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It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

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Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#41

Post by darth_avocado »

jedberg wrote: post #19
sokoloff wrote: post #11

> Faculty members at prestigious universities are 50 times more likely than the average person to have a parent with a Ph.D. American meritocracy has become a complex, inefficient, and rigged system conferring its graces on ambitious children of highly educated and prosperous families. What’s the ratio in other fields of top achievement for kids to follow in their parents’ footsteps? It’s entirely unsurprising that a…

From the NYT: Working sons of working fathers are, on average, 2.7 times as likely as the rest of the population to have the same job but only two times as likely to have the same job as their working mothers, according to an analysis by The New York Times, one of the first to look at mothers and daughters in addition to fathers and sons. Daughters are 1.8 times as likely to have the same job as their mothers and 1.7…

Pretty obvious when you think about it. My Father was an engineer, although a different one than I am. As a child you pick things up when you grow. The fact that I had a computer at home back 3 decades ago, automatically meant I already had an upper hand and a better understanding of how computers work than most of my classmates who only got to see a computer almost a decade later for an hour every week in school. Also having an engineer as a father meant you had these weird books full of knowledge that you could browse through and get immersed in, for free, since I was basically a toddler. He could help me with homework, even if it was to explain integral calculus, which I could not comprehend before. Not saying that I couldn't choose any other profession, just that I naturally had the upper hand and years of experience in certain things even before going to college. I'm sure its the same for pretty much every profession as long as parents stay involved with their kids.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#42

Post by the-lazy-guy »

marcosdumay wrote: post #27
jedberg wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the NYT: Working sons of working fathers are, on average, 2.7 times as likely as the rest of the population to have the same job but only two times as likely to have the same job as their working mothers, according to an analysis by The New York Times, one of the first to look at mothers and daughters in addition to fathers and sons. Daughters are 1.8 times as likely to have the same job as their mothers and 1.7…

So, looks like contacts and internal knowledge are much more important for a PHD than it is for most professions, but the situation is still much better than for politicians. I'd say that means the PHD job market has a large problem. When politicians are the ones you can compare yourself to look good, it's because things are not good at all.

That is one interpretation. Another interpretation is that in pursuing academic career requires a certain attitude towards studying which people growing in a family of academics are a lot more likely to have. In STEM it makes a lot more sense financially to enter the workforce after graduation so staying in university for another 5+ years requires some real love for science. In my experience people with parents in academia are more likely to get financial and moral from their family while they are doing phd.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#43

Post by JKCalhoun »

jvanderbot wrote: post #35
sokoloff wrote: post #11

> Faculty members at prestigious universities are 50 times more likely than the average person to have a parent with a Ph.D. American meritocracy has become a complex, inefficient, and rigged system conferring its graces on ambitious children of highly educated and prosperous families. What’s the ratio in other fields of top achievement for kids to follow in their parents’ footsteps? It’s entirely unsurprising that a…

This seems obvious and unharmful. Its funny, my co worker insisted that his children shall go to MIT so they can have all the opportunities he did. He didn't see any irony is saying this to me, his peer, a first gen engineer from University of Midwest Farm Community. And I agree, its not surprising kids learn by example and inherit so much from their parents.

> first gen engineer from University of Midwest Farm Community

Fellow alum!

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#44

Post by kansface »

zamfi wrote: post #39
sokoloff wrote: post #11

> Faculty members at prestigious universities are 50 times more likely than the average person to have a parent with a Ph.D. American meritocracy has become a complex, inefficient, and rigged system conferring its graces on ambitious children of highly educated and prosperous families. What’s the ratio in other fields of top achievement for kids to follow in their parents’ footsteps? It’s entirely unsurprising that a…

Also, what is this “has become” language for? It implies that the this elite group is more self-reinforcing than it used to be, but there’s no evidence for that. Harvard’s 1940s admission rate of 85% was certainly not a more meritocratic time. The ratio you ask for is almost certainly decreasing over time, not increasing, right?

>The ratio you ask for is almost certainly decreasing over time, not increasing, right?

Since the 40s, most likely. Since some time in between then and now, I'm not so sure.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#46

Post by digglet90 »

Seems like there's an emerging paradigm for ignoring universities but still doing something of value in the "academic" space. This is just a dumb strategy but based on many examples I've seen recently.

1. Customise a curriculum engaging with younger tutors in niche areas (e.g. youtube, teachable or if theres others comment). 2. Do this for a few years and make sure to meet people/do appropriate things and publish them online. E.g. do a good podcast/lecture series. 3. Publish on Xiv like sites with high quality results/arguments/original ideas or demo/explain things on youtube. If a preprint site doesn't exist for you then make one and contact people.

This might get you x100 the exposure of your average PI and eventually funding will come around to your ideas as universities become a total farce. 10 years down the line the tepid overtures to gitlab and github turn into a full on rejection of high overhead university education. Rental or pooling services for expensive equipment or access to resources would also help immensely.

Castles in the sand!

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#47

Post by digglet90 »

digglet90 wrote: post #46

Seems like there's an emerging paradigm for ignoring universities but still doing something of value in the "academic" space. This is just a dumb strategy but based on many examples I've seen recently. 1. Customise a curriculum engaging with younger tutors in niche areas (e.g. youtube, teachable or if theres others comment). 2. Do this for a few years and make sure to meet people/do appropriate things and publish the…

https://www.youtube.com/c/thethoughtemporium/videos

^ basically the outcome of a section of a university from one person on a limited budget

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#48

Post by xhkkffbf »

q-big wrote: post #36
thrower123 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's only four times as many people in the USA now as there were in the early 20th century, and still only about a thousand slots for Harvard freshmen.

But I bet the number of universities has increased by a lot.

I don't know for certain, but I bet the number of universities has decreased. There were thousands of small colleges in every small town. Many have gone out of business. The state colleges have really increased in size but many small colleges have disappeared.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#49

Post by jacobsenscott »

analog31 wrote: post #26
mlac wrote: post #21

“In 1940, the acceptance rate at Harvard was 85 percent.” I didn’t realize that was the acceptance rate, but JFK’s application to Harvard is interesting and that acceptance rate adds context: https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/jfks-v... And maybe it’s not people pulling the ladder up behind them - it’s that the ladder has become more visible and desirable without expanding or changing. I do have so…

Acceptance rates are meaningless. There is no limit on the denominator.

Low acceptance rates are a key metric to marketing, and schools try very hard to drive the denominator up.

I have a highschooler and I see how students fixate on this number.

So while acceptance rates don't say anything about the quality of the school they are very meaningful to the school's marketing machine.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#50

Post by digglet90 »

digglet90 wrote: post #47
digglet90 wrote: post #46

Seems like there's an emerging paradigm for ignoring universities but still doing something of value in the "academic" space. This is just a dumb strategy but based on many examples I've seen recently. 1. Customise a curriculum engaging with younger tutors in niche areas (e.g. youtube, teachable or if theres others comment). 2. Do this for a few years and make sure to meet people/do appropriate things and publish the…

https://www.youtube.com/c/thethoughtemporium/videos ^ basically the outcome of a section of a university from one person on a limited budget

Of course I don't mean Edtech platforms that simply try to transfer universities online. There's something overcooked there that doesn't work imo.
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