Andrew Triska has a serviceable op-ed in last week’s Record entitled “Fairness Beyond Financial Aid.” But, while his sentiments are reasonable, his actual knowledge about the facts seems lacking. Don’t kids today read EphBlog?
Just kidding! Details below.


Triska suggests that Williams

Eliminate admissions decisions based on legacy status. Don’t decrease them - don’t lessen their importance - just eliminate them. Legacy preference is a contentious subject - after all, alumni at Williams are notoriously generous, but would they keep giving if their children weren’t given preferential treatment in admissions? Should legacy status be used as a “tiebreaker” for two students with the same qualifications? At many top schools, such as Dartmouth, Harvard and Yale, the acceptance rate for legacies is almost twice that of other students. Most colleges stress that legacy status isn’t nearly as important as other factors, but the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights discovered that the average admitted legacy at Harvard between 1981 and 1988 was actually less qualified than the average admitted non-legacy. When they looked at admissions office ratings on academics and other areas of performance, they found that “with the exception of the athletic rating, non-legacies scored better than legacies in all areas of comparison.” One wonders what we would find if a similar study were conducted at Williams.

First, 1988 was a long time ago. Much has changed, at Harvard as well as at Williams. EphBlog has documented that legacy preferences are no longer a meaningful aspect of the admissions process at Williams. If you prevented the admissions office from knowing who was a legacy and who not, you might, at most drop the number of legacies from 60 to 50. But that is nothing compared to what would happen if you blinded the admissions office to other factors (most importantly: race, wealth and athletics).

Second, legacy preferences have no meaningful connection to fund raising. The great mass of alumni would give whether or not there are legacy preferences. And, these alumni count for only half the fund-raising done. A very small number of hyper-rich alums (and some non-alums) account for the other half. But the children of these folks do not need a legacy preference. The admissions office gives them “development” tags, a much more important advantage. Any sensible discussion needs to keep legacy and development preferences separate.

Reform affirmative action to create a system based on socioeconomic status and education rather than race or gender. Affirmative action is possibly the most controversial subject in education. Like legacy preference, it is a non-academic means of evaluating candidates for admission. Most consider it a way of leveling the playing field. After all, a minority student from an inner-city school has fewer opportunities than a white, upper-class student from an exclusive private school. The minority student’s SAT scores might not be as high, due to his financial inability to take the test more than once or to receive tutoring. He might not have had the chance to participate in extracurricular sports and activities, and his school may not offer art and music. But is any of this truly based on race? After all, there are many upper-class minorities with wealthy parents, and there are plenty of poor white students. (Does anyone have quarters that I can borrow for my laundry?) Admissions officers should take race off the admissions form - even if filling it in is optional - and instead look at the student’s income, high school, location and parental education.

The naivete here is charming. One of the reasons I enjoy writing for EphBlog is that it gives me a chance to teach students like Triska about topics that, for whatever reason, the College fails to inform them about. Think that professors like Sam Crane are going to explain the facts of admissions life to an uninformed student like Triska. Ha! If anything, Sam will attack me for spelling out those facts here. But those facts are stubborn things.

If the Williams admissions office did not know the race of applicants, there would be no more than a handful of African-American students at the College. It is nothing but a fantasy to think that a switch to preferences based on socio-economic status would be any help at all. There are many, many more poor non-black applicants with 1400 SATs then there are poor black applicants.

This (pdf) is an excellent overview of the case against affirmative action. William Bowen and Neil Rudenstine provide a concise explanation (pdf) of why class can not easily replace race.

Many of us have a strong appetite for apparently painless alternatives, and it is natural to look for ways to achieve “diversity” without directly confronting the emotion-laden issue of race. Several alternatives to race-sensitive admissions have been suggested. For example, colleges and universities have been urged to:
*Focus on the economically disadvantaged. The argument is that, since racial minorities are especially likely to be poor, racial diversity could be promoted in this way (an approach sometimes referred to as “class-based affirmative action”). The results, however, would not be what some people might expect. Several studies have shown that there are simply very few minority candidates for admission to academically selective institutions who are both poor and academically qualified.

See the paper for details. As usual, it is the underlying demographics that drive reality, whatever our wishes might be. (Previous EphBlog coverage here, here and here.) The short version is that, in a race-blind world, African-Americans would make up 2% of the students at elite colleges like Williams (page 280 of The Shape of the River). But, if Williams alone went race-blind, it’s percentage would drop close to zero because the 2% that it “should” get are almost all accepted by Harvard, Yale, Princeton and/or Stanford. No affirmative action means (almost) no African-Americans at Williams.

Since no (?) professor at Williams has bothered to explain these facts to Triska, I am happy to do my part.

Yet Triska’s op-ed is still a good read, well-written and nicely organized. I hope that he learns some more about these topics and follows up. He should certainly sign up for Morty’s tutorial on the economics of higher education.