^adding to this. It’s really only a few firms in finance and consulting who place a premium on top colleges. The number of places that value a Harvard degree above everything is actually really small. It’s mckinsey, Bain, bcg, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and then a crop of private equity firms and hedge funds. If you go to Harvard and don’t get a job at one of those places, you wasted the education
Arcidiacono nails Harvard again for hiding preferences with fake black admits
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http://public.econ.duke.edu/~psarcidi/recruit_reject_11_4.pdf
Over the past 20 years, elite colleges in the US have seen dramatic increases in applications. We provide context for part of this trend using detailed data on Harvard University that was unsealed as part of the SFFA v. Harvard lawsuit. We show that Harvard encourages applications from many students who effectively have no chance of being admitted, and that this is particularly true for African Americans. African American applications soared beginning with the Class of 2009, with the increase driven by those with lower SAT scores. Yet there was little change in the share of admits who were African American. We show that this change in applicant behavior resulted in substantial convergence in the overall admissions rates across races yet no change in the large cross-race differences in admissions rates for high-SAT applicants.I applaud Harvard for doing this, they are simultaneously achieving two things:
1.) destroying the prestige of top tier colleges
2.) even further constraining the number of people who get in on merit. If you’re a middle class white or Asian guy who went to Harvard, that’s extremely impressive
A hedge fund I used to work at would speculate on who was a diversity or sports admit and who was a merit admit. Highly selective employers aren’t this stupid. These admits accomplish nothingAnd the outstanding blacks and females don’t have the opportunity to earn these credentials on the merits. They will always have “diversity admit” hanging over their heads.
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Also every elite medical and law school in the country, though of course a selection effect too since H undergrads are a lot stronger than average
^adding to this. It’s really only a few firms in finance and consulting who place a premium on top colleges. The number of places that value a Harvard degree above everything is actually really small. It’s mckinsey, Bain, bcg, Goldman, Morgan Stanley, and then a crop of private equity firms and hedge funds. If you go to Harvard and don’t get a job at one of those places, you wasted the education
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Most applicants are smart, so ordering by score has small relevance if they pass a certain cutoff(we all known the randomness of exams performance, beyond certain level). On the contrary, racial and cultural diversity of elites is healthy for society. If most harvard graduates were asian, it seems likely that the lack of diversity would deter employers, professors, and even applications, and eventually Harvard would lose its edge. It is much wiser to keep diversity at the entrance point. Stop moaning.
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The fact that this is happening since years and Harvard didn't suffer any reputational damage for perceived lower quality output could have two explanations
A) the social constructionist folks are right: sat is discriminatory and underprivileged people just need a chance
B) higher education is only signaling
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Most applicants are smart, so ordering by score has small relevance if they pass a certain cutoff(we all known the randomness of exams performance, beyond certain level). On the contrary, racial and cultural diversity of elites is healthy for society. If most harvard graduates were asian, it seems likely that the lack of diversity would deter employers, professors, and even applications, and eventually Harvard would lose its edge. It is much wiser to keep diversity at the entrance point. Stop moaning.
Wrong. Beyond a certain point, there is STILL a lot of cross sectional variability. No one remembers Lebron James favorite teammate in high school. They remember Lebron James. To say that everyone in the NBA or NCAA basketball is "close enough" to Lebron is really dismissing the entire concept of excellence.
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The fact that this is happening since years and Harvard didn't suffer any reputational damage for perceived lower quality output could have two explanations
A) the social constructionist folks are right: sat is discriminatory and underprivileged people just need a chance
B) higher education is only signalingWrong. Obviously you never worked on Wall Street.
Wall Street now looks first and foremost at SAT scores now. So do a lot of management consulting firms. For the past several decades, Wall Street has looked at SAT scores more now that university pedigree is no longer a signal of top intelligence. -
There is no proof that racial or gender diversity leads to cultural diversity. Moreover there is no proof that cultural diversity leads to more welfare.
Most applicants are smart, so ordering by score has small relevance if they pass a certain cutoff(we all known the randomness of exams performance, beyond certain level). On the contrary, racial and cultural diversity of elites is healthy for society. If most harvard graduates were asian, it seems likely that the lack of diversity would deter employers, professors, and even applications, and eventually Harvard would lose its edge. It is much wiser to keep diversity at the entrance point. Stop moaning.
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The fact that this is happening since years and Harvard didn't suffer any reputational damage for perceived lower quality output could have two explanations
A) the social constructionist folks are right: sat is discriminatory and underprivileged people just need a chance
B) higher education is only signalingI understand this point. I thought the finding was simply that Harvard got way more lower ability blacks to apply to drive down their acceptance rate, not that accepted student quality declined.
Also, why is OPs post deleted?
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The fact that this is happening since years and Harvard didn't suffer any reputational damage for perceived lower quality output could have two explanations
A) the social constructionist folks are right: sat is discriminatory and underprivileged people just need a chance
B) higher education is only signalingWrong. Obviously you never worked on Wall Street.
Wall Street now looks first and foremost at SAT scores now. So do a lot of management consulting firms. For the past several decades, Wall Street has looked at SAT scores more now that university pedigree is no longer a signal of top intelligence.Are you serious ? If it’s true is very interesting
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Most applicants are smart, so ordering by score has small relevance if they pass a certain cutoff(we all known the randomness of exams performance, beyond certain level). On the contrary, racial and cultural diversity of elites is healthy for society. If most harvard graduates were asian, it seems likely that the lack of diversity would deter employers, professors, and even applications, and eventually Harvard would lose its edge. It is much wiser to keep diversity at the entrance point. Stop moaning.
is lack of diversity deterring geniuses at Caltech or the UC system? you must have a lot of hatred toward asians to go out of the way like this to defend a discriminatory system
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The fact that this is happening since years and Harvard didn't suffer any reputational damage for perceived lower quality output could have two explanations
A) the social constructionist folks are right: sat is discriminatory and underprivileged people just need a chance
B) higher education is only signalingWrong. Obviously you never worked on Wall Street.
Wall Street now looks first and foremost at SAT scores now. So do a lot of management consulting firms. For the past several decades, Wall Street has looked at SAT scores more now that university pedigree is no longer a signal of top intelligence.Are you serious ? If it’s true is very interesting
No
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If most harvard graduates were asian, it seems likely that the lack of diversity would deter employers, professors, and even applications, and eventually Harvard would lose its edge.
It's funny. 3461's sentiments were expressed nearly 100 years ago by the then President of Harvard. The only difference is which group was being targeted:
The summer hotel that is ruined by admitting J-ws meets its fate, not because the J-ws it admits are of bad character, but because they drive away the Gentiles, and then after the Gentiles have left, they leave also.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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^ you’re taking as granted that this didn’t happen to some extent. Maybe some non-Jewish students were deterred from Harvard and went to other “less Jewish” schools? Not claiming they did but it’s possible. Indeed it’s strange to think that, for some reason, Harvard administrators cared enough about the issue and went students and parents simply didn’t care? Why one and not the other?