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...University’s most controversial (and least defensible) policies is aimed at currying favor (and funds) from alumni. That policy, legacy preference, gives a tip in the admissions process to applicants whose parents attended Harvard. To paraphrase John Stuart Mill, alumni children gain this advantage by the mere fact of being born. University officials say the legacy preference policy is meant to express gratitude toward alumni, who serve as interviewers for the admissions committee and who donate hundreds of millions of dollars to Harvard each year. But Harvard has never asked its alumni whether they support such a policy...
...believe that most legacies here are, if anything, overqualified. Perhaps gullibly, I believe McGrath Lewis when she says that legacy preference is a mere “feather on the scale.” But it’s a feather that looms large in the public imagination. Even The Economist—not known for populist pandering—has charged that under legacy preference policies, “the students in America’s places of higher education are increasingly becoming an oligarchy.” The magazine continues: “This is sad in itself...
...banks of the Potomac.” “Her family and friends knew beforehand,” says Downer, who hails from Chattanooga. “That’s how we do it in Tennessee.” Wesley was born in Nashville—a mere hour and a half from Downer’s home. She grew up in Grand Rapids, Mich., where the wedding will take place this July 7. “It is what I’ve always wanted,” says the bride...
...classroom activity I just described is a one-way transfer of information—from the instructor to the students. If education were a mere transfer of information (and a Harvard education the transfer of this information by very accomplished faculty), then we could easily “bottle” a Harvard education and spread it worldwide. Just turn our lectures into flawlessly executed podcasts and let the masses download them. Nothing will be lost in the experience. In fact, everyone will have a front-row seat and an advantage that no one has in a real lecture...
...reason is that education is so much more than the mere transfer of information. The information has to be assimilated. Students have to connect the information to what they already know, develop mental models, learn how to apply the new knowledge, and how to adapt this knowledge to new and unfamiliar situations...