I went through this in 1998.
Went from around 130 or so pounds in grade 10 to 200ish by the time I got into college. Would get up at 2am every day to study and spend every waking minute studying. The only exercise I got was walking around while still reading books. Still struggling with my weight after all these years.
The pressure I went through those 2 years was indescribable.
Spare a thought for folks who went through all this and didn't even get in.
The price students pay for a prized IIT seat
71–80 of 171 posts
Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
How would that help? Rewarding people for simply being born with high IQ is the opposite of meritocratic.
Really depends on your definition of "merit" (which is frequently misunderstood the same way evolutionary "fitness" is often misunderstood). Read Young's original book coining the term: it was both a satire and dystopian lament. Far from a term of approval! Certainly many people -- perhaps most -- believe that "IQ" (loosely defined) is in fact the proper definition of meritocracy. (In case it's not obviously I defini…
If many people loosely equate IQ to merit then that is worrying to me.
It's all well and good if you're smart because it increases your advantage two-fold. But it basically screws over everyone else.
Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
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?
Compared to Stanford and MIT, Caltech is not getting the same caliber student since the late 70s-early 80s (and definitely since the mid 2000s) when looking at international Olympiad winners, etc
Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat
#74I have been hiring IIT graduates and building a team in India for several years now. They are all really smart people with a strong work ethic, but their approach to work tends to be the same as the approach they needed to succeed in a test-based education system. The engineers will grind until any hour of the night to ensure that all feature requirements are met and JIRA tickets checked off, but nobody will stop to…
Something is really wrong, if he highly capable kids are checking off "JIRA tickets". Couldn't you find some college dropouts in Oklahoma instead?
They wouldn’t even be able to check off tickets?
Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat
#75This article is a gross misrepresentation of what it takes to get into IITs. I got into one, and I can guarantee that this article pretty much picks and chooses data points as it wants. Yes it is academically challenging to get into IITs, but there's two ways you can get into one: Devote your entire life towards "cracking" the game that's the entrance exams, or just study enough that you've mastered the understanding of math and science, but don't kill yourself over it.
Me and my batch of high school buddies managed to get into IITs (and NITs which are a step down from IITs) while putting in some work, but not killing ourselves. All of us were athletes, so a 2-3 hours of sports daily for us was a must. All of us did some amount of coaching, and though the coaching classes gave us enough exercises to last us the entire month, daily, we had enough sense to figure out how much practice was enough practice. (Surprisingly, it's not a lot) Most of us did have other hobbies, some of us ended up pursuing them full time.
Yes we always had the kind of students the article mentions, spending each moment they're not asleep on DPPs (daily practice problems). Guess what, some of them made it into IITs (which they would have even if they put in less effort), but a lot of them actually never made it despite putting in that effort.
Not all of us are the soulless robots described here.
Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat
#76I went through this in 1998. Went from around 130 or so pounds in grade 10 to 200ish by the time I got into college. Would get up at 2am every day to study and spend every waking minute studying. The only exercise I got was walking around while still reading books. Still struggling with my weight after all these years. The pressure I went through those 2 years was indescribable. Spare a thought for folks who went thr…
Absolutely. Knew of some who didn't get in and their self-esteem was pretty shot for some years.
Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat
#77I have been hiring IIT graduates and building a team in India for several years now. They are all really smart people with a strong work ethic, but their approach to work tends to be the same as the approach they needed to succeed in a test-based education system. The engineers will grind until any hour of the night to ensure that all feature requirements are met and JIRA tickets checked off, but nobody will stop to…
Don't write this off as a solely as a symptom of education. Being able to question the judgement of an authority figure / decision maker is a privilege. A squeaky wheel gets the grease but a raised nail gets the hammer. Engineers generally lean more nail than wheel in most orgs, and being a minority or otherwise less respected subset of that group makes you feel even more like a nail. Dotting I's and crossing T's is…
> Dotting I's and crossing T's is exactly the kind of behavior one would expect from a person who is smart enough to recognize something is a stupid idea
Maybe? But it makes them useless for my purposes. Which requires them to think for themselves.
Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat
#78So, when do the parents step out of the picture, if ever? Sounds like the worst affected would fly apart the moment they had to live on their own. This is a type of student I've heard of in the US of course, but this appears to affect a huge portion of the students.
For the elite, never. If nothing else, there is always a family safety net, and some starting capital.
Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat
#79This article is a gross misrepresentation of what it takes to get into IITs. I got into one, and I can guarantee that this article pretty much picks and chooses data points as it wants. Yes it is academically challenging to get into IITs, but there's two ways you can get into one: Devote your entire life towards "cracking" the game that's the entrance exams, or just study enough that you've mastered the understanding…
Accuracy and a balanced nuanced view does not create click-bait articles. I did not go to an IIT but know plenty who did and while some are uber-nerds others are on the opposite end of the spectrum. Mixed-bag. Nothing different than what you would find at an elite US institution.
Re: The price students pay for a prized IIT seat
#80I went through this in 1998. Went from around 130 or so pounds in grade 10 to 200ish by the time I got into college. Would get up at 2am every day to study and spend every waking minute studying. The only exercise I got was walking around while still reading books. Still struggling with my weight after all these years. The pressure I went through those 2 years was indescribable. Spare a thought for folks who went thr…
Absolutely. Knew of some who didn't get in and their self-esteem was pretty shot for some years.
I was one of those 'not so smart' kids that got in. I know this because I struggled mightily once I did get i to maintain a respectable GPA.
I think the system is most brutal on middle of the road students like me. If you know you aren't good enough, you get an out. Or if you are really smart you can coast in.
The average folks get hosed :)