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Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

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Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#271

Post by ghaff »

amluto wrote: post #186
tristor wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nobody ever openly talks about it, but the East Coast Ivies are still heavily WASPy, and it's largely due to things like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Register Basically, if your family name isn't in that list, you have a massive reduction in your probability of being accepted, regardless of merit. If your name is in that list, then you likely will be accepted regardless of merit.

Do you have a source? I’ve never heard of this, and I would be quite surprised if anyone I know or knew well at any elite school was on this list.

I'd be very skeptical. I know a ton of people who went to East Coast Ivies. Many are not from the East Coast. Many are not literally WASPy and I can't imagine most of them being in a Social Register--and it's not like I especially have known an out of the mainstream crowd.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#272

Post by PAPPPmAc »

a2xd94 wrote: post #15

The thing that gets me is that nearly every single podcast or article that talks about admissions and how fair/unfair they are focuses almost solely on Ivy League schools and leaves out the state and local colleges/universities that actually churn out 99% of college graduates in the US. Maybe we tax payers need to do better about steering the conversation towards those institutions that we fund as opposed to those th…

Many (most?) state schools don't do significantly competitive admissions, and many have state mandates in the vein of "Anyone who graduated in the top half of their in-state high school gets admitted with the following terms." For most students and employers, they are largely interchangeable except for in-state tuition being cheaper (and to be clear, I think that is a good thing).

It's actually a bit of a problem in other ways though. The school I teach at gets an alarming number of students coming in as pre-engineering who have dramatic math or literacy deficits and would be better served with a year or two at a cheaper-for-everyone community college (or a not-broken highschool, but that's way harder to fix) instead of slamming into their first couple technical classes and failing because they don't understand variables and/or don't have the reading comprehension for the course materials unless/until they finish a pile of remediation. Universities have a profit motive to encourage this, since having a student take two years of high-margin large service classes while paying for room and board, then never consume any lower-margin resources, is a financial win for the university.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#273

Post by ghaff »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #240
glimshe wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so, but life will be harder. Life is harder if you are born poor. I graduated from an unknown university (in the US) overseas, so I started in lower places and climbed my way up through hard work, study, luck and skill development (which include social skills). You are not destined to be inferior, but if the cards are not stacked in your favor, you will just have to make up for it somehow.

> you will just have to make up for it somehow. I'm 27 and make ~$300k a year. When or even how can I make up for it? I'm clearly behind the people at Ivy+ schools right now.

>I'm 27 and make ~$300k a year. When or even how can I make up for it? I'm clearly behind the people at Ivy+ schools right now.

I'd like to believe this is sarcasm but it probably isn't.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#274

Post by [deleted] »

lapcat wrote: post #64
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…

> 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…

[deleted]

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#275

Post by ghaff »

laidoffamazon wrote: post #270
ghaff wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment is the only one in this thread that uses the word "fundamentally." The other comments I've read suggested that school can be an indicator of talent/diligence/etc. especially in the absence of a lot of other signal. It's also true that Big Law and Big Management Consulting are pretty educational pedigree focused especially for new grads but that's not everyone.

OK, but it's a pretty big indicator, and apparently justified in being so because the people at top schools are just that much better than people like me.

I think you're literally the only person on this thread making statements like that.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#276

Post by lapcat »

amluto wrote: post #239
lapcat wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> its gating function developed over time and is unfortunate. It seems like you're mistaking the article for some kind of historical origin hypothesis? Harvard as it currently exists has the function of making society less meritocratic, while society continues to subsidize Harvard in various ways. How Harvard came into existence originally and its function in the 17th century are not particularly relevant to the argu…

No, I’m reading the text of the article as written. It says: “Harvard would still be an organization designed to reduce meritocracy…” “Harvard exists to make society less meritocratic” These are statements about Harvard’s purpose or intent, not about its effect. And I think it’s more likely that the original intent, as well and the present intent of those involved, is to foster meritocracy: admit the best students (f…

> These are statements about Harvard’s purpose or intent, not about its effect.

Yes, the current purpose or intent. Harvard was established 387 years ago; what was its original purpose or intent? I don't know. In fact, I don't care. It's not relevant to the current argument. Institutions change over time, and we're talking about hundreds of years at Harvard.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#277

Post by gonehome »

monetus wrote: post #251
gonehome wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My observation from doing hundreds of interviews at career fairs was the fancy schools (Stanford) had students that were way better at basic questions. This isn’t a perfect metric, but it’s signal. If your peers in undergrad were your friends, you were probably selecting a non-representative group (smart people you liked) and your job as a TA shows you a more random sample (or even skewed negative, poor students grub…

Your reaction to the parent was wondering at selection bias in schools, which was a nice context to me wondering at the selection bias you have in interviews. Thanks.

Yeah there's definitely a selection bias in an interview setting too, but since I was doing the same thing in both locations (career fair interviews as a company employee) there was more in common between the groups and me (imo) as opposed to undergrad peers/friends when you're an undergrad and students you TA when you're a grad student.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#278

Post by noobermin »

blitzar wrote: post #73
samvher wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have worked in an environment where it really did seem to matter. An organization set up by Harvard folks where other Harvard folks seemed to have advantages in (a) getting in and (b) getting ahead. It wasn't ever really addressed explicitly (though "credentialism" was occasionally mentioned by others as well, I wasn't the only one who noticed). It definitely played a role in my leaving that organization. Edit - I…

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…

This reply is almost entirely a category error.

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#279

Post by karaterobot »

komali2 wrote: post #113
karaterobot wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's a counter-example at a reasonable scale? By reasonable scale, I mean millions of people.

I never understood why the "at reasonable scale" is presumed. What happens if I reject that presumption? Why do we assume "millions of people" operating in the same social order is a good thing? Because iphones? Is that reason enough? Do we presume that having millions of people under the same social order is required to make advancements in medicine? It didn't take millions to build Linux or wikipedia, just a couple…

I was thinking of millions, because that's the order of magnitude of the educational system. You could give examples of groups of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands instead if you like. I'm just trying to set a reasonable lower bound for a "society" as a opposed to a small group. Lots of organizational structures work for small groups, but break down when applied to larger ones.

What are some of those examples you're thinking of that he mentions in the book?

Re: Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists

#280

Post by Given_47 »

endisneigh wrote: post #128
viburnum wrote: post #5

Every tech company I’ve worked at has been run by Ivy people but all the actual code is written by Cal State graduates and high school dropouts.

This is not true of any FAANG and I've worked for all of them. Go to any of them and you will see that most of the SWEs are some combination of MIT, Cal, Stanford, and tier-1 public schools and top 20 (by US News Report) private schools.

Similar to banking, I doubt FAANG doesn’t filter out apps by school to save time. Another confounded being FAANG now also naturally attracts the preftige chasers
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