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Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

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Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#141

Post by bo1024 »

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #45
bo1024 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They’re definitely sequiturs, maybe not to the issues you want to discuss. You seem focused on how much academia is a meritocracy. There is an important and different question of how diverse and accessible academia is. For example certain Olympic sports like dressage (horse jumping) are meritocracies, but very exclusionary (or at least non diverse, non accessible).

It is certainly a non-sequitur: can we simultaneously accept, or reject, the idea that prestige is a good measure of excellence while looking at (or not looking at) the history of how things become prestigious? Yes, we can. The one has nothing to do with the other.

Again, you're focusing on the question of meritocracy which is not the only interesting question here.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#142

Post by nextos »

azinman2 wrote: post #77
epolanski wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked as a researcher in one of the most prestigious labs in Switzerland and the world, and I have not seen any correlation at all between how bright are people and where they studied. We had visiting researchers from anywhere and I failed to see any correlation between the two things in years. I can tell you none of the brightest came from cambridge uk or harvard us but universities you never heard of in sou…

I can only speak to my experience, and experienced just about every major kind of environment (private elite small, public large, community college, regional state schools, elite universities). I’ve met great people everywhere, but in heavily uneven distribution. And in the less great environments, having a culture of either apathy, non-excellence, or simply not having so many great peers does little to motivate ones…

In many EU countries there is a large group of public universities with roughly the same "prestige" and entry is not too competitive. Some might be incredibly hard once you are in, though.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#143

Post by derbOac »

BurningFrog wrote: post #116
derbOac wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally anecdotal, but I've been in a number of tenure-track hiring meetings at multiple universities and someone always brings up the idea of "pedigree". As in, "X has a good pedigree" etc., as if that's an argument for hiring the person above and beyond their track record. So at least in my personal experience, these things do enter into the process. Of course, the process involves a lot of other variables too; the…

There is some truth to the heuristic that "if you got into Harvard" you have to be pretty good. Because Harvard is really good at finding the "Harvard quality" people among applicants.

Maybe I'm jaded but I've met a lot of brilliant people in my life. They come from all sorts of backgrounds.

I've often in turn seen how those backgrounds can become safety nets, not equally distributed. The benefit of the doubt is extended very far, and when you have knowledge on the other side of the curtain it starts to look self-fulfilling sometimes.

It's hard not to look at scatterplots of things like SATs, GREs, and GPAs, and see a lot of randomness. Not pure randomness but it starts to be hard to justify to yourself when correlations of .1-.3 begin to be interpreted in the general public as if they were .9.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#144

Post by nextos »

BurningFrog wrote: post #116
derbOac wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally anecdotal, but I've been in a number of tenure-track hiring meetings at multiple universities and someone always brings up the idea of "pedigree". As in, "X has a good pedigree" etc., as if that's an argument for hiring the person above and beyond their track record. So at least in my personal experience, these things do enter into the process. Of course, the process involves a lot of other variables too; the…

There is some truth to the heuristic that "if you got into Harvard" you have to be pretty good. Because Harvard is really good at finding the "Harvard quality" people among applicants.

The problem is that hiring committees are busy, have imperfect information and therefore rely on easy metrics, i.e. prestige of candidate's university and journals where he has published.

Many universities are now signatories of the SF Declaration, where they promise to value research based on ideas, not on prestige of journals: https://sfdora.org

I have noted e.g. UMass goes one step further and asks tenure-track applicants to remove affiliation and journal names on their CVs to avoid bias. So that someone who comes from e.g. Oxford and has published in Nature is not judged to be better a priori than someone who comes from Exeter and has published in JCI.

I think this is a great initiative.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#145

Post by visarga »

ninjin wrote: post #120
cycomanic wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you been on a university hiring committee? My anecdotal evidence is that yes prestige very strongly matters and coming from a very prestigious university often outweights other factors such as publication record. I haven't read the original article yet but one can easily test if e.g. the publication record of a graduate student from a non-and prestigious uni differ to the extend that is indicated by the hiring.

I have been on multiple hiring committees and had insights into plenty of hiring processes at other “top-25” universities. My experience is that it is more complex than simply using prestigious universities, supervisors, and collaborators as markers. In fact, I have so far never heard that kind of argument raised, while I have heard diversity arguments raised more times than I can count. Rather, my experience tells m…

> How can I possibly objectively tell whether individual A that entered a top 5 institution or individual B that entered a top 100 institution is most deserving?

I presume you can read their papers.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#146

Post by longtimegoogler »

fny wrote: post #128
derbOac wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe? I think that's where this gets murky. What are you basing that trust on?

The individual has been "vetted" in a more rigorous setting. For example, is someone who graduates with a 3.5GPA Math BA from the University of Central Florida trained as well as someone who graduates with 3.5 from the University of Maryland? What about UNC? What about MIT? If pedigree was a useless signal, it wouldn't be used. Mind you, I've seen this used against people as well. For example... "The last few MIT gra…

I don't think an equivalent GPA at a more prestigious school signals anything of the sort. In fact many more prestigious institutions grade fairly leniently on the assumption that their students are already ahead of the curve.

The few exceptions are at places like Berkeley where they accept a large number of students.

It's one of the reasons that I think eliminating standardized tests for admission to graduate institutions may be a mistake.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#148

Post by longtimegoogler »

azinman2 wrote: post #24

I don’t know why this is a problem or even surprising. There are few academic positions. Getting in and making it through the top schools is competitive and difficult. So why wouldn’t the best and brightest and most motivated and best networked beat everyone else out? I’ve been to every kind of level of school (public, private, non-elite, elite). Whenever I’ve had someone from an elite background teaching at a non-el…

Strong disagree. Getting into a top University is hard but once you are there matriculating isn't. In fact many of these institutions suffer from grade inflation.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#149

Post by HWR_14 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #116
derbOac wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally anecdotal, but I've been in a number of tenure-track hiring meetings at multiple universities and someone always brings up the idea of "pedigree". As in, "X has a good pedigree" etc., as if that's an argument for hiring the person above and beyond their track record. So at least in my personal experience, these things do enter into the process. Of course, the process involves a lot of other variables too; the…

There is some truth to the heuristic that "if you got into Harvard" you have to be pretty good. Because Harvard is really good at finding the "Harvard quality" people among applicants.

> Harvard is really good at finding the "Harvard quality" people among applicants.

How hard is that sifting process? How good is Harvard at doing that? How was it tested?

I certainly think Harvard could have made an incoming class out of rejected students and they would all be the same caliber.

Re: Most US professors are trained at same few elite universities

#150

Post by ocschwar »

There are professors who teach at community colleges and help students get 2 year degrees.

There are professors who teach undergraduates. There are professors who teach graduate students who are working on doctorates they will use in industry.

And finally, there are professors who get to mint new professors.

That final list SHOULD be an elite. Academia is done growing, which means if you're a full professor, you should expect exactly one of your advisees to make full professor. Out of the entire career's retinue of advisees. Some professors will get to mint more than that. Others will have zero.

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