[HN Gopher] Who cares about the Ivy League?
___________________________________________________________________
Who cares about the Ivy League?
Author : jonas_kgomo
Score : 35 points
Date : 2021-02-23 17:52 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (noahpinion.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (noahpinion.substack.com)
| petermcneeley wrote:
| Peter Thiel covers this question deeply here:
| https://youtu.be/IXG2F0a6I28?t=996
| viklove wrote:
| > There is no chance that changing the composition of the Ivy
| League student body will effect anything remotely resembling a
| broad-based change in American educational inequality,
| opportunity, or aggregate outcomes. Zero. None.
|
| I think this misses the point of going to an ivy league. Would
| Obama have become president if he didn't have multiple ivy league
| schools in his pedigree? Maybe, but there's no doubt that the
| relationships he formed during those years drastically changed
| the trajectory of his life.
|
| OP is arguing that the undergraduate population of ivy league
| schools is tiny, so even if they admitted 100% minority students,
| there would still be millions of minority students who are being
| left out of the "top tier" education that can be received. Sure,
| that's true, but the fact that 16/45 of our presidents are ivy
| league alumni can't be ignored. So when a minority student goes
| to Harvard and ends up becoming president, he/she can end up
| changing not only policy decisions to improve outcomes for
| minority constituents, but also changes the narrative when it
| comes to who can attain political office at the highest level.
|
| So I would argue that there is absolutely a chance that changing
| the composition of ivy league student bodies can have an effect
| on American education inequality. Because some of those students
| will end up using that advantage to attain political office and
| affect change at a macro level.
| redux-xplatform wrote:
| Forget the Ivy League--judging from elections from 2000 on, one
| is incredibly unlikely to become a major party candidate for
| President, let alone win, without having attended some kind of
| private college prep school, rather than a public high school.
| As I recall, Hillary is the only candidate who didn't.
|
| Sure, little Timmy, you can be anything you want, even
| President. Your parents are rich, right? No? Oh, uh, never
| mind.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Will changing the composition matter? Maybe, but I think the
| schools are puffing up their roles and society is going along
| with them.
|
| Consider Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. Did going to the Ivy
| League help them? They dropped out. A big reason they succeeded
| is because they came from stable families that supported their
| once crazy dreams.
|
| I'm afraid the Ivy League is going to find out that their
| adjunct teachers aren't any better than the adjuncts at other
| schools. In 20-30 years, the great successes will come from
| other schools-- something that's already much more true today
| than it was 50 years ago.
| viklove wrote:
| I agree with you 100%, it's not about the quality of
| education. It's just about meeting and hanging out with the
| children of the rich and powerful. That's the most useful
| advantage you can give someone.
| fangpenlin wrote:
| I've seen way too many people in the tech said that they would
| only hire Ivy League, or even if they don't say it, based on who
| they hire it's not hard to find out that's what they do. During
| CVOID, you see students need to study from home, but yet the
| price of Ivy League school never drops a cent. It's pretty much
| like GUCCI or Chanel would rather destroy the products don't sell
| than selling them cheaply to destroy the artificial scarcity.
|
| The problem is never why we shouldn't get more people into Ivy
| League, nor why don't we get more poor kids into Ivy League, or
| even just bring them into college. The problem is, in the era you
| can learn literally pretty much almost anything online, the cost
| of learning is very cheap, and yet people are arguing education
| is human right, so government should just wipe out student loans?
| I think the real solution is to look at how education works now
| and solve the problem with new technology. However, it would be
| very hard to do and may take very long time, given the Ivy League
| folks are pretty much the same group of people in power, none of
| them would like to make their degree looks cheap, and the irony
| is they often claim that they support social justice. If people
| truly care about social justice, it's time for people to think
| about the college requirement for a job and Ivy League only
| hiring policy.
| throwawayyy1986 wrote:
| > However, it would be very hard to do and may take very long
| time, given the Ivy League folks are pretty much the same group
| of people in power, none of them would like to make their
| degree looks cheap, and the irony is they often claim that they
| support social justice.
|
| Yea, this is spot on.
|
| They _love_ the exclusivity, status and authority. Authority
| and social justice go hand-in-hand.
|
| It's an end-justifies-the-means movement, so they'll use
| whatever blunt object they can find to bludgeon people.
| adolph wrote:
| I wonder what it means to claim that "education is a human
| right." Maybe it means different things to different people.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| That is a lazy explanation. It is incumbent on a few expensive
| colleges to fix a society-wide problem of equitable access to
| education, nutrition, experiences, and so on?
|
| Elite universities are the tip of a massive iceberg and they
| already have programs to offer full free rides to otherwise
| eligible students that can't afford it. The problem starts
| based on leisure time to parents when their kid is 1 year old
| and being able to read to them (and having access/time to get
| to libraries or buy books). It then comes in from having money
| to buy houses in places with good school districts (which are
| usually funded by property taxes, so those are inextricably
| linked in the current setup). Then it comes paying for
| extracurriculars, summer programs, test prep, and in some cases
| private schools with better academics and student:teacher
| ratios. After 20 years that adds up and you see inequity
| (across the board, to be clear, at private college levels, not
| just the ivies) at college admission levels. You can't throw a
| bandaid at the top of the problem and wipe your hands of it,
| and a microscopic manifestation of the problem can only do so
| much to fix it.
|
| Ivy Leagues don't sit around worrying about their brand, they
| already have the best students in the whole world applying and
| they only admit a few percent of them. And you can easily pay
| more for a degree:
| https://www.cbsnews.com/pictures/the-50-most-expensive-colle...
| so it's not an issue of cost.
| [deleted]
| happyjack wrote:
| We all apparently care, because we're commenting and talking
| about it.
|
| The purpose of Ivy league schools is to keep the institution
| alive. Self preservation. There is nothing fair or even sensible
| about who gets in and why. It's supposed to be a mystery; a dream
| you can either achieve through insanely hard work or get in with
| the right social status or deep pockets. How is this different
| than anything else in life, or throughout the history of time? If
| someone's dad can donate a new library and to their jerk off son
| in, why wouldn't an institution do that? They're private!
|
| Their success lies in a combination of insanely smart students,
| alumni admissions, "rich kids," and that applicant who's uncle
| had an affair with so and so and is a personal favor. Education
| isn't about being "fair" or discourse or any of that. It's to buy
| a career, into a network (Ivies have large private equity / money
| ties), or to get a license that is regulated (engineering,
| nursing, teaching, etc.)
|
| I went to engineering school. I did summer school at my hometown
| college ("better") than my Alma mater. And guess what? They were
| both ABET accredited. Same in difficulty. The only difference was
| the zip code. People went to the prestigious school to get a
| better job and into a better alumni network, better job
| placement, etc. That's why you go to Stanford instead of State U
| Engineering School.
|
| We have to stop kidding ourselves that education is about
| actually learning. If it was, then we would get rid of college
| football teams and send everyone and their mother to community
| college or a trade program. The point of college (in the USA) is
| to in-debt 18 year olds, dangle carrots in front of them (new
| houses, cars) and make them slave 9-5 for the rest of eternity.
| cwwc wrote:
| I recall a Supreme Court justice saying that the best law clerks
| they ever got were NOT from the Ivy schools - but regardless,
| because the Ivy schools tended to weed out incompetent clerks
| (helping ease the screening process and provide a veritable
| "double check" on someone's competence) they would only pick Ivy
| credentialed clerks in the future. Stakes were to high not to.
|
| I wonder if the same can generally be said for employers and gov
| (it's just easier to screen from a pool that has be whittled down
| to a more manageable size already).
|
| Unfair? Probably. Rational? I think so.
| hntrader wrote:
| This is why it's a good idea for people from non-top tier
| colleges to run away from prestige. You'll never be able to
| compete on merit at a place like McKinsey, a top law firm or an
| IB. You'll be undervalued due to lack of pedigree. Better pick
| something more meritocratic and less focused on signalling
| value of your CV. I know this is an ideal that doesn't truly
| exist anywhere, but there's certainly degrees to which it's
| true and that varies between industries.
| csa wrote:
| > This is why it's a good idea for people from non-top tier
| colleges to run away from prestige. You'll never be able to
| compete on merit at a place like McKinsey, a top law firm or
| an IB
|
| It certainly won't be as easy as folks from Ivies might have
| it, but folks from state schools can make it big time.
|
| Tim Cook is an Auburn grad, for example.
|
| A friend of mine is a Michigan State grad. He worked his way
| up the chain in NYC by providing tremendous value. He retired
| in his 40s with a mid-eight figure net worth after being a
| partner in a hedge fund that ran its course (raised money,
| made money, closed down).
|
| If someone is ambitious and talented, their degree won't stop
| them.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| No, you earn your way in. Nobody asks where the CTO of an
| acquired company went to school (or didn't). Elite school
| degrees are just a shortcut for signal various attributes for
| young people. It means less and less the further you get from
| college. And you can "credential" yourself via other
| accomplishments. Witness Perelman and arxiv, or Bill Gates,
| noted Harvard dropout.
| hntrader wrote:
| Right, but a lack of pedigree is more of a handicap at
| McKinsey than it is at Facebook, and it's more of a
| handicap at Facebook than your own startup. It's possible
| to earn your way in to McKinsey after going to a tier-3
| college, but it's just way harder all else equal (and why
| would anyone bother without the boost of pedigree at a
| place that highly values it, we will be at a disadvantage
| from day one).
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| I can't speak for McKinsey at all. I will take your word
| for it. My limited experience has not been positive.
| ska wrote:
| I think you two are basically agreeing. GP is saying that
| such credentials are [edit]not a strong proxy for merit
| (true) but a good proxy, along with a few other things, for
| network value and social standing, etc. So if you _don 't_
| have that credential but want to compete with people who
| do, the worst thing to do is do it on their home field, as
| it were (e.g. Mckinsey). Instead, prove yourself somewhere
| else and if you do it well enough you'll be on an even
| footing (or better) later on.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| No, that is not accurate. I disagree. I think ivy league
| degrees are a great proxy for intelligence and work
| ethic. Ivy league grads I've worked with are fantastic.
| If you have to hire a bunch of college graduates, it's a
| fine strategy. If you are hiring on the open market,
| though, you don't have to rely on it, you can rely on
| someone's professional accomplishments which is a truer
| proxy of the values you are hiring for.
| hntrader wrote:
| I think it's also a good proxy for quality as well. The
| average IQ of people in Ivies is over 130, compared to
| about 110 in regular colleges. I just think that a 140 IQ
| graduate from a regular college should self-select out of
| areas that specifically value prestige (such as an IB),
| since they're likely to be undervalued.
| ska wrote:
| I suspect we mostly agree (although I don't have much
| faith in IQ as a useful predictor except at the margins)
| but there is a semantic issue; what do you mean by
| "quality"?
|
| I find "went to an Ivy" a really good predictor for
| "above average performer", but I find it a weak predictor
| for "top rate performer", at least without a bunch of
| extra information. I also think the number top performing
| people who did not go to an elite college handily
| outweighs the number who did - but this is the nature of
| elite unless the selection criteria are very rigorous and
| targeted at something measurable.
|
| Your comment about people in institutions that highly
| value this is on target, I think.
| ska wrote:
| Rereading, I overstated: "poor" should have been "not
| strong". The Ivy grads I've known worked with have ranged
| from perfectly ok, to really good. But that doesn't
| differentiate them from many other non-Ivy sources, in my
| experience. Which isn't to say all sources are equivalent
| - far from true.
|
| As a hiring strategy it works ok, but you are leaving out
| far more talented people that you can possibly include.
| It's a small pool after all.
|
| GP's point I thought was more that if you end up without
| such credentials at a place that values them highly,
| you'll have a hard time even if you are more talented
| than many of your peers. This seems true in my limited
| experience.
|
| I do think you have a point somewhere that if your bar
| isn't too high and you know what you are getting, picking
| from the same small pool (doesn't have to be Ivy, maybe
| you mostly hire Stanford or whatever) is a _safe_
| strategy, in that it reduces your variance. You are
| giving up something for that safety, but that 's life.
| hntrader wrote:
| "As a hiring strategy it works ok"
|
| From an employer's perspective, I think an elite college-
| only hiring strategy can work fine if the employer itself
| is prestigious or there's a clear unique value
| proposition there. For others, they're going to incur a
| negative selection penalty that may outweigh the
| signalling value that pedigree provides.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| Let's play devil's advocate: you have limited and messy
| data about the qualifications of a hundred 20 year old
| candidates. You have one qualification that shows they
| worked quite hard for the majority of their life and a
| sustained and high level. You should value that data
| point almost as much as you value hiring the best
| candidate. There is not likely to be any other data point
| as valuable at that point in the applicants' lives.
|
| It's a Bayesian problem all the way through and you can
| probably quantify the value of the signal provided.
| However, and most importantly, it's just a signal. I
| personally prefer hiring interns, completely irregardless
| of school, and developing and hiring them, any time. At
| that point, there isn't signal, it's just measured
| performance that is de-risked.
|
| Now, people that use it as credentialing are morons. I
| mean that bluntly and literally. Randomly picking on
| CFOs: "I want a CFO with a Harvard degree" is stupid
| thing to say, on its face. The person saying something
| like that has literally inverted the real point, which
| should be, "I want an excellent CFO, and a Harvard degree
| is a signal of some properties correlated with that
| outcome". Once you invert that, it's just another data
| point in a meritocratic decision, and a relatively minor
| one.
|
| Sorry to post/write so much on this. Startups are the
| ultimate meritocracy in some ways, and having something
| posted here that's populist and almost anti-intellectual
| bothers me. Ycombinator has no problem pulling from
| Stanford. And Stanford, MIT, and Duke (and many others)
| are as elitist as any Ivy on any day that ends in y.
| That's leaving out the really class conscious "small
| liberal arts" colleges out there, and ignores the
| differences between ivy league schools in this regard,
| which is large.
| hntrader wrote:
| "You have one qualification that shows they worked quite
| hard"
|
| "It's a Bayesian problem"
|
| This we agree on. But we have to factor in adverse
| selection. If you're a prestigious employer, adverse
| selection is going to be small to non existent. The
| Harvard grads joining Dropbox are going to be all
| excellent. If you're a tier-2 employer with no particular
| unique value proposition, a Harvard grad that is willing
| to join you isn't the same thing as a randomly selected
| Harvard grad (unless there's a compelling reason why they
| would want to join), let alone the same thing as a
| Harvard grad entering Dropbox. There are selection
| effects working against you as an employer.
|
| I've seen this personally, working at a little known
| company in a traditional industry without much to offer,
| we hired a Princeton grad who we eventually found out was
| fired from a few places and turned out to be worse than
| useless. We got adversely selected. They only wanted to
| join us (instead of a "better" company) because they were
| the bottom 10 percent of their cohort (not necessarily in
| terms of GPA, but in terms of ability to make themselves
| useful).
|
| Useless people from Ivies are rare, but they do exist,
| and if you're an employer facing adverse selection you
| become much more likely to end up with one of those.
|
| (Actually, I've worked with useless people from
| Cambridge, Tsinghua, and a few other elite colleges, many
| of whom we had to fire. The common theme was that they
| couldn't get into a better company, and so they joined
| us)
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| I would argue the opposite. That it's harder to weed out
| incompetent people from Ivy schools because so many of the
| people there are there based on their wealth and not their
| merit.
| ska wrote:
| This really isn't true. There are very few actually
| incompetent people going through Ivy's.
|
| You have some really talented people (especially on full
| rides), and you have a bunch of average to slightly above
| average talent with a) a 1st class education from birth and
| b) good networks.
|
| Both of those things have real world value, you can't dismiss
| out of hand. Yes, it's privilege - that's how it works.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| Depends on what role you're hiring for, because a good
| network does not help you write code (for instance).
| ska wrote:
| That doesn't make someone incompetent; it may make them a
| bad fit for a particular job.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| No, it makes them incompetent. They lack the competence
| required to do the job. Semantics aside, my point is that
| being from an ivy league is not a strong signal for being
| a good developer (and many other things).
| ska wrote:
| Your characterization is not realistic. Sure if you hire
| an ivy league grad with a degree in french literature
| they may not be much of a programmer. If you hire one
| with a CS degree they will probably be decent - at least
| at the higher end of US colleges.
|
| The idea that the ivy league is swimming with under-
| performing people who are only there because of wealth
| and connections just isn't true.
|
| What is closer to truth - there are lots of people there
| who are a bit above average capability, very good
| preparation, and also have family money and/or
| connections.
|
| In a truly broad, merit only based admissions process
| most of these people wouldn't make the cut. But it's not
| because they are weak students, rather because the number
| of slots in ivy is a small number compared to the total
| number of strong potential students in the country if you
| looked really hard.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| > If you hire one with a CS degree they will probably be
| decent.
|
| I'm saying from experience, this is not the case. I've
| found ivy league CS students to consistently under
| perform. School in general is not a strong signal, but
| for whatever reason the ivys consistently produce people
| who struggle to ship.
|
| My original point is that OSS contribution _is_ a strong
| signal and what people should look at if they want strong
| developers. I 'm sure other industries have other work
| oriented methods for determining aptitude.
| ska wrote:
| > I'm saying from experience, this is not the case
|
| And I'm saying from experience this is the case - so I
| guess we're at an impasse due to selection bias. Maybe
| I've just had better luck in picking them.
|
| Agree there are other better signals sometimes available.
| For what it's worth "has a CS degree" isn't a great
| indicator for a developer at all in my experience, with a
| very few programs excepted (e.g. CMU, Waterloo). But this
| has nothing to do with ivy vs. non-ivy.
|
| The idea that ivy's are awash with people having little
| talent is still just silly though.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| > Agree there are other better signals sometimes
| available. For what it's worth "has a CS degree" isn't a
| great indicator for a developer at all in my experience
|
| Totally agree.
|
| > The idea that ivy's are awash with people having little
| talent is still just silly though.
|
| I would say it's more that they are average but the
| degree tends to float them to the top of a stack of cvs,
| so there's a premium you pay in terms of attention (and
| money if you hire them) that in my experience, is not
| worth it.
| sct202 wrote:
| The ones who are there because of wealth and connections
| aren't going to be applying for jobs on the open market,
| they're going to get jobs directly thru connections.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| From this, I think one thing we can deduce is that Ivy League
| schools select for the same criteria as SCOTUS clerks. We can
| probably say this is true in other fields, as well.
|
| After all, we see how successful some Ivy dropouts are: Mark
| Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Matt Damon, Cole Porter, Buckminster
| Fuller, etc., are just examples from Harvard. It's not the
| Harvard education that makes one successful, but being the type
| of person that gets into Harvard in the first place (a person
| with, i.e., that same combination among old money, connections,
| a parent who went to Harvard, dumb luck, etc. that they look
| for in SCOTUS clerks).
|
| I'm not sure we have a list of people who were accepted into an
| Ivy and decided not to go, but I'm sure those people would be
| just as likely to be successful.
| searine wrote:
| Ivy Leagues aren't special in what they teach or that they have
| the most exceptional students, and others have none.
|
| I've taught across the spectrum, from community colleges to an
| Ivy League school. The difference is that there is a much higher
| concentration of smart and motivated students at a private Ivy-
| League class school compared to State U.
|
| Put simply, the centralization of talent/resources due to a
| harder acceptance filter creates all sorts of opportunities.
|
| A lot of 'luck' is simply being in the right room at the right
| time. An elite university makes it a lot easier to put yourself
| in the right room.
| master_yoda_1 wrote:
| I think this Ivy league mindset was started by MBA programs which
| uses marketing to lure students into paying for useless MBA
| degree. MBA is a total fraud IMO, in 2 year you can't learn any
| skill which help you in running a whole company. It's surprising
| to see people follow the same ivy league mindset for tech. Its
| really frustrating to see anybody having Stanford degree getting
| priority in hiring etc. I don't want to comment but look around.
| throwaway5752 wrote:
| I literally couldn't finish the article. It is garbage and
| unresearched, and plays on lazy stereotypes and resentment.
|
| It's an athletic league, first. I know it has a common language
| meaning, but it's just an athletic league like the PAC 12 or SEC.
|
| And scandals aside, they are highly competitive for teachers and
| students. There is a network effect here at undergrad through
| faculty recruitment, and it's inevitable: the best students want
| to go where the best teachers are. The best graduate students
| want to go where the best research is. The best researchers want
| to go where the best facilities and chance at grants are.
|
| Currently it is the Ivy League, but if that disappeared something
| like it would reappear. Stratification is a fact of the human
| condition, and where stratification exists concentration will
| occur. It's the obligation of society limit things it can, like
| ensuring social mobility and equitable access and distribution of
| wealth.
|
| edit: The reason people so rightfully annoyed at admission
| scandals (particularly alumni/students) is because it's a free
| rider scenario. Ultra-wealthy cheat to get their students into
| elite schools because they free ride the reputation of the rest
| of kids that sacrifice part of their youths to rack up the
| accomplishments necessary for admission. You can see this,
| because it isn't just Ivies; the last scandal included Stanford.
| amznthrwaway wrote:
| The implicit deal with ivies is that there will be a mix of
| smart kids and rich kids; and that this creates long-term value
| for both cohorts.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| A huge amount of ivies power comes from being full of rich
| students. The most important thing you get from college is
| networking opportunities unless you're studying stem. The best
| people to network with are generally the most powerful. The most
| powerful are generally rich, or got their power by networking
| with the rich. People generally network with the communities
| they're familiar with. This all leads to surrounding yourself
| with rich people being the most important factor you can control
| when it comes to obtaining power which is why ivies admit so many
| rich people. It makes the school better for all the students.
| ForHackernews wrote:
| > Ask yourself if changing the composition of that half percent
| is going to change educational outcomes for the vast majority of
| Americans.
|
| For sure, because what, >70% of our lawmakers are going to come
| from 0.5% of undergraduates when they grow up.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| I think for the most part, these days it boils down to branding,
| filtering, and networking.
|
| It's easier to sell consultants (and similar) to clients, if you
| can show off their credentials.
|
| Prestigious companies that get tens of thousands of applicants
| can easily filter out most, by simply keeping students from top
| 20 schools. At that point, you're going be left with a lot of
| fantastic candidates. Remember, not every HYPS student lands a
| job at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey, most don't make the cut. But
| it's easier to pick from the pool of those HYPS candidates, than
| from 500 different colleges and universities.
|
| So, in short, companies can offload a lot of preliminary
| screening and due-diligence work onto the schools. If a candidate
| is good enough for Harvard, they're probably good enough to take
| a look at...
|
| And then there's the networking aspect. Like it or not, a lot of
| powerful people in both business and politics have gone to the
| same few prestigious schools, and being in the same "club" makes
| networking easier. For some people, it's a big deal - for others,
| it's a triviality - but it doesn't really hurt. Networks go a
| long way, both for individuals and companies.
| A12-B wrote:
| Seems like most of the government and top level executives do.
| Most people in those positions are from Ivy leagues, and in this
| world those are the positions it really matters to be in.
| jonas_kgomo wrote:
| Noah seems to digress from the pros of going to an Ivy League.
| Either these schools have to diversify their admissions or the
| executive positions in companies have to start hiring from
| regular Universities. US Digital Service Academy[1] is working
| to launch a university that would rival Stanford and MIT and
| funnel tech workers into government work, seems to be overall a
| good thing for society.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23909604
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| luxuryballs wrote:
| My opinion is that it seems counterintuitive for an elite school
| to care about social equity. Just run your school, stop being so
| meta about it, let other schools fill in the gaps. It's OK to
| have a school for elites.
| fortran77 wrote:
| This is exactly my feeling.
|
| I didn't go to an Ivy League school. But it doesn't bother me
| at all that children of rich people go to elite schools, get
| degrees in Russian Literature, Art History, Political Science,
| play lacrosse, get jobs in white-shoe law firms, sit on boards,
| etc.
|
| It doesn't affect me or hurt me at all. Let them have their
| club. So what?
| csa wrote:
| > that children of rich people go to elite schools, get
| degrees in Russian Literature, Art History, Political
| Science, play lacrosse, get jobs in white-shoe law firms, sit
| on boards, etc.
|
| I've got news for you. Children of rich people who don't go
| to Ivies do this, too.
|
| The common thread isn't "went to Ivy", rather "children of
| rich people". Their network is their value.
| thaufeki wrote:
| Only if that club has an outsized impact on your world, a
| club you are completely excluded from.
|
| As an above commenter mentioned, it can be akin to an
| aristocracy.
| pacman2 wrote:
| "Everyone seems to care a whole lot about the Ivy League. When a
| bunch of Ivies (and a few other schools) were found to have sold
| spots to a few rich kids back in 2019"
|
| A rich kid is much more likely to leave an impact on the world
| and this is what these schools want. I once (10 years ago?) read
| an article about exactly this. The comparison were some US elite
| high school that strictly select on IQ and alumni were much less
| successful than expected (yet, more happy in live). George W went
| to Yale as far as I remember. I doubt that he scored super high
| in any IQ test. But he was undoubtedly very successful in live.
|
| "Ivies really wanted to promote social justice, they would let in
| more poor kids"
|
| This is not their main priority.
|
| As a side note: The Economist MBA rankings 2021 have raised
| eyebrows because European schools rankings increased so much:
| https://whichmba.economist.com/ranking/full-time-mba
| tubesebut wrote:
| > _George W went to Yale as far as I remember. I doubt that he
| scored super high in any IQ test. But he was undoubtedly very
| successful in live._
|
| Depends how you define success. He caused an immense amount of
| death and suffering. And in a just world, he would be executed
| like Mussolini was. Also, preferably with his entire family
| wiped out too, as a lesson to future warmongers.
| TheCoelacanth wrote:
| Right, Ivies may only have 0.5% of students, but 30% of all US
| Presidents had a degree from one. Of the past six, only one
| hasn't had an Ivy League degree.
|
| Of nine Supreme Court justices, only one didn't go to Harvard
| or Yale.
|
| They are only a tiny portion of students, but they have a huge
| impact on who holds power in society.
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| "A rich kid is much more likely to leave an impact on the world
| and this is what these schools want. I once (10 years ago?)
| read an article about exactly this. The comparison were some US
| elite high school that strictly select on IQ and alumni were
| much less successful than expected (yet, more happy in live).
| George W went to Yale as far as I remember. I doubt that he
| scored super high in any IQ test. But he was undoubtedly very
| successful in live. "
|
| That's the self fulfilling prophecy that modern democracies
| are/should be trying to avoid. Otherwise we are on the track of
| building up a new aristocracy where only the rich and powerful
| get the opportunity of making a difference.
| tubesebut wrote:
| We're well overdue a purge of this new aristocracy. And the
| remaining old aristocracy, for that matter.
|
| When the blood of the rich washes our streets, only then will
| we be free.
| csa wrote:
| > The Economist MBA rankings 2021 have raised eyebrows because
| European schools rankings increased so much
|
| Many schools did not participate:
|
| - Harvard
|
| - Wharton
|
| - Yale
|
| - Columbia
|
| - Chicago
|
| - Berkeley
|
| - Stanford
|
| These ratings have limited utility if you leave out the top
| schools.
| Moodles wrote:
| Why do you doubt he had a high IQ? Depends what we mean by
| "high", but I would think any president (certainly in modern
| history) must have a pretty high IQ to manage so many people
| and issues at once. I would wager someone capable of doing that
| is capable is getting into Yale on merit, especially when
| they're younger and in their mental prime. Nothing to do with
| politics anyone might personally agree or disagree with:
| Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Obama, Trump, Biden.
|
| For liberals (not saying you) who think Bush is dumb: is it
| because his policies disagree with you? Maybe people who come
| to different conclusions to you aren't dumber, but just have
| different values. Do we really think all of our political
| beliefs are based on intellect only? That's very arrogant imo.
| bidirectional wrote:
| > George W went to Yale as far as I remember. I doubt that he
| scored super high in any IQ test.
|
| What exactly do you base your doubt on? Publicly he can be
| quite inarticulate, but there's accounts of him being highly
| intelligent.[1]
|
| [1] https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
| [deleted]
| muh_gradle wrote:
| I was about to say. Bush is a bad public speaker, and you can
| disagree with all of his politics, but his professors found
| him intelligent. That being said, legacy admissions is still
| completely irresponsible, and people should be way more
| outraged by that.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| > his professors found him intelligent
|
| He had a 77% average in college, which made him a C
| student. He even characterized himself as an average
| student, which is accurate. The idea that he was a secret
| genius is patently ludicrous and is only proffered by
| political hacks.
| tharne wrote:
| What's more, is that a "C" at most ivies is equivalent to
| an "F" at any other school. You don't get big donations
| by failing out the mediocre children of presidents and
| senators.
| lapcatsoftware wrote:
| I don't think that's exclusive to the Ivy League. People
| are paying money for college everywhere, and a lot of
| them can barely afford it. Thus, professors are hesitant
| to outright fail students. I say this as a former
| lecturer and teaching assistant at a non-Ivy.
| tharne wrote:
| Good point, I do suppose that's a growing issue
| everywhere, not just in the Ivy League.
| muh_gradle wrote:
| Fair enough. I don't know Bush's GPA. But the idea that
| he was objectively unintelligent and the average critic
| is smarter and more qualified to be president always rubs
| me the wrong way.
| pacman2 wrote:
| IQ is what you measure in a test. It does not measure
| creativity, ambition, empathy etc. In fact I have met
| people that were extraordinary good in university tests
| but this seemed to be their only ability. Even applying
| this knowledge in a laboratory or project was difficult
| for them. Also if you have attention deficit or something
| it will kill you in a test.
|
| But take kim kardashian or Paris Hilton. Without envy you
| have to agree that they are very successful
| entrepreneurs. Yet they likely were not top 5% in SAT
| scores.
| filoleg wrote:
| Cannot comment on Kim Kardashian, but as far as I
| remember from watching a bunch of random documentaries
| and such, Paris Hilton's "dumb blonde" public persona is
| just an act, and she indeed scored pretty high on SAT.
|
| Cannot find any sources at the moment other than tabloids
| and blog posts, but I recommend checking out a fairly
| recent documentary on Netflix (either 2020 or 2019, I
| forgot) that talks about "influencers" and such. Paris
| Hilton got a giant segment dedicated to her on it, and
| she indeed was extremely articulate in her description of
| that whole "dumb blonde" public persona schtick. After
| watching it, I had zero doubt that she was indeed a very
| intelligent person, despite me having zero interest in
| her as an entertainer or a public persona.
| tharne wrote:
| Why are legacy admissions irresponsible? The author points
| out the schools have every incentive to maximize profit
| centers, and legacy admissions are a great way to do that.
| You admit four of five generations of a family, you'd
| better believe that they're going to pony up every year
| come donation time.
|
| Ivy League Universities have always existed to provide a
| finishing school for the elite, rather than providing some
| sort of public good. While I don't think that's a
| particularly noble endeavor, it's not an especially
| malicious one either given the abundance of top-notch (and
| lower cost) public universities in the U.S.
|
| If some rich parent wants to spend an order of magnitude
| more money on an ivy league school to give their kid more
| or less the same education they could have gotten at a
| state school, what's the big deal?
| muh_gradle wrote:
| Then just end affirmative action. If that's the logic
| that's being used, these two things are pretty much
| mutually exclusive.
| chrismcb wrote:
| Why should people be enraged at legacy admissions?
| Especially to a private school?
| pc86 wrote:
| Irresponsible by what measure? Genetics and family wealth
| still have a huge influence on "future impact," and that's
| what these schools are selecting for. It sounds like legacy
| admissions are doing exactly what they're intended to do.
| ska wrote:
| > Genetics and family wealth
|
| I suspect by "genetics" here you really mean something
| like "network you are born into", no?
| tharne wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they mean that if two parents are of
| above average intelligence then they're more likely to
| produce children of above average intelligence.
| pc86 wrote:
| Really I just meant "who your parents happen to be" which
| is closer to the GP's point but admittedly I worded it
| awkwardly.
| ska wrote:
| Agree that has far more predictive power than anything
| passed on genetically.
| sanderjd wrote:
| Irresponsible to society is what people are saying.
| You're making an "is" argument - the ivies optimizing for
| this "future impact" metric - where others are making an
| "ought" argument, that ivies _ought_ to be focused on a
| different more societally beneficial metric.
| muh_gradle wrote:
| Because it's a terrible measure that is short sighted? It
| goes against everything affirmative action stands for? If
| we're going to pretend like diversity matters, then why
| try to justify legacy.
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| > Genetics and family wealth still have a huge influence
| on "future impact,"
|
| In what way would genetics have a huge influence on
| future impact? That sounds like eugenics.
| tharne wrote:
| How is it "like eugenics" to state that children inherit
| genes from their parents, and are often similar in many
| ways to their parents? That just sounds like biology.
|
| It's not helpful to trivialize terms like "eugenics".
| solosoyokaze wrote:
| Genetics have no predictive power on future impact to
| society. Take one of those wealthy children and put them
| in an orphanage, see if they do the same as their
| siblings.
| tubesebut wrote:
| > _Take one of those wealthy children and put them in an
| orphanage, see if they do the same as their siblings._
|
| Or better yet, don't permit them to be born in the first
| place.
|
| Hereditary wealth should have no place in our society.
| It's time to sterilize the rich, and also purge those who
| don't contribute to the public good.
| pacman2 wrote:
| Googeled it. Not very impressive
| http://www.insidepolitics.org/heard/heard32300.html
|
| Yale University/Typical SAT scores 2019-20 Reading and
| Writing 720-770, Math 740-800
|
| Of cause there could be an inflation.
|
| and
|
| "Bush had scored only 25 percent on a "pilot aptitude" test,
| the lowest acceptable grade. But his father was then a
| congressman from Houston, and the commanders of the Texas
| Guard clearly had an appreciation of politics."
| yTh0 wrote:
| > A rich kid is much more likely to leave an impact on the
| world
|
| A rich person is subsidized by society. Why should we optimize
| fiscal policy to enable them and let them leave an outsized
| impact on the world?
|
| Especially when the outsized impact of the rich is inequality,
| anti-democratic political norms, and environmental destruction?
|
| They have no skills, or information advantage. Just a network
| effect advantage through monopoly of a shared value store. I
| see little difference with this system compared to monarchy or
| theology rule, which were also hierarchical, with ones power
| based on closeness to power, and monopoly of value store and
| public time economy.
|
| To clarify, I mean wealthy non-doers. Hedge funds, old wealth,
| etc.
|
| Doctors, engineers, etc., sure let us give them our ear.
| Unskilled rich are a drain on public agency.
| pacman2 wrote:
| "A rich kid is much more likely to leave an impact on the
| world"
|
| I quoted this as a neutral fact. That things might or could
| be better otherwise is a total different question.
| yTh0 wrote:
| Qualify it as such in the original post.
|
| Some search engine can come along in N days, weeks, months,
| and provide that snippet out of the context you intended.
|
| Social media is not a friends backyard fire pit. The
| information peddled here isn't necessarily lost to memory
| the next day.
|
| I don't know you so none of this should be considered a
| personal attack. I'm just taking information and expanding
| on it.
| tarboreus wrote:
| This seems unnecessary, since it's obvious from context.
| Endless caveats are death in writing and readability. We
| have modal verbs like "should" for a reason, and OP chose
| not to use them, making the communication clear.
| pacman2 wrote:
| "Qualify it as such in the original post."
|
| It is unfortunate that people seem not to be able to
| distinguish between a neutral fact and an endorsement.
| Just recently I posted something I consider a fact and
| since I was afraid if could be controversial, added that
| this is not meant in a judgmental way. The bulletin board
| owner took this to a meta level and argued that it was
| exactly this add-on that showed that it was meant in a
| judgmental way and banned me.
| yTh0 wrote:
| It's been shown that words mean different things given
| geographical region.
|
| One brain is not composed of the same experiential model,
| and as a result, neurological model, as others.
|
| Physics > chemistry -> biology -> humans -> metaphor and
| analogy. Kind of my mental road map for information
| hierarchy.
|
| If it's not physically quantifiable it probably falls
| into some category like "relative metaphor and analogy".
| chrismcb wrote:
| "unskilled risk are a drain on public agency" what does this
| mean? How are they a drain?
| oceanplexian wrote:
| There are a lot of assumptions baked into this statement. For
| example what does unskilled mean? Who gets to decide it?
| Would you consider an artist or a musician unskilled? A
| diplomat? Those people don't code or perform surgery but most
| people would consider them skilled and those careers positive
| contributions to society.
|
| Someone who is wealthy may not have skills as you describe
| it, but if they are investing their wealth in the stock
| market for example, it could be argued they have a much more
| outsized positive impact on society than the average person.
| yTh0 wrote:
| It could be argued but it's a large assumption on its own.
|
| Stock markets are recent inventions; some hand wavy way of
| saying "this is exactly the right way to store value!"
|
| Why must that ideal be externalized onto others? Why do I
| have to believe some hedge fund is indeed worth N dollars?
|
| Mendacity of the elderly is not a good enough justification
| for belief.
|
| Correctly engineering a road, medicine, or making art does
| not at all rely on such belief.
| bidirectional wrote:
| > To clarify, I mean wealthy non-doers. Hedge funds, old
| wealth, etc.
|
| What does this mean? How are hedge funds unskilled or non-
| doers in the manner that heirs are? I'd say the average hedge
| fund analyst is probably as accomplished/skilled/hard working
| as the average doctor or engineer.
| pc86 wrote:
| Certainly more-so than the average [software] engineer.
| There's no 6-week bootcamp for hedge funds and there's no
| "typing JavaScript into a computer" equivalent. We can
| argue all day about whether hedge funds are good, bad, or
| useful, and reasonable people will disagree on the answer,
| but you'd be hard-pressed to make a cogent argument that
| the average software engineer works even nearly as hard as
| the average hedge fund analyst.
| randycupertino wrote:
| Speaking as someone who worked in private equity, our
| Principal had generational wealth- literally he was an
| Italian count and his family money came from the Crusades.
|
| The people who made the investments and ran the fund came
| from State University of New York at Buffalo. The count had
| a team of three assistants and one's entire job was to
| coordinate shipping cases of wine from his vanity winery to
| everyone their kids encountered to lubricate the wheels of
| their success in life. Elite squash trainer might take on
| the son? Case of wine to the wife. College tour? Case of
| wine to the tour leader. I was an analyst reporting
| directly to the CFO and wasn't an assistant but would
| routinely get asked to do lifestyle chores like help the
| count's uncle hook up their ipod to their Range Rover's
| bluetooth.
|
| Hence why I left finance and went into medicine which is
| more of a meritocracy.
| cercatrova wrote:
| Wow, the wine shipping is an incredible way to influence
| people. I should try that more often. So far I've only
| been sending small gifts over to people, or hand written
| letters. I know in sales this sort of stuff works very
| well but it also works well in day to day life.
| yTh0 wrote:
| The value they claim to unlock is completely made up.
|
| People need logistics to move materials to enable people to
| do stuff.
|
| Not speculative emotional guidance on ephemeral value
| stores.
|
| Most of them are, or are funded by, inherited wealth to
| service fiscal policy memes.
| tubesebut wrote:
| > _Unskilled rich are a drain on public agency._
|
| Indeed, and much of this comes down to hereditary wealth -
| one of the world's great evils.
|
| What we should do as a society is, whenever a person gains
| above a certain threshold of wealth and refuses to give it up
| to the state, they are forcibly sterilized and banned from
| adopting, thus ensuring no heirs.
|
| And anyone who already has offspring has their wealth taxed
| at 100% above that threshold.
|
| This might sound dystopian, but just imagine if this policy
| had prevented George W Bush from ever being born. That in
| itself would be a public good.
| okwubodu wrote:
| This is an extremely unhinged comment.
| walshemj wrote:
| Yes I suspect they don't mean they would give up on
| inheriting their mum & dads home
| tubesebut1 wrote:
| They lived in public housing. Quite a poor attempt at
| conjuring up a hypocrisy from your own imagination there.
| tubesebut wrote:
| It's a reasonable trade-off for those who seek wealth
| above all else.
|
| Want to get absurdly wealthy? Fine, but you're part of
| the eunuch class now.
|
| This way, as a nation we can harness those rare useful
| wealth-obsessed people, while preventing them from
| creating hereditary lines of societal parasites. It's a
| win-win.
| tux3 wrote:
| This is not an exaggeration, I had stopped reading their
| comment before the truly deranged part and would not have
| noticed.
| tubesebut1 wrote:
| There was nothing deranged about my comment.
|
| Eliminating the Bush family line, for example, before
| they managed to create a dynasty of wealth and power,
| would have been a benefit to humanity.
|
| If you don't have an argument against it other than
| "that's truly deranged!" then that's your problem really.
| kabouseng wrote:
| Wow! Not sure how to even start with a reply...
| [deleted]
| tubesebut1 wrote:
| Why bother commenting then?
| cwwc wrote:
| Hmm.. regarding the economist rankings --- wasn't this solely
| because so many top US schools refused to participate, so they
| just excluded entirely?
| dtnewman wrote:
| _> As a side note: The Economist MBA rankings 2021 have raised
| eyebrows because European schools rankings increased so much:
| https://whichmba.economist.com/ranking/full-time-mba_
|
| Notably this list is missing most top-tier MBA schools like
| Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, Wharton, Northwestern, U of
| Chicago, MIT, UC and others.
|
| If you want to say some of these schools are overrated, fine,
| but if none of them made the _top 90_ you 've got a weird
| rankings methodology that isn't gonna be useful to most people.
| rodiger wrote:
| Many of these lists aggressively weight cost meaning any
| substantially expensive school self-eliminates regardless of
| quality of education.
| abduhl wrote:
| Most (all?) of the schools you list declined to participate
| (or were ineligible) in the Economist's ranking system this
| year it seems. Note that the last time they did participate,
| many of them were top tier. Harvard (2 in 2019), Stanford (8
| in 2019), Columbia (15 in 2019), Wharton (5 in 2019), NW (4
| in 2019), Chicago (1 in 2019), etc. etc.
|
| https://whichmba.economist.com/ranking/full-time-
| mba/2021/me...
| [deleted]
| walshemj wrote:
| And IVY (Oxbridge and ENA as well) Grads are massively
| massively over represented in high status and positions of
| power.
|
| I dont think that article is written in good faith its more
| like it has been written to keep the poor's and the "enthics"
| in their place
| jhap wrote:
| > "Ivies really wanted to promote social justice, they would
| let in more poor kids"
|
| > This is not their main priority.
|
| I think you're right to say that this is not their main
| priority, but I think they actually do quite good letting in
| more more poor kids (at least better than most people expect).
|
| https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2019/09/th...
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