Reddit reviews The Chosen: The Hidden History of Admission and Exclusion at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton

It costs a fortune. That's the reason so many athletic departments have to be subsidized by their universities. It costs a lot of money for something that brings very little benefit to the university.

There's also the argument that it's basically just a giveaway for upper middle class white kids. The author of this book argues that as university admissions became more merit based, old alumni wanted to make sure that people like them and their kids could still get in. So they pushed for things like "holistic" admission standards focusing on "character" and support for athletics as a way of giving a boost to their kids who were not as qualified academically. That also extends to athletic scholarships for nonrevenue sports. While basketball and football consist of a lot of lower income and minority students, sports like lacrosse, tennis, swimming, cross country, baseball, etc are dominated by wealthier white kids.

It also just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to give an admission spot and a bunch of money to somebody because they can play a sport that few people actually care about.

That's the accepted reason, but it's wrong. The "Flutie Effect" is a myth. There is no net benefit for schools to keep major athletics going in its current form.

The first colleges/universities in this country were reserved for elites, and sports were a primary way for students to establish themselves socially. Along with the "eating clubs," football and rowing were important marks of distinction among the student body.

Admitting students based on their athletic ability rather than their academic proficiency was likewise a way to ensure the sons of rich and powerful people could still enroll in what amounted to a fancy country-club, despite the fact that Jewish and Catholic students were doing better than their WASP counterparts on their application tests.

Today sports are an entrenched part of the culture.

There's a great book on the subject by Jerome Karabel called "The Chosen".

https://www.amazon.com/Chosen-History-Admission-Exclusion-Princeton/dp/061877355X

If you're interested in the history of Ivy League admissions specifically, there's a pretty comprehensive book on it called The Chosen. You can also check out The Price of Admissions which explains how the system's main purpose is protecting the class status of rich whites.

Karabel's book is a must-read on this topic.

Dan Golden's "The Price of Admission: How America's Ruling Class Buys Its Way into Elite Colleges--and Who Gets Left Outside the Gates" is another must-read, though its focus is a bit different from Karabel's.

The next-level eugenics bullshit is well entrenched in the ivy league. Short version is here. Long form version is The Chosen by Jerome Karabel

https://www.amazon.com/Chosen-History-Admission-Exclusion-Princeton/dp/061877355X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1494686261&sr=8-1&keywords=the+chosen+karabel

> The sub seems to always write it off as a way to give white's more power in schools


But it is. Maybe you could try reading an actual study conducted by a researcher before you say something false? Maybe you could look at actual historical precedents as well?


One

http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/Opportunity%20Cost%20of%20Admission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20June%202005.pdf

The Espenshade study (Espenshade was employed by Princeton, an institution that the results reflect negatively on) found that the seats that Asian-Americans "lost" to Affirmative Action don't go to blacks/Latinos. They go to white students. Affirmative Action is a way to keep Asians out of universities. 'WHATTT! WHAT AN ABSURD STATEMENT' you say.


Two


Just a few generations ago, HYP admins (http://www.amazon.com/The-Chosen-Admission-Exclusion-Princeton/dp/061877355X)
met to devise ways to restrict Jewish admission to university. They said there were "too many Jews." Similarly, elite universities today believe there are "too many Asians." Thus, they enact or shape preexisting policies to effect this goal. The difference is that this time the Jews are in charge and it's incredibly hypocritical and disgusting that the same policies that would have kept them out of elite schools is what they're using to keep Asians out.

Oops. Meant Brandeis and Yeshiva University as major Jew schools. Not tufts.

In the early 1900s the biggest competitors was CCNY that had lots of Jewish enrollment.

edit - so I am still researching, it seems that not much was written about how the Jewish Quotas were dropped.

best i could find was this book: The Half Opened Door - Discrimination at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton

I think if we look at the history, we can find out how did Harvard lose the Jewish quotas? most articles on web do not explain it - this requires more research/ conjecture.

• from another article, it appears that the elites post-ww2 took over the protestants (globalist bankers / the people who dragged the US into WW2 in Europe)
  
  >By the 1960's, a new elite was displacing the Protestant Establishment across American society. And the elite university presidents behaved like "intellectual investment bankers," in the words of Geoffrey Kabaservice, the author of "The Guardians," a book about Yale. They realized, as Karabel writes, that they would profit in the long run if they dumped "stocks that showed signs of slipping" - the old Protestant bluebloods - and invested "in an array of newer stocks that, while perhaps riskier, promised higher rates of return": the rising meritocrats.
  
  https://newrepublic.com/article/67613/the-end-elite
  
  it seems that the end of jewish quotas came with the rise of the liberal establishment, but from our own experiences, I find that liberals were the most racist towards asians.
  
  https://www.amazon.com/The-Chosen-Admission-Exclusion-Princeton/dp/061877355X?tag=bisafetynet2-20
  
  >Many of Karabel’s findings are astonishing: the admission of blacks into the Ivy League wasn’t an idealistic response to the civil rights movement but a fearful reaction to inner-city riots; Yale and Princeton decided to accept women only after realizing that they were losing men to colleges (such as Harvard and Stanford) that had begun accepting “the second sex”; Harvard had a systematic quota on “intellectuals” until quite recently; and discrimination against Asian Americans in the 1980s mirrored the treatment of Jews earlier in the century.
  
  ^ I would read Karabel's book - it follows my own hunch that it is all a power play by the institution. If we believe that institutions exist to perpetuate themselves and to keep the existing power structure, I would surmise that only existential threats would be able to spur the necessary changes. That is why I strongly believe that as China gets stronger, Harvard will open more doors to asians, otherwise they will lose out to other rival institutions, We can see this happening slowly as Harvard and other schools open China campus in order to stay competitive.
  
  https://washingtonpost.com/outlook/five-myths/five-myths-about-the-ivy-league/2019/03/22/13fdb0da-4bf0-11e9-93d0-64dbcf38ba41_story.html
  
  It is because Harvard does not see Asian Americans as leadership material - thus the low admit percentage. The only way to be seen as leaders is to give it time and see if the limited number of 20% asians end up becoming leaders in industry. if not, they do not want to sacrifice their class size to create followers. So the previous graduates of these Ivy League schools must fight to positions of prominence before Harvard would be willing to increase the admit numbers. Thus why the cap continues