How elites perpetuate themselves: the case of Harvard

Posted on by

I’ve thought for a long time that the best way to regard Harvard is as a hedge fund with a nice university attached. This perspective has been powerfully reinforced by the revelations emerging from an ongoing legal hearing on the extent to which Harvard operates discrimination against Asian Americans (relative to whites) and the extent of racial preferences in the university’s admissions. More generally, it turns out that the data provided in the lawsuit has revealed how preferences operate for other distinct applicant groups, including those in a group labelled ALDC where

  • A stands for recruited athletes
  • L stands for legacies
  • D those on the “dean’s interest list”; and
  • C children of faculty and staff

I’ve just been reading a fascinating analysis of these data published in an intriguing paper by Peter Arcidiacono of Duke university, Josh Kinsler (University of Georgia) and Tyler Ransom (University of Oaklahoma). Their aim is to provide a detailed analysis of Harvard ALDC applicants and their admissions outcomes relative to their non-ALDC peers.

Harvard is famously difficult to get into — at least for some kids. The admissions rate for those who will start there in 2023 is 4.5%. Another way of putting that is that 95.5% of applications are unsuccessful. So it’s hard to get in. But it seems that it’s not so hard for everyone, notably those in the ALDC group. While those applicants go through the full committee process with all other applicants, the researchers found that they are given special treatment in that their applications are closely monitored throughout the vetting cycle by the admissions dean, admissions director, athletic coaches, and others. And often ALDC applications are annotated in specific ways to aid in the monitoring process. As a group, for example, ALDCs are “about 20 times more likely to interview with a member of the admissions office”.

So who are these ALDCs?

Athletes: While Harvard does not offer athletic scholarships, “each of its 42 sports teams has a liaison that moderates contact throughout the admissions process between the admissions office and that team’s coach. Additionally, the admissions office sets aside a certain number of staff interview slots for athletes only, which can occur outside of the time frame for which staff interviews are made available to the general public”. So athletes get special treatment.

Legacies: These are are strictly children (but not other relatives) of alumni. The vetting procedures specify that these files “should be read by the Admissions Dean “following the normal reading process if the decision might require special handling or if another reading might be helpful”.

Dean’s Interest List: Here we get to the really interesting stuff. The researchers found no mention of the Admissions Dean’s or Admissions Director’s interest lists in the vetting procedures, but one of the documents unsealed in Court provides some detail about the handling of such applications. First, members of this list receive an additional rating which is separate from the profile ratings and which is tied to the applicant’s (or the family of the applicant’s) donation history and future donation prospects. [Emphasis added.] “When subcommittees discuss applicants on this list, the admissions dean may preemptively join the meeting to discuss members of this list, or may have individually discussed the applicant with the subcommittee chair beforehand… A similar process applies for the Admissions Director’s interest list”.

Children of Faculty or Staff: The reading procedures stipulate that these applications “should be sent to the Admissions Dean after the normal reading process has been completed.”

Analysis of how the ALDCs get on shows that they are admitted at substantially higher rates than non-ALDC applicants. Athletes seem to do particularly well with an admission rate of 86% (i.e.they are “over 14 times as likely to be admitted as those that are not recruited athletes”). Although recruited athletes are less than 1% of the applicant pool, they make up over 10% of the admitted class.

Legacy applicants (surprise, surprise) do pretty well. Their admission rate was 33.6%, which is 5.7 times higher than the admission rate for non-legacy applicants. “Legacies are the largest of the ALDCs”, the researchers write, “both in terms of number of applicants as well as number of admits, and make up 14% of the admitted class”.

Those on the Dean’s List, also do well — 42.7% of them were admitted. Ditto for Children of Faculty and Staff, 46.7% of whom got in.

In a way, these numbers merely confirm what sceptics have long suspected. The formula for getting into Harvard is really pretty straightforward. You need to be:

  • an outstanding athlete (the Winklevoss twins for example)

  • a child of an alumnus a relative of someone who has donated to Harvard in the past (or is judged likely to make a donation in future), or

  • a child of someone who works at Harvard.

In other words, a member of the elite.

We can write genetic code. But what about the (inevitable) bugs?

Posted on by

This morning’s Observer column:

A few days ago, on my way to a discussion in the exquisite little McCrum theatre, which is hidden away in the centre of Cambridge, I had to pass through the courtyard of the Eagle pub in Bene’t Street. As I did so, I suddenly remembered that this is the hostelry where, on 28 February 1953, Francis Crick, rushing in from the nearby Cavendish Lab, announced to astonished lunchers that he and James Watson had discovered the secret of life. (They had just unveiled their double-helix model of the DNA molecule to colleagues in the laboratory; there’s now a blue plaque on the wall marking the moment.)

As a graduate student in the late 1960s, I knew the pub well because it was where some of my geeky friends from the Computer Lab, then located in the centre of town, used to gather. We talked about a lot of things then, but one thing that never really crossed our minds was that there might be a connection between what Crick and Watson had done in 1953 and the software that many of us were struggling to write for our experiments or dissertations…

Read on

Smartphones: our abusive partners

Posted on by

Lovely blog post by Maria Farrell:

A couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk in Austria on smartphones and cybersecurity.

“Put up your hand if you like or maybe even love your smartphone,” I asked the audience of policymakers, industrialists and students.

Nearly every hand in the room shot up.

“Now, please put up your hand if you trust your smartphone.”

One young guy at the back put his hand in the air, then faltered as it became obvious he was alone. I thanked him for his honesty and paused before saying,“We love our phones, but we do not trust them. And love without trust is the definition of an abusive relationship.”

We are right not to trust our phones. They serve several masters, the least of whom is us. They constantly collect data about us that is not strictly necessary to do their job. They send data to the phone company, to the manufacturer, to the operating system owner, to the app platform, and to all the apps we use. And then those companies sell or rent that data to thousands of other companies we will never see. Our phones lie to us about what they are doing, they conceal their true intentions, they monitor and manipulate our emotions, social interaction and even our movements. We tell ourselves ‘it’s okay, I chose this’ when we know it really, really isn’t okay, and we can’t conceive of a way out, or even of a world in which our most intimate device isn’t also a spy.

Let’s face the truth. We are in an abusive relationship with our phones.

What is law?

Posted on by

Lovely post by Conor Gearty on the British Academy’s blog:

Law is a technical subject, without doubt, but it courses through with large questions about the kind of world we live in and how best to protect the values that we as a society hold dear. The biggest, most extraordinary thing about law is something that we wouldn’t even have remarked upon just a few years ago, but at this time of ‘fake news’ and feelings about stuff driving policy is worth saying – and celebrating. Law is about reason – argument, logic, facts and evidence are its daily bread and butter. Now of course, behind that reason will often be the power of conservative reaction, willing and able to deploy the force of authority to crush dissent. Law will always be, and almost by definition is, wedded to preservation of the status quo. That said, it is surely a wonderful thing that, for all its faults, there is at least one remaining space in our political culture where words still matter and where promises made in the form of written undertakings (‘laws’) have consequences. A society that stops being governed by the authority of law and reverts to that of the ‘populist’, the priest or ‘the people’ is not a place where freedom will long survive.

Why the iPhone upgrade cycle is lengthening

Posted on by

I’ve always lagged behind in the iPhone cycle. Until recently, I had an iPhone 6 — which I’d used for years. Because it was slowing up, I bought a used iPhone 7 Plus, largely because of its camera, and expect to run that for years. iPhones — like all smartphones — have reached the top part of the S curve, and we’re now at the point where improvements are incremental and relatively small.

So this advice from the NYT’s Brian X. Chen makes good sense:

Apple’s newest mobile operating system, iOS 13, will work only on iPhones from 2015 (the iPhone 6S) and later. So if you have an iPhone that is older than that, it is worth upgrading because once you can no longer update the operating system, some of your apps may stop working properly.

For those with younger iPhones, there are ways to get more mileage out of your current device. While the newest iPhones have superb battery life — several hours longer than the last generation — a fresh battery in your existing gadget costs only $50 to $70 and will greatly extend its life.

If you have the iPhone 6S from 2015 and the iPhone 7 from 2016, the iPhone 11s are speedier, with camera improvements and bigger displays. That makes an upgrade nice to have but not a must-have. But if you spent $1,000 on an iPhone X two years ago, then hold off. The iPhone 11s just aren’t enough of an innovation leap to warrant $700-plus on a new smartphone.

If you wait another year or two, you will most likely be rewarded with that jump forward. That might be an iPhone that works with fast 5G cellular networks, or a smartphone that can wirelessly charge an Apple Watch.

I don’t believe that stuff about charging the Watch, but otherwise this is spot on.

Crooked Timber

Posted on by

Walking in some woods last Sunday (which was a glorious September day) I came on this tree, which brought to mind Kant’s sombre dictum that “Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made.”

Which of course then reminded me of one of my favorite blogs.

Full text of Article 50

Posted on by

Since the UK Supreme Court has started its deliberations on the government’s dubious procedural antics, it might be worth considering what Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty says. Here it is, in all its succinct glory:

  1. Any Member State may decide to withdraw from the Union in accordance with its own constitutional requirements.

  2. A Member State which decides to withdraw shall notify the European Council of its intention. In the light of the guidelines provided by the European Council, the Union shall negotiate and conclude an agreement with that State, setting out the arrangements for its withdrawal, taking account of the framework for its future relationship with the Union. That agreement shall be negotiated in accordance with Article 218 (3) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It shall be concluded on behalf of the Union by the Council, acting by a qualified majority, after obtaining the consent of the European Parliament.

  3. The Treaties shall cease to apply to the State in question from the date of entry into force of the withdrawal agreement or, failing that, two years after the notification referred to in paragraph 2, unless the European Council, in agreement with the Member State concerned, unanimously decides to extend this period.

  4. For the purposes of paragraphs 2 and 3, the member of the European Council or of the Council representing the withdrawing Member State shall not participate in the discussions of the European Council or Council or in decisions concerning it. A qualified majority shall be defined in accordance with Article 238(3)(b) of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

  5. If a State which has withdrawn from the Union asks to rejoin, its request shall be subject to the procedure referred to in Article 49.

Note the phrases in bold type. (My emphasis.)

Quote of the Day

Posted on by

”For all the progress made, it seems like almost all important questions in AI remain unanswered. Many have not even been properly asked yet.”

Francois Chollet

Posted in AI

Quote of the Day

Posted on by

”It’s a paradox wrapped in an oxymoron about a moron: Trump’s faux-thenticity somehow makes the Democratic candidates seem more packaged, more stuck in politician-speak.”

Maureen Dowd, writing in the *New York Times about the Democratic candidates for the presidency.