Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants • Hacker News Board

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#131

Post by whimsicalism » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 4:37 PM UTC

amznthrowaway5 wrote: post #116

throwawayboise wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the worry is more that kids from terrible urban public school districts will be woefully unprepared to do the academic work expected at an Ivy. Wealthy kids (regardless of skin color) who have attended private prep school are a much safer bet. The mission of Harvard, Princeton, or any university is not to remediate the poor education some kid received in K-12.

I've seem smart Asian kids from poor public schools do far better than the wealthy corrupt kids. It's not about "poor education".

I'll ignore the dogwhistle behind your comment.

The really bad inner city school systems usually: a. don't have sizable Asian communities

b. Not many Asian students from those schools are accepted either.

Anecdotally, in 4 years at my inner city school district, which had a small, poor Asian population (mostly Vietnamese), only one Asian kid got into an ivy league, and her dad was a professor at a top-tier university.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#132

Post by slibhb » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 4:38 PM UTC

montecarl wrote: post #112

slibhb wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Princeton and Harvard admit, for the most part, people who already excelled significantly in high school. Such excellence is already indicative of ability. > Ideally our fixation would be on a hypothetical institution that admits people entirely at random, and through some means (whether authoritarian, or montessori, waldorf, immersion, etc.) shows that beyond a reasonable doubt the school itself has improved the p…

You may not have meant it this way, but "College should be for academically gifted high school graduates" is not what I would have in mind for who should attend college. I think college should be for those who want to learn. For example, I had very poor grades in high school (would not have been described as academically gifted) and used state funds to go to undergrad to study science. Ended up just being a late bloo…

If there's some way to figure out "those who are willing and able to learn" better than "those who excelled in high school," then fine, use that.

But it's clear to me that the current system is not for "those who want to learn". College is just what you do after high school because an undergraduate degree is a requirement for some bizarre reason.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#133

Post by lthornberry » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

Aunche wrote: post #111

endisneigh wrote: post #7

It's a shame that we're here in 2021 and the best we can do is basically just "selection bias." Basically all universities have no statistical proof that they can educate people beyond this. This is not to say that the schools are bad, but most of the education is simply due to the types of peers you have, not really due to the school itself. Princeton and Harvard admit, for the most part, people who already excelled…

At my selective university, the vast majority of the value came from the students paying to attend rather than college itself. Some professors were brilliant, but others were completely useless and you basically had to learn by yourself or from your peers. Meanwhile, a large chunk of tuition dollars was going towards the construction of new buildings that end up being very underutilized. Princeton spends roughly $270…

Princeton prides themselves on being a top-tier research university where teaching is taken seriously. That's different from being a teaching university. They spend a ton of money on research, and faculty have much lighter teaching loads than almost anywhere else.

They do take undergraduate teaching much more seriously than most of their peer institutions--much less instruction is relegated to graduate students. But they hire and promote for research, at least in the departments I'm familiar with.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#134

Post by dolni » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 4:39 PM UTC

gugagore wrote: post #55

dolni wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense to group people for education based on ability. If a low performer is in a class of high performers, one of two things will likely happen: * the low performer will be left behind, because the course moves too quickly or sets the bar beyond their abilities * the class will have to be dumbed down so that the low performer can participate, which means that the high performers haven't realized their full p…

I think it's more interesting not to take for granted that this grouping (often called "tracking" in K-12) makes obvious sense. http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/108013/chapters/What-... > Do students differ in talents and achievement? They do. But when those observed differences are reinforced by track placement and grouping practices, and children then internalize those differences, learning opportunities beco…

To be blunt, this sounds like a lot of flowery-language bullshit that isn't backed by anything.

Anybody who has been through education has observed that there are the people who "get it" and the people who struggle. And similarly, if you take an expert in some field and have them start explaining concepts to a random person that are at the very edge of the expert's knowledge, said person will be completely lost. This is a real thing we all can relate to.

The idea that "we all can do it" because "we're all equals" is doing a disservice to the kids who struggle. You better prepare them by putting them in courses that are matched to their level and challenge them appropriately.

You can't take someone who weighs 600 lbs, say "okay, go run a marathon" and expect success. Even if that person really wants to suceed. What you can do is train them in a way that is tailored to them, and eventually they may be able to run that marathon.

One idea I agree with is that we should evaluate kids more regularly to see how their abilities change over time. If they show improvement, their coursework should be adjusted accordingly. But all this "not sorting" kids stuff? That's just nonsense.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#135

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

Kevin_S wrote: post #118

montecarl wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may not have meant it this way, but "College should be for academically gifted high school graduates" is not what I would have in mind for who should attend college. I think college should be for those who want to learn. For example, I had very poor grades in high school (would not have been described as academically gifted) and used state funds to go to undergrad to study science. Ended up just being a late bloo…

Just to extend your point, some of my stats: 3.0 high school GPA 3.0 undergraduate GPA Now in year 3 of a PhD program. I wasn't even considered academically gifted in undergrad! Yet I think I am a pretty good researcher.

I finished at near the bottom of my undergrad. Got a PhD and a job that uses those skills, which puts me in the top 10% of graduates in my field.

So yeah, study and research are very different.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#136

Post by titzer » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 4:40 PM UTC

gautamdivgi wrote: post #124

titzer wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, you think that top schools having top faculty and educators has zero effect on educational outcomes? And somehow they only produce good outcomes because they select good students and that "most of the education is simply due to the types of peers you have". It's all "selection bias"? Now that's a hot take. You seem to be laboring under the assumption that elite schools exist as some kind of public service to impr…

Do top faculty and top educator correlate well? They may when you do research but probably not at an undergraduate level. Top faculty is generally a top researcher with bundles of grant money. They could be horrible educators. The opposite is true as well.

As it turns out, schools hire faculty for more than just research. Not only are faculty usually required to teach, and evaluated on that, but there are faculty roles that are geared to teaching, as well as lecturer roles.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#137

Post by amznthrowaway5 » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 4:41 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #131

amznthrowaway5 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seem smart Asian kids from poor public schools do far better than the wealthy corrupt kids. It's not about "poor education".

I'll ignore the dogwhistle behind your comment. The really bad inner city school systems usually: a. don't have sizable Asian communities b. Not many Asian students from those schools are accepted either. Anecdotally, in 4 years at my inner city school district, which had a small, poor Asian population (mostly Vietnamese), only one Asian kid got into an ivy league, and her dad was a professor at a top-tier university…

I'm saying from the ones that do excel, they do just fine, and far more poor asians excel.

Calling it a dogwhistle is just trolling. The real racism is from people judging based on race instead of ability.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#138

Post by busyant » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

dopu wrote: post #75

busyant wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If I were a teenager trying to get into a top school these days, my anxiety would be through the roof. If I knew a teenager in this situation, I'd emphasize that there is a large "quasi-random" component to admission to these types of school. What I mean is that the number of incredibly talented applicants _rejected_ by Princeton and Harvard is probably as large as the number of admissions. I know someone who is _t…

Your comment illustrates another way in which these institutions maintain exclusivity -- they hire and admit people that are already in them. I did my undergraduate in a run-of-the-mill liberal arts college. I managed to get into a post-baccalaureate program at a HYPS-level institution, and I'm now doing my PhD at a HYPS. I find it extremely difficult to believe that I would've been evaluated the same way in grad sch…

> I find it extremely difficult to believe that I would've been evaluated the same way in grad school applications if I hadn't done the post-bac where I did.

I have a similar background: undergrad @ middle-of-the-road state school. PhD at HYPS school.

As you would expect, I was a teaching assistant for a couple of undergraduate courses. As such, I got to know many undergrads.

I would occasionally bump into them when they were about to graduate and I was frequently shocked when they told me stuff like, "Yeah. I'm going to Harvard Med" (or some other illustrious program) and I would think to myself, "You were a good student, but I knew undergrads at my state school who were just as good. And Harvard Med didn't even given them an _interview_."

I'm not saying the students were not talented enough to excel @ Harvard Med, but I imagine there is some level of "peace of mind" if these schools favor their own. As the saying goes: Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM stock....

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#139

Post by dolni » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 4:42 PM UTC

jjk166 wrote: post #127

dolni wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Point taken and I agree with the examples you provided. I would argue this is not quite the problem you make it out to be, because generally speaking, people tend to be strong or weak in a subject overall. If you're generally good at math, getting tripped up by vectors is not a death knell for pursuing coursework at that level. But there is a massive divide between the ability of someone "generally good" at math and…

Yeah, the problem is more with the schools. At least until post-secondary education, you don't go to school for just a narrow range of subjects. You might be excellent at math but does that mean you can keep up with people who are excellent at history? Unless we expect people to hyperspecialize from a young age (which would have disastrous consequences), we need schools to be able to deal with people at various diffe…

That does exist, but I think we could do a better job pre-high school. At least at the high school I went to (which wasn't highly regarded, or anything) there were remedial classes for kids who were behind, and honors classes for kids who excelled. You could opt-in to honors courses on a per-subject basis.

I think K-6 are where we struggle. At least that's my experience.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#140

Post by ggjjjttt » Fri, Apr 16, 2021, 4:43 PM UTC

ryan93 wrote: post #101

supernova87a wrote: post #51

First of all, a major issue here is that we don't have enough good universities to accept all the talented kids applying. That holds true for high schools, etc. wherever there is contentious debate over "equity" or merit-based admissions. Just increase the number of good schools (which has not been done in proportion to population growth) and many things are solved. Just like how you never hear people in countries wi…

You are lying. You know most students at top schools aren't capable of doing serious scholarly work or engineering. There are more than enough spots for every good student. State schools like UT Austin have 20,000 students who can barely handle freshman level science and math.

In my experience at Princeton, this rings true. I was surprised by the amount of cheating taking place.