Discussion: Education Dept. Probes 8 Universities In Light Of College Bribery Scheme

So I guess you are equating better test or grade scores for admission as merit. (As someone who worked hard & made good grades!) I can respect that.

But today’s competitive system is quite different. We are talking about razor-thin differences of GPA with no tolerance. Test scores that have had cultural & class biases forever are now meta-gamed by families who can afford coaches, prep classes, & multiple retakes. College essays also with coaching. Kids who can afford it are urged to apply to 15-20 schools [nice income for the admission services & inevitably leads to a school’s ultimate badge: low admission rates]

I am not convinced that a high school kid who has been forced into math drill classes all his life, forced to take advanced math WAY too early, never allowed out of the house to visit friends, never learned any skills beyond tests & grades is more deserving to attend college than others.

That’s why I suggested reasonable application standards (allows for merit, but also allows for screw-ups & redemptions) in conjunction with a lottery.

BTW, honestly, I did force kiddo to take an SAT prep class. Because she has to live in the world as it is!

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Respectfully disagree. The defining characteristic of a meritocracy is that everyone has equal opportunity, what you make of that depends upon your merits. Thus, outcomes may not be equal, but opportunities by definition must be…

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Yes, those are some measures of merit. There are others I accept as well.

 

Yes, I noticed the suggestion and asked what “reasonable” means. I think your response was meant to exclude “‘personal’ essays.” You also said that many measures are “problematic,” and I agree with this.

There’s much in what you say but right now I can only respond to your definition of “meritocracy.” Here’s what I had in mind:

The selection of people on the basis of their ability.

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Sigh, what is the problem college admissions is trying to solve? Filling seats with kids who will likely graduate, I guess.

When I took the Graduate Record Exam (many many eons ago), the statement was ‘it predicted how likely you were to succeed in graduate school.’ Of course, evidence shows it was filled with cultural biases (race, ethnicity, region of US where you learned English…). But it was true, it did predict who would succeed. Not sure it was either fair nor meritorious, though.

I’ve depressed myself now!

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Not the Ivy League schools, no.

Most kids who apply would graduate. The Admissions Office has other problems to solve.

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I guess my point is that the selection process doesn’t begin when your application package is complete, it begins far earlier. We actually have some great programs here in California that engage with potential grad school candidates from under-represented minorities while they’re still in high school that mentor them all the way through ugrad and into a grad program. This doesn’t give them unfair opportunities, but simply replaces the mentoring, financial assistance and other support implicit in being a member of other, more privileged groups.

As I’m fond of reminding folks - the goal is not to transfer privilege, it’s to eliminate it.

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And I support everything you describe.

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Actually, no. I work in California’s CSU system and we have this conversation continuously. If what we wanted was a better four year graduation rate, or a lower acceptance percentage we’d simply raise the GPA minimums - instantly better graduation rates!

Our job is to provide opportunities for our upcoming generation and a better worker pool for a stronger economy. That means supporting first gen students (i.e. first in your family to attend college), support students transferring from Community College, provide a complete college experience (not just x credits of coursework) and so on.

Sorry if this all sounds a little idealistic and preachy, but it’s important to understand the problem you’re trying to solve if you want to get it right, and I know a lot of idealistic people in this field trying to do just that…

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That is awesome, I did not know that.

Locally (silicon valley) we’ve had middle & high school classes for kids that fall through the cracks (not impoverished enough for aid, but not from college families who can support them in the prep mindset & process). Some truly wonderful teachers take the kids on field trips to visit local colleges and otherwise prep them.

On the sad side, we’ve come to needing this (which I support with great shame)
Bill Would Allow Homeless Students to Park Overnight at Community Colleges

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Check out the Cal Bridge program, which specifically targets STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) programs. It started as a pilot, just received a $5 million boost in funding this year.

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I love that! thank you! YES, everything you have said is just what I want!!!

You are the kind of somebody-who-knows-what-they-are-talking-about that I am happy to hear from.

TPM’s comment system has just suggested I’m talking too much. So I’ll let YOU talk!!!

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By the way, what you have said is really eloquent. Do you have it somewhere in a format that can be quoted & shared?

I’m so so so so tired of folks who think college is a glorified trade school to make their kids the richest ones in the neighborhood.

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I’ve worked on a couple of CSU campuses and worked with colleagues at multiple other campuses and you find this spirit throughout the system. I’m currently a participant in our campus strategic planning exercise and these ideas are absolutely front and center, if not yet baked enough for public consumption. In the mean time, check out the “About” section for Cal Poly Pomona. As one of two Polytechnic campuses in the system, the focus really is on the “Hands-On, Learn by Doing” philosophy.

https://www.cpp.edu/~aboutcpp/index.shtml

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In this case, TPM’s comment system has no idea what it’s talking about.

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Betsy Devos must be absolutely aghast that anyone worth less than eight figures would dare have the audacity to think they could buy their kid’s way into a rich parents’ university. Who do those people think they are, anyway???

Beg to differ. A large gift to a University, one that benefits many students in particular and the school as a whole, is quite a different thing than a bribe that is paid to some third party or pocketed by some coach. I actually don’t care that much if the occasional rich brat slips in and gets to be the stupid one in chemistry lab, if it means that there is a modern facility where all the students can work.

On the other hand, we have Charles Koch opening up endowed chairs and Enterprise Institutes and so on all over the place, with the explicit intention of controlling what information is presented to and accepted by economics students. I doubt he’s trying to get any relatives admitted. He’s more interested in displacing real academic theory with his own propaganda.

The critical point in all these cases is transparency. If a donor gets their name slapped on the building, everyone can at least see it. If people think the donor’s kid didn’t get in on his own merits, well, there’s a long line of black kids in selective programs who can fill him in on what that feels like. Lining the pockets of “consultants” and random coaches though is not benefiting anyone except the perpetrators themselves. That’s a cheat that can only take away opportunity from someone else.

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That is exactly what it looks like she is doing.

At the same time there are all these small colleges that are closing or are in severe financial trouble. The issue isn’t one of seats per se.

The problem is that for many of these elite schools, there is intense competition to get in. Not because students are in danger of getting a better, more challenging education than they might at a slightly less competitive institution, but because the very act of getting in would give them the golden ticket that for the rest of their lives will gain them entry in social circles and job opportunities that simply are not available to graduates of more mundane schools. All the positioning and maneuvering, activities and classes and test prep and so on, is taking place in high school and earlier. Thousands of very deserving applicants won’t go to Harvard, as much as they would thrive there and as much as the school might benefit from their presence. Setting an even higher standard means at a certain point that only the most carefully cultivated students, with near-perfect test scores and for whom a B their sophomore year of high school would have been disqualifying, even have a glimmer or hope. It means that kids, teenagers, cannot make even a tiny misstep. It just means more of these kinds of games, but at a younger age, and believe me those games are already being desperately played by certain parents.

Really there are two issues here. One is the exaggerated importance our society puts on degrees from particular schools - look at where Supreme Court justices got their degrees. It’s not exactly a representative sample of the US population. The other is of the other end, the issue you mention, of requiring an expensive entry into the workforce, an entry that is not available to everyone, even when they can afford it.

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Yes on all points. Yes, yes, yes. Even the SAT prep class, although I don’t think it mattered much (he did fine).

Right now many schools give preferential admissions to early applicants, in that they set a standard and as the pool fills they become pickier. There’s also preference given to students with certain skills, so they have an oboe player in the orchestra, or a balance of prospective majors so not everyone is trying to pack into a chemistry lab while a history prof is sitting there twiddling his thumbs. So I don’t know how a straight up lottery would work.

In Japan the method is that you sit for an entrance exam for the school you want to go to, and if you are offered a position - an the decision is pretty much immediate - you have to let them know within two or three days. If your second choice school’s test date is before your first choice, too bad, you can’t take an offer provisionally. It’s typical to go to school after your regular school for a few hours every day, sort of a test prep on steroids. It’s a very different approach. Grades don’t matter. Only that one test.

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