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It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

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Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#371

Post by DreamScatter »

digglet90 wrote: post #46

Seems like there's an emerging paradigm for ignoring universities but still doing something of value in the "academic" space. This is just a dumb strategy but based on many examples I've seen recently. 1. Customise a curriculum engaging with younger tutors in niche areas (e.g. youtube, teachable or if theres others comment). 2. Do this for a few years and make sure to meet people/do appropriate things and publish the…

That's pretty much my stance, the universities are obsolete garbage. I did give them another shot and took as many math classes as possible, but they screwed up and drove me away.

I now do all my math research independent, as the universities are unable to facilitate my math research activity.

https://github.com/chakravala

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#372

Post by handrous »

rkk3 wrote: post #232
handrous wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forget elite universities: IIRC exactly one of the last eight Presidential candidates (from the two parties that matters) in the general election didn't attend a private prep high school. (Hillary Clinton, is the one who didn't). [EDIT] I know Cotton isn't one of them, I'm just pointing out that this elitism sure as hell appears to be a driving factor in who's on top in both parties.

Don't think Biden went to prep school, He didn't even go to an Ivy. So 7/9? Edit: Correction I forgot McCain Bush - Philips Academy Gore - St Albans School Kerry - St Pauls Obama - Punahou School (On scholarship!) McCain - Episcopal High School Romney - Cranbrook School Trump - New York Military Academy

Biden:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archmere_Academy

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#373

Post by Siira »

UncleMeat wrote: post #346
b9a2cab5 wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Under the new rules, Fairfax will first identify all eighth-graders who meet certain academic criteria: those who achieve an unweighted GPA of at least 3.5 while taking Algebra I or a higher-level math class, in addition to math and science honors courses and either an English or social studies honors course." "In a bid to ensure geographical diversity, a certain number of seats will be allotted to every middle scho…

The existing system also isn't meritocratic. I attended TJ. I remember the test prep and the BS extracurriculars to pad resumes. I am not convinced that a student who has a 3.5 and has taken accelerated courses is unprepared to attend. Extracurriculars at TJ (at least many years ago) were also tremendously diverse. Sure, somebody who has only taken Algebra 1 in 8th grade is less likely to end up with the top scores i…

Most students benefit from getting admitted to prestigious institutions, even when they are unprepared. Because education is not about persistent, transferable learning, it's a signalling game where you can learn some skills on the side, and the hardest part of the game is the admission. It's really hard to not get your creds if you're just decent, and there are a loot of decent students.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#374

Post by randomswede »

rebelos wrote: post #261
rdevsrex wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. A lot of people who’ve been hurt by racism in the past, engage in loose pattern matching. If the story is a police officer shot a black person, to many it’s automatically racism, despite whatever the facts are. That said, I’m black btw, the problems in the black community are not down to any one thing, but certainly the lack of two parent households is a biggie. I was fortunate to grow up in California with two…

You raise a very important point and one that is difficult to discuss. I'm Asian and I grew up with parents who hewed rather closely to Asian culture. There are two values they championed essentially above all others, well known to most: devotion to family and the intense pursuit of academic achievement. I do feel like I've been a direct beneficiary of that cultural impulse. Much like yourself, I did my best to lever…

Purely hypothetically, if there are string indications that parental socio-economic status influence the chances of their children. And that socio-economic status is somewhat (to strongly) correlated with previous race-influenced policies, is a generation or two of compensating for that "inflicting racial injustice"? Is a failure to compensate for it not explicitly "continuing racial injustice"?

I mean, I literally have no answer. Except, possibly, "yes" and "yes", and "the former is on the whole a lesser evil than the latter"?

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#375

Post by randomswede »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #197
selimthegrim wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I knew Liz Fong Jones at Caltech and she puts one foot in front of the other and goes to the bathroom like everyone else. Have a chill pill.

The fact that she was at Caltech (and then MIT) alone is an indication that she is objectively superior to people like me though, and I have little hope of achieving even a fraction of that sort of success. I can't even get an interview at companies like Stripe because of my school, for instance.

I have worked with lizf (well, we worked in similar roles, but in different teams, for the same company). My sum total of university accolades are "2 terms of evening courses in electronics", "two terms of philosophy", and "just short of a third of a Master in computer science & engineering".

I dropped getting a full degree, instead deciding to go back to the industry and working (I'd spent 3 years in the industry working before I went to Uni, and having money again sounded like an excellent idea).

Now, that was me working myself up, as it were, through a variety of jobs (more on the "run things" than "write things" side, but theres a lot of "write things" involved in running things in a scalable fashion), with a few actual dev jobs along the line.

Would I be able to get my CV in front of someone at Stripe? Honestly, don't know. If all they look at is schools, I suspect my chances are vastly lower than yours. If they look at previous job history? Probably, yes.

At this point, it seems to me that the main blocker for you is depression, it MAY be worth consulting a professional about that.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#376

Post by rebelos »

randomswede wrote: post #374
rebelos wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You raise a very important point and one that is difficult to discuss. I'm Asian and I grew up with parents who hewed rather closely to Asian culture. There are two values they championed essentially above all others, well known to most: devotion to family and the intense pursuit of academic achievement. I do feel like I've been a direct beneficiary of that cultural impulse. Much like yourself, I did my best to lever…

Purely hypothetically, if there are string indications that parental socio-economic status influence the chances of their children. And that socio-economic status is somewhat (to strongly) correlated with previous race-influenced policies, is a generation or two of compensating for that "inflicting racial injustice"? Is a failure to compensate for it not explicitly "continuing racial injustice"? I mean, I literally h…

> Purely hypothetically, if there are string indications that parental socio-economic status influence the chances of their children. And that socio-economic status is somewhat (to strongly) correlated with previous race-influenced policies, is a generation or two of compensating for that "inflicting racial injustice"? Is a failure to compensate for it not explicitly "continuing racial injustice"?

This makes two assumptions that I would challenge: that affirmative action as it exists at present is benefitting the most socioeconomically vulnerable underrepresented minorities and that the problem you're describing cannot be tackled with race neutral wealth redistribution and other need-aware policymaking.

Also, if you want to go down the racial grievance accounting rabbithole, then the Irish, Japanese, Jews, etc would like a word as well. You're be hard-pressed to find a race that doesn't have some such claim.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#377

Post by randomswede »

rebelos wrote: post #376
randomswede wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Purely hypothetically, if there are string indications that parental socio-economic status influence the chances of their children. And that socio-economic status is somewhat (to strongly) correlated with previous race-influenced policies, is a generation or two of compensating for that "inflicting racial injustice"? Is a failure to compensate for it not explicitly "continuing racial injustice"? I mean, I literally h…

> Purely hypothetically, if there are string indications that parental socio-economic status influence the chances of their children. And that socio-economic status is somewhat (to strongly) correlated with previous race-influenced policies, is a generation or two of compensating for that "inflicting racial injustice"? Is a failure to compensate for it not explicitly "continuing racial injustice"? This makes two assu…

I am specifically NOT trying to go down "redress historical grievances", only "try to correct for currently existing imbalances".

There's probably also something to be said for having policies trying to get some geographic rebalancing in place as well. But, what I am trying to say is that redressing recent-past wrongs MAY require slight over-compensation.

To make anything other than sweeping generalisations, I would need numbers. Oh so many numbers.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#378

Post by b9a2cab5 »

Siira wrote: post #373
UncleMeat wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The existing system also isn't meritocratic. I attended TJ. I remember the test prep and the BS extracurriculars to pad resumes. I am not convinced that a student who has a 3.5 and has taken accelerated courses is unprepared to attend. Extracurriculars at TJ (at least many years ago) were also tremendously diverse. Sure, somebody who has only taken Algebra 1 in 8th grade is less likely to end up with the top scores i…

Most students benefit from getting admitted to prestigious institutions, even when they are unprepared. Because education is not about persistent, transferable learning, it's a signalling game where you can learn some skills on the side, and the hardest part of the game is the admission. It's really hard to not get your creds if you're just decent, and there are a loot of decent students.

Certain most students would benefit. That much is obvious. But would the institution and the country benefit? Would the other students going there benefit? All of the smartest people I know went to prestigious institutions. The learning taking place there has never been the big draw; it's the student body and associated ecosystem of alumni, corporations, faculty, etc. You can learn anything by yourself off YouTube but you can't meet a large body of very intelligent people anywhere other than a prestigious college. The level of ambition, drive, and intelligence is incomparable to any corporation short of probably DeepMind or an early stage startup.

Re: It’s time to break up the Ivy League cartel

#379

Post by SantalBlush »

rkk3 wrote: post #367
SantalBlush wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Being trained for an elite social circle is the entire value proposition of a finishing school, not sure where you see a disagreement. Gaining access to elite social circles is not the same thing as being trained for those circles. There are plenty of institutions that enable elite networking that have nothing to do with finishing school, so it's a false equivalence.

> Gaining access to elite social circles is not the same thing as being trained for those circles. Sure but this is pedantic and both are aspects of a finishing school or elite university...

It's not pedantic at all, because the two are not even close. You basically just put words into the other poster's mouth.
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