Ross Douthat explores the roots of white anxiety:
Last year, two Princeton sociologists, Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford, published a book-length study of admissions and affirmative action at eight highly selective colleges and universities. Unsurprisingly, they found that the admissions process seemed to favor black and Hispanic applicants, while whites and Asians needed higher grades and SAT scores to get in. But what was striking, as Russell K. Nieli pointed out last week on the conservative Web site Minding the Campus, was which whites were most disadvantaged by the process: the downscale, the rural and the working-class.
This was particularly pronounced among the private colleges in the study. For minority applicants, the lower a family’s socioeconomic position, the more likely the student was to be admitted. For whites, though, it was the reverse. An upper-middle-class white applicant was three times more likely to be admitted than a lower-class white with similar qualifications.
This may be a money-saving tactic. In a footnote, Espenshade and Radford suggest that these institutions, conscious of their mandate to be multiethnic, may reserve their financial aid dollars “for students who will help them look good on their numbers of minority students,” leaving little room to admit financially strapped whites.
But cultural biases seem to be at work as well. Nieli highlights one of the study’s more remarkable findings: while most extracurricular activities increase your odds of admission to an elite school, holding a leadership role or winning awards in organizations like high school R.O.T.C., 4-H clubs and Future Farmers of America actually works against your chances. Consciously or unconsciously, the gatekeepers of elite education seem to incline against candidates who seem too stereotypically rural or right-wing or “Red America.”
This provides statistical confirmation for what alumni of highly selective universities already know. The most underrepresented groups on elite campuses often aren’t racial minorities; they’re working-class whites (and white Christians in particular) from conservative states and regions. Inevitably, the same underrepresentation persists in the elite professional ranks these campuses feed into: in law and philanthropy, finance and academia, the media and the arts.
(Hat tip to Steve Sailer.)
I am far from being a fan of Robert Reich, but a few months ago I heard a commentary from him on NPR (“know your enemy”). His point was that, with all minority races making great financial strides, it was time for the ending of racial preferences, and their replacement economic class preferences.
This would undoubtedly go some way toward addressing the problem spoken of here, though of course, it would not cure the elitist buffoonery of giving different weights to particular extracurricular activities. Even better, to my mind, would be the elimination of all preferences, and simply basing admissions on performance in earlier schooling.
On the other hand, however, we must realize that those schools which are so difficult to get into have become ever easier to graduate from, and teach less and less needed information and more “elitist” attitude. Perhaps those who wind up at second-level or even (gasp!) state colleges and universities would not actually be better served by admission to such “lofty” places. At least where they do go to school they are taught to keep their noses to the grindstones, rather than in the air.
Probably mostly social snobbery. The typical admissions officer wouldn’t view 4-H members as “our kind of people”. Mixed with outright greed — admitting the prep-school kid is likely to result in higher contributions, either from his parents in the near term or from the future alumnus in the long term.
We as a society have delegated an immense amount of power to college admissions officers. Who are these people and what are their qualifications and values? I would guess their characteristics are almost as different from the typical academic as they are from the typical businessperson.
“Social snobbery”, aye, and more, à la John Taylor Gatto. These institutions are largely run by the elites, for the purposes of the elites.
Excellent essay, here.
Ross, I mentioned that Angelo Codevilla essay a few days ago — with a hat tip to David Foster. Apparently I’ve only mentioned John Taylor Gatto once before.
So you did! I must have fallen and hit my head. No other good reason to miss a posting on Isegoria.
(I think I caught it, initially, over at LRC, Lew Rockwell’s blog. )
It merits repetition — the Gatto stuff on ruling elites, but on social engineering and “snobbery” found in his Underground History of American Education is vein-poppingly superb. Every minute spent reading it is a minute well spent.
Sadly, I think Ol’ John is sick these days. I hope I am wrong about that. He doesn’t come out to play much, and even about a decade ago, he was in pretty frail health (heart, I think?)