131–140 of 149 posts
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The article says she's getting A's and B's in her freshman chemistry course at UT. What else does she have to do to meet your criteria for "smart?"
Be more than 'barely above average' on the ACT.
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> I find this very interesting in light of studies I've seen in Canada and Europe: Those studies all found that parental income was irrelevant after regressing for the overwhelming effect of parental education. All past US studies I've seen have shown the same thing, or at least that parental educational attainment is a better predictor of a persons educational attainment than any other factor, including parental inc…
It is also about opinions on college utility. Do parents think college is a waste of time? If parents think it is waste of time, you are more likely to think the same and drop out.
Parents having actual directly relevant experience seems intuitively to be quite likely to have value there.
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Be more than 'barely above average' on the ACT.
I see. So this whole "smart" concept can be reduced to a simple quiz. Tell that to my brother, who is bad at test taking, and almost failed high school. He now has a doctorate and makes a 3 figure salary.
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This is a bummer: Vanessa called home, looking for reassurance. Her mother had always been so supportive, but now she sounded doubtful about whether Vanessa was really qualified to succeed at an elite school like the University of Texas. “Maybe you just weren’t meant to be there,” she said. “Maybe we should have sent you to a junior college first.” After reading the whole article, this is what really stuck with me. I…
>Why does her supportive mother suddenly undermine her at such a critical juncture? I had the same reaction as you. Assuming that the mother has the best intentions for Vanessa, and that she know less of the ways of UT than Vanessa (and probably you or I), I'd hazard at the following meanings: Maybe you just weren’t meant to be there = You have not failed (at something you were supposed to succeed). The failure was i…
When I was 15, I sent an application to a prestigious summer program at Phillips Andover Academy. When I didn't hear back after a couple weeks and started to get worried (I had no idea how long applications took to process), my mom said "I didn't think you were going to get in anyway, it's alright." (I received an acceptance letter a couple weeks after that)
Similarly, we were watching Mona Lisa Smile, and I said "Oh, I think I got a brochure from Wellesley." Her immediate response was "No you didn't" I ran up to get the brochure, and she just said "Whoa, that's really weird."
She wasn't being mean, she just had a very clear distinction between "things we do" and "things other people do." It just wasn't possible, in her mind, to cross that boundary. There was just no thought in her mind that someone _she_ gave birth do could go to places or do things she only saw on TV. She wasn't trying to discourage me -- she always wanted the best for me, but there were still some things that she wasn't capable of imagining possible. If she wasn't capable of imagining that these things were possible, the best course of action was to let me down gently.
Having talked to peers with similar backgrounds, I think this is an extremely common phenomenon, and one that holds a lot of potentially-successful people back, before they ever realize they're being held back.
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I see. So this whole "smart" concept can be reduced to a simple quiz. Tell that to my brother, who is bad at test taking, and almost failed high school. He now has a doctorate and makes a 3 figure salary.
I assume you mean $3XX,XXX and not a 3 figure salary (e.g. he only makes $800/year - extreme poverty)
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Wealth is a poor indicator of education. Usually the questions will be how much do the parents earn, rather than where they live or their standard of living. My Dad has a doctorate in physics from a top university, yet he's pretty much given up normal employment and lives a happy sustainable life. Measured by annual income alone, he's probably below the poverty line.
On an individual scale, wealth is a poor indicator of education, but in the aggregate the correlation is very strong: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm Doctoral degree-holders are unique in that they're the only group that earns less than a lesser-educated group (professional degrees).
Not to divert from the main point of the article, but this is frightening: More than 40 percent of American students who start at four-year colleges haven’t earned a degree after six years. If you include community-college students in the tabulation, the dropout rate is more than half, worse than any other country except Hungary. It is astonishing that 2/5 of American students can be saddled with huge debts without h…
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On an individual scale, wealth is a poor indicator of education, but in the aggregate the correlation is very strong: http://www.bls.gov/emp/ep_chart_001.htm Doctoral degree-holders are unique in that they're the only group that earns less than a lesser-educated group (professional degrees).
A professional degree isn't exactly "less" than a doctorate, though. Traditionally speaking, Medicine and Law are doctorates... and they both rank ahead of the Doctor of Philosophy (but behind a Doctor of Divinity, which is the highest doctorate).
No, while medical doctors and lawyers (civil doctors), were recognized uses of the term "doctor" for quite some time, traditionally the professional degrees in both fields have been baccalaureate degrees (the MBBS in medicine/surgery and the LL.B. in law), outside of certain Scottish universities, and the change to make the degrees generally doctorates were fairly recent (19th Century) US innovations.
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The article says she's getting A's and B's in her freshman chemistry course at UT. What else does she have to do to meet your criteria for "smart?"
Be more than 'barely above average' on the ACT.
How would you classify me on the smart/not-smart continuum?
I also got a 680 on the math sat 2, a 670 in the english sat 2, and a 4 on both the ap us and ap european history exams, and have a masters degree.
Now how would you classify me?
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I gotta chase thaumasiotes all over this thread and stand up to his elitism. He wrote: "What's wrong with describing the students who can't succeed outside of the bottom tier as "substandard"?" The article tells you what's wrong with that: it keeps people who COULD succeed from doing so by undermining their confidence and their motivation. Why are you really intent on knocking down the disadvantaged at every turn? Wh…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7856439 Because trying to lift these people up is one of the least cost-effective things we could be doing. It has knock-on negative effects all over, directly wastes tons of money, and produces very little to show for it. You appear to be saying that while these students are in fact substandard, we shouldn't say so because it will hurt their feelings. How is admitting two (or mor…
I never said these students were substandard. I do believe their performance is substandard and they are at greater risk of dropping out because of all the disadvantages they had and continue to have in life. I believe good schools should admit them because their potential is equal to the non-disadvantaged students, and the results in the article prove this. The article even points out that disadvantaged students with potential do better when admitted to the better school.
Your view does not separate performance from potential, and you keep insisting on using low performance to limit admissions to good schools, and thus in a way, limit how much potential these students can develop. You are essentially arguing that the poor and uneducated (who are likely to be minorities) should stay poor and uneducated.
I believe that it is a net gain for society when all students are given a chance to meet their highest potential. This article shows that he cost of doing so is minimal, and thus the gain for society is even greater.