> Harvard continues to have a great reputation because they continually produce so many notable alumni.

You don’t need to be a good school to have notable alumni. They aren’t “producing” anything. Ive league schools use the same curriculums as the unknown university I went to, and from the lectures I’ve seen, the teaching isn’t any better either.

They just reject anybody who isn’t a well-connected, hard-working high performer, so it makes it look like they are producing notable alumni. Good material in -> good material out.

And, yeah, you can discriminate pretty heavily and still be selective within the remaining groups you aren’t discriminating against. It’s not strictly either-or.

And, who knows, maybe they knowingly discriminate against lower/middle class people and against asians because they perceive those groups will struggle more after graduation due to their disadvantages (targets of racism / lack of connections / lack of money) and will not make the school look as good?

It is however a vicious cycle and as the article points out exclusivity is key.

Why vicious and not virtuous?

Because, like another person said, a large proportion of each class is either legacy or racially selected. There’s no virtue in following that method.

Is virtue based on the input or the output? Are people from lower incomes leaving and becoming senators, presidents, ceos, etc, at a higher rate than elsewhere or does that remain the domain of the legacy students who were already politically equipped at birth?

Having a brilliant son who would have previously been discriminated against by Harvard’s admission process, I’m happy to see explicit race components removed. However, should he choose to apply and go (mostly to be connected to opportunities he otherwise wouldn’t have), if he leaves with a degree and nothing more, what good is it? The one Harvard professional peer I had came from the middle class, ended up at the same FAANG as me (who is just about as unconnected as one could be), and burned out in the process. Sample size of one, but it wasn’t an inspiring story.

I’m talking about virtue from Harvard, and so it should be the input. If you have virtuous input, then your output should also be virtuous, unless the school is doing something that scrubs virtuous habits. Of course, I’m treating this as a black box that will admit anyone over a certain criteria, but that’s not reflective of the real world. So I don’t know if it’s based on input or output - so probably both?

Because giving the "Harvard stamp of approval" to people who were admitted mainly because they are legacy applicants is hardly virtuous.