Define “wealthy.” My brother went to Yale. We were definitely comfortable—immigrants to the US in 1989, my dad worked in public health and my mom was making good commissions at a furniture store. That made us somewhat better off than the typical family at Yale—the median family income is $196,000. But we weren’t “wealthy.”

I worry about the collateral effects of these attacks on meritocracy and the SAT. As immigrants, my family and I didn’t have social connections and deep cultural familiarity. Applying to college, doing the “right” extra-curriculars, etc., was actually quite a challenge. We never knew to work teachers for extra credit or retakes on exams to keep our grades up. What we had to distinguish ourselves from other upper middle class kids was our SAT scores.

Today, my wife and I have vastly more resources and cultural competency to navigate “the system” than my parents did. My kids go to a tiny K-12 private school where their teachers and guidance counselors will know them from preschool. We know the trendy extra-curriculars, how to craft admissions essays, how to put together class schedules that look good on a transcript while minimizing GPA risk, etc. I feel like deemphasizing the SAT and objective measures is going to help established families like mine at the expense of the kind of family I grew up in.

Maybe I misunderstood, sorry if I am. Are you saying that you're family made greater than 196k and that you were not wealthy? If so I'd say you are out of touch. That is ridiculously wealthy for the majority of humans alive. You're view might be skewed by seeing the ultra rich at Yale as your classmates. Which all goes back to the original point, these ivy league schools favor the rich

I don't disagree with your point about admissions (and in fact I came from a family that had good income but both parents never went to college, so had little advice to give).

Still: your family was already well near the 75th percentile nationally for the time. In what sense would that not be wealthy?

We were certainly in the top 5% at the time. “Rich kids” would be a fair description in my opinion. But to me, “children of the wealthy” as used by the article carries a connotation of having enough wealth to have power and connections. My mom made over $100k/year as the top sales associate at her furniture store, but you don’t meet many Congressmen that way!

That is certainly a real distinction, though I think your point about immigrant families not knowing "the game" is probably the better one. If parents know how the admissions game is played, then they can throw capital (fiscal and/or social) at the problem. A non-tenured biology professor is by no means wealthy, but their daughter will almost certainly have an easier time finding a lab to volunteer at in high school than the child of the owner of a successful car dealership. So wealth is an advantage conditional on knowing the rules of the game, and you've raised an important point: a lot of families don't even know the rules of the game!

I would disagree. If you experience poverty you realize that making over 50k is intense. Making over 100k means a lot of power and connection compared to most. You may just be underestimating how many advantages that amount of money truly gives you over everyone else, in terms of opportunity, time, educational resources, guidance, lack of prejudice, and sheer wealth. I would argue the article is taking about "rich kids"

Elite institutions want to admit who they think will be the future elite, because they will be writing the alumni checks, serving as trustees, and providing a prestigious halo around the institution.

As someone who attended an Ivy, it is simply untrue that it's mostly blue-blood old money hobnobbing around.

First, there's not enough of them to fill the classes every year. Second, wealthy people themselves want their children to be educated with other smart kids.

I don't think the argument is that most of the people at Ivies are blue blood WASPs. I think the argument is that if you happen to be a blue blood WASP you are disproportionately likely to get in regardless (or in spite of, in the case of legacies and donors) your merit.

This is almost certainly not the case any more. It was at one time, but it isn't. Princeton's recent incoming class was more than 60% what they called "persons of color", a term that included all Asians. Among the people who might be called whites, Jews were easily 20-30%. If you start to filter out Catholics, there just aren't that many WASPs at these places anymore. For extra credit, go look up how many WASPs are on the Supreme Court. How many years has it been this way?

The stereotypes just don't fit and haven't for some time.

>It’s not a surprise that the Ivy league exists to educate the children of the wealthy.

It was very much a surprise to me until I was like, 25-26 years old, which was when I really learned how the world works.

There's some very strong propaganda out there that you can do anything if you just apply yourself.

>There's some very strong propaganda out there that you can do anything if you just apply yourself.

Heh, do people really fall for that? Even if the "can do anything" part is possible, it's not probable (compared to starting from a wealthy family and applying 1/10th the effort). Rich play life in easy mode, news at 11.

In some regards it is easy mode. They still kill themselves and are unhappy like many according to pew.

Happiness/Balance/mental-health isn't easier with money/family connections.

But business/academic success/jobs/monetary success/is...

I would much rather face the non-material problems in my life without so much material insecurity.

But you see, where groups of people become a recognizable other and cement themselves into a position that grants them an advantage, then naturally other groups will try to take that advantage from them. Society exists because it is a structure that reinforces cohesion and cohesion means reducing animosity between groups. So within society there is a desire and the mechanisms to address imblances such as these. Where one group begins to dominate it can be in society's best interest to level the playing field. Diversity is a good thing for systems that whish to stay away from local minima.

Ivy league are a bunch of investment syndicates through their endowment funds created as educational institution for tax advantages.

Not saying there aren't great scholars coming out them.

The question is how good can educational institution get, when it is design to be a investment vehicle for the wealthy?