43% of Harvard's White Students are ALDC Admits

[Tedium]

You know, legacy media is dying, and the COVID-19 crisis showed the cracks in higher education. I say let them rot in their ivory tower.

I’ve learned and changed so much even since I first joined this forum. I’m no longer impressed by Ivy League credentials, or the people who cling to them as their sole personality trait.

It’s all about the work you put in. That goes for education and life in general. I can get where I need to go without an Ivy pedigree, and so can all the people that are being displaced by legacy nonsense. If we stop staring in slack-jawed awe every time they make a proclamation from on high, they lose a lot of their power. I say we just move on without them.


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[Alpha]

I think it's important to point out that legacy admissions are a common phenomenon and occur at virtually all schools.  I think it's good that this issue is reviewed and I'm happy to see the practice beginning to change
An end to legacy admissions? Princeton should follow Amherst College’s lead - The Princetonian (dailyprincetonian.com)

[alexf.1990]

News reporting like this is both woefully irresponsible and ideologically driven. The racial animosity underlying the reporting is quite clear. The reporter simply didn't look at the study or they simply ripped the parts that support their ideology and posted them. Given the way this article has been regurgitated by various outlets, its not clear whether the journalists are lazy or inept.

The actual study simulates what admissions would look like under various conditions. The results are on Table 11 (Page 49), if anyone is interested. https://www.nber.org/papers/w26316.pdf

Under a model with no legacy preferences, white admits fall by 4%, most other races increase their admits by a similar percentage. Under a model with no athlete preference, white admits fall by 6%. Under a model with no race/legacy/athlete preference, white admits increase by 3%, African American admits decrease by 69%, Hispanic admits decrease by 42%, and Asian American admits increase by 51%.

For all the moaning about ALDC privilege, the actual impact it has on the number of white admits is minuscule. The benefits conferred by the current system on African Americans and Hispanics, and the corresponding penalty for being Asian American, is quite staggering. Of course, those results don't support the ideology of those writing the news, so they're buried, and we're left with the completely false implication that white admits would fall by 43% without ADLC preferences.

I guess you just skipped over this part. 

Table 10 also shows what this implies for the overall admit rate for ALDC applicants. The admit rate for all white ALDCs applicants would fall from 43.6% to 11.4%, a drop of over 30 percentage points. We can go one step further and generate an upper bound on the overall LDC admit rate for white applicants when ALDC preferences are eliminated. If we assume that all of the athletes are rejected when ALDC preferences are eliminated, it would imply that the white LDC admit rate would fall from 33.4% to less than 14%. Thus, the average marginal effect of being an LDC on admissions for white applicants is at least 19.4%. 

Legacy admissions policies were designed to be a hidden race/ethnicity preference for White Christians.

https://www.businessinsider.com/legacy-a...es-2013-10

They're doing a poor job of giving whites an advantage if their elimination would only decrease the number of white admits by 4%.

Again, they ran the simulation to see what admissions demographics would look like under various scenarios. That is the appropriate topic, not the advantage white LDC admits have over the rest of the admissions pool.

In the face of blatant racial discrimination, from which black and hispanic admits receive tremendous preference, it's bizarre that you're moaning about LDC admissions policies giving such a small benefit to whites. Let's also ignore the fact that a substantial number of those counted as white are actually Jewish.

---

I would assume that if you got rid of Legacy, Asians would go up by a lot and everyone else would lose out?  So that's the group that's actually getting screwed here, rather than black or Hispanic students.  I know that's the case at other schools - if you use CalTech as your base. They are truly color-blind in their admissions, so they have 2x the number of Asians as MIT and other elite schools, which cap their Asian population at around 30%.

Yes, Asians are the ones who are negatively impacted by non-merit-based admissions. A similar situation existed a century ago with Jewish students, which is why we have the LDC preferences to begin with.

Don't you see how strange it is that the media outlets reporting on this study don't mention the monumental discrimination against Asians. Every story just harks on the ideologically-driven  "white admits aren't actually qualified" narrative. It's particularly strange because the only reason we have this data is because of a lawsuit that alleges such racial discrimination against Asians.

[Alpha]

News reporting like this is both woefully irresponsible and ideologically driven. The racial animosity underlying the reporting is quite clear. The reporter simply didn't look at the study or they simply ripped the parts that support their ideology and posted them. Given the way this article has been regurgitated by various outlets, its not clear whether the journalists are lazy or inept.

The actual study simulates what admissions would look like under various conditions. The results are on Table 11 (Page 49), if anyone is interested. https://www.nber.org/papers/w26316.pdf

Under a model with no legacy preferences, white admits fall by 4%, most other races increase their admits by a similar percentage. Under a model with no athlete preference, white admits fall by 6%. Under a model with no race/legacy/athlete preference, white admits increase by 3%, African American admits decrease by 69%, Hispanic admits decrease by 42%, and Asian American admits increase by 51%.

For all the moaning about ALDC privilege, the actual impact it has on the number of white admits is minuscule. The benefits conferred by the current system on African Americans and Hispanics, and the corresponding penalty for being Asian American, is quite staggering. Of course, those results don't support the ideology of those writing the news, so they're buried, and we're left with the completely false implication that white admits would fall by 43% without ADLC preferences.

I guess you just skipped over this part. 

Table 10 also shows what this implies for the overall admit rate for ALDC applicants. The admit rate for all white ALDCs applicants would fall from 43.6% to 11.4%, a drop of over 30 percentage points. We can go one step further and generate an upper bound on the overall LDC admit rate for white applicants when ALDC preferences are eliminated. If we assume that all of the athletes are rejected when ALDC preferences are eliminated, it would imply that the white LDC admit rate would fall from 33.4% to less than 14%. Thus, the average marginal effect of being an LDC on admissions for white applicants is at least 19.4%. 

Legacy admissions policies were designed to be a hidden race/ethnicity preference for White Christians.

https://www.businessinsider.com/legacy-a...es-2013-10

They're doing a poor job of giving whites an advantage if their elimination would only decrease the number of white admits by 4%.

Again, they ran the simulation to see what admissions demographics would look like under various scenarios. That is the appropriate topic, not the advantage white LDC admits have over the rest of the admissions pool.

In the face of blatant racial discrimination, from which black and hispanic admits receive tremendous preference, it's bizarre that you're moaning about LDC admissions policies giving such a small benefit to whites. Let's also ignore the fact that a substantial number of those counted as white are actually Jewish.

---

I would assume that if you got rid of Legacy, Asians would go up by a lot and everyone else would lose out?  So that's the group that's actually getting screwed here, rather than black or Hispanic students.  I know that's the case at other schools - if you use CalTech as your base. They are truly color-blind in their admissions, so they have 2x the number of Asians as MIT and other elite schools, which cap their Asian population at around 30%.

Yes, Asians are the ones who are negatively impacted by non-merit-based admissions. A similar situation existed a century ago with Jewish students, which is why we have the LDC preferences to begin with.

Don't you see how strange it is that the media outlets reporting on this study don't mention the monumental discrimination against Asians. Every story just harks on the ideologically-driven  "white admits aren't actually qualified" narrative. It's particularly strange because the only reason we have this data is because of a lawsuit that alleges such racial discrimination against Asians.

Those interested can find a summary of that case here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_f...rd_College

[alexf.1990]

Those interested can find a summary of that case here
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Students_f...rd_College

It's certainly interesting to see Asian American "advocacy groups" oppose a policy that would lead to a 30%+ increase in the number of Asians at Harvard.

[sanantone]

They're doing a poor job of giving whites an advantage if their elimination would only decrease the number of white admits by 4%.

Again, they ran the simulation to see what admissions demographics would look like under various scenarios. That is the appropriate topic, not the advantage white LDC admits have over the rest of the admissions pool.

In the face of blatant racial discrimination, from which black and hispanic admits receive tremendous preference, it's bizarre that you're moaning about LDC admissions policies giving such a small benefit to whites. Let's also ignore the fact that a substantial number of those counted as white are actually Jewish.

Their? You mean "its." The stat you're referring to solely relates to dropping legacy admissions. Donor and child of employee are separate categories, which is why they ran models that included the other preferences. Why are you only focused on the effect of dropping legacy admissions when the article is about the combined effect of ALDC?

[alexf.1990]

They're doing a poor job of giving whites an advantage if their elimination would only decrease the number of white admits by 4%.

Again, they ran the simulation to see what admissions demographics would look like under various scenarios. That is the appropriate topic, not the advantage white LDC admits have over the rest of the admissions pool.

In the face of blatant racial discrimination, from which black and hispanic admits receive tremendous preference, it's bizarre that you're moaning about LDC admissions policies giving such a small benefit to whites. Let's also ignore the fact that a substantial number of those counted as white are actually Jewish.

Their? You mean "its." The stat you're referring to solely relates to dropping legacy admissions. Donor and child of employee are separate categories, which is why they ran models that included the other preferences. Why are you only focused on the effect of dropping legacy admissions when the article is about the combined effect of ALDC?

They didn't run models for what a class would look like without donor and children of staff would look like. They ran models for non-legacy, non-athlete, and non-athlete/legacy/racial preference. The results are posted above. There's absolutely no factual basis for your claims or the narrative pushed in the article. The only way I can imagine you've arrived at your conclusion is if you assume that the ADLC applicants wouldn't be replaced if the ADLC system were removed, which is a stunning mistake for someone so well-versed in the social "sciences." Someone capable of making such an elementary error wouldn't dare to correct another poster on a mere pronoun typo.

[sanantone]

They're doing a poor job of giving whites an advantage if their elimination would only decrease the number of white admits by 4%.

Again, they ran the simulation to see what admissions demographics would look like under various scenarios. That is the appropriate topic, not the advantage white LDC admits have over the rest of the admissions pool.

In the face of blatant racial discrimination, from which black and hispanic admits receive tremendous preference, it's bizarre that you're moaning about LDC admissions policies giving such a small benefit to whites. Let's also ignore the fact that a substantial number of those counted as white are actually Jewish.

Their? You mean "its." The stat you're referring to solely relates to dropping legacy admissions. Donor and child of employee are separate categories, which is why they ran models that included the other preferences. Why are you only focused on the effect of dropping legacy admissions when the article is about the combined effect of ALDC?

They didn't run models for what a class would look like without donor and children of staff would look like. They ran models for non-legacy, non-athlete, and non-athlete/legacy/racial preference. The results are posted above. There's absolutely no factual basis for your claims or the narrative pushed in the article. The only way I can imagine you've arrived at your conclusion is if you assume that the ADLC applicants wouldn't be replaced if the ADLC system were removed, which is a stunning mistake for someone so well-versed in the social "sciences." Someone capable of making such an elementary error wouldn't dare to correct another poster on a mere pronoun typo.

Are you refusing to read anything other than Table 11? I literally quoted the information from Table 10 above.

[alexf.1990]

They're doing a poor job of giving whites an advantage if their elimination would only decrease the number of white admits by 4%.

Again, they ran the simulation to see what admissions demographics would look like under various scenarios. That is the appropriate topic, not the advantage white LDC admits have over the rest of the admissions pool.

In the face of blatant racial discrimination, from which black and hispanic admits receive tremendous preference, it's bizarre that you're moaning about LDC admissions policies giving such a small benefit to whites. Let's also ignore the fact that a substantial number of those counted as white are actually Jewish.

Their? You mean "its." The stat you're referring to solely relates to dropping legacy admissions. Donor and child of employee are separate categories, which is why they ran models that included the other preferences. Why are you only focused on the effect of dropping legacy admissions when the article is about the combined effect of ALDC?

They didn't run models for what a class would look like without donor and children of staff would look like. They ran models for non-legacy, non-athlete, and non-athlete/legacy/racial preference. The results are posted above. There's absolutely no factual basis for your claims or the narrative pushed in the article. The only way I can imagine you've arrived at your conclusion is if you assume that the ADLC applicants wouldn't be replaced if the ADLC system were removed, which is a stunning mistake for someone so well-versed in the social "sciences." Someone capable of making such an elementary error wouldn't dare to correct another poster on a mere pronoun typo.

Are you refusing to read anything other than Table 11? I literally quoted the information from Table 10 above.

Table 10 only tells you the likelihood that current ADLC admits would have been admitted without ADLC preferences, it doesn't simulate what an admissions class would look like without those preferences in place. That is, we know those candidates have a lower chance of admission, but who would take their place without those policies in place. Table 11 gives us the answer: largely other white and Asian students. This is the exact opposite of what you and the journalists covering this story are arguing. Your narrative appears to be: whites are overrepresented because of these "racist" policies. The reality is that without racial preference, this very study shows 66% of black and hispanic students wouldn't be admitted to Harvard. Do better.

[sanantone]

They're doing a poor job of giving whites an advantage if their elimination would only decrease the number of white admits by 4%.

Again, they ran the simulation to see what admissions demographics would look like under various scenarios. That is the appropriate topic, not the advantage white LDC admits have over the rest of the admissions pool.

In the face of blatant racial discrimination, from which black and hispanic admits receive tremendous preference, it's bizarre that you're moaning about LDC admissions policies giving such a small benefit to whites. Let's also ignore the fact that a substantial number of those counted as white are actually Jewish.

Their? You mean "its." The stat you're referring to solely relates to dropping legacy admissions. Donor and child of employee are separate categories, which is why they ran models that included the other preferences. Why are you only focused on the effect of dropping legacy admissions when the article is about the combined effect of ALDC?

They didn't run models for what a class would look like without donor and children of staff would look like. They ran models for non-legacy, non-athlete, and non-athlete/legacy/racial preference. The results are posted above. There's absolutely no factual basis for your claims or the narrative pushed in the article. The only way I can imagine you've arrived at your conclusion is if you assume that the ADLC applicants wouldn't be replaced if the ADLC system were removed, which is a stunning mistake for someone so well-versed in the social "sciences." Someone capable of making such an elementary error wouldn't dare to correct another poster on a mere pronoun typo.

Are you refusing to read anything other than Table 11? I literally quoted the information from Table 10 above.

Table 10 only tells you the likelihood that current ADLC admits would have been admitted without ADLC preferences, it doesn't simulate what an admissions class would look like without those preferences in place. That is, we know those candidates have a lower chance of admission, but who would take their place without those policies in place. Table 11 gives us the answer: largely other white and Asian students. This is the exact opposite of what you and the journalists covering this story are arguing. Your narrative appears to be: whites are represented because of these "racist" policies. The reality is that without racial preference, this very study shows 66% of black and hispanic students wouldn't be admitted to Harvard. Do better.

If you read the methods section, you would know that the simulated class demographics are based on admissions probability. Admissions probabilities for various characteristics are laid out in multiple tables. If the researchers felt they could accurately calculate how the combined effects would impact the number of admits for each racial/ethic category in the counterfactuals, their expectation was that removing ALDC preferences would result in a drop of White admits that is significantly more than 6%. They focused on legacy, as opposed to child of donors or child of employees, for ease of exposition. As I have stated multiple times, the group that is most negatively impacted by ALDC preferences is Asians. 

It should also be noted that Dr. Arcidiacono, the person who wrote the study, was retained by Students for Fair Admissions. In a court case, you're going to choose an expert who will benefit your argument. I believe the stats Dr. Arcidiacono collected are accurate. However, the decision to only run certain simulations could have possibly been influenced by the fact that he was working for the plaintiffs. For balance, this is the report from Dr. Card, who was retained by Harvard. 

https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/di...dacted.pdf