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Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

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Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#101

Post by alistairSH »

bonoboTP wrote: post #83
alistairSH wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The university will argue that a well-rounded student body improves the experience for everybody. IE, a college that's 100% "nerds" won't be as good as college that's 80% "nerds", 10% "smart jocks", and 10% "band geeks" (or whatever other categories you want). I probably agree with that, but also acknowledge there's no good way to make that completely objective.

In Europe, university is treated as education for adults, not your entire life. Most universities are not campus resorts like in the US, but just buildings in the city itself, students live a normal life in the city, they rent a apartment or live in a dorm, take public transit to get to places, do sport at a sport place independent of the university, etc. You can live a well rounded life that way. The university is t…

Our oldest unis are generally "downtown" or similar - Harvard, Princeton, UVA (sort of - Charlottesville is a really small city), etc. Though most do still have their own dormitory housing, at least for underclassmen.

The large campus-style uni is fairly recent creation - many came out of the land grant system during/after the Civil War. And even as newer unis have been created, they've followed that general design (even though they aren't land grant institutions).

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#102

Post by CalRobert »

TrackerFF wrote: post #68

People that have used to be fat, and then lost a lot of weight, will know how brutally different people will treat you. Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you. Some will of course argue that you losing weight will also make you more confident, and thus you become more approachable. I think there's a lot of bi…

I lost 100 pounds and as amazing as it was that everyone (not just potential mates but literally EVERYONE, even family) no longer thought I was lazy and was just… nicer to me - was honestly kind of depressing. And I was an active fat person! I often did 50+ mile bike rides when I weighed 280.

People aren’t much more sophisticated than our ape brethren at the end of the day.

There’s a decent anime exploring this on Netflix right now. “Lookism” https://m.imdb.com/title/tt22297722/

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#103

Post by butILoveLife »

elevatortrim wrote: post #89
TrackerFF wrote: post #68

People that have used to be fat, and then lost a lot of weight, will know how brutally different people will treat you. Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you. Some will of course argue that you losing weight will also make you more confident, and thus you become more approachable. I think there's a lot of bi…

I think being conventionally attractive gives you a lot more chance practice socialising and my observation is that, people who use that chance get so good at it, they remain very good at relationships even at old age.

Ive seen the opposite in some people.

I know a ~55ish year old lady who is beautiful, but looks 55. I see her adjusting to her new reality and its painful. I imagine she used to be able to get away with being mean and sarcastic because she was so hot.

Now it just causes office fights. "I wont work with X" is something Ive heard.

The interesting part is that I originally only worked with her on the phone, so I always thought she was mean... Then I saw her in person and everything clicked.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#104

Post by JR1427 »

kxrm wrote: post #61

My first job during and out of college back in 2003, we were entirely remote. We hired exclusively over the phone which resulted in a mix of people that were completely diverse in their backgrounds and at the same time truly qualified to do the work. The company went on to grow quite successfully until it was acquired 6 years later. I feel that zoom and video conferencing allows some of that "appearance" factor back…

> if I had my way, job interviews would be exclusively audio only.

The problem just shifts. People with attractive voices would then have an advantage.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#105

Post by butILoveLife »

olalonde wrote: post #92

I remember in college there were always small groups of students chatting with professors after class or going to office hours. Many profs would drop pretty big hints about upcoming exams. I guess it was a mix of enjoying the attention, pitying weaker students, and wanting to reward "participation". Always felt a bit unfair to me.

While engineering school was hard, I did think quite a bit of it was pure participation testing.

I used to think this was wrong, until I got into engineering.. Sure there is the rare math problem, but most of the difficult part was: "Are you willing to fly to mexico and be awake at 3am when the parts are made?"

I might be downplaying though... I did calc 1 at a job.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#106

Post by butILoveLife »

aurareturn wrote: post #5

One thing I like about China's education system is the Gaokao entrance exams for universities. It doesn't matter if you're rich, poor, ugly, or beautiful. All it matters is how you score. It's as meritocratic as education can be.

As the other user posted, practicing for tests are extremely important. I grew up middle class, got an average score on my tests (but I did really well in math)

My wife, upper middle class, took entire weeks of courses and scored higher than me on everything. But I am better than her at math for sure.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#107

Post by tock »

groundzeros2015 wrote: post #90
christophilus wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have the SAT and ACT, and those are objective. The wealthy still pass disproportionately due to better tutoring specifically oriented to those tests. It’s Goodhart’s law.

Wouldnt wealthy people on average be better educated and potentially more intelligent than the poorest group? I would expect wealthy to always be well represented.

> potentially more intelligent than the poorest group

It's easy to think this but its not true. There is just a ton of privilege involved in life. There are groups in India who purely tutor slum kids to the top IITs(the JEE exams in India are very hard).

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_30

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#108

Post by Aurornis »

TrackerFF wrote: post #68

People that have used to be fat, and then lost a lot of weight, will know how brutally different people will treat you. Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you. Some will of course argue that you losing weight will also make you more confident, and thus you become more approachable. I think there's a lot of bi…

> Whereas you'd practically be a ghost before weight loss, random people will suddenly look you in your eyes, smile, even start conversations with you.

I watched something like this happen in a friend, but as an outside observer I saw a different explanation: The period when he got into shape involved a lot of changes for the better in his life, including becoming more outgoing, motivated, and disciplined (necessary prerequisites for weight loss in the pre-medication era). He also bought a new wardrobe and replaced his old worn out logo T-shirts and cargo shorts with clothes more appropriate for an adult. He also started paying attention to his grooming and hair style instead of looking like he just woke up.

For a while he tried to explain it all by his weight loss alone, but over time he realized it was an overall change in everything about the way he carried himself and presented himself to the world.

I won’t deny that there is some stigma around being overweight from some people, but I’ve also rarely seen a person change only their weight. Now that GLP-1s are everywhere I do know a few people who slimmed down rapidly without changing anything else and expected things like their dating life to completely change but have been disappointed that little has changed socially for them. They do feel a lot better though!

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#109

Post by kevinsync »

olalonde wrote: post #92

I remember in college there were always small groups of students chatting with professors after class or going to office hours. Many profs would drop pretty big hints about upcoming exams. I guess it was a mix of enjoying the attention, pitying weaker students, and wanting to reward "participation". Always felt a bit unfair to me.

It's always said that a lot of success and opportunities are attributed to being in the right place at the right time (aka "luck"), but in a lot of cases, those folks had the tenacity to be in the right place ALL the time; when opportunities arise, they typically go to whoever's present and available.

Chatting with professors after class or attending office hours might be a grift, but it's not necessarily unfair. Specific circumstances aside, anybody can do it to get some leverage.

Re: Student beauty and grades under in-person and remote teaching

#110

Post by tock »

keiferski wrote: post #17
coliveira wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they want to say that China is bad. When, as you say, US is the outlier in inventing strange ways to admit kids to college. I'm from Brazil and the entrance is exam is similar to China, there is a single exam and the note is used to determine which college you can go.

I don’t really find it strange, if anything a slavish obsession to test scores strikes me as strange. School is just an artificial institution like any other, it’s not as if getting good grades is equivalent real-world success or “true” intelligence. The US also has the best universities in the world, by and large, (even if the regular education system is lacking), so I am pretty skeptical of the idea that raw test s…

Raw test scores are a good idea in many countries because it reduces scope for corruption + gives even the poorest kids a chance. Though I would argue there needs to be multiple chances a year and not just 1.
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