People from elite backgrounds increasingly dominate academia, data shows

Post by lordnacho » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 9:38 PM UTC

meetingthrower wrote: post #315

lordnacho wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure I agree with it. I think you get a lot of Asian kids passing because they teach a lot of advanced things in their education system that are just beyond the curriculum in the West. Thus when it comes time to ask the clever questions, some kids already know the answer. I think in general people who know the answer to something misjudge how hard it is to figure out from first principles.

The grinds that can ace the test but can't speak are weeded out by the interview part. Just look on oxfords website for the admissions test. The TSA test for example is required on top of the math test. Of course you can train yourself to do these better, but because they are so specific to each major, there is not a test prep industry behind them. So it is a more natural test. https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergr…

Post by Hydraulix989 » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 10:41 PM UTC

novok wrote: post #100

Hydraulix989 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quant trader at a firm that I've never even heard of but routinely pays even engineers 7 figures

I've also heard working at such firms has crazy finance hours too, which dissuades me from working there.

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Jul 11, 2022, 11:57 PM UTC

Mezzie wrote: post #255

geoduck14 wrote: post #246

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>Picking a career path isn’t that simple. Who can really predict what will be oversupplied 4 (college), 6(college + masters) or 8/10 (college + PhD) years from now? Seriously? In the late 1990s, I was in middle school. My grand parents sat me down and told me to work towards a degree that makes a lot of money. They had lists of "typical starting salaries, by college degrees". We picked the top 3, and I started workin…

> Seriously? In the late 1990s, I was in middle school. My grand parents sat me down and told me to work towards a degree that makes a lot of money. They had lists of "typical starting salaries, by college degrees". We picked the top 3, and I started working towards those. I later reassessed and picked the top 1 - Electrical Engineering. And people from poor and/or rural backgrounds? I only got those discussions beca…

Post by frognumber » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 4:34 AM UTC

cs137 wrote: post #206

frognumber wrote: post #34

Elite schools want people from the power class. A lot of this is explicitly baked into admissions. Over 40% of white students at Harvard are side-door admissions (legacy, donors, children of faculty, etc.). This is especially true for minority admissions. For the most part, Harvard won't admit lower-class African Americans; they'll select from a much smaller pool who have already moved into the power networks. That's…

> Over 40% of white students at Harvard are side-door admissions (legacy, donors, children of faculty, etc.). I'm sure it's over 40%. It wouldn't surprise me if it's 70. There are a lot of side doors. My information is dated, but as of circa-2008, the Ivies were including ZIP code and paternal (but not maternal) profession in their predictive modeling. The interviews (which are evaluative, even when people say they'r…

Post by aj7 » Tue, Jul 12, 2022, 12:43 PM UTC

fsckboy wrote: post #135

aj7 wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve suspected this. There was always some seed corn of this type at MIT, even in the old days. I got SB, 1968-72. Hacker was a new word, and nerd was often spelled with a “u.” It would have been unthinkable to try to prosecute Jonathan Swartz then.

Aaron Swartz you mean. though Jonathan Schwartz did get metoo'd (not prosecuted) and kicked off WNYC