General > General Technical Chat

Retracting my prior statements on "CTY", that CTY is gone

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tooki:
What you're saying makes sense in isolation, but your original post, with its references to Hong Kong and all, clearly indicated that you thought the scholarship's hardship requirements applied to all applicants to the CTY program in lieu of the actual CTY admission requirements, and conversely, that admission requirements to the CTY program included hardship. But that's not true.

The scholarship requirements apply only to a particular financial aid program, which not everyone needs.

It's the classic equality-vs-equity thing:



Ideally, programs like CTY would not cost anything for anyone (neither in tuition nor ancillary costs like travel), and thus scholastic merit alone would decide which kids can attend. But it's not, and many smart kids from disadvantaged situations have impediments to being able to go, be it the cost of tuition, travel, or things like parents whose minimum-wage jobs don't give them the flexibility to take time off to take the kid to the program, not to mention more complex circumstances like parents with addiction, or even being an orphan or in foster care. I think it's unethical for us to not extend special help to those kids.

And to be clear, since I am unsure whether this point has gotten through: those kids still have to meet the CTY program requirements. It's not as though the disadvantaged background gives them priority over better-qualified-but-privileged kids!

Rick Law:

--- Quote from: tooki on July 27, 2020, 08:59:12 pm ---What you're saying makes sense in isolation, but your original post, with its references to Hong Kong and all, clearly indicated that you thought the scholarship's hardship requirements applied to all applicants to the CTY program in lieu of the actual CTY admission requirements, and conversely, that admission requirements to the CTY program included hardship. But that's not true.
...
...

--- End quote ---

Yes, the entrance requirements and other requirements (such as honor, etc.) were heavy in my mind.  Once the "principle of merit only" wall is cracked, the rest will come tumbling down.  I am expecting other requirements will in-time be watered down as well.

Hong Kong just came to mind because it is in the news often these days, and they were dominating CTY-International for CTY Honor and High Honor awardees that one year I obtained their awardees list.

I was profoundly disappointed because it was their "pure merit based" that lead me to enthusiastically recommend them to fellow parents seeking alternatives to "academic honor" organizations that focus on everything else but academic merit.
 
I am not blind to what you are saying, yes, not everyone needs financial assistance and it is a good thing for them to have some if they are truly in need.  But "reasonable place" is usually the best place to put the crowbar because it seem so reasonable.  Once the wall is cracked...

EDIT: Corrected misspelling of "crowbar"

EEVblog:

--- Quote from: tooki on July 25, 2020, 08:18:49 pm ---Bruh...  :palm:
That’s not the eligibility requirements for the CTY program. It’s the eligibility requirements for the scholarship, i.e. for a particular kind of financial aid they grant.

--- End quote ---

Is any of that money from the government? That makes a big difference.

EEVblog:

--- Quote from: tom66 on July 25, 2020, 09:18:32 pm ---As much as I disagree with the principle of picking people for a job based on non-achievement criteria (e.g. there aren't enough women in field X, let's hire more women instead of qualified candidates only), which can corrupt the performance of an organisation and lead to failure,  I fail to see why these policies would be an issue for an *educational* institution.
Surely we want as *many people* as reasonable practicable to be educated, and selecting people who have historically lower achievement in a given field, is better than selecting more of the same candidates who could get into any other university?
--- End quote ---

Surely a monetary scholarship should be based on two things only:
1) Aptitude
2) Economic need.
(and other requirements like being a citizen or whatnot)

What does "traditionally underrepresented student group" have to do with that?
So they have gone from having two requirements, to now three, and potentially disqualifying students (presumably that would be white people, and perhaps white males in particular) who previously would have had met the requirements?
EDIT: I see Rick doesn't have evidence that it's actually changed from two to three requirements.

tom66:
Discriminating on race alone would be a bad factor, Dave.  An example scholarship should look at family income, whether members of the family previously had held a professional job or degree, and aptitude, though I would argue the bar for aptitude should be *fairly* reduced to account for the poorer position someone is in when applying to that scholarship (e.g., it'll take someone with A/B grades, instead of A+)  I think you would find that you would get more under-represented groups if you did this - so there'd be more minorities and yes, poor white families too.  We have a crisis in the UK amongst working class boys, almost none of them go into higher education and in 2-3 decades this will become a disaster as automation picks up.

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