10 votes

Lawsuit reveals how colleges really talk about rich applicants

10 comments

  1. [2]
    TonesTones
    Link
    Frankly, I do not totally see why admitting wealthy, connected students even if they are not as qualified is a bad thing. These elite institutions are quite possibly doing their best to serve...

    Frankly, I do not totally see why admitting wealthy, connected students even if they are not as qualified is a bad thing. These elite institutions are quite possibly doing their best to serve their incoming students. Such a “reveal” is unsuprising to me. (I do not think the article explicitly labeled the practice as a bad thing——it reads like objective journalism——but does suggest the institutions want to hide or deny this behavior. I wonder why?)

    In this day and age, having wealth and power or connections to wealth and power is incredibly valuable. For example, if MIT stopped admitting children of wealthy donors and Harvard didn’t stop, I suspect the brightest kids would, on average, be more successful at Harvard. They’d have connections to buisness and venture capital and all the things necessary to enter into a life of privilege. Which is likely what the smart kids admitted into MIT or Harvard want.

    The benefits of elite education are and have always been the connections. It is in the best interest of the university and the admitted students for admissions to work the way it does. Is the situation good or just? No. However, I think the only losers in this situation are the rejected candidates. Does a private institution really have any obligation to do favors to students it rejects?

    The lawsuit in question is accusing these 12 universities of price fixing (i.e., colluding to give students similar financial aid packages). Which is anticompetitive and absolutely harms the admitted students. However, that isn’t the focus of the article.

    9 votes
    1. Minori
      Link Parent
      The dirty secret is that universities love international students because they almost always pay the full sticker price and subsidize other students. Rich students domestically are much the same....

      The dirty secret is that universities love international students because they almost always pay the full sticker price and subsidize other students. Rich students domestically are much the same. Colleges only want to offer enough benefits to get prospective students to accept and pay up.

      3 votes
  2. mycketforvirrad
    Link
    Previous discussions can be found here.

    Previous discussions can be found here.

    3 votes
  3. [4]
    RNG
    Link
    Dupe: https://tildes.net/~life/1ks1/lawsuit_reveals_how_united_states_private_colleges_talk_about_rich_applicants
    1 vote
    1. [2]
      DefinitelyNotAFae
      Link Parent
      Is it irony to duplicate what mycketforvirrad posted (different language but still ) ;-)

      Is it irony to duplicate what mycketforvirrad posted (different language but still ) ;⁠-⁠)

      1 vote
      1. RNG
        Link Parent
        I addressed this here

        I addressed this here

        3 votes
  4. [2]
    expikr
    Link
    Is it just me or is the link returning 404?

    Is it just me or is the link returning 404?

    1. DefinitelyNotAFae
      Link Parent
      No it is for me too, I think maybe @saturnV deleted the numbers at the end thinking they were just tracking but they were possibly not. Or the WSJ did something weird The other link has the story

      No it is for me too, I think maybe @saturnV deleted the numbers at the end thinking they were just tracking but they were possibly not. Or the WSJ did something weird The other link has the story

      1 vote