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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

#291

Post by toss1 »

A merit-less screed that amounts to a bunch of name-calling about "liberal Brahmans" and complaining that the top institutions actually have influence. Of course the top institutions have influence - even if they somehow 'broke up the cartel', the new top institutions would also have influence.

Tearing down a society's top achievers & institutions is not a way to achieve a useful equality (see Harrison Bergeron).

That said, the encouragement at the end for supporting students going to a far wider range of colleges and universities, including Bernie Sanders' plan for free tuition for students of families under $125k is a great idea.

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

#292

Post by xattt »

dorkwood wrote: post #265
darth_avocado wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. Al…

I still resent my parents for not keeping any books in the house apart from the dictionary. I can't remember how many times I flipped through the dictionary out of boredom growing up. Whenever I'd go to my grandmother's place, I loved to take random books off the book shelf and read through them. I honestly feel like a great way to educate kids is not to teach them anything directly at all, but to instead leave lots…

This is essentially the Montessori method of teaching, which is why families with higher incomes make such a fuss about them.

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

#293

Post by hellbannedguy »

Spooky23 wrote: post #168
retrac wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just going to look for data on plumbers and carpenters. One common theme to all these jobs is that they tend to be quite stable, and require a life-long set of skills. My father did metalwork before moving to an office job in the civil service. He was the son of a die pressman. Who was the son of a blacksmith. Dad taught me how to weld and cut and so on before my teens. My intellectual interests went to math an…

Another big aspect to trades is there’s often a union bureaucracy or something similar to navigate. It helps to have someone to show you the ropes.

It's a test for most union trades. To those interested, call the union hall where you live. So, it's usually a test, and a interview. The interview counts for 1/2 of the hiring process. The test is usually an 8th grade, or high school equivalency test. It's not hard, but in certain high paying markets, like San Francisco, a 1000 guys might show up to take the test, so you need to get most questions right.

Once you get into the union, it's kinda a cake walk. You can achieve a middle class income, health, and retirement.

It wasn't for me, but a lot of people like it.

(answering the top question. I never wanted to do what my father did. We had a strained relationship the minute I stopped agreeing with him. Even as a kid, I loved my father, but didn't want to be like him in any way--including career.)

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

#294

Post by BeFlatXIII »

throw123123123 wrote: post #242

Something usually amiss with the current talk of universities is that they are an immigration racket. Universities make most of its tuition money from foreign students, but foreign students go to american universities to get visas they can use to get into the labor market. The F1 visa is unlimited, contrary to the H1B one, and allows for a transition out of university. Also for the H1B and multiple categories, one ke…

The US should staple a green card to the PhD degree of any foreigner who comes here to complete their doctorate. It increased US competitive potential by shifting the best & brightest away from their home countries and toward here. Likewise, I’d expect all foreign nations to follow similar policies.

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

#295

Post by blagie »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #62
scarmig wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

College admissions' treatment of Asian American applicants is the most explicit form of institutional racism in the US today. It's the kind of racist discrimination that, if applied against any other group, would get the perpetrator sued to oblivion.

I say this as an Asian person: surely black folks getting disproportionately policed and killed is a bigger manifestation of institutional racism, no?

It's not a contest. You don't "fix" anti-black racism with anti-Asian or anti-white racism. Racism is wrong wherever it's found.

I'm most concerned about anti-Asian racism because the problem is serious and unacknowledged. Anti-black racism is, at the very least, now acknowledged as a problem. I tend to focus my efforts where others don't.

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

#296

Post by devnonymous »

sokoloff wrote: post #283
devnonymous wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People are permitted to pursue alternatives and aren’t forbidden. Systematic barriers are seldom built consciously, yet they exist and without conscious effort to break down continue to be perpetuated. From the point of view of opportunities/privileges available to an individual, is there really a difference between the caste system and a class system?

I think there is a difference. As I understand the caste system, it’s inherited durably. If I’m X, not only will I always be X, but my kids and grandkids will also be X, so there’s no point in trying to become “not X”. Not so for socioeconomic class. My grandfathers milled steel and mined coal. They made sure their kids became the first generation in the family to attend college. My parents became teachers and made s…

> It still matters who your parents are, but in a significantly different (and I think more fair) way.

It amazes me when people think the current socioeconomic structures are fair.

You do realise that most people here, including perhaps you are, economically speaking, closer to being poor than being part of the 1% rich, right? The economic gap between those you might consider poor and yourself is a rounding error magnitude of the gap between yourself and the super rich. This is not an accident.

God forbid, but you and your kids are perhaps one or two medical, legal or natural calamities away from that few generations of advancement you talk about.

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

#297

Post by jvvw »

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.

Hmm. My mother was a university lecturer in mathematics and I don't think contacts etc helped at all with my PhD in maths and academia. What did help was the enthusiasm she passed in for her subject when I was young and the encouragement she gave me. Our house was full of mathematics books.

My sister on the other hand had no interest in mathematics whatsoever!

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

#298

Post by tony0x02 »

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…

Up until the 60s, most people that went to Harvard lived in the NE. People didn't regularly travel far for college until cars became widespread.

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

#299

Post by snthueoa »

TMWNN wrote: post #257
analog31 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>> What if you are a young adult who is interested in trades, but you want to play in an orchestra. Play the bassoon. ;-) A friend of mine who was a school music teacher told me that getting good at the bassoon was pretty much a ticket to a generous college scholarship. Not necessarily at your first choice of scholarship, but somewhere. If they can't get a student to play bassoon, then they have to hire a ringer fro…

>Play the bassoon. ;-) A friend of mine who was a school music teacher told me that getting good at the bassoon was pretty much a ticket to a generous college scholarship. Reminds me of Oxford and Cambridge's organ scholarships, which are also the only way to apply and be admitted to both universities for undergraduate study.

Well it lets you apply to both, but how can you be admitted to both?

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

#300

Post by [deleted] »

b9a2cab5 wrote: post #159
rejectedandsad wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is irrelevant. The degree to which some people state the importance of this is extremely insulting to Asians like me that went to state schools that are not terribly selective.

I am an Asian who went to a state school and I don't think it's irrelevant. Regardless of Harvard's prestige giving a whole class of people lower "personal" ratings because of their race is racism, pure and simple. I even see startups like Canvas/Jumpstart [1] that explicitly allow recruiters to filter applicants by race. I don't know how this isn't illegal and I hope someone sues them. I took a look at your post his…

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