[1657] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: [Mit-talk] merit, diversity, hahvahd, mit, etc.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Jeff Roberts)
Mon Oct 24 17:27:02 2005
Date: Mon, 24 Oct 2005 17:26:44 -0400
From: Jeff Roberts <thejoker@alum.mit.edu>
To: jimmbswu@alum.mit.edu
In-Reply-To: <BAY101-F3988E4B9B80DC1ECEF6005DF770@phx.gbl>
cc: mit-talk@mit.edu
Errors-To: mit-talk-bounces@mit.edu
Jimmy,
Once again, thanks for raising an interesting topic! Regarding thepoints you made about MIT, I'm inclined to disagree with you on mostof them, or at least I would be, except that I'm not entirely surewhat you're talking about.
I don't know what you mean by "Ivy with a technical focus." It's nothow I would describe MIT, nor do I think anyone's trying to brand MITas such. What makes an Ivy an Ivy? If by "Ivy" you mean top-tieracademically, then I suppose I would agree-- MIT is, and should try tobrand itself as, a top-tier undergraduate school, along with theIvies, Stanford, and Caltech, for example. But the "Ivy brand" (ifthere is such a thing) isn't just about academics, it's about thehistory and traditions of the institution-- something that MIT willnever share, whether or not it tries to "re-brand" itself. And asyou've cleverly pointed out-- why would MIT even want to re-branditself as an Ivy? With an applicant pool that is increasingly largeand competitive, and higher yield rates than ever, it seems like thebrand MIT has now (whatever that is) is working pretty well for it,thank you very much.
In terms of the historical comparison between MIT and the Ivies, whileI also don't know much about MIT's history of admissions policies, Ido know a little about MIT's history, and prior to WWII most MITundergrads still lived off-campus-- most of these students wereprobably local to the area. So MIT's admissions policies would havehad a vastly different character in the 20s and 30s than those ofHarvard or the other Ivies-- I mean, before 1916 MIT didn't evenreally have a campus to speak of. After WWII, though the size of theundergrad school stayed about the same (the graduate population in themeantime boomed-- but that's a different story) MIT vastly expandedits on-campus housing in order to accomodate a national (andinternational) student population. I also know that MIT's admissionspolicy has always been inclusive of women and minorities, however, theapplicant pool consisted mostly of white males until the number ofwomen and minorities began to climb throughout the 70s, !
80s, and 90s. Whether this reflected a change in admissions policy or recruitingstrategy, or both, is a question for people who have done moreresearch than I have.
I also don't know what you mean by "all-American," unless you're usingthat in place of the other catchphrase "well-rounded" or as Jessiesuggested, the term "millennial." The argument that MIT shouldn'taccept more "millennials" is a strange one, since that refers broadlyto an entire generation-- it's like saying "MIT shouldn't acceptanyone born after the year 1982." In terms of "well-rounded," while Idon't know a lot about MIT admissions, from the people I've talked to,one thing is extremely clear-- MIT does, and always has, only acceptedstudents who have proven strengths in math and science. It may bethat contemporary high school students who are strong in math andscience don't necessarily fit the stereotype of the techie nerds ofyesteryear, just as the techie nerds of yesteryear probably didn't fitthe stereotype of techie nerds of yester-yesteryear, and so forth.
Another clear message that has been coming from the admissions officeis that MIT is interested in students who are passionate about whatthey do. Marilee Jones has been traveling the country giving speechesabout how students need to stop trying to pad their resumes with asmany AP classes and extracurricular activities as possible, and totake a deeper interest in the things they really care about. Andthat, I would imagine, is what MIT is looking for-- not students whohave taken on the broadest range of activities, but students who haveapplied a lot of effort and excelled in those things they really careabout, both inside and outside of the classroom.
Also, as Jessie alluded to, I think the fact that more MIT studentsare doing less technical sorts of things like majoring in managementand developing leadership skills reflects the current state of theeconomy rather than MIT admissions policy. It's no longer the normfor the brightest technical minds to graduate from MIT and go into ajob where they will do nothing but solve engineering problems undersomeone else's leadership. MIT graduates are expected to innovate andin many cases to develop and market their own products, things whichrequire personal, management, and leadership skills as much astechnical skills.
Well I've already said much more than I intended to on this subject... thanks for bringing it up!
Jeff
On 10/24/05, Jimmy Wu <jimmbswu@hotmail.com> wrote:> The article quoted below discusses the trajectory of the affirmative action> policy among the Ivies, going from the paid exceptions to legacies in the> 1900s, to the legacy quotas in the '20s, to the "character/whole person"> preference for legacies in the '30s, to the present day "character/whole> person" preference for athletes, minorities, and legacies.>> Under this analysis, the Ivies evolved their affirmative action policy to> protect their brands over time. Because the Ivy brand is the accession to> power and privilege, every step of the evolution has served to strengthen> the brand.>> The questions for MIT are many. For most of us, we probably need a history> lesson in MIT admissions policy before we can debate the purported> egalitarianism in the MIT admission policy. However, one question we can> ask today is: does MIT's admission policy today serves to strengthen the> brand? What should be MIT's brand?>> As m!
any people have noted over the past 7+ years on these forums, MIT is> searching for a new brand identity. The old brand identity of the technical> research university is no longer viable due to the end of the Cold War.> Currently, MIT appears headed toward an "Ivy with technical focus" brand,> which can be seen with the increase in "All-American" admitees and the> tremendous increase in Course 15 enrollment among undergrads.>> For the "Ivy with technical focus", MIT is probably using the right> affirmative action policy, with weighting toward the "all-American-ness"> needed for the brand.>> However, is it the right place to go? Among many other things, Hahvahd is> also an Ivy with good technical focus. If you look only at their technical> departments, they can certainly out-compete MIT. Same thing with the other> upper-tier Ivies. Given that there is a lot of competition in this> particular talent market, MIT should look for some other brand identity. As> many of our !
15ers can relate, in areas of intense competition, companies> will seg
ment/corner the market by appearing different, or seek out a> different, distinct market, where they can utilize their "first-comer"> advantage.>> In addition, the current admission policy is based on a particular> leadership paradigm. The two schools of thought in leadership development> are: leadership is learned vs. innate. By admitting a lot of "all-American"> applicants, MIT is taking the easy way out on leadership development.> Assuming that leadership is an innate quality, and that developing> leadership otherwise is expensive, MIT seeks to instead develop the> technical skills of born leaders, who have already demonstrated their> leadership abilities in various extracurricular activities. This way, MIT> skips out on the hard task of developing the un-quantifiable "leadership> skills" and instead focuses on the well-known and quantifiable task of> "technical skills".>> Admittedly, MIT's focus is perhaps easier than trying to develop the> leadership skills of nerds,!
who may not have any in the first place.> However, this new focus risks diluting MIT's character. The whole-sale> introduction of all-Americans automatically means that there are less nerds> on campus, given the relatively fixed class size. Moreover, the boom in 15> enrollment shows that MIT is not doing very well in its self-assigned task> of developing the technical skills of all-Americans. The undergrad 15> curriculum may meet the minimum graduation requirement, but it does not> imbue its students with the finer points of linear system analysis. [see> below for more on course 15].>> The bright spot is that the graduate admission system is up to the> individual courses and thus less vulnerable to MIT's brand change. However,> as professors get exposed to all-American undergrads over time, they may> change their focus in graduate admissions as well. Moreover, because MIT is> no longer viable as a technical research university [aka the Cold War> model], the courses ha!
ve less research funding from their own contracts and> depend more on
the MIT brand to attract funding. The strengthening of the> center vis-a-vis the periphery means that the courses are more vulnerable to> admin-dictated changes in graduate admission focus.>> For MIT's sake, and for the sake of students future and present, we need to> start a public discussion on the branding of MIT.>> Jimmy Wu'02>> [In an analysis of the technical content of 15 vs. the other courses, you> could say that 15 is no more technical than, say, 21H or 17, so why single> 15 out? But the truth is, 15 is qualitatively different from the other> non-technical courses. The sales pitch of 15 to employers is that they are> getting employees well-versed in the business as well as the technical> world. The other non-technical courses do not make so strong a claim.> However, 15 undergrads plainly are not as well-versed in the technical,> industrial sectors as undergrads from the technical courses. In essence,> course 15 is selling a defective product. Merill Lynch may !
hire a 15er to> analyze the technical sectors, but he did not do 18.03 nor anything beyond.> Other than his MIT diploma, this theoretical 15er can lay no claim to> technical expertise.>> We need to make course 15 a "complementary course", where an undergrad needs> to first have a technical course before he can double-major into 15. An> undergrad cannot have 15 as the only major he has.]>> ---------------------article starts below--------------------> http://slate.msn.com/id/2128377/>> Ivory Tower Intrigues> The pseudo-meritocracy of the Ivy League.> By James Traub> Posted Monday, Oct. 24, 2005, at 2:35 AM PT>>>> Thanks to Jerome Karabel, author of The Chosen, I know now a great deal more> about the circumstances surrounding my admission to Harvard in 1972 than I> ever wanted to know. I understood even then that my unimpressive academic> record would not have put me over the top had my father not attended> Harvard. But I now know that in the late 1960s and early 1970s, supp!
osedly a> time when the admissions process had at last been freed of a
rchaic bias,> "legacies" were two-and-a-half to three times likelier to be admitted than> was the average applicant; that admitted legacies ranked lower than average> admits on everything Harvard cared about—personal attributes,> extracurricular activities, academic achievement, recommendations, and so> forth; and that the degree of preference granted legacies was only slightly> less than that given to black candidates, who in turn received less of a> thumb on the scale than did athletes. I was, in short, an affirmative-action> baby.>> Well, who among us isn't? Karabel notes that even today 40 percent of> Princeton's freshman class consists of legacies, athletes, and> under-represented minorities, the three chief beneficiaries of admissions> preference. But Karabel's larger aim in this epically scaled and> scrupulously rendered history of the admissions systems at Harvard, Yale,> and Princeton is to call into question our confident use of words like> "preference." Along with!
works like The Big Test, by Nicholas Lemann, and> The Shape of the River, by William Bowen and Derek Bok, The Chosen> constitutes a second-generation defense of affirmative action, undermining> the pat narrative of critics who imagine that our great universities> operated according to a consensual, unarguable definition of "merit" until> racial blackmail forced them to betray their principles.>> There was never any doubt in my mind as to what Harvard was selecting for in> 1972— intellectual brilliance. I knew that somewhere swam shoals of crew> jocks and legacies far more square-jawed than I, but my world was> IQ-denominated. My dorm consisted largely of ill-bred physics geniuses,> Unabombers in the making. I had one friend who could talk to the kid who> could, in turn, talk to the kid who as a freshman was said to have corrected> a computing error by Harvard's great mathematician Jean-Pierre Serre. Of> such stuff were our legends made. But of such stuff, also, are tacit> !
worldviews made. It took me years to figure out that life was not> IQ-
denominated, and that while academic intelligence was significantly> correlated with success, the world defined "merit" far more variously than> my little corner of Harvard had.>>> The task Karabel sets himself in The Chosen is to trace the evolution of> tacit worldviews, each appearing fixed and immutable to its advocates, that> over the last century determined who would and would not have access to> America's finest universities. It turns out, ironically enough from the> point of view of my family trajectory, that the admissions systems at the> Big Three were built expressly to keep out people like my father—smart,> driven Jewish kids from gigantic New York City public high schools. Until> 1920 or so, anyone could gain admission to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton by> passing a battery of subject-matter exams; the lunkheads from Andover who> couldn't parse a literary paragraph could be admitted with "conditions." Of> course this meant the student body was heavily salted with "t!
he stupid sons> of rich men," in the memorably pithy phrase of Charles Eliot, Harvard's> great Victorian-era president. But for the Harvard man, or, even more, for> that paragon known as "the Yale man," intellectual brilliance was a deeply> suspect attribute, like speaking French too well. These young men had been> bred for "character" and "manliness"—that ineffable mix of deeply heritable> qualities prized by the WASP establishment, a mix that worthies like> Endicott Peabody, the founder of Groton, the greatest of the "feeder> schools," believed could best be demonstrated on the football field. They> would have considered my dorm companions less than human, not more.>> And then along came the Jews—lots and lots of Jews. By 1920, the Big Three> presidents were looking on in horror as Columbia, the Ivy League school> situated in the midst of the melting pot, became 40 percent Jewish. These> men shared the anti-Semitism almost universal in their class, but because> they saw t!
hemselves as custodians of ancient and indispensable institutions,> th
ey did not simply dislike these uncouth scholars; they felt a deep> professional obligation to keep their numbers to a manageable minimum.> Karabel unearthed a letter from Harvard president Lawrence Lowell that> delineates the issue with admirable, if stomach-turning, clarity: "The> summer hotel that is ruined by admitting Jews meets its fate, not because> the Jews it admits are of bad character, but because they drive away the> Gentiles, and then after the Gentiles have left, they leave also." The> problem, in other words, was WASP flight.>> The answer was selective admissions. In 1922, Lowell was reckless enough to> think that he could solve "the Jew problem," as he was wont to call it, with> a straightforward quota. This provoked a mighty uproar among faculty members> and outsiders with more tender consciences; instead, Lowell agreed to limit> the size of the entering class and to institute recommendation letters and> personal interviews. Yale and Princeton followed suit;!
and soon came the> whole panoply familiar to this day: lengthy applications, personal essays,> descriptions of extracurricular activities. This cumbersome and expensive> process served two central functions. It allowed the universities to select> for an attribute the disfavored class was thought to lack—i.e.,> "character"—and it shrouded the admissions process in impenetrable layers of> subjectivity and opacity, thus rendering it effectively impervious to> criticism. The swift drop in admission of Jews could thus be explained as> the byproduct of the application of neutral principles—just as could the> increase of minority students, 60 years later, in institutions seeking> greater "diversity.">> The willingness of these universities to suffer real harms rather than admit> more Jews is astonishing. Having long distinguished itself as a "national"> and "democratic" institution, Yale by 1930 had become more insular, more> parochial, and less intellectual as a consequence of t!
he new admissions> system. During World War II, with the size of the e
ntering class size> seriously depleted, Yale turned away qualified Jewish students rather than> increase the proportion of Jews. "Yale judged its symbolic capital to be> even more precious than its academic capital," as Karabel dryly puts it. Or,> to put it more contemporary terms, Yale understood the imperative to protect> its brand.>> We have grown accustomed to the idea that the academic, test-driven> meritocracy began to replace the old, ascriptive order in the 1940s. This is> the central theme of Lemann's The Big Test. But Karabel demonstrates that> the old order had a lot more staying power than is commonly thought. James> Bryant Conant, Harvard's midcentury president and an outspoken foe of> inherited privilege, is widely credited with democratizing Harvard's student> body. But it turns out that Jews had only slightly better chances of> admission under Conant, and the lunkheads of "St. Grottlesex," as the feeder> prep schools were collectively known, only slightly wor!
se, than they had in> the Lowell era. This was true not so much because Conant shared Lowell's> prejudices as because he operated under his constraints: Harvard needed> "paying customers," and it needed to preserve an environment that would keep> those Brahmin scions happy. But it is also true that great WASP patriarchs> like Whitney Griswold, Yale's president in the '50s, shared the tribal> prejudice against "beetle-browed" intellectuals.>> The idea of merit-as-brains is really a product of the 1960s. Karabel> attributes this in part to the growing power of the professoriat, whose> deepest loyalties were to knowledge rather than to the institutions with> which they were affiliated. Changes in the economy and Cold War competition> also turned brain-power into a precious resource, thus changing the social> definition of merit. And the egalitarianism of the 1960s, along with the> enfeeblement of the WASP elite, made the old association of character with> "breeding"—indeed, th!
e very idea of character as a fixable commodity—seem> ludicrous. As bl
acks, Jews, and women clambered over the ramparts, the one> interest group that clung to the ancient ideals—the alumni—took up arms in> defense of the walled ethnic garden of yesteryear. They were fossils, of> course; but many of them were rich fossils. Karabel quotes the humiliating> 1973 recantation of Yale president Kingman Brewster after many an Old Eli> had committed rebellion-by-checkbook: "If Yale is going to expect her alumni> to care about Yale, then she must convince her alumni that Yale cares about> them." And that helps explain why you-know-who was able to enroll> you-know-where.>> By the time the reader arrives at Page 374 of The Chosen, where the book's> affirmative action exegesis begins, he is fully persuaded of the folly of> objectifying "merit" or "preference," of piercing the veil of opacity, or in> any case of preventing the great private universities from doing anything> they deem in their self-interest. Are the same smokescreens that were once> used to !
exclude the underprivileged now to be used to include them? Let it> be. Karabel, whose role in redesigning Berkeley's admissions policy in the> late '80s in order to pass constitutional muster is described in The Big> Test, and who remains one of the most thoughtful advocates of affirmative> action, candidly concedes that the Big Three ramped up the admission of> black students almost overnight owing not to some midnight conversion but to> terror at the rising tide of black anger and violence—owing, that is, to> racial blackmail. And because the elite universities began admitting large> numbers of black students with sub-par academic records at precisely the> moment they were becoming more "meritocratic"—i.e, more academically> selective—affirmative action felt more like a violation of meritocratic> principle than a recalibration of it. This painful fact continues to haunt> affirmative action and is why even some advocates, like the Harvard> sociologist Orlando Patterson, h!
ave called for such programs to be phased> out over time. But this is
unlikely ever to happen, because universities now> define "diversity" as a central virtue.>> Karabel's ultimate goal in deconstructing merit is not, however, to> vindicate affirmative action but to expose the hollowness of the central> American myth of equal opportunity. The selection process at elite> universities is widely understood as the outward symbol, and in many ways> the foundation, of our society's distribution of opportunities and rewards.> It thus "legitimates the established order as one that rewards ability and> hard work over the prerogatives of birth." But the truth, Karabel argues, is> very nearly the opposite: Social mobility is diminishing, privilege is> increasingly reproducing itself, and the system of higher education has> become the chief means whereby well-situated parents pass on the "cultural> capital" indispensable to success. "Merit" is always a political tool,> always "bears the imprint of the distribution of power in the larger> society." When m!
erit was defined according to character attributes> associated with the upper class, that imprint was plain for all to see, and> to attack, but now that elite universities reward academic skills> theoretically attainable by all, but in practice concentrated among the> children of the well-to-do and the well-educated, the mark of power is, like> the admissions process itself, "veiled." And it is precisely this appearance> of equal opportunity that makes current-day admissions systems so effective> a legitimating device.>> What, then, to do? Karabel proposes that colleges extend affirmative action> from race to class, as some have tentatively begun to do, and end> preferences for legacies and athletes. I am on record elsewhere as having> renounced the legacy privilege on behalf of my son—not that I asked him at> the time—but Karabel's own narrative has persuaded me that the elite> universities are unlikely to end affirmative action for the overprivileged.> If anything, The Ch!
osen demonstrates the danger of imagining great> universities as minia
ture replicas of the social order, and their admissions> policies as simulacra of the national reward system. Yes, Harvard, Yale, and> Princeton are plainly open to, and in many ways driven by, our animating> national ideals; but Karabel shows us that their admissions choices are> profoundly shaped by cultural, political, and economic considerations that> can not be wished away. If we care about equality of opportunity, perhaps we> would do better to focus our attention on the public schools, on the tax> system, on such social goods as housing and health care. I don't think we> can prevent meritocratic privilege from reproducing itself; we can, however,> increase the supply of meritocrats.>>> James Traub is at work on a book about Kofi Annan and the United Nations.>> _________________________________________________________________> Don't just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!> http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/>> _________________________!
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