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What the elite expect and receive from an Ivy League education

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

#151

Post by eighthnate »

leggomylibro wrote: post #73
irrational wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Well, Oxford and Cambridge are older. And an institution with thousands of dead people behind it is obviously going to be more prestigious than one with mere hundreds. Huge, weighty anchors biting into the benthic depths of our past - that's how you get to be a Prestigious Institution of global Renown.

I disagree. There are tons of old universities in europe. University of Bologna is older than oxford, but I doubt anyone would say it is more prestigious.

Prestige is determined by money and power. Oxford doesn't really measure up to harvard or yale in this regard.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/05/05/harvard-mit-ran...

The most important and wealthiest universities in the most important country is going to be more prestigious.

It's why chinese parents choose american universities for their children.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32969291

More importantly, it's why top chinese leaders send their children to american universities.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...

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

#152

Post by pcurve »

Cornell wasn't like this... (at least in the 90s).

3.2 would get you on dean's list.

There were freshman weed-out courses to winnow out dumb and lazies.

I remember getting D+ on a paper that nearly gave me a stroke, and professor stood by it. Asked TA to re-grade it and gave me the same grade.

Some guy in my dorm got a letter from school with threat of expulsion if he didn't improve his 1.7 GPA, after just 1 tough semester.

I once made the mistake of taking a comp sci course as an elective where most of the students were comp sci majors and already new the materials. Never went to so many TA office hours in my life, just to get B+.

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

#153

Post by ahelwer »

WalterBright wrote: post #114
ahelwer wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A grade is supposed to represent your ability and understanding of a topic, but that's only half the equation. Are exams an adequate proxy for ability and understanding of a topic? They aren't for me. When I want to understand something, I create something which requires and demonstrates that understanding - this could be a Wikipedia article, a piece of software, or a lecture. Nothing of value is demonstrated by sitt…

I've never understood how someone could master a topic yet could not answer questions about it. I know from my own personal experience that when I bombed an exam, it's because I simply did not understand the material. When I did well on an exam, I had corresponding confidence that I understood it.

It is the difference between knowing "given a task in this knowledge area, I can accomplish it" and uselessly loading up on all that information to perform in a purely artificial situation the likes of which is never seen again.

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

#154

Post by Gibbon1 »

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…

When I went to school back in the early 1980's the professors blamed grade inflation on the Vietnam war. They out an out said that they didn't want to fail students because they'd lose their draft deferment. When I went they'd gone back to grading on a curve.

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

#155

Post by [deleted] »

turbinerneiter wrote: post #60
thomasahle wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This is how it works in Germany. One exam at the end of the semester. Nothing else counts. Studying and finding motivation to study is the students responsibility. It's not perfect either, a bad performance on exam day might mean a bad grade even if you're good, but whatever, nobody cares about grades, anyway.

[deleted]

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

#156

Post by dgacmu »

buchanaf wrote: post #126
lawnchair_larry wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, at least for the tech companies. Grades are irrelevant at FB/MS/Google.

Again, I have no anecdotal experience, but I have a hard time believing that the new hires for those 3 companies are anything but students from top-tier colleges with near perfect grades. To be fair, I'm sure a couple of years of work experience and they probably don't care as much.

You might be surprised. Don't take my word for it, take Laszlo's: http://money.cnn.com/2015/04/09/technology/google-people-las...

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

#157

Post by ryandrake »

csa wrote: post #130
buchanaf wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, people like George W. Bush, who are in the top .00000001% of privilege, don't need to do well before college, in college, after college, or even as a state or country's highest elected official. However, for most of the mere mortals at Yale and Harvard, they still have to compete with the every other college graduate, and some of those other college graduates are pretty smart themselves.

The context of the discussion was a highly connected person who will inherit their dad's investment bank -- the "elite and priveleged" mentioned in 'ryandrake's initial reply. W falls into this category, and I wouldn't say that privilege of that kind is quite as rare at elite schools as you make it out to be (~5-10% of the student body?). W might be an extreme example, ditto with "inherit an investment bank", but pri…

Exactly. I'm not saying "people at Harvard don't have to try". I'm saying "elite and privileged people whose success is already pre-ordained don't have to try to be successful (but some do anyway)". Even in my "top but not quite Ivy League" grad school, there were a handful of folks who I'd describe as sufficiently elite and privileged, such that they, for instance, really didn't need to stress out about the interviewing and the internships like the rest of us had to.

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

#158

Post by blibble »

barry-cotter wrote: post #146
Jabbles wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But what portion of the 17-19 year olds of the UK do they admit every year? I think it's around 3%. That means Oxbridge is guaranteed to have educated a greater portion of the UK's middle class than went to the US's HYP, also ran Ivy League schools, MIT, Stanford and CalTech. One thirtieth of the US population does not attend a super elite school.

~6000 undergrad oxbridge places/year, divided by ~1 million 18 year olds[1] == around 0.6%, so 1 in 166

[1]: http://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-pyramids/united-...

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

#159

Post by leggomylibro »

eighthnate wrote: post #151
leggomylibro wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, Oxford and Cambridge are older. And an institution with thousands of dead people behind it is obviously going to be more prestigious than one with mere hundreds. Huge, weighty anchors biting into the benthic depths of our past - that's how you get to be a Prestigious Institution of global Renown.

I disagree. There are tons of old universities in europe. University of Bologna is older than oxford, but I doubt anyone would say it is more prestigious. Prestige is determined by money and power. Oxford doesn't really measure up to harvard or yale in this regard. https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/05/05/harvard-mit-ran... The most important and wealthiest universities in the most important country is going to b…

Sorry, I was sort of making a facetious joke. Sometimes it's surprising how fervently people revere tradition, and you do see it a bit more often in the UK, imo. Not that I'd be a great judge, having spent less than a month or so there in total.

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

#160

Post by cpr »

This calls to mind the amusing Harvey Mansfield, who used to be the only "conservative" (arguable) professor in the government dept. (I missed him in my time there epochs ago.)

He gave two grades, the official, inflated, career-preserving grade, and the real (his true assessment) grade. You could come ask him for the real grade if you wanted to know the awful truth. ;-)

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