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Who cares about the Ivy League?

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Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#101

Post by yterdy »

Auracle wrote: post #51
uneekname wrote: post #30

I think the point about college mobility rates was an interesting one. But then the author lost me a bit: > what is the economic rationale for having a bunch of educational resources and top students concentrated in a few small elite schools? ... the country’s most talented people into the country’s most important jobs I don't think that's it at all. I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented…

[flagged]

Hereditary is not the same as genetic. Non-genetic inheritance exists; gene expression can be affected by trauma or want experienced by immediate ancestors. The traits that result from this inheritance can be modified through therapy; the framework for the unmodified trait continues to exist in the organism, barring catastrophic environmental circumstances.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#102

Post by dang »

pauldenton wrote: post #3

[flagged]

This comment broke the HN guidelines, which ask: "Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents." - https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Also - it looks like your account has been using HN primarily (exclusively?) for ideological battle. We ban accounts that do that, regardless of what they're battling for or against*. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for, so I need to ask you to stop doing this.

It's fine to occasionally post on divisive topics as part of a general mix, but we ban accounts when they are primarily used for that, and single-purpose accounts are definitely not ok here. We want curious conversation, which is quite the opposite.

* i.e. it's not about your views - it's about not using HN as intended

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#103

Post by ftmootnomoat »

Auracle wrote: post #51
uneekname wrote: post #30

I think the point about college mobility rates was an interesting one. But then the author lost me a bit: > what is the economic rationale for having a bunch of educational resources and top students concentrated in a few small elite schools? ... the country’s most talented people into the country’s most important jobs I don't think that's it at all. I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented…

[flagged]

The ability and willingness to perform well on IQ tests is a metric which deserves adequate analysis. Taking it out of scope by conflating it with "potential" and "heredity" is a lack intellectual rigor.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#104

Post by uneekname »

rcme wrote: post #91
uneekname wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well here's an easy* win for any new parents reading this: read to your kids. As much as you can. They will start school with a significant leg up! https://journals.lww.com/jrnldbp/Abstract/2019/06000/When_Ch... * edit: easy, of course, if you don't work a night job and have the time to read multiple books to your child every day

> Results: Parents who read 1 picture book with their children every day provide their children with exposure to an estimated 78,000 words each a year. Cumulatively, over the 5 years before kindergarten entry, we estimate that children from literacy-rich homes hear a cumulative 1.4 million more words during storybook reading than children who are never read to. This study just says that kids who are read to are expos…

> But does it matter?

Yes, it does. It matters a lot. "The Word Gap ... has important consequences for children’s later vocabulary, literacy and school performance" [0]

Even if this whole line of research gets debunked, reading to your kids won't hurt!

> eventually converge to something approximating their parents' IQs

I haven't read much about this research, maybe it holds more water than I think. But does it matter? Do you really think disadvantaged youth are such because of genetics?

[0] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S08852...

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#105

Post by nearbuy »

uneekname wrote: post #58
jbullock35 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Ivy League students weren't born smart. They're exceptional because they were given access to what they needed to succeed. That must be part of the answer, but it can’t be the whole answer, or close to the whole. There’s huge variation in educational outcomes among those who get the access that you describe. What explains why some people in this group have such good outcomes, while most have relatively lacklus…

Respectfully, I think you're missing the point too. You are right that many folks who get access to these top resources don't then go on to become so successful, however you might define success. But a larger proportion of them do compared to other groups. I'm not saying that an individual is guaranteed success if they're born into a wealthy family. But I am saying that a wealthy neighborhood of kids who have access…

Without randomized controlled trials, there's no easy way to separate the effects of increased educational spending and tutoring from hundreds of other factors that might affect someone's admission rate. Clearly we expect it helps or we wouldn't spend money on it. But it's not clear if educational spending is the dominant factor in academic success or a small factor among many.

In at least one study I've seen, smaller class size didn't have much effect, but private tutoring did.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#106

Post by alephnerd »

BlackJack wrote: post #92
alephnerd wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> STEM isn't the point of going Ivy It is. Cornell, Princeton, and Columbia are all Top 10 CS programs. For natural sciences, all the Ivies top the charts. For med school, same story. > Real elites tend toward history and art majors. Some children of HNWI do major in history and art. Others will gladly major in STEM. Look at people like Bill Gates or half my hs. This isn't the 80s or 90s anymore. Post-2008, top publi…

I agree but want to correct you on the public school point. Excluding the service academics, there are 2 or 3 schools with sub 20% acceptance rates, and every other public school is above that. See [1] and [2]. And these are the best public schools. The average of the top50 public schools is probably 40%ish, and the average of all public schools is 70%. [1] https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/rank/public-colleges/…

Good catch!

At the macro-level this is true, but at that point we'd also end up selecting based on major.

For example, the acceptance rate for a BSBA@McCormick will reach the 7-15% range.

Attending an elite private school, an elite public school (UCB, UCLA, UMich, UVA), or an elite program at a selective public school (Accounting@UCSB, CS@UIUC, Business@McCormick) will give you enough of a path to mingle with the elite.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#107

Post by chongli »

anders_p wrote: post #75
barbariangrunge wrote: post #25

Hollywood cares, for one. I think almost every movie (or book) I read that involves a smart person with good credentials involves Harvard or mit or sometimes Stanford. It’s getting old. Be more creative, people

That's mostly because movies are a condensed media that has to use shorthand for everything. (and writers are often lazy). You don't have time in a movie to explain everything, so they fall back on tropes we all know. Like "MIT super hacker" or "Harvard miracle lawyer". Books have all the time in the world to make up convoluted background stories that explain character details and quirks in more creative ways.

That's mostly because movies are a condensed media ... Books have all the time in the world to make up convoluted background stories

Which is why all of the creative energy has moved into serialized TV shows. Movies are almost completely creatively bankrupt these days, having become a never-ending stream of CG-spectacles and superhero plots.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#108

Post by randomdata »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #46
uneekname wrote: post #30

I think the point about college mobility rates was an interesting one. But then the author lost me a bit: > what is the economic rationale for having a bunch of educational resources and top students concentrated in a few small elite schools? ... the country’s most talented people into the country’s most important jobs I don't think that's it at all. I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented…

The long and short of it is that when it comes to education, the US needs equal opportunities. This means paid-for education and an equalization of education knowledge / lessons, and less emphasis (in hiring) on what schools you went to. A college or uni degree should carry the same weight wherever you study at. Personally, I've benefited from the Netherlands' older equal opportunity system; my parents weren't rich (…

> A college or uni degree should carry the same weight wherever you study at.

There is no inherit weight, but humans are drawn to shiny things. Similarly, someone who turns up in a Ferrari is going to be seen differently than someone who shows up in a rusty old farm truck. If someone establishes an emotional connection to a school, perhaps because they are alumni themselves, that just might be the shiny they need to see, whether it is meaningful or not.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#109

Post by trgn »

fullshark wrote: post #42

People who understand that higher education quality is basically at parity and what matters is your peers/connections fostered in college + the doors that open for you based on what school you went to. The perceived elite schools give you a leg up in life, this is true for every country on the planet, and a lot of parents/kids work extremely hard to try and get into them for a reason.

> this is true for every country on the planet

No, it's a cultural thing. There's really two points in that article:

- (1) people are overestimating the actual lifetime effects of attending an elite school.

- (2) people are obsessing over attending (or their children attending) elite schools.

That second one is a spiritual failure, not just one of ignorance. That upper middle-class obsession with the brand of education may not be uniquely american (i read similar horror stories about china for example), but it is certainly very pronounced here. It is in no way similar to how kids and families choose universities in say western europe imho.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#110

Post by alephnerd »

gen220 wrote: post #84
alephnerd wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> STEM isn't the point of going Ivy It is. Cornell, Princeton, and Columbia are all Top 10 CS programs. For natural sciences, all the Ivies top the charts. For med school, same story. > Real elites tend toward history and art majors. Some children of HNWI do major in history and art. Others will gladly major in STEM. Look at people like Bill Gates or half my hs. This isn't the 80s or 90s anymore. Post-2008, top publi…

FWIW, the parts of those "elite industries" that STEM majors are hired into are more upper-middle class than you might believe, in terms of their capacity for the accrual of significant wealth/status. I'm not saying they're not well-paid or that they can't buy a house, but it's a cut below anything that might be called "ruling class". If you study the backgrounds of capital allocators, a disproportionate percentage o…

Yes, and the issue is the "capital allocators" of today graduated in 1980-2000.

The "capital allocators" of 2030-2050 will have attended a more diverse set of schools for their undergrad, but will have still attended the same handful of High Schools. I'm saying this from experience as someone who went thru the college application process only 10-13 years ago and with a sibling who went through it 3-5 years ago.

Then again, most people in top industries in their 20s and early 30s aren't on HN. The CTO of Loom was right about HN tbh.

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