Johns Hopkins’ president: legacy admissions ‘seemed
antithetical to the values of merit’
https://www.ft.com/content/504c96a7-8c69-4b50-88e5-500ffe0ffe22
“When Ronald Daniels was appointed president of Johns Hopkins University in 2009, he set himself a tough task that put him at odds with many of its own faculty and alumni: to abolish its longstanding but inequitable practice of “legacy admissions”, offering preferential access for students with family connections in favour of purely merit-based applications.
The legacy system remains widespread among America’s elite and intensely competitive higher education institutions, allowing those who have themselves attended — and have often pledged significant donations — to benefit from an easier path for their own children or other close relatives…
Daniels found shocking the data for the Baltimore university’s “freshman” undergraduate class that year: 12.5 per cent were legacy students, outweighing the 9 per cent of low-income entrants eligible for federal government Pell financial aid grants”.
https://www.ft.com/content/504c96a7-8c69-4b50-88e5-500ffe0ffe22
“When Ronald Daniels was appointed president of Johns Hopkins University in 2009, he set himself a tough task that put him at odds with many of its own faculty and alumni: to abolish its longstanding but inequitable practice of “legacy admissions”, offering preferential access for students with family connections in favour of purely merit-based applications.
The legacy system remains widespread among America’s elite and intensely competitive higher education institutions, allowing those who have themselves attended — and have often pledged significant donations — to benefit from an easier path for their own children or other close relatives…
Daniels found shocking the data for the Baltimore university’s “freshman” undergraduate class that year: 12.5 per cent were legacy students, outweighing the 9 per cent of low-income entrants eligible for federal government Pell financial aid grants”.
Admissions standards an issue for high schools as well
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3266150-admissions-standards-an-issue-for-high-schools-as-well/
Restoring Sanity—and Fairness
https://www.city-journal.org/can-mit-restore-sanity-to-college-admissions
https://thehill.com/opinion/judiciary/3266150-admissions-standards-an-issue-for-high-schools-as-well/
https://www.city-journal.org/can-mit-restore-sanity-to-college-admissions
Grade Inflation Is Ruining Education
https://quillette.com/2021/04/24/grade-inflation-is-ruining-education/
Rejecting meritocracy clashes with America’s basic premises
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/06/rejecting-meritocracy-clashes-with-americas-basic-premises/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/06/rejecting-meritocracy-clashes-with-americas-basic-premises/
Attacking ‘merit’ in the name of ‘equity’ is a prescription for mediocrity
George F. Will observes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/25/attacking-merit-prescription-mediocrity/
“A meritocratic society has less discord than a society that abandons meritocratic principles. Equity, pursued through government-driven allocation of social rewards, drenches society with bitter distributional conflicts because wealth and opportunity are allocated by political power according to shifting standards contested by competing factions. Allowing the market to articulate preferences, without seeking to decide — who will decide who the deciders are? — the preferences’ moral worth, promotes domestic tranquility”.
George F. Will observes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/06/25/attacking-merit-prescription-mediocrity/
“A meritocratic society has less discord than a society that abandons meritocratic principles. Equity, pursued through government-driven allocation of social rewards, drenches society with bitter distributional conflicts because wealth and opportunity are allocated by political power according to shifting standards contested by competing factions. Allowing the market to articulate preferences, without seeking to decide — who will decide who the deciders are? — the preferences’ moral worth, promotes domestic tranquility”.