email 收到的Quora 文章。LOL

In what ways are Cambridge & Oxford better than Harvard and Stanford?

 

Asim Qureshi, MA Physics, University of Oxford

Answered Sep 22 · Upvoted by Mark Harrison, studied at University of Oxford and Arya Thampi, PhD student at University of Cambridge

 

 

 

There is one key way in which Oxford and Cambridge are on a completely different level to Harvard and Stanford.

Oxford and Cambridge select candidates on the merits of the candidates.They strive hard to make sure they select the best students, ensuring that those applicants that come from disadvantaged backgrounds aren’t disadvantaged in the selection process. Of course, places are never for sale.

Oxford and Cambridge are, at their core, meritocracies, and make great efforts to adhere to that ideal.

Harvard and Stanford, on the other hand, are as meritocratic as some corrupt high-school in Argentina. The difference is that the Argentinian school would deny it. Harvard and Stanford don’t.

Let’s start with Harvard. Its incoming class is 29% legacy (i.e. their parents went to Harvard) and recent court documents show that the admission rate of legacy students is over 5 times the rate of non-legacy students.

Given this lack of meritocracy which is endemic in the system, it’s not surprising that Asian American students are suing Harvard for discrimination - and a few weeks ago the justice department sided with those students and said the school has failed to demonstrate it does not discriminate on the basis of race.

Regarding Stanford, a 2011 study of 30 selective colleges showed that legacy applicants enjoyed an average 23% boost in admission rates after controlling for SAT scores, personal statement quality and the strength of teacher recommendations. Further in 2013, Stanford’s President, John Hennessy, implicitly defended their policy by writing “…for alumni children, even though the admissions rate for them is two or three times higher than the general population, it's still very tough to get in.” It’s fine to help legacy students because “it’s still very tough to get in” for them. Interesting.

And in both Harvard and Stanford, it is well known and accepted that donations can lead to places.

It also says a lot that so few academics and students there speak up against all of this. Pause for a moment and think about what that implies about academic free speech at these universities.

All of this kind of stuff is absolutely alien to Oxford and Cambridge. You get in because you're good enough, not because your mummy or daddy paid for the library or graduated from there two decades ago, nor because you’re black, white or Asian.