I’ve written a couple of times recently (here and here) about the similarities between the Ivy League universities changing admission standards — elevating the importance of “character” and “leadership” and reducing the importance of pure academic merit — in order to reduce the number of Jews accepted and their more recent decision to lower the academic bar for minorities in order to produce more racial and ethnic “diversity.” (Interestingly, the prior decision was also intended to protect and promote “diversity,” although that term had not come into vogue, since continuing to rely on pure academic merit would, the academic leaders of the day feared, have resulted in campuses that were too heavily Jewish.)
Now comes David Brooks, the New York Times columnist, who reviews the book by Jerome Karabel that has provoked all this discussion.
It’s an excellent review, and you should read the whole thing. But for those of you who won’t, Brooks’s main point follows:
Karabel’s thorough and definitive look at elite college admissions is fascinating because he doesn’t just treat his narrative as a civil rights tale, as the story of anti-Semitic and racist institutions slowly giving way to the forces of justice and decency. Instead, he writes, “The history of admissions at the Big Three has thus been, fundamentally, a history of recurrent struggles over the meaning of ‘merit.’ ” As the elite universities confronted each class of applicants, they were really trying to determine which qualities to nurture and reward, and which were most important for democratic citizenship.
The essential conflict throughout these years was between those who wanted to accept more students on the basis of scholarly merit – intelligence, high test scores and good grades – and those who sought what you might call leadership skills – that ineffable combination of charisma, social confidence, decisiveness and the ability, often proved on the athletic field, to be part of a team.
The conflict continues to this day. But as Karabel notes, at any given moment the universities tend to gravitate toward the definition of merit that best helps them preserve their status as prestigious, rich and powerful institutions.
In the 1920’s, the Protestant Establishment still dominated business and society. University administrators sensed that if they admitted too many Jews, they would alienate themselves from the power centers around them. So they restricted the number of Jews by shifting their admissions criteria and putting more emphasis on “character,” measured by alumni connections, athletic skill and personal letters of recommendation. Applicants were less likely to be admitted if all they demonstrated was academic brilliance.
Surprisingly little changed over the ensuing decades….
I would argue that even less has changed than Brooks appears to recognize. For example, Brooks writes:
As time goes by, it becomes more and more clear that the meritocrats are doing exactly what the WASPS did, rigging admissions criteria to favor the qualities they and their children are most likely to possess.
Well, yes and no. Brooks implies that Ivy League admissions criteria are now purely meritocratic, missing, I think, the degree to which many elite institutions still look for evidence of leadership and “well-roundedness” and ignoring the compromising of pure academic excellence required to produce the “diversity” that is now so valued.
In short, it seems to me that the most striking similarity is not between today’s meritocrats and yesterday’s WASP’s, both defining “merit” in ways that would benefit their own group, but between today’s elite educational leaders, who compromise “merit” to the degree necessary to produce the “diversity” required by today’s big business and elite society, and the academic leaders of the 1920s who “sensed that if they admitted too many Jews, they would alienate themselves from the power centers around them.”
And for any who didn’t sense it, the amicus briefs filed by an array of elite university administrators, big business, and the military served to remind them.
I also think that sports have been used by the elite universities to limit the number of academically qualified students in favor of white elites. Look at how universities have dropped track teams to add women’s field hockey, soccer, crew, lacrosse, etc. Those are all sports that are dominate by private schools or white sururban schools. They are sports not played by rural or minoritiy kids and sports that benefit kids who have gone to summer camps and/or have had private coaches.
Interestingly, today’s elites are aiming to increasing access to eliteness, rather than holding on to a losing ideal of the elite.
Actus,
The admission process is still defined to benefit the elite but instead of denying admission to blacks or jews, it is not design to eliteminate middle class whites and asian while admitting a few minority children of white collar blacks. The emphasis of leadership, volunteer work, and internships benefits the white elites of private schools while punishing the high academic performing Asian and middle class whites. Image how rich someone has to be these days to work unpaid during summers and/or can spend the summer in NYC, DC, or LA interning. That is why Princeton is still about 50% private school students.
PS. The schools will still limit the number of black, hispanic, or asian students because those groups are much less likely to donate to “ole Alma Mater.”
“The admission process is still defined to benefit the elite but instead of denying admission to blacks or jews, it is not design to eliteminate middle class whites and asian while admitting a few minority children of white collar blacks”
I don’t think it works very well at eliminating middle class whites: I got into an ivy league schoo.
Actus,
If you look at the top 100 high schools for sending their graduates to Ivy Leagues, 95 of them are private. Virtually all of them are expensive, college prep schools. Those are the schools that benefit from evaluating a students “leadership” or “community service” since the Asian kids at places like Thomas Jefferson High School in Fairfax Virginia are making higher SAT scores.
So, the Ivy league lets in a few children of African Diplomats or Obama. How much diversity is there when those “minority” children sat next to the Gore’s and Kerry’s children at the expensive private prep schools.
“How much diversity is there when those “minority” children sat next to the Gore’s and Kerry’s children at the expensive private prep schools.”
Until we win the class war? not much. I’m all for the class war.
Until we win the class war? not much. I’m all for the class war.
Actus, are you planning to make Kennedy or Kerry the first victim of your class war?
“Actus, are you planning to make Kennedy or Kerry the first victim of your class war?”
I think we can fairly tax all the rich and promote all the poor without regard to race or political persuasion, no?
Affirmative action based on economics?
I think we can fairly tax all the rich and promote all the poor without regard to race or political persuasion, no?
Actus, I believe a political system based on that philosophy has been tried before and found to be wanting.
“Actus, I believe a political system based on that philosophy has been tried before and found to be wanting.”
I think we can find ways to use preferences to help the economically, disadvantaged, rather than the racially so. I don’t know how well that has been tried though.
Karabel’s book only confirms what I had known for a long time. Preferences of whatever kind be it racial, alumni legacy, geographical , sports etc. are by its very nature the same. They are designed to confer priveleges to one group, the tactics and rationales for justifying them are all the same. I had always maintained that if racial preferences were molecules of DNA, they would exactly have the same genomic structure as alumni legacy preferences. Another purpose of a preference is basically to preserve the status quo. You will have people from the right like Roger Clegg and Linda Chavez try to deny that but there is really no difference between the two. The vast system of preferences that evolved in the Ivies in the 20’s and later on emulated by the liberal arts schools and Stanford was a direct attempt on the part of the WASP establishment to preserve the status qou. We have to remember that in the 19th century THAT ABOUT 90% OF THE of the people who went to the Ivies came from the prep schools of the likes of Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Choate, Hotchkiss blah, blah….
It was their last names and their membership in the WASP aristocracy that mattered more than what was inside their brains as far as the Ivies were concerned. The Boston Brahmin Aristocracy of the likes of the Lowells, Winthrops , Cabots etc. had long abandoned Boston latin school ( a public exam school , there are 2 latin schools in Beantown ) for the simple reason that their mediocre children could not get past the entrance exams of that school and would be more acceptable in the arms of Exeter and Andover who cared less about their intellectual capacities. Most of the white elite in New York City
in the first half of the century preferred to go to HYP (harvard,yale, princeton ) rather than to Columbia ( presumably because of its large percentage of Jews and even less to the more proletarian City College of New
York. In the first place, I am of the opinion that the children of the white elite in NYC in those days could not get past the entrance exam of the City College of New York and hence more willing to resort to the more salubrious and less demanding standards of HYP. Do we have a modern day parallell in NYC ? Perhaps, we are reminded for example that in the public exam schools of NYC like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech that whites are already a minority and getting smaller. Asians make up 49 % of Bronx Science and 53 % at Stuyvesant.I could say the same thing for Lowell in San Francisco where whites are even a smaller minority. If the children of the white elite in NYC are incapable of getting themselves admitted to the public exam schools like Bronx Science then the obvious resort would be less competetive schools like Dalton, Spence, Brearley, Mann, fieldston blah, blah , blah …. right?The whole history of preferences in this country really has to with the greed, the desire to maintain the status quo and pure self – interest.Let us look back again as to how the Ivy League admissions evolved. We know very well that human nature abhors the the intrusion of an “outside group” that threatens to upset the status qou. it does not matter whether the group involved is the Ku Klux Klan, or Jews trying to keep out their fellow Jews from apartment coops in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or rich blacks trying to keep down poor blacks , the routine and the nature of the game is still the same. We only have to remind ourselves of childhood experiences in the schoolyard. The attempt to set up qoutas against Jews in the early part of this century in the Ivies was something predictable. They were the “outside ” group that threathened to upset the status quo . They were the uninvited guests in the Sunday brunch. Blacks did not matter because whites have basically disenfranchised them from most aspects of American political, educational and economic life in those times and hence did not pose as great a threat as the Jews in academic life . If a lot of Asians existed in those days in the East Coast then they would have replaced the Jews as the targets of qoutas just like they are now in the Ivies. To keep down the number of Jews in the Ivies, these schools resorted to non -academic criteria like “Character “, “personality traits ” etc, things that have nothing to do with passing an organic chemistry exam. Whatever these nonacademic criteria were whether it is the ability to play the violin or being the yearbook editor became a way for schools to pick out the student that they want for any reason that they saw fit.All the modern panoply of modern day
private school admissions criteria evolved from this desire of the ivies to get the classes that they wanted. The concern about shortness of ears, shyness ,the “tad frothiness ” of the applicant, the height of the applicants , “how good looking the applicants ” etc. were predictable outcomes when a school chooses to use non – academic criteria for evaluating applicants. All these nonacademic criteria used in many private schools in this country would be found to be bizarre and outrageous in other countries be it Taiwan, Korea , japan, Africa etc. Letters of recommendation and alumni donations would be interpreted by even the poorest inhabitants of Haiti as nothing but an attempt to use one’s connections or as a very transparent case of bribery. Nowadays any private school can buy its entering freshman class by leveraging financial aid.Early decision, early admission all these tools used by the Ivies along with the other stuff I had talked above are direct evolutionary results of these policies that were created in the early part of this century in the Ivies. What is the difference between these tools and criteria and the literacy tests, property rules that were used to disenfranchise blacks in the past? The rationales for preferences have not changed thru the centuries. The targets have just changed. The tactics and methods have remained the same. Preferences that are espoused by people from the right of the likes of William Buckley and by people from the left of the likes of Lani Guinier are one and the same . There is no difference between Bill Buckley , Lani Guinier and the Ku Klux Klan and the Ivies that practiced qoutas against Jews and this modern day, against Asians.
Karabel’s book only confirms what I had known for a long time. Preferences of whatever kind be it racial, alumni legacy, geographical , sports etc. are by its very nature the same. They are designed to confer priveleges to one group, the tactics and rationales for justifying them are all the same. I had always maintained that if racial preferences were molecules of DNA, they would exactly have the same genomic structure as alumni legacy preferences. Another purpose of a preference is basically to preserve the status quo. You will have people from the right like Roger Clegg and Linda Chavez try to deny that but there is really no difference between the two. The vast system of preferences that evolved in the Ivies in the 20’s and later on emulated by the liberal arts schools and Stanford was a direct attempt on the part of the WASP establishment to preserve the status qou. We have to remember that in the 19th century THAT ABOUT 90% OF THE of the people who went to the Ivies came from the prep schools of the likes of Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Choate, Hotchkiss blah, blah….
It was their last names and their membership in the WASP aristocracy that mattered more than what was inside their brains as far as the Ivies were concerned. The Boston Brahmin Aristocracy of the likes of the Lowells, Winthrops , Cabots etc. had long abandoned Boston latin school ( a public exam school , there are 2 latin schools in Beantown ) for the simple reason that their mediocre children could not get past the entrance exams of that school and would be more acceptable in the arms of Exeter and Andover who cared less about their intellectual capacities. Most of the white elite in New York City
in the first half of the century preferred to go to HYP (harvard,yale, princeton ) rather than to Columbia ( presumably because of its large percentage of Jews and even less to the more proletarian City College of New
York. In the first place, I am of the opinion that the children of the white elite in NYC in those days could not get past the entrance exam of the City College of New York and hence more willing to resort to the more salubrious and less demanding standards of HYP. Do we have a modern day parallell in NYC ? Perhaps, we are reminded for example that in the public exam schools of NYC like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech that whites are already a minority and getting smaller. Asians make up 49 % of Bronx Science and 53 % at Stuyvesant.I could say the same thing for Lowell in San Francisco where whites are even a smaller minority. If the children of the white elite in NYC are incapable of getting themselves admitted to the public exam schools like Bronx Science then the obvious resort would be less competetive schools like Dalton, Spence, Brearley, Mann, fieldston blah, blah , blah …. right?The whole history of preferences in this country really has to with the greed, the desire to maintain the status quo and pure self – interest.Let us look back again as to how the Ivy League admissions evolved. We know very well that human nature abhors the the intrusion of an “outside group” that threatens to upset the status qou. it does not matter whether the group involved is the Ku Klux Klan, or Jews trying to keep out their fellow Jews from apartment coops in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or rich blacks trying to keep down poor blacks , the routine and the nature of the game is still the same. We only have to remind ourselves of childhood experiences in the schoolyard. The attempt to set up qoutas against Jews in the early part of this century in the Ivies was something predictable. They were the “outside ” group that threathened to upset the status quo . They were the uninvited guests in the Sunday brunch. Blacks did not matter because whites have basically disenfranchised them from most aspects of American political, educational and economic life in those times and hence did not pose as great a threat as the Jews in academic life . If a lot of Asians existed in those days in the East Coast then they would have replaced the Jews as the targets of qoutas just like they are now in the Ivies. To keep down the number of Jews in the Ivies, these schools resorted to non -academic criteria like “Character “, “personality traits ” etc, things that have nothing to do with passing an organic chemistry exam. Whatever these nonacademic criteria were whether it is the ability to play the violin or being the yearbook editor became a way for schools to pick out the student that they want for any reason that they saw fit.All the modern panoply of modern day
private school admissions criteria evolved from this desire of the ivies to get the classes that they wanted. The concern about shortness of ears, shyness ,the “tad frothiness ” of the applicant, the height of the applicants , “how good looking the applicants ” etc. were predictable outcomes when a school chooses to use non – academic criteria for evaluating applicants. All these nonacademic criteria used in many private schools in this country would be found to be bizarre and outrageous in other countries be it Taiwan, Korea , japan, Africa etc. Letters of recommendation and alumni donations would be interpreted by even the poorest inhabitants of Haiti as nothing but an attempt to use one’s connections or as a very transparent case of bribery. Nowadays any private school can buy its entering freshman class by leveraging financial aid.Early decision, early admission all these tools used by the Ivies along with the other stuff I had talked above are direct evolutionary results of these policies that were created in the early part of this century in the Ivies. What is the difference between these tools and criteria and the literacy tests, property rules that were used to disenfranchise blacks in the past? The rationales for preferences have not changed thru the centuries. The targets have just changed. The tactics and methods have remained the same. Preferences that are espoused by people from the right of the likes of William Buckley and by people from the left of the likes of Lani Guinier are one and the same . There is no difference between Bill Buckley , Lani Guinier and the Ku Klux Klan and the Ivies that practiced qoutas against Jews and this modern day, against Asians.
Karabel’s book only confirms what I had known for a long time. Preferences of whatever kind be it racial, alumni legacy, geographical , sports etc. are by its very nature the same. They are designed to confer priveleges to one group, the tactics and rationales for justifying them are all the same. I had always maintained that if racial preferences were molecules of DNA, they would exactly have the same genomic structure as alumni legacy preferences. Another purpose of a preference is basically to preserve the status quo. You will have people from the right like Roger Clegg and Linda Chavez try to deny that but there is really no difference between the two. The vast system of preferences that evolved in the Ivies in the 20’s and later on emulated by the liberal arts schools and Stanford was a direct attempt on the part of the WASP establishment to preserve the status qou. We have to remember that in the 19th century THAT ABOUT 90% OF THE of the people who went to the Ivies came from the prep schools of the likes of Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Choate, Hotchkiss blah, blah….
It was their last names and their membership in the WASP aristocracy that mattered more than what was inside their brains as far as the Ivies were concerned. The Boston Brahmin Aristocracy of the likes of the Lowells, Winthrops , Cabots etc. had long abandoned Boston latin school ( a public exam school , there are 2 latin schools in Beantown ) for the simple reason that their mediocre children could not get past the entrance exams of that school and would be more acceptable in the arms of Exeter and Andover who cared less about their intellectual capacities. Most of the white elite in New York City
in the first half of the century preferred to go to HYP (harvard,yale, princeton ) rather than to Columbia ( presumably because of its large percentage of Jews and even less to the more proletarian City College of New
York. In the first place, I am of the opinion that the children of the white elite in NYC in those days could not get past the entrance exam of the City College of New York and hence more willing to resort to the more salubrious and less demanding standards of HYP. Do we have a modern day parallell in NYC ? Perhaps, we are reminded for example that in the public exam schools of NYC like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech that whites are already a minority and getting smaller. Asians make up 49 % of Bronx Science and 53 % at Stuyvesant.I could say the same thing for Lowell in San Francisco where whites are even a smaller minority. If the children of the white elite in NYC are incapable of getting themselves admitted to the public exam schools like Bronx Science then the obvious resort would be less competetive schools like Dalton, Spence, Brearley, Mann, fieldston blah, blah , blah …. right?The whole history of preferences in this country really has to with the greed, the desire to maintain the status quo and pure self – interest.Let us look back again as to how the Ivy League admissions evolved. We know very well that human nature abhors the the intrusion of an “outside group” that threatens to upset the status qou. it does not matter whether the group involved is the Ku Klux Klan, or Jews trying to keep out their fellow Jews from apartment coops in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or rich blacks trying to keep down poor blacks , the routine and the nature of the game is still the same. We only have to remind ourselves of childhood experiences in the schoolyard. The attempt to set up qoutas against Jews in the early part of this century in the Ivies was something predictable. They were the “outside ” group that threathened to upset the status quo . They were the uninvited guests in the Sunday brunch. Blacks did not matter because whites have basically disenfranchised them from most aspects of American political, educational and economic life in those times and hence did not pose as great a threat as the Jews in academic life . If a lot of Asians existed in those days in the East Coast then they would have replaced the Jews as the targets of qoutas just like they are now in the Ivies. To keep down the number of Jews in the Ivies, these schools resorted to non -academic criteria like “Character “, “personality traits ” etc, things that have nothing to do with passing an organic chemistry exam. Whatever these nonacademic criteria were whether it is the ability to play the violin or being the yearbook editor became a way for schools to pick out the student that they want for any reason that they saw fit.All the modern panoply of modern day
private school admissions criteria evolved from this desire of the ivies to get the classes that they wanted. The concern about shortness of ears, shyness ,the “tad frothiness ” of the applicant, the height of the applicants , “how good looking the applicants ” etc. were predictable outcomes when a school chooses to use non – academic criteria for evaluating applicants. All these nonacademic criteria used in many private schools in this country would be found to be bizarre and outrageous in other countries be it Taiwan, Korea , japan, Africa etc. Letters of recommendation and alumni donations would be interpreted by even the poorest inhabitants of Haiti as nothing but an attempt to use one’s connections or as a very transparent case of bribery. Nowadays any private school can buy its entering freshman class by leveraging financial aid.Early decision, early admission all these tools used by the Ivies along with the other stuff I had talked above are direct evolutionary results of these policies that were created in the early part of this century in the Ivies. What is the difference between these tools and criteria and the literacy tests, property rules that were used to disenfranchise blacks in the past? The rationales for preferences have not changed thru the centuries. The targets have just changed. The tactics and methods have remained the same. Preferences that are espoused by people from the right of the likes of William Buckley and by people from the left of the likes of Lani Guinier are one and the same . There is no difference between Bill Buckley , Lani Guinier and the Ku Klux Klan and the Ivies that practiced qoutas against Jews and this modern day, against Asians.
Karabel’s book only confirms what I had known for a long time. Preferences of whatever kind be it racial, alumni legacy, geographical , sports etc. are by its very nature the same. They are designed to confer priveleges to one group, the tactics and rationales for justifying them are all the same. I had always maintained that if racial preferences were molecules of DNA, they would exactly have the same genomic structure as alumni legacy preferences. Another purpose of a preference is basically to preserve the status quo. You will have people from the right like Roger Clegg and Linda Chavez try to deny that but there is really no difference between the two. The vast system of preferences that evolved in the Ivies in the 20’s and later on emulated by the liberal arts schools and Stanford was a direct attempt on the part of the WASP establishment to preserve the status qou. We have to remember that in the 19th century THAT ABOUT 90% OF THE of the people who went to the Ivies came from the prep schools of the likes of Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Choate, Hotchkiss blah, blah….
It was their last names and their membership in the WASP aristocracy that mattered more than what was inside their brains as far as the Ivies were concerned. The Boston Brahmin Aristocracy of the likes of the Lowells, Winthrops , Cabots etc. had long abandoned Boston latin school ( a public exam school , there are 2 latin schools in Beantown ) for the simple reason that their mediocre children could not get past the entrance exams of that school and would be more acceptable in the arms of Exeter and Andover who cared less about their intellectual capacities. Most of the white elite in New York City
in the first half of the century preferred to go to HYP (harvard,yale, princeton ) rather than to Columbia ( presumably because of its large percentage of Jews and even less to the more proletarian City College of New
York. In the first place, I am of the opinion that the children of the white elite in NYC in those days could not get past the entrance exam of the City College of New York and hence more willing to resort to the more salubrious and less demanding standards of HYP. Do we have a modern day parallell in NYC ? Perhaps, we are reminded for example that in the public exam schools of NYC like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech that whites are already a minority and getting smaller. Asians make up 49 % of Bronx Science and 53 % at Stuyvesant.I could say the same thing for Lowell in San Francisco where whites are even a smaller minority. If the children of the white elite in NYC are incapable of getting themselves admitted to the public exam schools like Bronx Science then the obvious resort would be less competetive schools like Dalton, Spence, Brearley, Mann, fieldston blah, blah , blah …. right?The whole history of preferences in this country really has to with the greed, the desire to maintain the status quo and pure self – interest.Let us look back again as to how the Ivy League admissions evolved. We know very well that human nature abhors the the intrusion of an “outside group” that threatens to upset the status qou. it does not matter whether the group involved is the Ku Klux Klan, or Jews trying to keep out their fellow Jews from apartment coops in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or rich blacks trying to keep down poor blacks , the routine and the nature of the game is still the same. We only have to remind ourselves of childhood experiences in the schoolyard. The attempt to set up qoutas against Jews in the early part of this century in the Ivies was something predictable. They were the “outside ” group that threathened to upset the status quo . They were the uninvited guests in the Sunday brunch. Blacks did not matter because whites have basically disenfranchised them from most aspects of American political, educational and economic life in those times and hence did not pose as great a threat as the Jews in academic life . If a lot of Asians existed in those days in the East Coast then they would have replaced the Jews as the targets of qoutas just like they are now in the Ivies. To keep down the number of Jews in the Ivies, these schools resorted to non -academic criteria like “Character “, “personality traits ” etc, things that have nothing to do with passing an organic chemistry exam. Whatever these nonacademic criteria were whether it is the ability to play the violin or being the yearbook editor became a way for schools to pick out the student that they want for any reason that they saw fit.All the modern panoply of modern day
private school admissions criteria evolved from this desire of the ivies to get the classes that they wanted. The concern about shortness of ears, shyness ,the “tad frothiness ” of the applicant, the height of the applicants , “how good looking the applicants ” etc. were predictable outcomes when a school chooses to use non – academic criteria for evaluating applicants. All these nonacademic criteria used in many private schools in this country would be found to be bizarre and outrageous in other countries be it Taiwan, Korea , japan, Africa etc. Letters of recommendation and alumni donations would be interpreted by even the poorest inhabitants of Haiti as nothing but an attempt to use one’s connections or as a very transparent case of bribery. Nowadays any private school can buy its entering freshman class by leveraging financial aid.Early decision, early admission all these tools used by the Ivies along with the other stuff I had talked above are direct evolutionary results of these policies that were created in the early part of this century in the Ivies. What is the difference between these tools and criteria and the literacy tests, property rules that were used to disenfranchise blacks in the past? The rationales for preferences have not changed thru the centuries. The targets have just changed. The tactics and methods have remained the same. Preferences that are espoused by people from the right of the likes of William Buckley and by people from the left of the likes of Lani Guinier are one and the same . There is no difference between Bill Buckley , Lani Guinier and the Ku Klux Klan and the Ivies that practiced qoutas against Jews and this modern day, against Asians.
Leo,
Thanks for the great summation. In addition, these days, the Ivies are also trying to keep the upper middle class out. How else do you explain leadership (being class president of a small, prep school), community service (working free for the summer), and activism (working for your parent’s friends, as becoming important to admission to elite schools.
It takes less effort but more affluence to hang around as an unpaid intern than to learn a foreign language or to study calculus.
Karabel’s book only confirms what I had known for a long time. Preferences of whatever kind be it racial, alumni legacy, geographical , sports etc. are by its very nature the same. They are designed to confer priveleges to one group, the tactics and rationales for justifying them are all the same. I had always maintained that if racial preferences were molecules of DNA, they would exactly have the same genomic structure as alumni legacy preferences. Another purpose of a preference is basically to preserve the status quo. You will have people from the right like Roger Clegg and Linda Chavez try to deny that but there is really no difference between the two. The vast system of preferences that evolved in the Ivies in the 20’s and later on emulated by the liberal arts schools and Stanford was a direct attempt on the part of the WASP establishment to preserve the status qou. We have to remember that in the 19th century THAT ABOUT 90% OF THE of the people who went to the Ivies came from the prep schools of the likes of Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Choate, Hotchkiss blah, blah….
It was their last names and their membership in the WASP aristocracy that mattered more than what was inside their brains as far as the Ivies were concerned. The Boston Brahmin Aristocracy of the likes of the Lowells, Winthrops , Cabots etc. had long abandoned Boston latin school ( a public exam school , there are 2 latin schools in Beantown ) for the simple reason that their mediocre children could not get past the entrance exams of that school and would be more acceptable in the arms of Exeter and Andover who cared less about their intellectual capacities. Most of the white elite in New York City
in the first half of the century preferred to go to HYP (harvard,yale, princeton ) rather than to Columbia ( presumably because of its large percentage of Jews and even less to the more proletarian City College of New
York. In the first place, I am of the opinion that the children of the white elite in NYC in those days could not get past the entrance exam of the City College of New York and hence more willing to resort to the more salubrious and less demanding standards of HYP. Do we have a modern day parallell in NYC ? Perhaps, we are reminded for example that in the public exam schools of NYC like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech that whites are already a minority and getting smaller. Asians make up 49 % of Bronx Science and 53 % at Stuyvesant.I could say the same thing for Lowell in San Francisco where whites are even a smaller minority. If the children of the white elite in NYC are incapable of getting themselves admitted to the public exam schools like Bronx Science then the obvious resort would be less competetive schools like Dalton, Spence, Brearley, Mann, fieldston blah, blah , blah …. right?The whole history of preferences in this country really has to with the greed, the desire to maintain the status quo and pure self – interest.Let us look back again as to how the Ivy League admissions evolved. We know very well that human nature abhors the the intrusion of an “outside group” that threatens to upset the status qou. it does not matter whether the group involved is the Ku Klux Klan, or Jews trying to keep out their fellow Jews from apartment coops in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or rich blacks trying to keep down poor blacks , the routine and the nature of the game is still the same. We only have to remind ourselves of childhood experiences in the schoolyard. The attempt to set up qoutas against Jews in the early part of this century in the Ivies was something predictable. They were the “outside ” group that threathened to upset the status quo . They were the uninvited guests in the Sunday brunch. Blacks did not matter because whites have basically disenfranchised them from most aspects of American political, educational and economic life in those times and hence did not pose as great a threat as the Jews in academic life . If a lot of Asians existed in those days in the East Coast then they would have replaced the Jews as the targets of qoutas just like they are now in the Ivies. To keep down the number of Jews in the Ivies, these schools resorted to non -academic criteria like “Character “, “personality traits ” etc, things that have nothing to do with passing an organic chemistry exam. Whatever these nonacademic criteria were whether it is the ability to play the violin or being the yearbook editor became a way for schools to pick out the student that they want for any reason that they saw fit.All the modern panoply of modern day
private school admissions criteria evolved from this desire of the ivies to get the classes that they wanted. The concern about shortness of ears, shyness ,the “tad frothiness ” of the applicant, the height of the applicants , “how good looking the applicants ” etc. were predictable outcomes when a school chooses to use non – academic criteria for evaluating applicants. All these nonacademic criteria used in many private schools in this country would be found to be bizarre and outrageous in other countries be it Taiwan, Korea , japan, Africa etc. Letters of recommendation and alumni donations would be interpreted by even the poorest inhabitants of Haiti as nothing but an attempt to use one’s connections or as a very transparent case of bribery. Nowadays any private school can buy its entering freshman class by leveraging financial aid.Early decision, early admission all these tools used by the Ivies along with the other stuff I had talked above are direct evolutionary results of these policies that were created in the early part of this century in the Ivies. What is the difference between these tools and criteria and the literacy tests, property rules that were used to disenfranchise blacks in the past? The rationales for preferences have not changed thru the centuries. The targets have just changed. The tactics and methods have remained the same. Preferences that are espoused by people from the right of the likes of William Buckley and by people from the left of the likes of Lani Guinier are one and the same . There is no difference between Bill Buckley , Lani Guinier and the Ku Klux Klan and the Ivies that practiced qoutas against Jews and this modern day, against Asians.
Karabel’s book only confirms what I had known for a long time. Preferences of whatever kind be it racial, alumni legacy, geographical , sports etc. are by its very nature the same. They are designed to confer priveleges to one group, the tactics and rationales for justifying them are all the same. I had always maintained that if racial preferences were molecules of DNA, they would exactly have the same genomic structure as alumni legacy preferences. Another purpose of a preference is basically to preserve the status quo. You will have people from the right like Roger Clegg and Linda Chavez try to deny that but there is really no difference between the two. The vast system of preferences that evolved in the Ivies in the 20’s and later on emulated by the liberal arts schools and Stanford was a direct attempt on the part of the WASP establishment to preserve the status qou. We have to remember that in the 19th century THAT ABOUT 90% OF THE of the people who went to the Ivies came from the prep schools of the likes of Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Choate, Hotchkiss blah, blah….
It was their last names and their membership in the WASP aristocracy that mattered more than what was inside their brains as far as the Ivies were concerned. The Boston Brahmin Aristocracy of the likes of the Lowells, Winthrops , Cabots etc. had long abandoned Boston latin school ( a public exam school , there are 2 latin schools in Beantown ) for the simple reason that their mediocre children could not get past the entrance exams of that school and would be more acceptable in the arms of Exeter and Andover who cared less about their intellectual capacities. Most of the white elite in New York City
in the first half of the century preferred to go to HYP (harvard,yale, princeton ) rather than to Columbia ( presumably because of its large percentage of Jews and even less to the more proletarian City College of New
York. In the first place, I am of the opinion that the children of the white elite in NYC in those days could not get past the entrance exam of the City College of New York and hence more willing to resort to the more salubrious and less demanding standards of HYP. Do we have a modern day parallell in NYC ? Perhaps, we are reminded for example that in the public exam schools of NYC like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech that whites are already a minority and getting smaller. Asians make up 49 % of Bronx Science and 53 % at Stuyvesant.I could say the same thing for Lowell in San Francisco where whites are even a smaller minority. If the children of the white elite in NYC are incapable of getting themselves admitted to the public exam schools like Bronx Science then the obvious resort would be less competetive schools like Dalton, Spence, Brearley, Mann, fieldston blah, blah , blah …. right?The whole history of preferences in this country really has to with the greed, the desire to maintain the status quo and pure self – interest.Let us look back again as to how the Ivy League admissions evolved. We know very well that human nature abhors the the intrusion of an “outside group” that threatens to upset the status qou. it does not matter whether the group involved is the Ku Klux Klan, or Jews trying to keep out their fellow Jews from apartment coops in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or rich blacks trying to keep down poor blacks , the routine and the nature of the game is still the same. We only have to remind ourselves of childhood experiences in the schoolyard. The attempt to set up qoutas against Jews in the early part of this century in the Ivies was something predictable. They were the “outside ” group that threathened to upset the status quo . They were the uninvited guests in the Sunday brunch. Blacks did not matter because whites have basically disenfranchised them from most aspects of American political, educational and economic life in those times and hence did not pose as great a threat as the Jews in academic life . If a lot of Asians existed in those days in the East Coast then they would have replaced the Jews as the targets of qoutas just like they are now in the Ivies. To keep down the number of Jews in the Ivies, these schools resorted to non -academic criteria like “Character “, “personality traits ” etc, things that have nothing to do with passing an organic chemistry exam. Whatever these nonacademic criteria were whether it is the ability to play the violin or being the yearbook editor became a way for schools to pick out the student that they want for any reason that they saw fit.All the modern panoply of modern day
private school admissions criteria evolved from this desire of the ivies to get the classes that they wanted. The concern about shortness of ears, shyness ,the “tad frothiness ” of the applicant, the height of the applicants , “how good looking the applicants ” etc. were predictable outcomes when a school chooses to use non – academic criteria for evaluating applicants. All these nonacademic criteria used in many private schools in this country would be found to be bizarre and outrageous in other countries be it Taiwan, Korea , japan, Africa etc. Letters of recommendation and alumni donations would be interpreted by even the poorest inhabitants of Haiti as nothing but an attempt to use one’s connections or as a very transparent case of bribery. Nowadays any private school can buy its entering freshman class by leveraging financial aid.Early decision, early admission all these tools used by the Ivies along with the other stuff I had talked above are direct evolutionary results of these policies that were created in the early part of this century in the Ivies. What is the difference between these tools and criteria and the literacy tests, property rules that were used to disenfranchise blacks in the past? The rationales for preferences have not changed thru the centuries. The targets have just changed. The tactics and methods have remained the same. Preferences that are espoused by people from the right of the likes of William Buckley and by people from the left of the likes of Lani Guinier are one and the same . There is no difference between Bill Buckley , Lani Guinier and the Ku Klux Klan and the Ivies that practiced qoutas against Jews and this modern day, against Asians.
Karabel’s book only confirms what I had known for a long time. Preferences of whatever kind be it racial, alumni legacy, geographical , sports etc. are by its very nature the same. They are designed to confer priveleges to one group, the tactics and rationales for justifying them are all the same. I had always maintained that if racial preferences were molecules of DNA, they would exactly have the same genomic structure as alumni legacy preferences. Another purpose of a preference is basically to preserve the status quo. You will have people from the right like Roger Clegg and Linda Chavez try to deny that but there is really no difference between the two. The vast system of preferences that evolved in the Ivies in the 20’s and later on emulated by the liberal arts schools and Stanford was a direct attempt on the part of the WASP establishment to preserve the status qou. We have to remember that in the 19th century THAT ABOUT 90% OF THE of the people who went to the Ivies came from the prep schools of the likes of Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Choate, Hotchkiss blah, blah….
It was their last names and their membership in the WASP aristocracy that mattered more than what was inside their brains as far as the Ivies were concerned. The Boston Brahmin Aristocracy of the likes of the Lowells, Winthrops , Cabots etc. had long abandoned Boston latin school ( a public exam school , there are 2 latin schools in Beantown ) for the simple reason that their mediocre children could not get past the entrance exams of that school and would be more acceptable in the arms of Exeter and Andover who cared less about their intellectual capacities. Most of the white elite in New York City
in the first half of the century preferred to go to HYP (harvard,yale, princeton ) rather than to Columbia ( presumably because of its large percentage of Jews and even less to the more proletarian City College of New
York. In the first place, I am of the opinion that the children of the white elite in NYC in those days could not get past the entrance exam of the City College of New York and hence more willing to resort to the more salubrious and less demanding standards of HYP. Do we have a modern day parallell in NYC ? Perhaps, we are reminded for example that in the public exam schools of NYC like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech that whites are already a minority and getting smaller. Asians make up 49 % of Bronx Science and 53 % at Stuyvesant.I could say the same thing for Lowell in San Francisco where whites are even a smaller minority. If the children of the white elite in NYC are incapable of getting themselves admitted to the public exam schools like Bronx Science then the obvious resort would be less competetive schools like Dalton, Spence, Brearley, Mann, fieldston blah, blah , blah …. right?The whole history of preferences in this country really has to with the greed, the desire to maintain the status quo and pure self – interest.Let us look back again as to how the Ivy League admissions evolved. We know very well that human nature abhors the the intrusion of an “outside group” that threatens to upset the status qou. it does not matter whether the group involved is the Ku Klux Klan, or Jews trying to keep out their fellow Jews from apartment coops in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or rich blacks trying to keep down poor blacks , the routine and the nature of the game is still the same. We only have to remind ourselves of childhood experiences in the schoolyard. The attempt to set up qoutas against Jews in the early part of this century in the Ivies was something predictable. They were the “outside ” group that threathened to upset the status quo . They were the uninvited guests in the Sunday brunch. Blacks did not matter because whites have basically disenfranchised them from most aspects of American political, educational and economic life in those times and hence did not pose as great a threat as the Jews in academic life . If a lot of Asians existed in those days in the East Coast then they would have replaced the Jews as the targets of qoutas just like they are now in the Ivies. To keep down the number of Jews in the Ivies, these schools resorted to non -academic criteria like “Character “, “personality traits ” etc, things that have nothing to do with passing an organic chemistry exam. Whatever these nonacademic criteria were whether it is the ability to play the violin or being the yearbook editor became a way for schools to pick out the student that they want for any reason that they saw fit.All the modern panoply of modern day
private school admissions criteria evolved from this desire of the ivies to get the classes that they wanted. The concern about shortness of ears, shyness ,the “tad frothiness ” of the applicant, the height of the applicants , “how good looking the applicants ” etc. were predictable outcomes when a school chooses to use non – academic criteria for evaluating applicants. All these nonacademic criteria used in many private schools in this country would be found to be bizarre and outrageous in other countries be it Taiwan, Korea , japan, Africa etc. Letters of recommendation and alumni donations would be interpreted by even the poorest inhabitants of Haiti as nothing but an attempt to use one’s connections or as a very transparent case of bribery. Nowadays any private school can buy its entering freshman class by leveraging financial aid.Early decision, early admission all these tools used by the Ivies along with the other stuff I had talked above are direct evolutionary results of these policies that were created in the early part of this century in the Ivies. What is the difference between these tools and criteria and the literacy tests, property rules that were used to disenfranchise blacks in the past? The rationales for preferences have not changed thru the centuries. The targets have just changed. The tactics and methods have remained the same. Preferences that are espoused by people from the right of the likes of William Buckley and by people from the left of the likes of Lani Guinier are one and the same . There is no difference between Bill Buckley , Lani Guinier and the Ku Klux Klan and the Ivies that practiced qoutas against Jews and this modern day, against Asians.
Karabel’s book only confirms what I had known for a long time. Preferences of whatever kind be it racial, alumni legacy, geographical , sports etc. are by its very nature the same. They are designed to confer priveleges to one group, the tactics and rationales for justifying them are all the same. I had always maintained that if racial preferences were molecules of DNA, they would exactly have the same genomic structure as alumni legacy preferences. Another purpose of a preference is basically to preserve the status quo. You will have people from the right like Roger Clegg and Linda Chavez try to deny that but there is really no difference between the two. The vast system of preferences that evolved in the Ivies in the 20’s and later on emulated by the liberal arts schools and Stanford was a direct attempt on the part of the WASP establishment to preserve the status qou. We have to remember that in the 19th century THAT ABOUT 90% OF THE of the people who went to the Ivies came from the prep schools of the likes of Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Choate, Hotchkiss blah, blah….
It was their last names and their membership in the WASP aristocracy that mattered more than what was inside their brains as far as the Ivies were concerned. The Boston Brahmin Aristocracy of the likes of the Lowells, Winthrops , Cabots etc. had long abandoned Boston latin school ( a public exam school , there are 2 latin schools in Beantown ) for the simple reason that their mediocre children could not get past the entrance exams of that school and would be more acceptable in the arms of Exeter and Andover who cared less about their intellectual capacities. Most of the white elite in New York City
in the first half of the century preferred to go to HYP (harvard,yale, princeton ) rather than to Columbia ( presumably because of its large percentage of Jews and even less to the more proletarian City College of New
York. In the first place, I am of the opinion that the children of the white elite in NYC in those days could not get past the entrance exam of the City College of New York and hence more willing to resort to the more salubrious and less demanding standards of HYP. Do we have a modern day parallell in NYC ? Perhaps, we are reminded for example that in the public exam schools of NYC like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech that whites are already a minority and getting smaller. Asians make up 49 % of Bronx Science and 53 % at Stuyvesant.I could say the same thing for Lowell in San Francisco where whites are even a smaller minority. If the children of the white elite in NYC are incapable of getting themselves admitted to the public exam schools like Bronx Science then the obvious resort would be less competetive schools like Dalton, Spence, Brearley, Mann, fieldston blah, blah , blah …. right?The whole history of preferences in this country really has to with the greed, the desire to maintain the status quo and pure self – interest.Let us look back again as to how the Ivy League admissions evolved. We know very well that human nature abhors the the intrusion of an “outside group” that threatens to upset the status qou. it does not matter whether the group involved is the Ku Klux Klan, or Jews trying to keep out their fellow Jews from apartment coops in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or rich blacks trying to keep down poor blacks , the routine and the nature of the game is still the same. We only have to remind ourselves of childhood experiences in the schoolyard. The attempt to set up qoutas against Jews in the early part of this century in the Ivies was something predictable. They were the “outside ” group that threathened to upset the status quo . They were the uninvited guests in the Sunday brunch. Blacks did not matter because whites have basically disenfranchised them from most aspects of American political, educational and economic life in those times and hence did not pose as great a threat as the Jews in academic life . If a lot of Asians existed in those days in the East Coast then they would have replaced the Jews as the targets of qoutas just like they are now in the Ivies. To keep down the number of Jews in the Ivies, these schools resorted to non -academic criteria like “Character “, “personality traits ” etc, things that have nothing to do with passing an organic chemistry exam. Whatever these nonacademic criteria were whether it is the ability to play the violin or being the yearbook editor became a way for schools to pick out the student that they want for any reason that they saw fit.All the modern panoply of modern day
private school admissions criteria evolved from this desire of the ivies to get the classes that they wanted. The concern about shortness of ears, shyness ,the “tad frothiness ” of the applicant, the height of the applicants , “how good looking the applicants ” etc. were predictable outcomes when a school chooses to use non – academic criteria for evaluating applicants. All these nonacademic criteria used in many private schools in this country would be found to be bizarre and outrageous in other countries be it Taiwan, Korea , japan, Africa etc. Letters of recommendation and alumni donations would be interpreted by even the poorest inhabitants of Haiti as nothing but an attempt to use one’s connections or as a very transparent case of bribery. Nowadays any private school can buy its entering freshman class by leveraging financial aid.Early decision, early admission all these tools used by the Ivies along with the other stuff I had talked above are direct evolutionary results of these policies that were created in the early part of this century in the Ivies. What is the difference between these tools and criteria and the literacy tests, property rules that were used to disenfranchise blacks in the past? The rationales for preferences have not changed thru the centuries. The targets have just changed. The tactics and methods have remained the same. Preferences that are espoused by people from the right of the likes of William Buckley and by people from the left of the likes of Lani Guinier are one and the same . There is no difference between Bill Buckley , Lani Guinier and the Ku Klux Klan and the Ivies that practiced qoutas against Jews and this modern day, against Asians.
Karabel’s book only confirms what I had known for a long time. Preferences of whatever kind be it racial, alumni legacy, geographical , sports etc. are by its very nature the same. They are designed to confer priveleges to one group, the tactics and rationales for justifying them are all the same. I had always maintained that if racial preferences were molecules of DNA, they would exactly have the same genomic structure as alumni legacy preferences. Another purpose of a preference is basically to preserve the status quo. You will have people from the right like Roger Clegg and Linda Chavez try to deny that but there is really no difference between the two. The vast system of preferences that evolved in the Ivies in the 20’s and later on emulated by the liberal arts schools and Stanford was a direct attempt on the part of the WASP establishment to preserve the status qou. We have to remember that in the 19th century THAT ABOUT 90% OF THE of the people who went to the Ivies came from the prep schools of the likes of Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Choate, Hotchkiss blah, blah….
It was their last names and their membership in the WASP aristocracy that mattered more than what was inside their brains as far as the Ivies were concerned. The Boston Brahmin Aristocracy of the likes of the Lowells, Winthrops , Cabots etc. had long abandoned Boston latin school ( a public exam school , there are 2 latin schools in Beantown ) for the simple reason that their mediocre children could not get past the entrance exams of that school and would be more acceptable in the arms of Exeter and Andover who cared less about their intellectual capacities. Most of the white elite in New York City
in the first half of the century preferred to go to HYP (harvard,yale, princeton ) rather than to Columbia ( presumably because of its large percentage of Jews and even less to the more proletarian City College of New
York. In the first place, I am of the opinion that the children of the white elite in NYC in those days could not get past the entrance exam of the City College of New York and hence more willing to resort to the more salubrious and less demanding standards of HYP. Do we have a modern day parallell in NYC ? Perhaps, we are reminded for example that in the public exam schools of NYC like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech that whites are already a minority and getting smaller. Asians make up 49 % of Bronx Science and 53 % at Stuyvesant.I could say the same thing for Lowell in San Francisco where whites are even a smaller minority. If the children of the white elite in NYC are incapable of getting themselves admitted to the public exam schools like Bronx Science then the obvious resort would be less competetive schools like Dalton, Spence, Brearley, Mann, fieldston blah, blah , blah …. right?The whole history of preferences in this country really has to with the greed, the desire to maintain the status quo and pure self – interest.Let us look back again as to how the Ivy League admissions evolved. We know very well that human nature abhors the the intrusion of an “outside group” that threatens to upset the status qou. it does not matter whether the group involved is the Ku Klux Klan, or Jews trying to keep out their fellow Jews from apartment coops in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or rich blacks trying to keep down poor blacks , the routine and the nature of the game is still the same. We only have to remind ourselves of childhood experiences in the schoolyard. The attempt to set up qoutas against Jews in the early part of this century in the Ivies was something predictable. They were the “outside ” group that threathened to upset the status quo . They were the uninvited guests in the Sunday brunch. Blacks did not matter because whites have basically disenfranchised them from most aspects of American political, educational and economic life in those times and hence did not pose as great a threat as the Jews in academic life . If a lot of Asians existed in those days in the East Coast then they would have replaced the Jews as the targets of qoutas just like they are now in the Ivies. To keep down the number of Jews in the Ivies, these schools resorted to non -academic criteria like “Character “, “personality traits ” etc, things that have nothing to do with passing an organic chemistry exam. Whatever these nonacademic criteria were whether it is the ability to play the violin or being the yearbook editor became a way for schools to pick out the student that they want for any reason that they saw fit.All the modern panoply of modern day
private school admissions criteria evolved from this desire of the ivies to get the classes that they wanted. The concern about shortness of ears, shyness ,the “tad frothiness ” of the applicant, the height of the applicants , “how good looking the applicants ” etc. were predictable outcomes when a school chooses to use non – academic criteria for evaluating applicants. All these nonacademic criteria used in many private schools in this country would be found to be bizarre and outrageous in other countries be it Taiwan, Korea , japan, Africa etc. Letters of recommendation and alumni donations would be interpreted by even the poorest inhabitants of Haiti as nothing but an attempt to use one’s connections or as a very transparent case of bribery. Nowadays any private school can buy its entering freshman class by leveraging financial aid.Early decision, early admission all these tools used by the Ivies along with the other stuff I had talked above are direct evolutionary results of these policies that were created in the early part of this century in the Ivies. What is the difference between these tools and criteria and the literacy tests, property rules that were used to disenfranchise blacks in the past? The rationales for preferences have not changed thru the centuries. The targets have just changed. The tactics and methods have remained the same. Preferences that are espoused by people from the right of the likes of William Buckley and by people from the left of the likes of Lani Guinier are one and the same . There is no difference between Bill Buckley , Lani Guinier and the Ku Klux Klan and the Ivies that practiced qoutas against Jews and this modern day, against Asians.
Karabel’s book only confirms what I had known for a long time. Preferences of whatever kind be it racial, alumni legacy, geographical , sports etc. are by its very nature the same. They are designed to confer priveleges to one group, the tactics and rationales for justifying them are all the same. I had always maintained that if racial preferences were molecules of DNA, they would exactly have the same genomic structure as alumni legacy preferences. Another purpose of a preference is basically to preserve the status quo. You will have people from the right like Roger Clegg and Linda Chavez try to deny that but there is really no difference between the two. The vast system of preferences that evolved in the Ivies in the 20’s and later on emulated by the liberal arts schools and Stanford was a direct attempt on the part of the WASP establishment to preserve the status qou. We have to remember that in the 19th century THAT ABOUT 90% OF THE of the people who went to the Ivies came from the prep schools of the likes of Andover, Exeter, Groton, Deerfield, Milton, Choate, Hotchkiss blah, blah….
It was their last names and their membership in the WASP aristocracy that mattered more than what was inside their brains as far as the Ivies were concerned. The Boston Brahmin Aristocracy of the likes of the Lowells, Winthrops , Cabots etc. had long abandoned Boston latin school ( a public exam school , there are 2 latin schools in Beantown ) for the simple reason that their mediocre children could not get past the entrance exams of that school and would be more acceptable in the arms of Exeter and Andover who cared less about their intellectual capacities. Most of the white elite in New York City
in the first half of the century preferred to go to HYP (harvard,yale, princeton ) rather than to Columbia ( presumably because of its large percentage of Jews and even less to the more proletarian City College of New
York. In the first place, I am of the opinion that the children of the white elite in NYC in those days could not get past the entrance exam of the City College of New York and hence more willing to resort to the more salubrious and less demanding standards of HYP. Do we have a modern day parallell in NYC ? Perhaps, we are reminded for example that in the public exam schools of NYC like Stuyvesant, Bronx Science, Brooklyn Tech that whites are already a minority and getting smaller. Asians make up 49 % of Bronx Science and 53 % at Stuyvesant.I could say the same thing for Lowell in San Francisco where whites are even a smaller minority. If the children of the white elite in NYC are incapable of getting themselves admitted to the public exam schools like Bronx Science then the obvious resort would be less competetive schools like Dalton, Spence, Brearley, Mann, fieldston blah, blah , blah …. right?The whole history of preferences in this country really has to with the greed, the desire to maintain the status quo and pure self – interest.Let us look back again as to how the Ivy League admissions evolved. We know very well that human nature abhors the the intrusion of an “outside group” that threatens to upset the status qou. it does not matter whether the group involved is the Ku Klux Klan, or Jews trying to keep out their fellow Jews from apartment coops in the Upper East Side of Manhattan or rich blacks trying to keep down poor blacks , the routine and the nature of the game is still the same. We only have to remind ourselves of childhood experiences in the schoolyard. The attempt to set up qoutas against Jews in the early part of this century in the Ivies was something predictable. They were the “outside ” group that threathened to upset the status quo . They were the uninvited guests in the Sunday brunch. Blacks did not matter because whites have basically disenfranchised them from most aspects of American political, educational and economic life in those times and hence did not pose as great a threat as the Jews in academic life . If a lot of Asians existed in those days in the East Coast then they would have replaced the Jews as the targets of qoutas just like they are now in the Ivies. To keep down the number of Jews in the Ivies, these schools resorted to non -academic criteria like “Character “, “personality traits ” etc, things that have nothing to do with passing an organic chemistry exam. Whatever these nonacademic criteria were whether it is the ability to play the violin or being the yearbook editor became a way for schools to pick out the student that they want for any reason that they saw fit.All the modern panoply of modern day
private school admissions criteria evolved from this desire of the ivies to get the classes that they wanted. The concern about shortness of ears, shyness ,the “tad frothiness ” of the applicant, the height of the applicants , “how good looking the applicants ” etc. were predictable outcomes when a school chooses to use non – academic criteria for evaluating applicants. All these nonacademic criteria used in many private schools in this country would be found to be bizarre and outrageous in other countries be it Taiwan, Korea , japan, Africa etc. Letters of recommendation and alumni donations would be interpreted by even the poorest inhabitants of Haiti as nothing but an attempt to use one’s connections or as a very transparent case of bribery. Nowadays any private school can buy its entering freshman class by leveraging financial aid.Early decision, early admission all these tools used by the Ivies along with the other stuff I had talked above are direct evolutionary results of these policies that were created in the early part of this century in the Ivies. What is the difference between these tools and criteria and the literacy tests, property rules that were used to disenfranchise blacks in the past? The rationales for preferences have not changed thru the centuries. The targets have just changed. The tactics and methods have remained the same. Preferences that are espoused by people from the right of the likes of William Buckley and by people from the left of the likes of Lani Guinier are one and the same . There is no difference between Bill Buckley , Lani Guinier and the Ku Klux Klan and the Ivies that practiced qoutas against Jews and this modern day, against Asians.
As the population, including the population of movers and shakers, grows, and the HYP numbers remain about the same, the latter’s proportion in the movershaker world decreases.
Fewer people are looking to HYP for their own sort, fewer people are impressed.
Perhaps, between wealth and giving each others’ kids jobs and spouses, the HYP alums may survive as a class, but with less and less influence.
Good.