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Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

movingthelimit.com

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Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#131

Post by kelipso »

atleastoptimal wrote: post #72
complex_exp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ivy league students don't get there by themselves. A life-time of adults help you. See, this is what I do not get. I got without excessive effort into a top university in Europe. I never had to be taken care nearly this much. Learned calculus at 14-15 by buying an old book in a used book store. Learned programming at around the same age by reading C++ tutorials and doing programming competitions (ACM style, but eas…

It's way easier to get into elite schools in Europe than top tier American ivies.

Admission rates are heavily dependent on how easy it is to apply, how many times you're allowed to apply, how likely a student thinks their chances are, basically heavily dependent on the college application process, which is very different in different countries. E.g, I think Indian IITs have <1% acceptance rates but you probably don't have to shell over a $100 to apply.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#132

Post by lostmsu »

akprasad wrote: post #8
josh_fyi wrote: post #5

I studied at Harvard and the answer is that they want to pretend to be so smart and talented that they don't need to work. The image is of the effete aristocrat who enjoys life without lifting a finger. Think of George W. Bush: Got into Yale (Harvard too!) because his blue-blood line always did. Mediocre grades. Lots of alcohol and drugs. (Quit that later.) Avoided Vietnam with the cushiest fun job as a fighter pilot…

I believe you and the author are describing two different types of students. The author describes students who want to work and succeed but are unable to cope with "real-world problems rather than contrived academic examples," whereas you seem to point to students who want instead to luxuriate in their self-perceived social class.

> luxuriate in their self-perceived social class

Is it much different from Instagram addiction?

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#133

Post by JoeyBananas »

There's a massive disconnect between what students do at universities and actual effective learning. Universities are not sources of knowledge, they're more like knowledge middlemen that sell branded knowledge for more than what it's worth at face value. It's no wonder that students stop caring once they realize this. That's really what explains the attitudes in this article. It's not lack of discipline, it's justified disillusionment.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#134

Post by consilient »

searealist wrote: post #51
josh_fyi wrote: post #5

I studied at Harvard and the answer is that they want to pretend to be so smart and talented that they don't need to work. The image is of the effete aristocrat who enjoys life without lifting a finger. Think of George W. Bush: Got into Yale (Harvard too!) because his blue-blood line always did. Mediocre grades. Lots of alcohol and drugs. (Quit that later.) Avoided Vietnam with the cushiest fun job as a fighter pilot…

What percentage of Harvard students would you say got in through family connections vs worked hard? Why do you focus on the former?

It's not an either/or. Very few people have the connections necessary to get into elite schools with, say, a 1.0 GPA in high school (or an equally terrible performance on whatever your preferred measure of merit is). But Harvard is filled with merely moderately above average legacies who would have otherwise ended up at a good state school or equivalent.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#135

Post by djkivi »

josh_fyi wrote: post #5

I studied at Harvard and the answer is that they want to pretend to be so smart and talented that they don't need to work. The image is of the effete aristocrat who enjoys life without lifting a finger. Think of George W. Bush: Got into Yale (Harvard too!) because his blue-blood line always did. Mediocre grades. Lots of alcohol and drugs. (Quit that later.) Avoided Vietnam with the cushiest fun job as a fighter pilot…

As someone who had a low opinion of George W. Bush when he was president I found this article interesting:

https://www.keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#136

Post by 411111111111111 »

Gareth321 wrote: post #114
411111111111111 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are BS under the first definition. And I think we've gotten quiet far from the context their statement was made in. The premise was that intelligence increases self control/delayed gratification. From this, we've extrapolated that havard students will have on average a higher self control, because they've had the the privilege of a much better education, which caused their IQ scores to be quiet high. Personally,…

> They are BS under the first definition. I provided a study which shows high correlation. Do you have any evidence to the contrary? I don’t agree with your summary of the premise. It doesn’t follow that more training means higher IQ scores, but I acknowledge it could mean higher SAT scores for individuals. Just not in aggregate.

Correlation is not causation and is meaningless for extrapolations. The only thing it provides is interesting data to discover the causality through further study.

But I guess you're too far gone into narcissism to understand how dumb this has gotten.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#137

Post by tnecniv »

inglor wrote: post #37

Unpopular opinion: as an overachiever doing mundane things like watching reality TV and smoking weed with friends led to more personal growth and self acceptance than any form of additional study. just sitting with friends talking about life in a relaxed setting and practicing creating connections stress free really helped me improve my soft skills (and dumb TV shows to have stuff to discuss). Of course the minute it…

I can confirm that PhD students still do drugs and party

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#138

Post by tnecniv »

TrackerFF wrote: post #113

If you actually manage to get accepted to some Ivy, chances are you were at the very top of you class in HS. Excellent grades, excellent test, lots of extracurriculars, and all that. The majority can't accomplish those things by just coasting through HS, and living a "normal" teenage life. Rather, it means dedicating lots and lots of your time to studying, extracurriculars, etc. And it doesn't stop when you get accep…

Additionally, people in this thread keep talking about legacy status like it’s an easy in. How legacy works varies by school, but at the Ivy I attended, it gave you double the chance of getting in and only if you applied early (they showed the numbers). However doubling a 7% acceptance rate to 14% still doesn’t give you great odds.

These schools turn out thousands of graduates a year with the larger ones turning out 10 thousand or so (only counting bachelors students). In any given year, there’s A LOT of students with legacy status, and, unless your last name is on a building or you are a competitive applicant regardless of your legacy status, you aren’t getting in.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#139

Post by tnecniv »

kelnos wrote: post #92

It seems a little weird to generalize one's friend group to a supposed problem at all Ivy League[0] schools. Although, I'm sure there are students like this at most highly-ranked universities. A lot of the social and anti-responsibility aspects of this (like telling friends that you didn't fail because you didn't even try in the first place) sounds, for lack of a better way of putting it, very late millennial and gen…

People forget that the Ivy League is first and foremost a sports league. It also matters what you want to study. The Ivies will generally be highly rated across subjects, but lots of schools have their specialities for which they are very highly rated.

Re: Why do Ivy League students self-sabotage?

#140

Post by tnecniv »

Animats wrote: post #62

Yale has a 97% graduation rate. This can't be a big phenomenon there. Although many take more than four years. Now, there are good schools where a sizable fraction don't make it. UC Santa Barbara, California's finest party school, has about an 88% graduation rate, and only 72% finish in four years. Further down the food chain, there are the schools which admit almost everybody but flunk out half the freshman class.

Basically, if you do some minimal amount of work, they’ll give you a C. It’s pretty easy to graduate with a bad GPA. Private schools care a lot about graduation rates since parents don’t want to pay tuition if they see stats that say their kid graduating is a coin toss.
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