Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 206 posts

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#101

Post by wolco »

buchanaf wrote: post #77
ryandrake wrote: post #63

The silliness, of course, is that if you are among the "elite" and "privileged" going to an Ivy League school, nobody is going to give a shit about your grades anyway. Your career and success is already pre-ordained. Why on earth would you bother arguing with your professor that your "A-" should be an "A"? You're going to go to work at your daddy's investment bank after you graduate either way! You think big name ban…

While I didn't go to an Ivy, that's clearly not true. Do you honestly think Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Goldman, law schools, medical schools, etc., are going to accept you if you have poor grades? Not everyone can count on "daddy".

If you are paying full price someone has an extra 300000.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#102

Post by orian »

buchanaf wrote: post #77
ryandrake wrote: post #63

The silliness, of course, is that if you are among the "elite" and "privileged" going to an Ivy League school, nobody is going to give a shit about your grades anyway. Your career and success is already pre-ordained. Why on earth would you bother arguing with your professor that your "A-" should be an "A"? You're going to go to work at your daddy's investment bank after you graduate either way! You think big name ban…

While I didn't go to an Ivy, that's clearly not true. Do you honestly think Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Goldman, law schools, medical schools, etc., are going to accept you if you have poor grades? Not everyone can count on "daddy".

It doesn't matter if all companies does this, it matter how many do.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#103

Post by plussed_reader »

tetromino_ wrote: post #80
plussed_reader wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say pragmatism, but I read cronyism. In this case the Rugby coach would be a crony for moneyed interests.

Alternative interpretation - the rugby coach was helping seattleeng's friend by alerting him in advance to the fact that moneyed interests would make the friend's life hell if he were to seriously injure one of their own.

Social order's gotta be maintained, right?

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#104

Post by [deleted] »

tehwebguy wrote: post #67
rdlecler1 wrote: post #16

I was a TA at Yale when I did my PhD there and I contrast that experience to when I was a TA at University of Calgary. Whether it’s a higher sense of entitlement or just grinding it out to maximize your official grade the contrast between these two schools was striking. At Yale you’d better think twice about honest grading because if you did there would be an army at your door with pitchforks ready. You then have to…

What a scam it all is. How tragic that you TAs are apparently complicit. Edit: Thanks for the downvote but giving higher grades because it's more convenient than doing the right thing is... the wrong thing. Painful that at some point it felt like your (and many others') best choice but it was still wrong flat out. Hey maybe now you can "change the system from the inside!"

[deleted]

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#105

Post by adrianratnapala »

wutbrodo wrote: post #20
irrational wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Harvard really considered more prestigious than Oxford or Cambridge? That doesn't follow my perception.

Quantifying prestige and definitively ranking the three is beyond me, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Harvard was considered more prestigious, in large part because it balances (reputationally speaking) "new-world dynamism" and "old-world prestige" better than Oxbridge does. The latter without the former has connotations of sclerotic inefficiency.

I think this "new-world dynamism" but might actually count against US schools if it makes them seem non-rigorous. Oxbridge teachers I've met are rigorous (in terms of their expections of students, not their own methods).

Regarding the US, I can only offer how I came by my own priors in family that in traditional subcontinental style is always on the lookout for prestegious schools. I learned at my father's knee that US postgrad schools were the best in the world, but that undergrad education was soft and "mickey mouse".

I'd need data rather than annecdotes to say if this is really the international preception of US education, rather than just my family's the lore. But so much that I see out of America confirms that lore, that I guess other people have come to the same conclusion.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#106

Post by csa »

tehwebguy wrote: post #67
rdlecler1 wrote: post #16

I was a TA at Yale when I did my PhD there and I contrast that experience to when I was a TA at University of Calgary. Whether it’s a higher sense of entitlement or just grinding it out to maximize your official grade the contrast between these two schools was striking. At Yale you’d better think twice about honest grading because if you did there would be an army at your door with pitchforks ready. You then have to…

What a scam it all is. How tragic that you TAs are apparently complicit. Edit: Thanks for the downvote but giving higher grades because it's more convenient than doing the right thing is... the wrong thing. Painful that at some point it felt like your (and many others') best choice but it was still wrong flat out. Hey maybe now you can "change the system from the inside!"

The system of elite schools is designed to perpetuate itself -- just like any beauracracy. The elite schools do this fairly well, imho.

Note that grading hard is basically friction in the system that is fairly efficient to avoid.

The elite schools have plenty of smart and hard-working students who don't need hard grading as a motivator to do great work. Those students are the backbone of your school.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#107

Post by csa »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #85
ryandrake wrote: post #63

The silliness, of course, is that if you are among the "elite" and "privileged" going to an Ivy League school, nobody is going to give a shit about your grades anyway. Your career and success is already pre-ordained. Why on earth would you bother arguing with your professor that your "A-" should be an "A"? You're going to go to work at your daddy's investment bank after you graduate either way! You think big name ban…

> You're going to go to work at your daddy's investment bank after you graduate either way! Privilege has its limits. Let's take your example. If you're inheriting Dad's investment bank, you still have to keep winning their clients. Most institutional investors have policies which require them to freeze and reconsider firms after leadership changes. If you flunked your way through Harvard, that's going to be difficul…

> If you flunked your way through Harvard, that's going to be difficult.

Not really.

Maybe "flunking your way through" would be awkward, but these folks know the easy majors. See Government at Harvard. See W's surreal academic career for an example of a well-connected but relatively unintelligent person get a Yale undergrad degree and a Harvard MBA.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#108

Post by WalterBright »

thomasahle wrote: post #39
rdlecler1 wrote: post #16

I was a TA at Yale when I did my PhD there and I contrast that experience to when I was a TA at University of Calgary. Whether it’s a higher sense of entitlement or just grinding it out to maximize your official grade the contrast between these two schools was striking. At Yale you’d better think twice about honest grading because if you did there would be an army at your door with pitchforks ready. You then have to…

The problem is when the grades given on assignments influence what goes on your final exam papers. At a university, only the final exam should count. This way you can give honest feedback, and the student doesn't feel obligated to point out every little mistake to try to make you change your decision. It also allows them to misunderstand things at first, but then 'get' it later. Of course universities don't like this…

At Caltech, the only thing that counted for your grade was the midterm and the final. The homework only mattered if a grade was on the knife edge of passing or failing.

Students were free to do the homework or not, collaborate on it or not, as they saw fit. It was regarded as a learning tool that students could decide how best to make use of for themselves.

I thought it worked rather well, although the high stakes final exams were rather stressful :-)

(Attending lectures was also optional. Institute policy was that attendance would not be taken, and would not be a factor in the grade. You were free to attend lectures or not, do the homework or not, and if you got an A on the final, you got an A for the course. Some students could do that, such as the legendary Hal Finney, but I learned the hard way that I could not afford to miss any lectures and must diligently do and understand all the homework on time.)

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#109

Post by Jabbles »

vostok wrote: post #44
irrational wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is Harvard really considered more prestigious than Oxford or Cambridge? That doesn't follow my perception.

In academic circles, yes. Socially, not so much. A huge portion of the middle class in the UK went to Oxford or Cambridge. Something like 25% of Etonians get into Oxford or Cambridge. For the Westminster school that number is something like 45%. Harvard does not have that same grip on the corresponding class stratum in the US, but Harvard also has far fewer undergraduates than Oxford or Cambridge and the US is a much…

A huge portion of the UK's middle class cannot have gone to Oxbridge, simply because they're too small. They take 3000 people each or together 0.01% of the UK's population each year.

Re: What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

#110

Post by jforman »

jonstokes wrote: post #96
jforman wrote: post #41

This article has very little basis in reality based on my experience at Harvard as an undergrad and at Princeton as a grad student and TA. Yes, students are arrogant and push for grades quite a bit. But I saw zero evidence of systemic catering to them as a whole or to any specific sub-population. I imagine the Development Office (the folks who would cater to the ultra powerful) may get involved in extreme cases? But…

I was a graduate student at Harvard for five years (two Masters degrees), and the article is spot-on. Grade inflation was a big topic while I was there (some prof had written an editorial blaming it on affirmative action), and everything she said resonated with me. In fact, your comment is so clueless and un-self-aware, I'm kinda shocked that someone with your apparent bio could have written it. That you did pretty p…

These schools are big places, so it's not all that surprising different people have different experiences. What department, out of curiosity? I had experience in molecular biology and computer science at Harvard and mol bio at Princeton. (But yes, I saw zero of this in any of those places)
Post reply on HN