes have not remained constant, but rather have diminished over time, to the point that one may question the degree to which racism remains systematic or institutional, or how, or to what extent, that phenomenon might be quantified. However, the importance of racism’s historical inertia cannot be discounted when considering the black person’s inertial reality.
The recognition of population differences raises questions relating to policy. Is justice, or fairness, best served by the denial that meaningful differences exist between individuals, or better by policies supportive of individuals finding meaningful roles tailored to their potentials, especially in the area of policy relating to public education and occupational preparation. Presuming the absence of material want, i.e., a reasonable degree of economic security, meaning is perhaps a higher human goal, in terms of personal realization, than material gain or even comparative status. Above all, people seek a place within society in which they enjoy dignity and are respected for their roles as individual humans, as ends to themselves.
Those, who by policy initiative would strive to correct imbalances, to perfect the state of man through social engineering, should approach their task with humility. Much harm is done by the well intentioned application of ‘ought’ or ‘should’ to selected aspects of the human condition, often in the absence of factual understanding of underlying complexity and a tendency in favor of argument from conclusion. Generalities may often be seen as disrespective of individual integrity and data points do not provide an analog of the fabric or reality.
Along these lines, I found this 2018 New York Times op-ed by geneticist David Reich persuasive and instructive.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/23/opinion/sunday/genetics-race.html
He suggests that we need to square up to the likelihood of genetic differences among populations affecting behavior and cognition. The absence of responsible and accurate discussion will leave a vacuum filled by stereotyping and the sort of hunches and folk "wisdom" and speculation that produces pseudoscientific racism. The respectable answer to such racism cannot be politically correct blank-slate-ism, which is false and has the effect of confirming, because it's not credible, the racist hunches.
His solution is to treat everyone as an individual of equal worth and dignity, ensuring fair opportunities for all. He suggests viewing such differences, to the extent they're discovered and demonstrated in genetic studies, as akin to average sex differences, which we don't find quite so shocking or so taboo to recognize or talk about. Geneticist Kathryn Paige Harden goes a step further in her book The Genetic Lottery, where she argues that because genes are luck, less should ride on them in terms of social and economic inequality.
In any case, I share your instinct about addressing the outcomes of such differences on the back end and agree that educational institutions should not attempt to "correct" for racial disparities, whatever has produced them. For example, it's increasingly popular to "de-track" high school classes (eliminate "advanced" or "honors" levels). I don't think anybody would support this if it weren't for the persistence of racial disparities, because students are better served by curriculums and instruction tailored to their needs. We seem to have become allergic to excellence, which will not serve any of us well!
These days, even recognizing sex differences is taboo. Ask Larry Summer if sex differences are 'generally accepted'. Even the existence of sex is disputed these days. Let me offer a sad data point. At the University of Southern Maine, an instructor (Christy Hammer) dared to say that there are two sexes All but one student (21 of 22) walked out in protest. The one student later caved to the fanatics. Of course, Hammer was entirely correct.
Agreed. This issue was raised over a half century ago by Michael Young in his book The Rise of the Meritocracy
I love your suggestions and in a perfect world, they would be enacted. We don't live in a perfect world, unfortunately.
The end of affirmative action. State schools (public) are properly concerned with demographic inclusiveness. As in come and get it for all. Elite (private) schools less so, the pursuit of excellence their mandate. In the pursuit of excellence fairness must fall out of the equation. Life is, as Edward Wilson said, after Darwin, not fair. The game is not over, the equation not resolved. Cultural vitality requires the greatest net achievement of excellence (the good) rather than an equal distribution of diminishing quality.
"Or, far better, university presidents could, after all, seize the opportunity to make radical changes to a system that is broken in many more ways than one."
As you yourself said earlier: what we identify as "broken" is, in fact, a feature of the system. It is desirable to the universities irrespective of its impact on the student body or the larger society.
Why shouldn't universities become honest: e.g., we will admit anyone with SATs over X and pays, say, $2 MM per year, but they get on other preferences? It would take only a few places from others and would help to raise money to be need-blind.
"A 2019 study from the National Bureau of Economic Research found that “43% of white students admitted to Harvard University were recruited athletes, legacy students, children of faculty and staff, or on the dean’s interest list — applicants whose parents or relatives have donated to Harvard,” NBC News reported
Diversity might be enhanced by recognition of the difference between public and private schools, the later properly having much more leeway than the former in the design of their product. The public institution is first responsible to the common welfare of its citizens. The private institution’s mandate is first to its own self-formulated mission, while taking care not to infringe on the rights of those beyond its legitimate sphere. If Harvard wants to be a club, or should choose to have its student body made up of athletically endowed decedents of endowers, so be it. Prospective students not attracted to that club might choose another school thereby promoting innovation and diversity in institutional offerings. There does not come immediately to mind a reason that private schools should be directed in their admission programs by public policy.
"Their strength is utterly subjective; the ability to craft a good statement is strongly correlated with cultural capital and a high socioeconomic status; and rich parents can outsource the effort to unscrupulous admissions consultants, like those caught up in the Varsity Blue scandal."
I have hired these consultants. To the best of my knowledge, I have not violated the law. I have also personally written admission statements (which were not used). I have vivid memories of an old (and very wealthy) boss using his (very bright) staff to rewrite that admission essays of his (not so bright) kids.
These days, essays can be generated using ChatGPT. My guess is that the days of college essays are numbered (should be numbered). My guess is that photos will replace essays. One way or another, admission officers will find a way to enforce racial quotas.
As the author points out. The status quo has many flaws.
If you eliminate SATs, the personal statement and race/ethnicity what else do you use as data to make a decision when you have slots for 3-4% of applicants. A randomizer button? I think the elite universities can survive just fine without federal funding and can easily use their private endowments to delink from federal oversight. This will push them to do so.
The elite universities might be able to use endowments to delink from federal oversight, but why would they? The money that comes from the federal government for research is how they grow endowments, power, and influence.
At the end I was waiting for ..."and here is an outline of how such a system might work."
But no such suggestions were presented. I wonder why.
I have mixed feelings. Yes it is unfair. But I would never have been able to afford college without it. The sad reality is that rich folks donate, and rich folks with a link to a college donate more. I made it through by working 20 hours a week and by getting both merit and need based scholarships. The latter would not have been possible without wealthy donors. I figure that I was a financial loss for the school and that they made a profit on Richie Rich.
My guess is that donor preference will end up surviving. This is not a moral statement, just a practical one. There is simply too much money at stake. Is any school going to give up $100 M? Not likely. Are the courts going to force schools to give up $100 M? I would guess not. Legacy admissions seem to somewhat at risk. Donor admissions seem safe for now and probably forever.