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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

#141

Post by rejectedandsad »

tootie wrote: post #77
rkk3 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is the author's thesis? I skimmed and read and re-read, but didn't figure it out. Same. I think they are hoping Biden will put more money into public schools and stop preferential tax treatments for the large endowments. > It's not a surprise. Cotton and his party see Ivy League universities as institutions of the political opposition, whom they attack and want to punish and diminish. Tom Cotton... Harvard Uni…

On that note, the liberal cry of student loan forgiveness will overwhelmingly favor people who went to expensive private colleges. Taxing big endowments seems pretty senseless and doesn't create any positive incentives either. More support and less stigma against state schools would probably do the most good.

This is correct, and one of the many reasons why I’m very glad President Biden came out against blanket loan forgiveness at the high end of $50k even though Schumer, AOC, Warren support it

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

#143

Post by rejectedandsad »

graeme wrote: post #8
tedunangst wrote: post #4

What would happen if Harvard were required to accept 40 percent of all applicants as before? I think it would be pretty amusing if they got 50000 applicants, admitted 20000, and then said "guess what Cambridge, we're building 200 new dormitories, here, there, and everywhere."

Either it would have to expand its undergrad programs, or student quality (as Harvard measures it) would decline. Joseph Heath has a very interesting article comparing US elite schools (tiny undergrad program) and Canadian elite schools (massive undergrad programs, bigger than Ivy League) http://induecourse.ca/the-bottleneck-in-u-s-higher-education...

But...we already have elite large undergrad programs, they’re called the UCs and the UT systems and the rest of the systems that support public ivies (both flagship and secondary campuses). UToronto, Waterloo, and UBC are all public. Our public ivies are big and produce equivalent talent while being accessible to nearly everyone through CC transfer agreements.

I don’t think there’s a bottleneck here. The real bottleneck is that people who don’t go to top schools are considered to be inherently inferior and objective failures like myself.

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

#144

Post by rejectedandsad »

paulpauper wrote: post #23

>The economist Raj Chetty has found that nearly 40 of the country’s elite colleges and universities, including five in the Ivy League, accept more students from families in the top 1 percent of income earners than from the bottom 60 percent. The computer scientist Allison Morgan recently released a study examining 7,218 professors in Ph.D.-granting departments in the United States across the arts and sciences. She fo…

These are the dream hoarder class, the upper middle class. The rest of us can’t compete and are instead destined for a life of poverty and mediocrity.

The rest of us that haven’t been intellectually or genetically blessed still have a place in society. I’m sick of being treated like a subhuman because I went to a state school and don’t make $300k a year at Facebook.

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

#145

Post by leoh »

zumu wrote: post #131

I think this whole debate is centered on the shallow idea that "going to an Ivy League" in and of itself is what ordains "elite-ness". To unravel this, you first must consider the actual value proposition of Ivy Leagues relative to other schools. Firstly, undergrad in America, especially at private schools like the Ivy Leagues, is more a daycare for rich kids, than it is a place of scholarship and learning. The educa…

> Firstly, undergrad in America, especially at private schools like the Ivy Leagues, is more a daycare for rich kids, than it is a place of scholarship and learning. The education is certainly good, but there are plenty of other schools with rigorous academics. At these schools the children of the rich fraternize, drink and come of age with other children of the rich. The schools themselves are well connected as well but it's in large part through these bonds with their rich and powerful peers that the graduates of these schools go on to become "the elites". If you reduce the number of kids from rich and powerful families going to these places, you are going to drastically reduce the networking potential amongst classmates and start to erode school level affiliations.

I went to an Ivy and transferred out to a UC and I can definitively say that this is a highly romanticized take.

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

#146

Post by hackinthebochs »

the-lazy-guy wrote: post #42
marcosdumay wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ac…

Not to mention shared genes for educational attainment and interests.

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

#147

Post by jvanderbot »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #133
jvanderbot wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Even your undergrad (which I’m interpreting as UIUC) is elite compared to most state schools for CS, and is very selective for direct to major. People like me are doubly screwed.

UIUC is a fairly huge assumption. Are you sure you want to do that?

I think you're imaging a person that has more advantages than you do (or I did -- UIUC wouldn't have me). That's very likely not the case, at least not nearly as much as you think. Don't sweat it.

You're not screwed, and it's not a competition anyway. I came from humble academic beginnings and failures and managed to get a job I love that pays the bills and helps me save for the future. It was the passionate people I met that got me through it, not the credentials of the university (by quite a long shot)

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

#148

Post by fighterpilot »

barry-cotter wrote: post #85
nradov wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So then the smart choice for any applicant would be to select whichever race checkbox on the form gives the greatest advantage. Since race is an artificial social construct with no clear objective definition there's nothing wrong with hacking the system to your advantage. Or just leave it blank.

They’ll just look at your family name and make an educated guess based on school demographics and your hobbies, or look you out or parents up on social media. They’re not stupid. They know who they’re discriminating against

But they don't really care about what the applicant's race is.

What they care about is how that person contributes to the metrics they're trying to maximize, or in the case of Asians, minimize.

To them, a 1/4 Black person 3/4 Asian person, and a full Black person, are exactly the same thing, as long as they're both incrementing the same number in their diversity report.

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

#149

Post by rejectedandsad »

torstenvl wrote: post #37

I strongly disagree. Having elite schools is far far better for upward mobility. Being a poor kid and going to Harvard is a far more effective ticket to the upper middle class than any alternative the author proposes. Sure, you could theoretically dilute academic signaling strength, by force, to the point of homeopathic levels - but who does that help? Whose life completely changes for the better by attending such an…

I disagree because you’re succeeding at the expense of the rest of us. Have you considered 99.5% of people will never step one foot on an elite school campus? I’m sick of society being catered to your whims while the rest of us are dismissed as stupid and innately less qualified.

Objectively speaking, my life is absolutely terrible BECAUSE of elites like you hoarding opportunity and people like me getting nothing because I only got a 1500/1600 and didn’t know about research opportunities in high school. I’m barely 25 but my life is already irretrievably broken because the elites want to segregate themselves from “my kind” so bad.

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

#150

Post by rejectedandsad »

jvanderbot wrote: post #147
rejectedandsad wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even your undergrad (which I’m interpreting as UIUC) is elite compared to most state schools for CS, and is very selective for direct to major. People like me are doubly screwed.

UIUC is a fairly huge assumption. Are you sure you want to do that? I think you're imaging a person that has more advantages than you do (or I did -- UIUC wouldn't have me). That's very likely not the case, at least not nearly as much as you think. Don't sweat it. You're not screwed, and it's not a competition anyway. I came from humble academic beginnings and failures and managed to get a job I love that pays the bi…

Perhaps I don’t! I also went to an ag school, except one that’s objectively unimpressive.

I honestly can’t save as much as my peers, make a pittance compared to the Ivy Leaguers and have never achieved a fraction of what most of these hyper accomplished folks did even while being much older. Sometimes I feel like I should just wither away because there’s not much hope of ever achieving anything at this rate if I’m just innately inferior.

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