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Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

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Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#221

Post by fnordpiglet »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #180
fnordpiglet wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, according to Wikipedia, 18 justices graduated Harvard, 9 Yale, and 39 some other law school. Yes, it helps to go to Harvard or Yale. But most justices didn’t.

That's a good long term historical view, and provides some hope. However, the current court composition is what we face today, and there are members who will likely be on the court for 30 years or more. While the historical picture is more encouraging, it doesn't negate the significance of the current makeup.

I’d challenge that the person as an individual is more important than where they went to school. Perhaps there are others who were excluded due to not having gone to Harvard along the way, and in some abstract sense that’s unfair, but in a very real sense your school doesn’t make the person, the person is the person and they went to a school. I am curious if any of the justices are legacy students or if all were admitted via a standard merit based selection process. It so, and given Harvard law and Yale law are regarded top law schools on their own merit, what is specifically the issue? I would definitely expect a statistical weighting to the top schools in any field for the top positions in that field, no?

What becomes concerning is when legacy students dominate the court. That is categorically unfair by structure, and it would speak to a hereditary elite in power. This was, as I’m sure you remember, the distinguishing factors of GWB vs Obama. Obama walked in those circles by earning his chair. GWB… well…

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#222

Post by earthboundkid »

samvher wrote: post #93
blitzar wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a non US country so we can for once have the counterfactual, as for us harvard does not exist. I have worked in an environment where {maths degrees} really did seem to matter. An organization set up by people with {maths degrees} where other people with {maths degrees} seemed to have advantages in (a) getting in and (b) getting ahead. It wasn't ever really addressed explicitly (though "credentialism" was oc…

I'm from a non US country, so the concept of a Harvard is foreign to me as well. And yes, I've also worked for selective employers where maths degrees mattered a lot. It never bothered me. Not sure what you're trying to say. Hiring people based on individual merit and skills is not the same thing as hiring people based on an exclusive network. The Harvard employer favored Harvard folks over others who otherwise had t…

Don't worry, all your political leaders went to Harvard and the Kennedy School. :-)

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#223

Post by EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK »

colingoodman wrote: post #198
lapcat wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the outliers at state schools are people like you with extenuating circumstances. Being middle class is an extenuating circumstance? ;-)

This word choice surprised me as well. The average Big 10 tuition for nonresidents is approaching $40,000. It is better for in-state tuition, but locking students into wherever they happened to grow up also seems unfair.

Maybe states are paying them for locals so there is more graduates staying in the state and paying good taxes?

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#224

Post by beebmam »

whymauri wrote: post #66
beebmam wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree that Harvard has (and should have) a right to do whatever they want with their institution and admit whoever they see fit. But if we're serious about a liberal/conservative "equality of opportunity" vs a progressive/socialist "equality of outcome" reality, then we should consider that children have very little consent over the kind of education and familial upbringing they get, yet that childhood educ…

Why not tackle inequality earlier in the funnel than college admissions? Better primary schooling and family resources? A college admission lottery doesn't seem to be a serious solution.

You can never make dysfunctional families with awful parents more equal unless you rip all children from families.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#225

Post by mbauman »

pphysch wrote: post #131

If Harvard revolutionized its admissions tomorrow, elite debutants would find a different way to signal.

That was my favorite part of the article:

> We should have a Marxist version of Goodhart’s law, something like:

>> When a measure becomes a target, the privileged always find a way to win.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#226

Post by tlb »

You could base a society on randomly selecting people at a young age to be elite. It would still have advantages over a society with no elites at all.

The goal of having an elite class is to make better collective decisions about how society should organize itself. Decisions are best made by people with the best information, and elites (regardless of any intrinsic merit) have better information. By virtue of being elite, they get better educations and more inside access to new information.

The classical way of doing this was through inherited privilege. Whatever intrinsic merit first-generation aristocrats may have had to win their position is mostly gone after a few generations, so for example 19th century English aristocrats had little genetic advantage over the average population. But they were selected at birth to receive the best educations and inside access to each other, so they made better decisions than if you chose random citizens in adulthood to put in charge.

Part of what Harvard does is to say "You are now an elite. You will shape the future of society." Most students take that seriously and try to become worthy of the challenge.

No society has tried selecting random people in adulthood to put in charge. The closest natural experiment is societies that select leaders based on physical strength and courage. They seem to make fairly bad decisions.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#227

Post by darkclouds »

glimshe wrote: post #39

This is a typical "let's be all equally poor/bad" argument. Harvard is simply a private institution with excellent reputation and not a single person is required to go there or hire someone from there. Why do Harvard people "drive 20% above the speed limit"? Because selecting good people in a sea of resumes is HARD. Degrees aren't amazing proxies for productivity, but they are decent proxies. I've seen dozens of theo…

Conformity is not scientific, using a university to stealth filter for obedience to (data) authority is both lazy and a fancy dressed deceitful gang mentality on display.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#228

Post by rayiner »

gonehome wrote: post #143
RugnirViking wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

do you have a link to the "admissions content that came out in the affirmative action SCOTUS case"? That sounds very interesting. I found a report on the entire case but its near 300 pages long

This substack quotes some of the relevant bits: https://colemanhughes.substack.com/p/10-notes-on-the-end-of-... Copying here actual conversation (revealed in the lawsuit) between admissions officers at UNC: “I just opened a brown girl who’s an 810 [SAT].” “If its brown and above a 1300 [SAT] put them in for [the] merit/Excel [scholarship].” “Still yes, give these brown babies a shot at these merit $$.” “I am reading…

Holy shit I hadn’t read the cert petition and hasn’t seen the quotes. I never believed the assertion that “all white people are racist” because I honestly thought the white people around me didn’t “see race.” This has been extremely eye-opening.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#229

Post by Tactician_mark »

okaram wrote: post #140
ta8645 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would Ivy schools pass your children over?

Ivies have about a 5% admission rate, and they probably have a much higher percentage of valedictorians than the general population. They probably reject way more than 50% of the valedictorian/800 SAT applicants they have. Unless you are super-special, you need to be at that level and be lucky

There's a great Veritasium video about this. The idea is that if there are far more applicants than positions, then even if luck plays a small role - say, 5% of the outcome - successful applicants are overwhelmingly likely to be extremely lucky as well as highly qualified. Since so many people are close to that 95% competence factor, only the luckiest - by whatever metric of "luck" you like - can succeed.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#230

Post by mytailorisrich »

RC_ITR wrote: post #74
lapcat wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a typical "let's be all equally poor/bad" argument. I think you missed the point of the article, which was "Harvard exists to make society less meritocratic, and it does that while subsidized by everyone else." > Because selecting good people in a sea of resumes is HARD. Degrees aren't amazing proxies for productivity, but they are decent proxies. The author discusses this: "The hardest part of Harvard is g…

>The hardest part of Harvard is getting in. This is always such an interesting argument people make when nearly every 'next step' after undergrad is more selective than Ivy League schools. Tier-1 Tech/Banking/Consulting/Law School/Med School all reject plenty of people from Harvard because they didn't do a good enough job there. Plenty of Harvard grads languish. It's true that getting a degree is simple once you're i…

If they only accept the very best academically there is probably a bias: it may not be that 'simple' to get a degree once you're in but since those who are in are very good they have a high graduation rate.
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