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Who cares about the Ivy League?

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Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#91

Post by rcme »

uneekname wrote: post #88
rcme wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented people" if they were wealthy, given access to near-limitless resources, accepted into an elite school. I think a lot of people, myself included, want to believe this. It's nice to think that all humans have great potential inside of them! Unfortunately, reality might not respect our perfectly reasonable sensibilities. After having a child, I began…

Well here's an easy* win for any new parents reading this: read to your kids. As much as you can. They will start school with a significant leg up! https://journals.lww.com/jrnldbp/Abstract/2019/06000/When_Ch... * edit: easy, of course, if you don't work a night job and have the time to read multiple books to your child every day

> Results: Parents who read 1 picture book with their children every day provide their children with exposure to an estimated 78,000 words each a year. Cumulatively, over the 5 years before kindergarten entry, we estimate that children from literacy-rich homes hear a cumulative 1.4 million more words during storybook reading than children who are never read to.

This study just says that kids who are read to are exposed to more words. It's basically like saying kids who go outside more are exposed to more sunlight. Sure, this is definitely a true fact. But does it matter? This study says nothing about how reading effects outcomes in childhood or in life.

Wikipedia has a good article on the heritability of IQ: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ

> Various studies have estimated the heritability of IQ to be between 0.7 and 0.8 in adults and 0.45 in childhood in the United States.

One thing that is interesting is that children have very random IQs that eventually converge to something approximating their parents' IQs. Perhaps this is explained by things like an early-life word gap that eventually gets filled with age.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#92

Post by BlackJack »

alephnerd wrote: post #53
mrangle wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You already knew your friend group because you attended the same "2-300" high schools? Flagship Public Schools have long been limited elite. Hence the concept of the "Public Ivies". Ivy does STEM, but STEM isn't the point of going Ivy. Public Schools will continue to be fine institutions for technical workers, who were and will never considered to be elite in the class sense. Real elites tend toward history and art m…

> STEM isn't the point of going Ivy It is. Cornell, Princeton, and Columbia are all Top 10 CS programs. For natural sciences, all the Ivies top the charts. For med school, same story. > Real elites tend toward history and art majors. Some children of HNWI do major in history and art. Others will gladly major in STEM. Look at people like Bill Gates or half my hs. This isn't the 80s or 90s anymore. Post-2008, top publi…

I agree but want to correct you on the public school point. Excluding the service academics, there are 2 or 3 schools with sub 20% acceptance rates, and every other public school is above that.

See [1] and [2]. And these are the best public schools. The average of the top50 public schools is probably 40%ish, and the average of all public schools is 70%.

[1] https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/rank/public-colleges/... [2] https://www.oedb.org/rankings/acceptance-rate/

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#93

Post by randomdata »

uneekname wrote: post #30

I think the point about college mobility rates was an interesting one. But then the author lost me a bit: > what is the economic rationale for having a bunch of educational resources and top students concentrated in a few small elite schools? ... the country’s most talented people into the country’s most important jobs I don't think that's it at all. I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented…

> I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented people" if they were wealthy, given access to near-limitless resources, accepted into an elite school.

Sounds like a good investment opportunity. Fund a child into wealth now and take a cut of their much greater wealth created by their talents later on.

Investors have certainly flirted with the idea before, but it has never caught on. Perhaps it isn't the sure ticket you make it out to be?

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#94

Post by dralley »

uneekname wrote: post #58
jbullock35 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Ivy League students weren't born smart. They're exceptional because they were given access to what they needed to succeed. That must be part of the answer, but it can’t be the whole answer, or close to the whole. There’s huge variation in educational outcomes among those who get the access that you describe. What explains why some people in this group have such good outcomes, while most have relatively lacklus…

Respectfully, I think you're missing the point too. You are right that many folks who get access to these top resources don't then go on to become so successful, however you might define success. But a larger proportion of them do compared to other groups. I'm not saying that an individual is guaranteed success if they're born into a wealthy family. But I am saying that a wealthy neighborhood of kids who have access…

"I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einsteins brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops." - Stephen Jay Gould.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#95

Post by alephnerd »

gen220 wrote: post #78
alephnerd wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

University affiliation is a lagging indicator. At least in my friend group (mostly White, Asian, and Latiné who attended the Top 50 ranked US News schools), most of us already knew each other via competitive high school extracurriculars (eg. Debate, Sports, DECA, MUN, Science Olympiads, Quiz Bowl, SAT Bootcamp, Intel Science Fair, Cyberpatriot, etc) and because we all attended the same 200-300 high schools nationally…

It's certainly a lagging indicator for 1/N of the people at those schools. For the other 1-(1/N), it's more like the "last" of the leading indicators – i.e. their last shot at a significant step change in career outcomes before beginning a career. The ability to get a great technical education is more a function of who your parents are and how involved they want to be in your education than anything else, me thinks.…

By lagging indicator I mean traditionally less selective public schools have become extremely selective now.

When I was in elementary school, I assumed I'd get into Cal because everyone did in the 90s and 2000s. By the late 2000s and early 2010s, it's selectivity dropped to the 10-20% range and is dropping further. This is the same at other flagships as well (eg. UCLA, UVA, Mich, etc).

With this drop in acceptance rate, programs also shot up in US News Rankings. Everyone took UChicago's playbook and copied it.

> What do you think the forest is?

Inequality at the K-12 level.

In my age group (20-35) we're already socially stratified largely because we attended the same 200-300 elite HSes which were feeders to the handful of top colleges nationally.

Most Americans won't be able to attend such high schools as they are expensive af - either directly via Tuition if they're private, or indirectly by having houses starting at the million mark for public schools.

The elite of society has become much more diverse racially, but this is very shallow as most Americans

1. Don't attend college 2. Don't attend college track high school programs 3. Don't attend high schools with enough ECs to be competitive 4. Don't attend high schools which provide the level of guidance and counseling needed to apply and get selected at one of those top colleges.

This kind of social stratification already exists in the UK, Canada, Germany, and Australia, and is starting to occur in the US again.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#96

Post by uneekname »

randomdata wrote: post #93
uneekname wrote: post #30

I think the point about college mobility rates was an interesting one. But then the author lost me a bit: > what is the economic rationale for having a bunch of educational resources and top students concentrated in a few small elite schools? ... the country’s most talented people into the country’s most important jobs I don't think that's it at all. I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented…

> I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented people" if they were wealthy, given access to near-limitless resources, accepted into an elite school. Sounds like a good investment opportunity. Fund a child into wealth now and take a cut of their much greater wealth created by their talents later on. Investors have certainly flirted with the idea before, but it has never caught on. Perhaps it is…

Yeah, at the individual level this isn't cut and dry. When I wrote my comment I was talking about aggregate groups of students, apologies if that wasn't clear.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#97

Post by foobarian »

jbullock35 wrote: post #52
uneekname wrote: post #30

I think the point about college mobility rates was an interesting one. But then the author lost me a bit: > what is the economic rationale for having a bunch of educational resources and top students concentrated in a few small elite schools? ... the country’s most talented people into the country’s most important jobs I don't think that's it at all. I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented…

> Most Ivy League students weren't born smart. They're exceptional because they were given access to what they needed to succeed. That must be part of the answer, but it can’t be the whole answer, or close to the whole. There’s huge variation in educational outcomes among those who get the access that you describe. What explains why some people in this group have such good outcomes, while most have relatively lacklus…

I've been in a run-of-the-mill state school and an elite Ivy, and I can tell you that yes, a lot of the students in the latter were born extremely smart. Yes, there are smart people in the former, but the difference in the distributions is not small. IMO

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#98

Post by woooooo »

randomdata wrote: post #93
uneekname wrote: post #30

I think the point about college mobility rates was an interesting one. But then the author lost me a bit: > what is the economic rationale for having a bunch of educational resources and top students concentrated in a few small elite schools? ... the country’s most talented people into the country’s most important jobs I don't think that's it at all. I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented…

> I believe nearly anyone could be among "the country's most talented people" if they were wealthy, given access to near-limitless resources, accepted into an elite school. Sounds like a good investment opportunity. Fund a child into wealth now and take a cut of their much greater wealth created by their talents later on. Investors have certainly flirted with the idea before, but it has never caught on. Perhaps it is…

Cash alone doesn't work, you need the parenting, role models, nice local institutions and schools, etc.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#99

Post by gochi »

netbioserror wrote: post #60

The issue with the Ivy League and its elitist gatekeeping is its rising pattern of rubber-stamping deeply unimpressive people. These schools are supposed to actively seek out the best and forge them into the most capable people who have ever existed. Instead, they're lifelong credentials and status for heirs who are missing the talent and discipline of their forefathers. And then, as others have mentioned, they have…

A great summary, there is a dramatic mismatch in what the ivies suggest they do, and what they actually do and this has horrible consequences for society.

Re: Who cares about the Ivy League?

#100

Post by [deleted] »

nineplay wrote: post #69
Auracle wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You're assuming that people who are admitted to Ivy League schools a) have higher IQs than average and b) have parents with higher IQs than average. Neither of these need to be true. It's a incestuous system where it's easy to believe that people of average IQ have been born into privilege for generations and succeeded only because of their family wealth and connections.

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