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Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

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Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#91

Post by bsanr »

cshimmin wrote: post #24
0_gravitas wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if I had to bet I would put money on the money not 'trickling down' as we would hope.

About 65% of students at Yale receive need-based financial aid from the University. Students coming from households making less than $65k don't pay anything at all for tuition/room/board. So clearly some of that endowment money is "trickling down". Source: https://finaid.yale.edu/costs-affordability/affordability

I wonder how that compares, demographically, to the proportion of students receiving need-based financial aid and full-rides at my alma mater (an HBCU with a substantially smaller endowment).

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#92

Post by failrate »

adamnemecek wrote: post #81
bobthepanda wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As of 2013, the median grade at Harvard was an A-. The mode was an A. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/... Anecdotally, I have heard of places that refuse to hire Harvard grads for this reason.

> As of 2013, the median grade at Harvard was an A-. What do you conclude from this? > Anecdotally, I have heard of places that refuse to hire Harvard grads for this reason. That does sound anecdotal.

If everyone is receiving an A, that indicates that everyone receives As regardless of merit.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#93

Post by dilyevsky »

bobthepanda wrote: post #38
jcadam wrote: post #18

Just reinforces my belief that an ivy league degree is much more an indicator of socioeconomic class than it is intelligence or aptitude.

As of 2013, the median grade at Harvard was an A-. The mode was an A. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2013/12/... Anecdotally, I have heard of places that refuse to hire Harvard grads for this reason.

Consequence of paid, for-profit education - they want their grads to get high paying jobs. C-grade alumni with a shit job doesn’t make a great donor.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#94

Post by maxxxxx »

InitialLastName wrote: post #83
maxxxxx wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be nice if somebody like Truman got elected. Somebody who had real experience how the regular citizen lives.

You're right. Now, if only we could agree on what the "regular citizen's" life looks like. a) It's probably a woman, since they're the majority of the population and have a distinctly different life experience to men b) It's probably someone who lives in a city, since that was 80% of Americans in the 2010 census.

I would be happy if that person didn’t come from an Ivy League school and whose parents aren’t multimillionaires.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#95

Post by seibelj »

willart4food wrote: post #68
jcadam wrote: post #18

Just reinforces my belief that an ivy league degree is much more an indicator of socioeconomic class than it is intelligence or aptitude.

Yes. You pay for the network, the education is free and optional. However: I have worked with a handful of Harvard MBA graduates and . . . they were the smartest people I have ever worked with, and I have worked with a lot of people.

The best engineer I ever worked with went to a tiny religious university that didn’t have an official CS Major. There are smart people everywhere. He is also a super cool dude, and TBQH a lot of Harvard grads I’ve worked with have been... hmmm... “less than cool”

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#96

Post by smallgovt »

zachguo wrote: post #78
smallgovt wrote: post #27

A smaller subset of this problem is paying people to take standardized tests for you. I graduated from an ivy and had a couple peers who got a perfect score on their SAT's but could only speak broken English. If you're willing to pay someone to cheat on standardized tests, I'm not surprised you're willing to bribe someone to gain admissions also.

I know you are referring to Chinese students. But the reality is that SAT and GRE are stupidly easy, especially math. Almost every Chinese student I know achieved full score in GRE math, and yes, more than half of them spoke broken English.

I'm in no way implying my anecdata is conclusive, but I'm mainly suspicious of the verbal scores. And, if the verbal section of the SAT is stupidly easy, I guess I'm stupid, shucks :(.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#97

Post by ez76 »

sverige wrote: post #88
jonny_eh wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is a school prestigious by allowing undeserving[1] rich kids in? [1] In the sense that they're not academically or athletically at the top of the heap.

I have to confess that I have never understood why athletics is considered necessary at academic institutions, so it is even less understandable why athletics is considered during admissions.

It brings in alumni, who bring in money.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#98

Post by adamnemecek »

failrate wrote: post #92
adamnemecek wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As of 2013, the median grade at Harvard was an A-. What do you conclude from this? > Anecdotally, I have heard of places that refuse to hire Harvard grads for this reason. That does sound anecdotal.

If everyone is receiving an A, that indicates that everyone receives As regardless of merit.

Or it means that everyone works their ass off.

Or that they went to high schools that prepared them well.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#99

Post by bsanr »

lembandro wrote: post #85

The discussion about 'who deserves a spot at a prestigious university x' misses the issue. Acceptance at one of these universities is not based on who is the most intelligent, hardworking, or accomplished. These universities, just like any other institutions, have their own goals and agenda. They accept you not because you deserve it or you have earned it, but because accepting you promotes the kind of ideals that th…

The question that always occurs to me when these kinds of discussions come up is why there is such a huge disparity between educational institutions in this country in the first place. If schools were funded to meet a certain level of performance, instead of based on who was attending or on past performance - like the military is funded - maybe that would be a step in the right direction.

Re: Bribes to Get into Yale and Stanford? What Else Is New?

#100

Post by roenxi »

jonny_eh wrote: post #37
LanceH wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These universities don't have the prestige without the legacy admissions (and alumni donors). There are tons of universities, but it's hard to say anyone "deserves" a spot over someone's family who helped build it.

How is a school prestigious by allowing undeserving[1] rich kids in? [1] In the sense that they're not academically or athletically at the top of the heap.

You can answer that question by playing semantics - copying from a dictionary, 'prestige' is having 'standing or estimation in the eyes of people'.

Most of the prestigious people I can name aren't prestigious because of their academic achievement, that is for sure - so it isn't obvious why an academic institution should be prestigious full stop. They all teach a similar syllabus, and most professors are remarkably talented. Harvard is prestigious because the students that go to Harvard are well connected, not because Harvard is imparting some superior secret sauce to its students. The selling point is the network of other people who are important, eg, the children of the sort of people who went to Harvard.

We don't give people standing or estimation from academic or athletic ability except in extreme edge cases (much more extreme than college admission). There is a strong correlation between intelligence and prestige, but that is because smart people make decisions that earn them prestige more than because academic ability is prestigious.

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