Id be interested to read about some "holistic" admissions success stories. There must be by this point tons of examples of students admitted "holistically" who are now doing great things because of the opportunity they were given.
Most, if not all, Canadian admissions are holistic. All the universities are pretty easy to get into as long as you have the grades, especially for undergrad. As a result, for undergrad at least, no one really cares what school you went to.
From outside looking in, the American system has a hilariously unequal system. Certain opportunities are hoarded by an insanely small set of schools, almost entirely based on "prestige" and financial dominance. And it's this crazy arms-race/pressure cooker to get in. But once you're in, grade inflation is everywhere and people aren't actually working super hard. No one freaks out about admissions to "mid-tier" schools. It's entirely about a select coterie of schools who people rightly perceive as gatekeeping to an incredible extent.
None of the schools actually emphasize being accessible and hard to graduate from. The incentives are all weird and cater to a small elite population. The name on the degree is more important than earning the degree.
I dunno about other colleges, but Caltech you earned the degree. Many students dropped out because of the workload. There were a couple that were able to coast through, but they had IQs easily over 160.
> All the universities are pretty easy to get into as long as you have the grades, especially for undergrad.
The is partially true but leaves out an important difference between Canadian and American admissions. In Canada you are admitted to a particular major, not the university as a whole.
E.g. At the University of Waterloo, CS and some of the engineering majors can have < 5% admissions rate and are extremely merit based. At the same time, applying for the general Bachelor of Arts at UWaterloo is uncompetitive and very easy to get admitted.
It comes down to the notion that America is a classless society being farcical. There has always been an elite that jealously guards their power and influence. Entrance into it - or the ersatz version that is the bourgeoisie - has always (along with immigration) been modulated based on what was most likely to preserve the existence of that elite.
And it's not a conspiracy; it just shows how much power that elite has, that they're able to make these things happen when they need them to. A sudden turn away from nativism and condoning of proto-anarchy when the black population (first slave, then free) threatened to upend the social order. Socialism lite (and more immigration, but only from preferred European nations) to head off full-blown socialism after capitalism first drove to excess and then blew itself up. Truman getting the VP spot. Bank bailouts (so many bank bailouts). Even the begrudging "opening" of elite institutions to Jews, blacks, Asians (staring down the barrel of their own, rival, institutions).
Anything to prevent their power and influence decentralizing in an enduring manner.
Isn't the point that _all_ admissions from a range of institutions over a period of years (decades?) were "holistic" admissions, and thus basically all post-college success stories are holistic success stories? Further, _it's actively harmful_ as well as unfounded to post-hoc try to say that person X would _only_ have been admitted under a holistic framework.
In the same way, if up until last year, your company had any form of DEI, it's pretty toxic to point to any of your colleagues, claim that they were diversity hire and their success is a credit to DEI policies b/c that undermines them in a way that's impossible to provide evidence against.
The implication that "you were only <hired or admitted> because of a policy that gave you credit for <trait/circumstance>" can't have a factual basis unless you have all applications and notes from the admissions/hiring deliberation process, which the person in question almost certainly cannot.
This has actually been one of the ideas floated by regulators.
The idea is that merit based admissions is actually pretty complicated, so we can allow individual universities continue to experiment with their own implementations and approaches.
However, we can hold them accountable by grading them based on retrospective data.
> Also, I suspect success has to be quantified, which might be hard.
I wouldn't say hard. It's expensive, time consuming, and the people who can perform qual to quant conversions usefully need to have a foot firmly planted on each side of the subject matter fence.
More to the point, nobody's really interested in compiling this kind of data. Adding dimensions beyond income to your definition of "success" would result in e.g. revealing there isn't anyone from your school successfully practicing family law.
This may not count as “holistic”, but my grand-uncle went to City College of NY when it was both open admissions and free. He had the equivalent of an 8th grade education in his home country.
He ended up with a BS in Chemistry, went on further academically, and eventually was the general manager of a big factory (I think for GE, but not 100% sure) in the 80s before being killed in a car accident.
There’s a million stories like this. Most debates about who is more “qualified” for what in this context boil down to subjective vibes about whatever people think. At best, it’s pride in Ivy League education, at worst it’s some racist nonsense about the “others” taking status and jobs away.
I went to a random state school that some would eyeroll at. Life has been fine, and I’m glad I didn’t waste my time pursuing some bullshit admissions process.
beezlebroxxxxxx|6 months ago
From outside looking in, the American system has a hilariously unequal system. Certain opportunities are hoarded by an insanely small set of schools, almost entirely based on "prestige" and financial dominance. And it's this crazy arms-race/pressure cooker to get in. But once you're in, grade inflation is everywhere and people aren't actually working super hard. No one freaks out about admissions to "mid-tier" schools. It's entirely about a select coterie of schools who people rightly perceive as gatekeeping to an incredible extent.
None of the schools actually emphasize being accessible and hard to graduate from. The incentives are all weird and cater to a small elite population. The name on the degree is more important than earning the degree.
WalterBright|6 months ago
They didn't do legacy admits as far as I knew.
But what it's like today, I have no information.
jjmarr|6 months ago
dgs_sgd|6 months ago
The is partially true but leaves out an important difference between Canadian and American admissions. In Canada you are admitted to a particular major, not the university as a whole.
E.g. At the University of Waterloo, CS and some of the engineering majors can have < 5% admissions rate and are extremely merit based. At the same time, applying for the general Bachelor of Arts at UWaterloo is uncompetitive and very easy to get admitted.
darth_avocado|6 months ago
Clearly you’ve never enrolled in a EECS class at Cal
h2zizzle|6 months ago
And it's not a conspiracy; it just shows how much power that elite has, that they're able to make these things happen when they need them to. A sudden turn away from nativism and condoning of proto-anarchy when the black population (first slave, then free) threatened to upend the social order. Socialism lite (and more immigration, but only from preferred European nations) to head off full-blown socialism after capitalism first drove to excess and then blew itself up. Truman getting the VP spot. Bank bailouts (so many bank bailouts). Even the begrudging "opening" of elite institutions to Jews, blacks, Asians (staring down the barrel of their own, rival, institutions).
Anything to prevent their power and influence decentralizing in an enduring manner.
abeppu|6 months ago
In the same way, if up until last year, your company had any form of DEI, it's pretty toxic to point to any of your colleagues, claim that they were diversity hire and their success is a credit to DEI policies b/c that undermines them in a way that's impossible to provide evidence against.
The implication that "you were only <hired or admitted> because of a policy that gave you credit for <trait/circumstance>" can't have a factual basis unless you have all applications and notes from the admissions/hiring deliberation process, which the person in question almost certainly cannot.
materielle|6 months ago
The idea is that merit based admissions is actually pretty complicated, so we can allow individual universities continue to experiment with their own implementations and approaches.
However, we can hold them accountable by grading them based on retrospective data.
m463|6 months ago
I read somewhere that people who graduated at the top of their class generally became average with respect to success.
Also, I suspect success has to be quantified, which might be hard.
gopher_space|6 months ago
I wouldn't say hard. It's expensive, time consuming, and the people who can perform qual to quant conversions usefully need to have a foot firmly planted on each side of the subject matter fence.
More to the point, nobody's really interested in compiling this kind of data. Adding dimensions beyond income to your definition of "success" would result in e.g. revealing there isn't anyone from your school successfully practicing family law.
Spooky23|6 months ago
He ended up with a BS in Chemistry, went on further academically, and eventually was the general manager of a big factory (I think for GE, but not 100% sure) in the 80s before being killed in a car accident.
There’s a million stories like this. Most debates about who is more “qualified” for what in this context boil down to subjective vibes about whatever people think. At best, it’s pride in Ivy League education, at worst it’s some racist nonsense about the “others” taking status and jobs away.
I went to a random state school that some would eyeroll at. Life has been fine, and I’m glad I didn’t waste my time pursuing some bullshit admissions process.