Eliminating demonstrated interest seems to go against the whole Carnegie Mellon ethos. After all the motto is "My heart is in the work." Demonstrated interest was a way of admitting people who have passion for the subject and who may not have been admitted with grades or test scores alone. With this change, CMU will likely get more of the same applicants that all top tier universities get who just study for the SAT constantly instead of the kids who spend all their time programming or competing in robotics.<p>The argument advanced seems to be that eliminating demonstrated interest makes the admissions process more equitable because wealthy parents will push their children into the activities CMU is looking for and will know how to demonstrate interest. The counter to this argument is that wealthy parents will always be able to game an adversarial process. Parents will just push their children to study for the SAT more and pay more for SAT test prep. Parents will just push their children to work more on grades and classwork instead of things the children actually want to do like robotics or programming.
This one is hard for me, as there is likely no way I’d have gotten into CMU if I didn’t schedule an interview, basically say it was my dream school, and apply early - all of which is clear and demonstratable interest. I wasn’t rich; I simply lived in Pittsburgh, and grew up indoctrinated that CMU was where the smart kids went.<p>Like any elite school, CMU is very far-ranging and international w/r/t student body; it’s fair to assume that a disproportionate amount of students traveling to Pittsburgh to interview, tour, and attend pre-college are from above-average means. I get the logic. I also (anecdotally) know at least a dozen students at my time there who were wholly unqualified to be there save for their family’s ability’s to pay their tuition in full, cash.<p>I have zero interest in litigating the value of diversity; if that had to be explained here then you’re too ideologically gone for either of our time spent to be useful. What I can say - and I suspect CMU agrees - is that education and opportunity is a great way to give underserved populations upward mobility, therefore minimizing outputs of family affluence and giving more opportunities to lower-income applicants will yield a higher overall impact. I’m sure they likely saw performance (and potentially even donor) differences between the two populations; it’s possible that the demonstrative interest population simply didn’t perform as well.
The logic here is mind boggling. Essentially they are removing merit as a selection criteria, because privilege affords people more opportunities to show merit. If you are raised with privilege your parents are far more likely to have encouraged you to do extra cirriculars, support your interest in X,Y,Z, paid an essay coach to help or write your admission essays, etc.<p>I understand this, but it is not a good policy. In effect you will now be discriminating against good kids who worked their asses off to do extra cirriculars and prep for the SATs, etc.<p>Get rid of legacy preference for sure, find new ways to be more inclusive of underrepresented populations, but don't fix discrimination with more discrimination.
They lead off saying all of the buzz words about diversity which always rings hollow with me personally, and this decision is based on increasing diversity according to them.<p>Honest question: why should diversity (as they use it) ever be a goal? Immutable characteristics of a person should not be a consideration in any application to life unless the application is explicitly for that (tall people in basketball for instance). Meritocracy should be the paramount consideration in all things, and possibly a small consideration of diversity of ideas and beliefs, but not diversity of skin color or genitalia.<p>If all of the most brilliant astrophysicist minds in the world happen to be Japanese women, why shouldn't they be preferred over all others in getting into prestigious colleges to study astrophysics? Why do we care if we have a certain number of European males in that situation? The right answer is that we don't care how many European males enter that field (which is true today but for different reasons that I am not trying to get into).
To me this seems like two decisions combined. The idea of making sure that "letters of continued interest, extra recommendations, expectation of campus visits, lobbying efforts," do not play a role in campus decisions (notably, the statement offered no response to recent issues with donor preference at other "top" schools) seems like a common-sense focus on actually relevant factors and an attempt to reduce bias that will no doubt favor more diverse (and more ethical) candidates.<p>But how does that in any way go along with shunning "supplementary submission of materials, including resumes, research abstracts, writing samples, multimedia demonstrations of talents, and maker portfolios." How is work (most of which, like a writing sample or resume, requires no resources or affluence to create) less equal than academic records which are literally determined by what neighborhood one lives in? Essays aren't bad in theory, but it's only a matter of time before entire books are written by "admissions counselors" on exactly what influential people to name drop and what "shared values" with the school to highlight. Beyond a basic capability (prerequisites) and a lack of contrary evidence (ex. failing classes repeatedly), what could possibly be a better discriminator of student success then the interest they demonstrate through actual self-driven initiative?
What does that mean? Maybe it's that English is my second language? I would interpret it as, "if you really want to come here and show that to us, then we will decrease your chance of succeeding". Is that correct? And they argue that this should equalize the chances for everybody? I can't see the logic in that.
Maybe they looked at their Alumni and realized most of them are product managers and programmers at a FANG....in other words while they have fine careers and are making "positive" contribution to society they are not doing anything that they couldn't if they'd attended a less renowned institution.
So basically, because some small percentage of irrational evaluations are -ist (racist, sexist, genderist, whatever), they are moving towards purely rational measures?<p>I think this is a step back from the best solution to the problem of finding a good college/student fit.<p>EDIT: Try not to downvote without at least giving a reason.
Looking at their diversity stats, the largest group in their student body is Asians despite Asians only being 5.6% of the US population.<p>Much like the elite high schools here in New York, CMU’s entrance requirements have changed now that the wrong kind of people are the majority.<p>I don’t know how to feel about that.
> Like many other institutions, we are inundated with demonstrations of continued interest and additional recommendations, mostly from well-resourced or well-advised applicants. Though we don't request any at all, students write letters of continued interest, send us more recommendations, send projects, visit our campus to make their case in person and also have anyone with any perceived influence make phone calls to lobby and advocate for them.<p>The above indicates very high demand for Carnegie Mellon's educational services (along with other universities like CMU). Perhaps the obvious solution is to increase supply - if so many are so willing and apparently able to study at that level (the difference between the last admitted and first rejected is, AFAIK, almost undetectable), let's give them the opportunity!<p>Let's start with an open mind; I know many of the 'answers' already jumping to people's fingertips, but let's challenge those assumptions and the status quo. Nothing in the universe requires that there should be N spots available at CMU-level schools. Why not 2N or 10N or 100N? My impression is that the availability of quality college education boomed in the mid-20th century, especially in the U.S. Why not now, with such high demonstrated demand? At least public universities could be expanded.<p>It raises many questions: What do students and parents perceive is better about CMU than the next school down their list? Is their perception accurate? Can other schools be changed to match CMU in some or all regards?<p>I imagine (but don't want to assume) that the faculty at CMU are better than the next best school, but is that really so? Is there a material difference, other than prestige? And how important is that - all faculty (and most PhD students) at any school know infinitely more than almost any freshman, and few undergraduates take advantage of the faculty resources until later in college. Perhaps the solution is that admission to CMU-level schools and access to their faculty shouldn't happen until a student demonstrates the ability and interest in their first year or two.