Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why Are American Colleges Obsessed With 'Leadership'?

theatlantic.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 56 posts

Re: Why Are American Colleges Obsessed With 'Leadership'?

#31

Post by gumby »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #5

Institutional pride/snobbery? "We don't just admit smart people. (The really smart ones go to MIT, not here.) No, we admit leaders ! That's how you know that we're more elite even than MIT!"

I don't remember MIT caring much about "leadership" when I attended back in the 80s but I do remember being contacted by the institute in part because they wondered why MIT folks worked at and founded some major companies yet were almost never the CEO (and thus the big financial gifts went elsewhere).

I will say that back then MIT was pretty anti-entrepreneurial; policy was more important (which makes sense when you think about how MIT functioned, and still functions). That seems to have changed somewhat.

Re: Why Are American Colleges Obsessed With 'Leadership'?

#32

Post by zaraflan »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #24

Well, its a social signal isn't it. Take a job interview at an investment bank. It is incredibly important, if you want to get the job, that you simultaneously deny being primarily motivated by money, power, and status, while sending the social signal that you are in fact primarily motivated by money, power and status. If you weren't, you're probably making a mistake applying for a job at an investment bank (although…

Yep, it's a social status dogwhistle, just like requiring college degrees for jobs where it is in no way relevant.

There's also a significant racial component to it. It's not a coincidence that top power-broking universities have moved sharply away from objective towards subjective metrics and increased the percentage of legacy admissions at the same time that increased access for minorities has been sought.

Re: Why Are American Colleges Obsessed With 'Leadership'?

#34

Post by vacri »

bgilroy26 wrote: post #11

"A" people hire "A" people.

There's a theory that new world European colonies tend to be more socially dynamic because it's more likely that an "A" will migrate from the home country than a "B", so you get more "A"s overall, which affects the general culture.

I'm not sure if I believe it or think that the premise of social dynamism is that simple, but it's an interesting idea.

Re: Why Are American Colleges Obsessed With 'Leadership'?

#36

Post by Glyptodon »

brianchu wrote: post #6

I currently attend UC Berkeley and graduated from a fairly affluent top US high school a few years ago. Meaning: everyone was very concerned (I won't say obsessed) about college admissions. This focus on leadership in admissions is very well known, and manifests itself conspicuously in competitive high schools. There's a considerable amount of unspoken pressure to get "leadership" positions in school clubs, do "leade…

I found this very frustrating in High School. It ruined clubs because people weren't interested in the club, just the resume.

...It's such great leadership to get yourself elected leader of the club that doesn't do anything because you're too busy being a "leader." No doubt said "leadership" provided some compelling anecdote for an entrance essay...

The whole approach to 'leadership' taken these days where it's almost a subject itself is so frustrating and at odds with the whole idea.

Re: Why Are American Colleges Obsessed With 'Leadership'?

#37

Post by WalterBright »

brianchu wrote: post #6

I currently attend UC Berkeley and graduated from a fairly affluent top US high school a few years ago. Meaning: everyone was very concerned (I won't say obsessed) about college admissions. This focus on leadership in admissions is very well known, and manifests itself conspicuously in competitive high schools. There's a considerable amount of unspoken pressure to get "leadership" positions in school clubs, do "leade…

People have multiple motivations for doing good things. There are the public ones, which they tell others about, and the private ones, which they tell only to their closest associates if at all. People are complicated.

But since the good things get done, does it really matter if the motives weren't 100% pure?

And plenty of evil is done in this world by people with the best of intentions. (My father once said he'd rather have a crook as President than an idealist. The crook would do a lot less damage.)

Re: Why Are American Colleges Obsessed With 'Leadership'?

#39

Post by phaus »

gumby wrote: post #30
phaus wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And rhetoric? It's reality. Our most recent 6 terms of presidents, and 9 out of 9 current Supreme Court justices, all have degrees from Harvard or Yale. So the whole leadership thing appears to be working, whether or not you think that's a good thing. I think this has quite a bit more to do with the good ol' boy network and less to do with Yale's ability to produce leaders.

> I think this has quite a bit more to do with the good ol' boy network and less to do with Yale's ability to produce leaders. But the GOBN is part of leadership. I don't mean this sarcastically and, though I started to write that sentence with "unfortunately" I took that word out since I am not sure whether it's unfortunate or not -- even though I am not a GOB myself.

>But the GOBN is part of leadership.

Are you saying that the ability to network is a part of leadership? Perhaps I'm a dullard but could you clarify what you meant?

Re: Why Are American Colleges Obsessed With 'Leadership'?

#40

Post by CurtMonash »

The only thing that sounds at all wrong here is the conflation of leadership with authority.

Way back in the 1970s, I observed that a lot of universities were focused on training leaders. I was at Harvard at the time, and they didn't much care whether you wound up as a leader in scholarship, politics, business or whatever; but they assumed they were training some kind of leader.

The case was even more extreme in other countries. Tokyo University was obviously in the business of training its country's leaders. Poorer countries had their one-best-university with a similar charter. France had its Ecoles Normale.

And by the way -- notwithstanding what the article writer says, a lot of the UK's leadership does come from Oxbridge.

Post reply on HN