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

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#221

Post by kepler1 » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 1:18 AM 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.

> You are lying.

That's a weird phrase / way to respond to someone just stating an idea, isn't it?

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#222

Post by ryan93 » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 2:52 AM UTC

phobosanomaly wrote: post #220

ryan93 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think actually smart people would get weeded out at the bio 101 level. If you need hand holding you definitely shouldn’t be a surgeon or scientist.

It really depends on the curve. Weed-out classes are famous for having extremely aggressive curves. You can be perfectly smart, be intellectually curious, and have a great grip on the material, but due to the competitiveness wind up with grades too low for, say, medical school. You need those A's and A+'s in the early courses to pad your GPA so that you can take the hit from taking harder more intellectually-demandin…

Hadn't considered that. Thank you for the personal insight.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#223

Post by disgruntledphd2 » Sat, Apr 17, 2021, 9:25 AM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #148

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What the hell are you all getting PhDs in where it is a doable path if you are near the bottom of your undergrad? I've explored a PhD in CS, and reading what people write I've gotten the impression that it is extremely difficult to get into programs.

Well, I did by dint of being incredibly lazy throughout my undergrad, but clearly smart (engaging with the material, but not doing enough work).

I was pretty lazy in my UG, and (for the first time in my life) competing against people just as smart as me. So I did pretty badly.

I did demonstrate strong research aptitude in my project, as well as a bunch of other classes. I kinda skipped a bunch of stuff in second year, and second year was 33% of the final grade, so I did pretty crap.

To be fair, I came to the department with a proposal, found my own supervisors and got my own funding (through a government scholarship), so I didn't really cost them much.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#224

Post by brightball » Sun, Apr 18, 2021, 11:33 PM UTC

InitialLastName wrote: post #215

brightball wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's entirely different when the teachers and the parents "choose" something like common core. My kids went to a private school for elementary in the middle of the common core dust up in public schools, so before we enrolled them the one of the first questions we asked about was common core. They told us they were also adopting the approach but that their teachers had been discussing it for years, had a complete tran…

That's fair, but I think it serves my point: you weren't interested in experimenting with your childrens' education.

I was. I wasn’t interested in other people experimenting with it. I selected the approach I was most comfortable with though.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#225

Post by adamhp » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 12:14 PM UTC

rajin444 wrote: post #145

adamhp wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes sense to group people for education based on ability Ability to do what exactly? Your premise is based on this idea of "performance" as if it that is easily measurable or is some innate quality of a person. Performance is a function of the system itself though. Speaking from the perspective of someone in the United States: I didn't "perform well enough" in middle school and so got ignored by staff and coun…

How do you know you wouldn't have ended up where you are without a mentor? There's no control here. AFAIK twin studies provide the best insight we can get within ethical means.

That's true, and it's a fair question to be asking, generally speaking. It is certainly possible, but I sincerely doubt it was more likely than the alternative.

Intuitively, I would wager those who receive support from others typically fare better in most ways—whether that is familial relationships, mentorship, or peers. I did a quick search, and depending on how we're defining "success", there are a number of studies.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#226

Post by the_only_law » Tue, Apr 20, 2021, 12:26 PM UTC

thatfrenchguy wrote: post #72

adamhp wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It makes sense to group people for education based on ability Ability to do what exactly? Your premise is based on this idea of "performance" as if it that is easily measurable or is some innate quality of a person. Performance is a function of the system itself though. Speaking from the perspective of someone in the United States: I didn't "perform well enough" in middle school and so got ignored by staff and coun…

Same here. It sounds to me like every test trying to measure "ability" ends up testing for a specific kind of ability instead of the presence of ability in general. US college admissions today are basically a joke though, given universities mostly admit upper-middle class kids with perfect grades who can write an essay where they pretend that their life was hard.

> US college admissions today are basically a joke though, given universities mostly admit upper-middle class kids with perfect grades who can write an essay where they pretend that their life was hard.

I didn’t pursue a bachelors after high school. For a couple reasons I regret this now and tried to apply to a handful of state schools.

One thing that felt very clear to me was that if you don’t fit that archetype, they don’t really want you. I have a feeling they cared more about my high school discipline record than my industry and open source experience.

Re: Princeton admits record-low 3.98% of applicants

#227

Post by Kevin_S » Thu, Apr 22, 2021, 6:41 PM UTC

whimsicalism wrote: post #148

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What the hell are you all getting PhDs in where it is a doable path if you are near the bottom of your undergrad? I've explored a PhD in CS, and reading what people write I've gotten the impression that it is extremely difficult to get into programs.

Sorry late reply, but I am in accounting.