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How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

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Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#61

Post by carbocation »

kyro wrote: post #50

A physician on the admissions board for a top 40 medical school told me the secret to their process. They separate each applicant into their respective ethnic background, take the top 5% of each pile, and then take a closer look at the individual applications. His words, verbatim, were "So if you're a black guy with a 3.2 gpa, you're good. But an Asian dude with a 3.9? You see that all the time; so good luck." The ar…

It's not so much arbitrary as it is structured with racial preference in mind. Why that is so, and the degree to which that is good or bad, is probably for a different discussion.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#62

Post by jrockway »

pandafood wrote: post #30
sgk284 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you get to put Columbia on your resume either way. That's all most companies care about.

That's true for most employers, but the extra value of the Ivy League degree isn't that it's slightly more impressive to employers that would have employed you anyways, it's that it's pretty much essential to impress the standard gatekeepers to American high society: investment banks, law firms, and - to a lesser extent - medical schools, all of whom definitely make the distinction.

Law firms and medical schools, maybe, but not investment banks. If you're a programmer, anyway.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#63

Post by [deleted] »

dpritchett wrote: post #59
rubyrescue wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wasn't making a comment on the quality of the education; just the fact that it's dishonest to say that the General Studies degree is equivalent in terms of prestige, which the article implies.

Ah. I would've thought them equivalent in terms of prestige, but I attended a state school in the southeast and don't spend too much time thinking about these things. It really seems like you've managed to secure the top-tier education while sidestepping the selective admissions process. Quite the hack, no?

[deleted]

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#64

Post by jacobolus »

terryjsmith wrote: post #24
InfinityX0 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like the design, but I absolutely hate the brand name. You will forever be a Mashable-ripoff because of it. Nothing you can do now but ick, that was not a good decision.

I'm not sure I follow. Just because they end in the same 4 letters doesn't mean they have anything to do with one another. They are completely separate target audiences and demographics (technology aficionados/18 - 30 males compared to women's fashion and entertainment news/18 - 24 women). We've much more copied some other sites in our space like Gawker, Lemondrop, etc. Glad you like the design though :)

Because "mash" and "crush" are synonyms?

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#65

Post by nl »

kmfrk wrote: post #47
iskander wrote: post #26

There's a more general lesson here: personal interactions are the quickest way to bend the rules. You may have a stellar application/resume, but so do many other candidates. If you want to get an unconventional outcome, do it in person. Related: I was a terrible student as an undergrad and when I later applied to grad schools I got rejected by every university with half a shred of self-respect. So, I enrolled as a no…

I'd rather say that the lesson is that getting in comes down to people, not rules. A bureaucracy requires bureaucrats. There are many people who'll stand in your way of getting into a university moreso than arbitrary rules. I don't know if you have a good term for people who occupy their administrative desks like thrones (here, we call them "desk popes" translated directly.) I recall applying to a highly-esteemed Bri…

I recall applying to a highly-esteemed British university once, and I was aghast at what a sordid mess it was to apply as an international student (no info wheresoever, and Open Days was announced mere weeks beforehand), not to mention the admission gatekeepers themselves.

I was in the UK once, and met a girl who'd just moved to Bath from Australia with her boyfriend to do her PhD. She got there and found out the position had been cancelled and they had forgotten to tell her.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#66

Post by hristov »

dpritchett wrote: post #57
rubyrescue wrote: post #46

Quoting from a friend who went to a similar school: Wow, that is total misinformation. Yes, all the Ivy League schools have General Studies programs but they are looked at as an adult/evening education program. For example, Penn's General Studies program doesn't even require standardized test scores: http://www.sas.upenn.edu/lps/undergraduate/ba/ I'm sure a person can put on their resume that they have a Bachelor's f…

I fail to see the distinction. The Penn LPS FAQ ( http://www.sas.upenn.edu/lps/faq/general ) suggests that their night school students get the same degree and in some cases study with the same professors as the day students. Is there a reason to suspect the quality of the education would be dramatically different?

The distinction is much stronger in Columbia. There you are part of an entirely different school (School of Graduate Studies), which shows up on your diploma and transcripts and which you are supposed to put on your resume. While you may take the same classes and get a degree that sounds the same as the ordinary undergrad schools (Columbia College and Barnard College) you have technically got that degree from a different school.

And they say that transferring out of that school into Columbia college is not easy at all.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#67

Post by Nrsolis »

rubyrescue wrote: post #58
dpritchett wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see the distinction. The Penn LPS FAQ ( http://www.sas.upenn.edu/lps/faq/general ) suggests that their night school students get the same degree and in some cases study with the same professors as the day students. Is there a reason to suspect the quality of the education would be dramatically different?

He wasn't making a comment on the quality of the education; just the fact that it's dishonest to say that the General Studies degree is equivalent in terms of prestige, which the article implies.

That whole prestige thing is BUNK.

For the record, I'm a graduate of the Harvard Extension program (undergrad) and I'm also a member of the Harvard Club of NY.

If you're in your 20's and have no other accomplishments to speak of then the signaling effect of having an Ivy League degree is probably going to do something for you.

But if you're in your 30s or 40s, you're going to be judged on what you've done outside of an academic environment by almost every single person you meet.

In fact, trying to game the prestige game in your 30s or 40s by touting your Ivy League degree is likely to have a NEGATIVE effect on your prospects. Just ask anyone from Harvard about the "dropping the H-bomb."

Personally, I think the whole prestige thing is just so much hot air. I've met plenty of dolts with Harvard degrees and plenty of supremely intelligent people who have only a year or two of college.

Keep this in mind: I have tons of friends who did an undergrad and a graduate degree at Harvard; not a single one has ever held that over my head or compared my degree with theirs.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#68

Post by iskander »

bitwize wrote: post #32
iskander wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a country with a dysfunctional university system, the US certainly seems to create a disproportionate share of the good research.

These days, that's mainly because we import so many East Asians, Indians, and Europeans into our postgrad programs.

"Imports" have always been our research strength :-). Thank you Germany for going all crazy in the 30s giving us an era's worth of top-tier scientists.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#69

Post by rubyrescue »

Nrsolis wrote: post #67
rubyrescue wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He wasn't making a comment on the quality of the education; just the fact that it's dishonest to say that the General Studies degree is equivalent in terms of prestige, which the article implies.

That whole prestige thing is BUNK. For the record, I'm a graduate of the Harvard Extension program (undergrad) and I'm also a member of the Harvard Club of NY. If you're in your 20's and have no other accomplishments to speak of then the signaling effect of having an Ivy League degree is probably going to do something for you. But if you're in your 30s or 40s, you're going to be judged on what you've done outside of…

Totally agree w/the name dropping your school being a bad thing. However, just being a member of the club of people from those schools just keeps paying dividends as your career moves on.

My friend quoted above went to Penn (Ivy League), I went to Auburn University (State School in Alabama). Both of us moved from the US to Argentina. I'm 36, he's about the same age.

Penn alumni in Buenos Aires? DOZENS, NEY HUNDREDS. They're CEO's of major startups here, Argentines who had good grades, wealthy families, and went the US for school and came back.

Auburn Alumni in Buenos Aires? i'm sure there are a few. Most will be with me at the sports bar on saturday watching Auburn-LSU. None are Argentines who went to school in the states and came back to run startups... He has a huge networking advantage here I don't.

I tried to get Auburn to even start an alumni club here and they ignored my mails, for instance, whereas the Penn, Harvard, etc. clubs are an ongoing valuable source of connections and relationships for their members.

I have plenty of connections at this point but it's a natural advantage I often find myself having to work harder to make up for.

Re: How I Snuck Into The Ivy League. And You Can Too.

#70

Post by iskander »

pandafood wrote: post #36
bitwize wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These days, that's mainly because we import so many East Asians, Indians, and Europeans into our postgrad programs.

We import them from American universities though. Our high schools are way more broken than our colleges.

That disconnect has always confused me. How does country manage to maintain the best universities and among the worst high schools in the first world?
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