Dan Pawson CMC '03 Credits CMC and Pitney With Win

The Claremont Colleges punch way above their weight when it comes to trivia. Last year, Andrew Chung HMC '10 won third place in College Jeopardy! and this year, Daniel Pawson CMC '03 and a former CI writer, won the Tournament of Champions. 

Does a liberal arts education cultivate a knowledge of the trivia or the finer things or both? I'm inclined to think both. Pawson credits Claremont McKenna for his victory. According to the school website, 

Pawson credits a "huge swath" of political knowledge gained at CMC as instrumental in his Tournament victory.

"For most people, Chester A. Arthur, the answer to one of the Tournament Final Jeopardies, is just a musty old name in a list of presidents," he said. "Because of Professor Jack Pitney's U.S. Presidents class, to me, he's a political hack whose claim to fame pre-Presidency was as the holder of one of the great spoils jobs in American history who then went completely against expectations and instituted civil service reform as President." 

Maybe this trivia stuff explains why Hub Quiz is so popular. Now that it's run by the efficient and yet nice Kenley Turville CMC '10, I know I'll be signing up to do it again. 

The New Blogs On and Around Campus

The local blogosphere is expanding! 

(You know you've been doing this too much when you start to get emails from people asking them to advertise their blog on your website.) 

The Student Life has set up a new blog. There's not much written there yet, but I'm sure you can expect their usual commitment to truth and excellence. But there is an interesting post regarding the banning of David Daleiden and Kyle Kinneberg. According to The Student Life, Feldblum still maintains that the banning of Kyle and David was consistent with a 2005 policy on the banning of CUC students. She's wrong that this policy applies to Kyle and David, who were neither disruptive, nor posed a threat to safety and she ignores that students are given the right to appeal those decisions. How convenient that she doesn't discuss that part of the policy with The Student Life! 

(In other news, Bryce Gerard, Branden Windle, Riley Lewis, and I won Quiz Bowl last night. Our team name was, in homage to The Student Life, The Student Lie.)

The mail pile brings news of a new conservative blog at Azusa Pacific, The Conservative Voice. It is run by Paul Ward, who serves in Claremont McKenna's ROTC batallion. Keep up the great work, Paul! 

On Rich Kids, Legacies, and Lesser Qualified Applicants

In the comment section of my post responding to Charlie Sprague CMC '09's argument in favor of racist admissions policies, he asks me my views regarding wealthy alums, donations, and college policy. (I can only assume that he accepts, then, that Asians and Asian Americans are really the students who bear the largest costs for our current policy, so I thank him for the concession.)

Let's turn now to the class argument. 

Mr. Sprague says, "I simply fail to see any morally relevant distinction between helping the black student and helping the extremely wealthy student be admitted. Both will add something valuable to the college." 

That's easy. I wasn't making a moral argument. (My position on non-merit based acceptance to college is very clear. In a perfect world, I'd favor only merit based admissions.) I was making a practical one -- that is to the benefit of the college to admit wealthier people in order to finance the continued operations of the school. 

For your argument to make sense, we have to make certain caveat -- that the rich student and the black one have similar test scores and attributes. But according to a 2007 paper from Princeton's Douglas S. Massey and Margarita Mooney, using data from over 28 elite colleges, 77 percent of minorities had standardized test scores below the institutional average, while only about 48 percent of legacies did. (For more see, Douglas Massey and Margarita Mooney. “The Academic Consequences of America’s Three AffirmativeAction Programs.” Social Problems Vol. 54 (No. 1), February 2007, pp. 99-117.Douglas Massey and Margarita Mooney. “The Academic Consequences of America’s Three AffirmativeAction Programs.” Social Problems Vol. 54 (No. 1), February 2007, pp. 99-117.)  In some instances, legacies actually scored higher than institutional averages, raising the question, why should someone be punished for success? 

Allow me now to ask certain questions of you, Mr. Sprague. Can you quantify the benefits of diversity? If you can, I ask you to produce the study because most studies I've looked at say that diversity isn't a net plus at all and may be a net minus. I simply don't buy the argument that racial "diversity" benefits outweigh the costs of denying some of the smartest students -- most of whom are Asian and immigrants to this country -- spots in this nation's elite colleges.

On my side of the question, I can quantify the value of having rich alums and their children on our campus. In fact, as I make this argument, I'm sitting in Ryal lab, one of two labs donated by a wealthy alum. 

I am prepared to put aside the question of whether wealthy black alums donate in the same rates as wealthy white alums.  But on that point, most evidence I've seen inclines me to believe that blacks see admission to a select college as an entitlement or as compensation for past discrimination and therefore are inclined to give less then their white counterparts. Worse yet that affirmative action may hurt those blacks from making higher amounts of money because people doubt the competence of the black alums. Regardless, it's clear that legacies are an important source of funding for universities. Here's how one report puts it. 

Not only do more legacies donate to universities, they donate in greater amounts. For instance, according to the Cavalier Daily, the University of Virginia’s student newspaper, 65 percent of legacy parents contributed to the university’s 2006 capital campaign, compared with 41 percent of non-legacy parents. Moreover, legacy parents on average coughed up $34,759 each whereas non-legacy parents gave only $4,070.

In any event, Mr. Sprague is right to argue that this effectively means we end up preferring wealthy billionaire's children over wealthy alums. He leads me to my next argument. I favor auctioning off a certain percentage of freshmen seats every year to the highest bidders. A college could credibly argue that it needs these wealthy people to finance the education of the rest and states or the federal government could, in exchange for the lavish subsidies they already provide, mandate which percentage of those seats would be auctioned off. (I got this argument from Shikha Dalmia, who is against alumni preferences, and who writes that this auctioning would be next to impossible as it would jeopardize the "selectivity" of the school.)

I was making the case that these two groups are not equivalent, though proponents of racist admissions policies often try to lump them together. It's relatively easy to see why they attempt to do that. Their logic is as follows: if you favor reduced admissions standards for wealthy white kids, who presumably had every advantage, you must also favor lower admissions standards for poor, black kids who were denied those opportunities by being born into the ghetto and/or a single parent home. On moral grounds, it's a compelling argument that has its own level of noblesse oblige. We tell the rich, white people to 'take one for the team' so that the poor, black kid might have a shot. And while it's true that both legacy admissions and racial preferences violate our standards of meritocratic admittance, one comes at a greater cost than the other. But, of course, if you feel that there is a benefit to be gained from admitting lesser qualified black students, you're free to donate your money to a scholarship that makes it more attractive for the college to admit them. 

And finally, the libertarian in me would like to explain that this debate would quickly go away if there weren't such lavish subsidies thrown into the mix. Colleges, in a perfect world without government intrusion, would be free to admit whoever they want. 

How Pitzer College Admits Students

College admissions' wrenching ins and outs

For school officials, deciding on students' dreams is a difficult, emotional task.

By Angel B. Pérez

April 3, 2009

I've been talking to a lot of angry people this week. They yell; I listen patiently. They cry; I empathize. The pain of not getting into the college of your dreams is unlike any other. Students call here to Pitzer College to find out what they could have done differently. Parents call to ask us to reconsider. It's hard to justify to someone who has just been "denied" the college of their dreams that although they've done everything right, we just did not have enough seats in the class.

What these families don't see is the amount of emotion that admissions officers across the country pour into making these decisions. These students don't know that behind closed doors, we argue about these difficult decisions. Each of us fights for the kids in admissions committee meetings, and we're truly sad when we turn away applicants who we know have worked hard but, because of circumstances beyond our immediate control, we cannot admit.

It's still hard for me to erase the images of the downcast expressions on my staff members' faces when the decisions go against the students they had argued for in committee. Just days ago, we were deliberating between a few candidates for a special scholarship opportunity -- knowing we had room for only one more. You could feel the tension in the room. Every admissions officer wanted his or her kid to get in. When the tough call was made, there was profound sadness. We knew we would positively affect the lives of some students while turning away the majority of those who had applied.

No matter how many years you work in college admissions, it never gets any easier to say no. At my institution, we received 4,079 applications but only have 245 spots in the freshman class. Choosing among a majority of overqualified students is our challenge.

I recall the fate of one young woman whose academic profile was top-notch. She had a 4.0 grade-point average at a competitive high school in Los Angeles, she listed a fair amount of extracurricular activities, and her essays read well. But shAne was from a town very close by and had never taken the time to visit the college. We offer many opportunities to do so, but she had had no contact with us.

In a year in which predicting how many students will enroll is going to be more difficult than ever, were we going to take a chance on her, that she was serious in wanting to come to Pitzer? With the pressure of having too many applications and not being sure of who really will enroll, we have to find ways to turn down students. In the end, we passed on her.

I also recall the young man from New York City who was academically below our margin. If I had read his application without meeting him, I probably would have denied him admission. But he showed up for my school visit when I was in New York, and had several contacts with me throughout the year. Then I interviewed him, and in my evaluation I wrote, "This kid bleeds Pitzer College." He was concerned about issues of social justice and social responsibility -- two key values that our institution was founded on. Clearly this kid had done his research and was determined to help me realize that he was the right fit.

His application eventually arrived on my desk, and I knew he was not going to be an easy admit. With a GPA below our typical average of 3.9 and no test scores submitted (we are a test-optional institution), the committee was not going to be kind. Therefore, I decided to read parts of his essay out loud to the committee. I needed to make sure they saw him outside the context of his numbers. They laughed out loud in response to this young man's humor, and they could not believe how much time he took to demonstrate to us how right he was for Pitzer.

I followed up the reading by telling them about my impressions from the interview: "He won't graduate top of his class, but he is going to be a powerful presence here." One of our staff members, who was clearly impressed, said, "This kid really does want to change the world, doesn't he?"

In the end, personal contact made a difference, and the young man's ability to paint a clear picture as to why he was the perfect match for our institutional culture won us over.



This week, students across the country received admission decision letters from thousands of colleges. They have poured their hearts and souls into their applications. They have worked hard and taken risks to share some of the most intimate details of their lives. They have told us about their goals, aspirations, triumphs, failures and adversities.

As I sat in my apartment, at the local Starbucks, in my office, (admittedly sometimes at the strangest hours of the night), I read their applications. With a constant cup of coffee in hand, I pored over each of their life stories. I laughed, I cried, and sometimes I performed a cheer of triumph (earning me some strange looks at Starbucks).

Regardless of my reaction to individual applications, I am truly inspired by young people today. They are much more motivated and qualified for college than I was when I was applying. Each day, I read stories of young people who are working hard to change the world and create new experiences that require them to take risks, have courage and overcome obstacles. We can't admit all the students we love, and that's because we tend to love many more than there will ever be room for.

To all these students, I say that where you get into college is not a representation of your worth, and please remind your parents that your college acceptance letter is not their final grade on the parental report card of life. If a school did not admit you, it's not a personal rejection.

In fact, most kids we turn away have done absolutely everything right, but given the seats we have available and the conflicting institutional needs that we have to balance, many kids are turned away because of the needs of the college, not because of a lack of achievement on their part.

We want an even representation of women and men, in-state, out-of-state and international students. We try to create a strong balance of socioeconomic and ethnic diversity as well. We need to make sure some kids can staff our athletic teams while others man our orchestras and theater productions. The list of needs is endless and seems to grow longer every year.

So for all of you getting the thick envelopes, the thin envelopes and everything in between this week, thank you for sharing the details of your lives and your aspirations. It's what keeps admissions officers in this business -- knowing that young people are doing amazing things and creating transformative experiences that will affect our world tomorrow.

Regardless of the decision letters you received, you have worked hard and have earned the right to brag about your accomplishments. You are indeed the hope we have been looking for.

Angel B. Pérez is the director of admission at Pitzer College in Claremont.