US university admissions scandal

[lavinia]

Here is an interview on MSNBC that relates the scandal to the general problem of elite education.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/t...s-involved-in-college-bribery-plot/vp-BBUJJAX

 

[jtbell]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/weather/t...s-involved-in-college-bribery-plot/vp-BBUJJAX

Yale becomes first school to rescind admission of student linked to entrance scam (CBS Morning News)

 

[Dr Transport]

Since this thread is going on forever, I'll add my $0.02 and hope that i have not repeated other thoughts.

Blind admissions: let all applications be completely sterilized of names and high schools before the final admissions committees look at them. This could possibly eliminate bias /pressure due to donors.

This one is a financial nightmare: decline any donations from anyone if they have a family member applying to the school and only accept it when the family member is graduated.

Athletic scholarships: give them after they make the team and only after they make the team, this ensures that the student actually has the skills to do the sport.

I'm an idealist, these would never be implemented, but they might work if they did. Of course, I think that college tuition is way too high and that is due to govt requirements for funding. Eliminate govt aid at the undergrad level and I think you'd see tuition rates drop.

 

[symbolipoint]

But how long will it function in this role? On another thread, it was pointed out (by me, as it happens) that a California community college is giving college credit for...wait for it....fractions.

Vanadium 50,
I took a look through this topic or thread but did not find your reference to college giving credit for fractions. Maybe done in another topic? Either way, if a college gives credit for "fractions", then this must be part of a Basic Math or Basic Arithmetic course at some community college, and such level of course, will not transfer as University credit, and should not be included in any kind of credentialing or licensing. It is also, NOT college-level credit. What that one school thinks it is doing, difficult to imagine or understand.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I think the class was called "pre-Algebra", but they most certainly did grant credit for it towards their own (AA) degrees. If no other college would accept those credits, more power to them.

 

[WWGD]

I see nothing exceptional about this. College admissions have been manipulated by many, including the government with its Affirmative Action mickey mouse, so what is the difference? Getting into Harvard, MIT, or Berkeley is not a right to anyone, nor is it necessarily a particularly great advantage. For most students, they can learn just as much at State U, as they can at Harvard. So, what's the big deal?

And from what I hear, at least at the undergrad level, these schools have plenty of classes that are taught by TAs who took the classes themselves just a semester or two prior. The top schools advertise the Nobel winners, top researchers in their staff but these are often too busy traveling to conferences worldwide or doing research at home to have any contact with students, specially undergrads. Do you really think most of these top researchers want to hear how Joe undergrad is doing in their calc classes? Not often, they are hired for their ability to do research that brings $ to their schools, not because they are giftex teachers.

 

[WWGD]

For Nobel Prizes, it's faculty (researchers), not undergrad students and for USSC, it's law schools. These are just the most obvious I could think of quickly. Here's the data:
https://www.bestmastersprograms.org/50-universities-with-the-most-nobel-prize-winners/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_law_schools_attended_by_United_States_Supreme_Court_Justices

The top school for both is the same: Harvard. For the USSC, the difference is most stark: All of the justices currently on the bench are from Harvard or Yale (or both). It's a heavily discussed issue/"problem" every time a new USSC justice is nominated.

Huh? I've done no such thing! There are many levels of success and I'm quite happy with mine. You're going to extremes with your interpretations. The only purpose I had for picking these extremes is because of the [relative] data I knew off the top of my head and hoped others would as well. Extreme cases tend to be well known.

Doesn't Harvard graduate more students from other schools? And it was founded in 1636 ( though I have no idea who lost it , )way before most other schools, so that there is a larger proportion of students with degrees from Harvard than from smaller, more recent schools?

 

[russ_watters]

Doesn't Harvard graduate more students from other schools? And it was founded in 1636 ( though I have no idea who lost it , )way before most other schools, so that there is a larger proportion of students with degrees from Harvard than from smaller, more recent schools?

You can easily google the year the Nobel Prize was first awarded, college sizes by number of students or university research funding and the current makeup of the USSC. Harvard is not unusually large or well funded for research and not the only Ivy League school founded before the USA (which would not explain the present day disparity in the USSC anyway).

 

[WWGD]

You can easily google the year the Nobel Prize was first awarded, college sizes by number of students or university research funding and the current makeup of the USSC. Harvard is not unusually large or well funded for research and not the only Ivy League school founded before the USA (which would not explain the present day disparity in the USSC anyway).

But wouldn't a better yardstick be to determine whether the proportion over time of Harvard/Ivies graduates is significantly higher than that of non-Ivies? It is true what you say about the current court, but, is that anything more than a temporary trend? I am not trying to be argumentative with random what-iffs; I have read that e.g., barely anyone flunks out of the Ivies, that classes are taught by TAs, that over time, someone from an Ivy is , by many measures, as likely to do well as someone from State U. And, while competition with high performers may be beneficial to some, others may thrive in a more low-key environment. I have also seen at the graduate level that quality is pretty uniform ( at least in Math, which I am familiar with) with students from State U presenting their research at the top schools and doing their theses with professors from the top schools. True that those from the top schools are often better prepared, but this is made up for by the difference in the time to finish the thesis. Students from non-top schools often longer to make up for the disparity. Anyway, I will try to do the research and get back with what I find.

 

[russ_watters]

But wouldn't a better yardstick be to determine whether the proportion over time of Harvard/Ivies graduates is significantly higher than that of non-Ivies? It is true what you say about the current court, but, is that anything more than a temporary trend?

This analysis is much easier than that because the disparity is so stark (from my link above):

Of the 9 current justices, 4 graduated Harvard law, 4 Yale law. Ruth Bader Ginsberg went to Harvard law and transferred to and graduated from Columbia Law, and counts in both (making Harvard's total 5).

So if you want to be on the USSC today, you basically must have Harvard or Yale on your resume.

In total, 20 justices have come from Harvard, 11 from Yale, 7 from Columbia (RBG counted twice). No other school is represented more than 3 times.

The first Justice who went to law school joined the court in 1846. 48 of 114 total justices have had law degrees; 77% from those three schools.

 

[paradisePhysicist]

May I propose a provocative anti-thesis?

Places to study at ivory league universities in the United States are no public good, they are a completely private good. As such the mechanisms of capital markets should rule unregulated, i.e. balanced by demand and offer. And this was exactly what took place. It is a natural consequence of general market laws and as such should not be punished at all.

To complain about it is in my non American eyes not honest. One could question the system as a whole, but once committed, why shouldn't places be freely traded? I have difficulties to draw the line between market oriented access on one hand and regulations on the other. Isn't any justification doomed to be contradictory?

Its still business fraud. Its like advertising a tomato sandwich, but not actually putting any tomatoes in the sandwich.

 

[bhobba]

That flows from a belief that a degree from highly selective colleges is necessary and sufficient to have a successful career. That implies agreement with the idea that my students (and *you* who also did not attend one of those schools) are receiving a 'less than' education. That's not just unfair to me- an instructor, that's unfair to you and to my students.

This (the cheating to get into highly selective schools) is disgraceful not only in and of itself but the falsehood the people doing it live under. What institution has graduates with the highest success rate salary wise, or at least one of the highest, and one of the highest in sending people to graduate school:
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/28/gra...-the-mostand-its-not-harvard-or-stanford.html

Yes - Harvey Mudd - a school most have never heard of. What is it that most tend to say about Harvey Mudd - its hard. Cheat etc as much as you like to get into that school - you will be found out when the rubber hits the road and you have to perform. One wonders exactly what happens to those that fraudulently get into, let's say, Harvard that, by reputation, practices quite a bit of grade inflation:
https://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2013/12/04/harvard-grade-inflation-_n_4384848.html
Only two people in Harvey Mudd's history have gotten all A's.

So maybe schools should start looking at their academic practices as to why people try this rather despicable practice.

Thanks
Bill