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What Oxford taught me about posh people

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Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#81

Post by caddemon »

pnutjam wrote: post #73
caddemon wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, also the private schools in the US that are comparable to Oxbridge all do need-blind admissions, and have very generous aid. Average cost paid at those schools is much lower than at mid-tier private schools or out of state schools. There are definitely a lot of indirect selection effects that lead to a smaller number of low income students at these schools, including legacy admissions at most of them as he point…

There are many of parts of the US education system that weed out poor people and disadvantaged people before the University has to deny their application. The poor people who get into elite universities in the US are very much an exception. Having parents that went to an Ivy League or going to one of their expensive "feeder" schools is the best indicator of whether you can get into an Elite US university.

I never said that wasn't the case, just as it is obviously the case at Oxbridge. Making misleading comments about US schools using parental income directly in admissions decisions doesn't help fix any of that.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#82

Post by pnutjam »

caddemon wrote: post #81
pnutjam wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many of parts of the US education system that weed out poor people and disadvantaged people before the University has to deny their application. The poor people who get into elite universities in the US are very much an exception. Having parents that went to an Ivy League or going to one of their expensive "feeder" schools is the best indicator of whether you can get into an Elite US university.

I never said that wasn't the case, just as it is obviously the case at Oxbridge. Making misleading comments about US schools using parental income directly in admissions decisions doesn't help fix any of that.

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/sat-act-standard...

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#83

Post by caddemon »

pnutjam wrote: post #82
caddemon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never said that wasn't the case, just as it is obviously the case at Oxbridge. Making misleading comments about US schools using parental income directly in admissions decisions doesn't help fix any of that.

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/commentary/sat-act-standard...

Again, OP claimed that top US schools directly ask your income in applications, implying this information was used directly in admissions decisions. It is not, and any admissions tests Oxbridge uses certainly have similar issues of correlation with wealth.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#84

Post by pm90 »

cblconfederate wrote: post #55
pm90 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not so sure. The Queen bees responsibilities as a “leader” are literally just to stay alive and reproduce. Most primate leaders have a lot more responsibilities which they need to excel at. Maybe statistically they still turn out to not matter? Would be interesting to know.

> which they need to excel at. they usually need to keep themselves in power / get reelected. Not necessarily a criterion of excellence.

Ineffective leadership for tribes would usually lead to its destruction.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#85

Post by cblconfederate »

pm90 wrote: post #84
cblconfederate wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which they need to excel at. they usually need to keep themselves in power / get reelected. Not necessarily a criterion of excellence.

Ineffective leadership for tribes would usually lead to its destruction.

there s a lot of space between effective and excellent

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#86

Post by goldcd »

cblconfederate wrote: post #25

The UK has made an export industry out of this snobbery and attracts hundreds of thousands of international students for this prestige. I wonder if ethologists have studied this behavior. Queen bees are not selected with an IQ test, they re selected randomly and raised by the plebs to become their queen.It's a successful strategy evidently. I guess something similar might work in primates where the random selection i…

Just picking up on the Queen Bee point - there can be multiple queen bees created, and when they hatch the first thing they do is kill all unborn queens and then fight to the death any that also hatched.

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#87

Post by dang »

douglaswlance wrote: post #13
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #3

His last paragraph nails it: "I can see why people are sceptical about universities, and angry at the elite ones. They are often now little more than training camps for the stormtroopers of capitalism."

[flagged]

Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological arguments - it just leads to generic ideological flamewars, which we're trying to avoid here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#88

Post by dang »

stablenode wrote: post #80
permo-w wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah I see your mistake. You assumed my comment referred to a system different to capitalism operating in a country that less than 1% of the people on Hacker News live in. An easy mistake to make. Happens to me all the time. I see people talking about troop landings in WW2, and I instantly assume they’re referring to the Japanese invading China. Whoops. I’m so silly

[flagged]

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, and please don't be snarky in HN comments.

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Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#89

Post by dang »

permo-w wrote: post #79
stablenode wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly! Just look at those mad fools in China -- they'll never have it as good as they had it in 1979.

Ah I see your mistake. You assumed my comment referred to a system different to capitalism operating in a country that less than 1% of the people on Hacker News live in. An easy mistake to make. Happens to me all the time. I see people talking about troop landings in WW2, and I instantly assume they’re referring to the Japanese invading China. Whoops. I’m so silly

Please don't take HN threads further into flamewar, and please don't be snarky in HN comments.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: What Oxford taught me about posh people

#90

Post by dang »

stablenode wrote: post #8
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #3

His last paragraph nails it: "I can see why people are sceptical about universities, and angry at the elite ones. They are often now little more than training camps for the stormtroopers of capitalism."

[flagged]

Please don't take HN threads further into generic ideological flamewar. We're trying to avoid that here, as it is predictable, tedious, and nasty.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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