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The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

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Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#31

Post by majormajor »

endisneigh wrote: post #16
ghgdynb1 wrote: post #2

I used to think that the “holistic” criteria elite US colleges use to select students was a failure of meritocracy. My view was that the non-objective metrics were excuses for colleges to let in students who wouldn’t grind but wanted prestige and had rich parents. But if you tie a person’s social status to performance on a single test, you suffocate all the useful things people could be doing if they didn’t have to s…

elite colleges basically have to have positive sentiment. a purely meritocratic admissions process wouldn't be conducive to this, because "rich" people generally do things that increase the sentiment of their schools, like become president or start famous companies. This is why Stanford and Harvard are far more popular and recognizable compared to Caltech and MIT even though the quality of the students is virtually i…

I'm not sure I follow. MIT and Caltech are very niche, but inside that niche, seem to have a pretty clear reputational advantage over Harvard. (Stanford, on the other hand, has some more niche overlap in CS at least.) Sadly, it's not a niche that lends itself to "future President prestige." But is that really hurting either MIT or Caltech, or their grads?

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#32

Post by BrianOnHN »

ArkanExplorer wrote: post #18
tenebrisalietum wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are we overpopulated?

The USA has sub-replacement fertility, as do almost all Western countries. Population growth is entirely due to immigration. We should open our borders to other very-high-HDI countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... (With diversity and equality requirements, eg. max 10% from any one country, max 49% males from any one country) And disallow immigration from all others.

In other words, let our population continue to shrink.

Perfect for the "elite" who get to coast on trust funds while the unemployed poors die off.

Not so perfect when an outside force decides to declare war.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#33

Post by smhost »

mochomocha wrote: post #22
ghgdynb1 wrote: post #2

I used to think that the “holistic” criteria elite US colleges use to select students was a failure of meritocracy. My view was that the non-objective metrics were excuses for colleges to let in students who wouldn’t grind but wanted prestige and had rich parents. But if you tie a person’s social status to performance on a single test, you suffocate all the useful things people could be doing if they didn’t have to s…

As a counter-example, I have gone through a relatable experience though not in India but France (our "preparatory classes" system also has similar high competitiveness/high pressure characteristics, to prepare for a few deciding exams). It only lasts for 2 years, but the stakes are somewhat similar from what I understand from the article. Having lived in the US for a decade now, one of the biggest culture gap I keep…

yeah, one of my professors would openly talk about how rich kids in grad school just pay other people to do their research for them. i don't think he meant to be demoralizing, but i remember thinking to myself 'so what the fuck am i doing here, then?'

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#34

Post by analog31 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #28

The IIT (Indian Institutes of Technology) system is almost an order of magnitude more competitive than the average Ivy League University in the US. About 0.9% of IIT applicants will be admitted. Compare to Ivy League Universities, which range from 4.5% (Harvard) to 10.6% (Cornell). That said, I spoke with one IIT graduate who tried to downplay the experience. I could never tell if he was being humble or polite, or if…

I'm skeptical of acceptance rates, because the denominator is not controlled in any way. Maybe IIT's application fee is lower.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#35

Post by majormajor »

ghgdynb1 wrote: post #2

I used to think that the “holistic” criteria elite US colleges use to select students was a failure of meritocracy. My view was that the non-objective metrics were excuses for colleges to let in students who wouldn’t grind but wanted prestige and had rich parents. But if you tie a person’s social status to performance on a single test, you suffocate all the useful things people could be doing if they didn’t have to s…

The trick would be coming up with an exam you can't study for. But even "IQ test" style stuff hasn't been immune to this, and many attempts to do so fall victim to "select for people with upbringing like the test authors, so actually they did study their whole life, they just didn't realize that's what they were doing."

Job interviews would benefit from the same thing, to go by the self-reported amount of time wasted on leetcode around here.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#36

Post by ArkanExplorer »

BrianOnHN wrote: post #32
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA has sub-replacement fertility, as do almost all Western countries. Population growth is entirely due to immigration. We should open our borders to other very-high-HDI countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... (With diversity and equality requirements, eg. max 10% from any one country, max 49% males from any one country) And disallow immigration from all others.

In other words, let our population continue to shrink. Perfect for the "elite" who get to coast on trust funds while the unemployed poors die off. Not so perfect when an outside force decides to declare war.

Falling population leads to cheaper housing, higher wages, less congestion for government services and infrastructure.

More affordable housing is a major factor in fertility rates, so eventually the population just finds a stable equilibrium.

Increasing population leads to the opposite - the elites are the ones pushing for mass-immigration, since they benefit from rising land prices and lower wages.

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#37

Post by mochomocha »

ghgdynb1 wrote: post #29
mochomocha wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a counter-example, I have gone through a relatable experience though not in India but France (our "preparatory classes" system also has similar high competitiveness/high pressure characteristics, to prepare for a few deciding exams). It only lasts for 2 years, but the stakes are somewhat similar from what I understand from the article. Having lived in the US for a decade now, one of the biggest culture gap I keep…

I get it, and I actually agree that the culture you describe isn't a good look. What I'm going for is more the idea that if you consider the best alternative I can think of to the "holistic" approach, you get selecting applicants purely based on entrance exam scores. In such a world you'd be punishing a kid who plays with Arduino out of interest. Any energy devoted towards something other than test prep is energy was…

Yes... It's a balance. I don't think tests-only admissions are the panacea either to be clear. The key problem is how to introduce some level of subjectivity in the admission process without creating doors wide open for corruption or cottage industries to "prep your application" with semi-fake accomplishments demonstrating your "soft skills".

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#38

Post by medium_burrito »

BrianOnHN wrote: post #32
ArkanExplorer wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The USA has sub-replacement fertility, as do almost all Western countries. Population growth is entirely due to immigration. We should open our borders to other very-high-HDI countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Dev... (With diversity and equality requirements, eg. max 10% from any one country, max 49% males from any one country) And disallow immigration from all others.

In other words, let our population continue to shrink. Perfect for the "elite" who get to coast on trust funds while the unemployed poors die off. Not so perfect when an outside force decides to declare war.

We can even speed up the process by letting the poors have unlimitied opiates!

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#39

Post by ZephyrBlu »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #28

The IIT (Indian Institutes of Technology) system is almost an order of magnitude more competitive than the average Ivy League University in the US. About 0.9% of IIT applicants will be admitted. Compare to Ivy League Universities, which range from 4.5% (Harvard) to 10.6% (Cornell). That said, I spoke with one IIT graduate who tried to downplay the experience. I could never tell if he was being humble or polite, or if…

4.5% for Harvard honestly seems high to me. Do you have a source? (Not doubting, moreso curious about other Ivys).

Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat

#40

Post by vishakad »

I went through the IIT system 10+ years ago. At that point, it was 3,500 people to be selected from a pool of 250,000 or so. These ratios have remained the same over the years I think.

My hobbies were largely desk-bound/sedentary --- coding, trivia --- that I was able to carry out at a reduced pace, and resume after I cleared the exams. The pressure during the ages 15-17 was definitely quite intense --- I'd typically come home at 3 in the afternoon, and work until midnight with a few short breaks in between. However, I think I did create a narrative of what I was going through that led to me actually enjoying the reading and problem-solving (in spite of feeling stressed out). At that age, it can feel like a superpower to be given a list of chemicals and predict what structures would emerge in a chemical reaction, or be able to compute the motions of particles in an EM field. With over 10+ years of hindsight now, I feel the following ---

-- The notion of an "ideal" childhood being lost depends on how you define the ideal. (edit : There was no pressure to have a girlfriend or boyfriend at that age. No "jocks" bullying studious "nerds". The "nerds" were the "cool" kids all through in fact. ) Of course, I don't imagine that people killing themselves or burning out would count as normal in any culture.

-- I'd say the ability to slog things out for many hours of the day across weeks many is something that has stayed with me. At the same time, there are numerous great scientists and engineers who have developed this ability without having to go through this process (edit: at ages 15-17).

-- As one person in the article points out, yes, I definitely was very late to pick up many life skills that are likely second-nature to teenagers in the West.

-- While I could solve problems and apply concepts easily, it was from a shallow understanding of topics. I definitely did not develop a meta-understanding of why, say, Newton's laws are structured that way, or what consequences it has for the structure of physical laws relying on Newton's laws. These skills I had to learn much later on.

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