People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows • Hacker News Board

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#141

Post by desmosxxx » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 8:56 AM UTC

schnitzelstoat wrote: post #127

mkl95 wrote: post #123

Is it a recent phenomenon in the US? My country has a pretty straightforward pay-to-win scheme, which leads to degrees with a higher barrier of entry (mostly STEM) having a disproportionate amount of middle-upper class students. Even university is partially pay-to-win since well-off students usually spend thousands a year on private lessons that are the uni equivalent of cheat codes. Even if it weren't dominated by t…

The biggest difference I noticed at University was not that wealthier students would pay for private lessons, but rather that wealthier students didn't need to do part-time work to get by. This gave them much more time to study.

+1. I also saw some wealthier students go part-time during particularly hard semesters (and/or to have extra time to study for gre) and just add an extra semester or two.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#142

Post by roel_v » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:03 AM UTC

"PhD programs tend to require a hidden curriculum of classes in subjects such as mathematics that are not technically required for economics majors."

"subjects such as mathematics that are not technically required for economics majors"

Eh?

Who lets clueless writers like this near a keyboard?

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#143

Post by TrackerFF » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:04 AM UTC

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #20

metadat wrote: post #3

Isn't this to be expected with any similarly weighted network? Guess who private sector loves to promote to executive positions like VP and SVP? Harvard and ivy grads. Even in engineering, where it's supposed to be more of a meritocracy, you can see this at every bigco. Human idiosyncrasies lead to branding pedigree consistently being selected over pure skill and / or superior experience in favor of an abstract perce…

Nobody cares where you graduate from school in engineering. It's all about what you can do, and in larger corporations, also how politically savvy you are. Most of middle and upper management (VP / SVP) also has degrees from no-name schools. If anything, they'll have degrees from worker bee / nerd schools like CMU, Caltech, and UC Berkeley, not Ivy degrees (except for Cornell, which is basically a public school). Upw…

Tech has started to absorb more and more Ivy/HYPS kids, many whom would have chosen a more traditional path (consulting/banking) before eventually going to graduate school. I guess the current pay is too good for many to pass out on - even though careers in finance and consulting will pay more, if you manage to climb all the way up.

But I guess it's the more "polished" post-MBA candidates from said schools that go on to become product managers, and eventually become executives.

What school you went to, what your 2-4 first years of work experience was like, and what business school you went to, seems to work pretty well when signaling potential and success - especially when trying to either come up with funding, or convincing some big corporation that you're the man to lead their product XYZ.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#144

Post by tintedfireglass » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:09 AM UTC

zozbot234 wrote: post #124

tintedfireglass wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIT is pseudo-meritocratic. It's a very rigorous exam and the person who can spend their whole high school time studying phy, Chem and maths and who can spend the most money joining the best coaching institutions and best mentors bacially get the admission. Doesn't matter if someone has an IQ of 200 or India's best football player or coding genius unless they get the highest marks in physics chemistry in maths they a…

There's nothing "flawed" about rewarding rigorous practice over irrelevant "skills" like being a good football player or scoring well on an I.Q. test. Sure it might be nice to pick up other meaningful predictors of achievement including e.g. deep interests, but that's very hard to do reliably in any sort of high-stakes situation, and school admissions are no exception.

I think I was biased due to getting my IIT entrance test results today where I did real bad. Now that I read it, it looks like a rant/vent :(

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#145

Post by thethethethe » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:12 AM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #32

> In 1970, just 1 in 5 U.S.-born PhD graduates in economics had a parent with a graduate degree. Now? Two-thirds of them do, according to a new analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The trends are similar for other fields (and for foreign-born students), but economics is off the charts. > This partly reflects population trends: Over that same period, the share of parents with graduate degr…

> Also there should be a high correlation between kids being college-material and parents being college-material. Whether you believe in nature (genetics) or nurture (good parenting, high standards, role model, access to education, etc), or a mix of both, either way, you should not expect the % of college students from graduate families to match the % of graduate families in the country. So not sure what point the article makes

Just because something can easily be explained using logic doesn't mean that it's outcomes can't be negative. Perhaps this indicates that our society is further stratifying into different classes and upward mobility is being reduced for a portion of the population which I think most people would agree is a bad thing

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#146

Post by barry-cotter » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:13 AM UTC

vlunkr wrote: post #49

cm2187 wrote: post #32

> In 1970, just 1 in 5 U.S.-born PhD graduates in economics had a parent with a graduate degree. Now? Two-thirds of them do, according to a new analysis from the Peterson Institute for International Economics. The trends are similar for other fields (and for foreign-born students), but economics is off the charts. > This partly reflects population trends: Over that same period, the share of parents with graduate degr…

I had the same thoughts. The country is now more educated than it was before, and they want to paint that as a bad thing. And point some fingers at the “elite,” Which is now people who’s parents have a college degree I guess.

If a graduate degree is not in some sense an elite marker something is messed up. A graduate degree should guarantee the holder could be admitted into a decent doctoral programme. Obviously this isn’t true, education schools exist, but it should be. If graduate school isn’t for an educational elite the material should be in a Bachelor’s.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#147

Post by barry-cotter » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:15 AM UTC

carlob wrote: post #138

oofnik wrote: post #102

Why is this at all surprising? In any status-conscious society (read: any human society), given enough time, the people who make it to the top will invariably maximize opportunity afforded to their affinity group (i.e. offspring) at the expense of everyone else. This process manifests itself regardless of the role merit plays in the sorting algorithm. If the rules are relatively meritocratic (and relatively stable),…

A small caveat: nepotism was the practice when cardinals (who were celibate) would push their nephews into positions of power. So, strictly speaking, it is the other way around: celibacy caused nepotism, otherwise we would have had filism (from filius/son rather than from nepos/nephew).

Cardinals were very often not actually celibate, just like less promoted priests.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#148

Post by robocat » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:17 AM UTC

chrchang523 wrote: post #131

thrown_22 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you care about is how much more likely a person with parents who had degrees is to have a degree over one who doesn't. In 1970 4% of people had degrees and 20% of degree holders had parents with degrees. That means that children of degree holders got 5 times as many degrees as children of non-degree holders. In 2020 14% of people have degrees and 66% of degree holders have parents with degrees. That means that c…

The math is trickier than that: - If 4% of parents have degrees, something like 7% of the next generation has at least one parent with a degree. Because children have two parents, and only one of those two parents needs to have a degree. So the correct number to compare 20% against is ~7%, not 4%. - Suppose a child of a degree-holder is 3 times as likely to become an economics PhD as a child of no degree-holders. The…

> If 4% of parents have degrees, something like 7% of the next generation has at least one parent with a degree.

Are you presuming marriage and degree-holding are independent variables? Although I presume there are fewer female degree holders, so perhaps it makes little difference.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#149

Post by lordnacho » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:18 AM UTC

meetingthrower wrote: post #139

lordnacho wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oxford / Cambridge are also very "exclusive" in the worst way possible I went there, and I didn't see anything but ordinary people. Something like Classics will naturally skew towards secondary schools that have a Latin class, but apart from that admissions are close to a dice roll among qualified kids. Certainly the impression I got was that dons were jealously guarding their right to decide, on their own, who wou…

Can confirm. Just went to open days at Oxford and Cambridge with my son. We are Americans. Both my wife and I are double ivy grads. Totally different than the US and much more meritocratic. Steps are: 1. Be qualified to apply. In UK this means at least AAA if not more. Varies by course. US equivalent is have at least three 5s on AP and above 1450 on SAT. This is roughly equivalent to top 10% of uk graduates. 2. Take…

> But the overall impression I got was that for a well prepared and smart kid, it is much more straightforward than the so called elite US schools.

Yes, plus you can skip applying to all the US schools if you get accepted, because you get the acceptance letter in December.

I went to a high school that sent kids to both US and UK universities, and the US ones are incredibly onerous, not to mention expensive to even apply for. Multiple teacher references, essays that are supposed to be some sort of work of art, requirements to do extracurricular stuff. I did the SATs, got the Oxford acceptance, and just dropped all the US stuff entirely.

Re: People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

#150

Post by barry-cotter » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:19 AM UTC

klqp wrote: post #136

oofnik wrote: post #102

Why is this at all surprising? In any status-conscious society (read: any human society), given enough time, the people who make it to the top will invariably maximize opportunity afforded to their affinity group (i.e. offspring) at the expense of everyone else. This process manifests itself regardless of the role merit plays in the sorting algorithm. If the rules are relatively meritocratic (and relatively stable),…

This is an excellent explanation, but I have one small remark: Diversity and equity is taught at elite cadre schools and used as a distinguishing marker from the proletariat. This gives elite children a wedge to get into Ive League institutions without high test scores. Think of it as the new "extracurricular activity" on steroids. Diversity and equity have been co-opted by the elites and are a powerful tool (smoke s…

Quite. See abolishing the GRE and similar exams for entrance to graduate school as well. Letters of introduction come much easier to the right sort of people than to the kind of strivers who have to rely on objective tests to get into prestigious institutions.