Success Despite College Rejection 436
selan writes "Are those who are rejected by prestigious schools destined to lead mediocre lives? Or are great people more likely to succeed if they were rejected by top universities? An inspirational column in the Washington Post discusses the "Spielberg Effect", a theory that it really doesn't matter where you went to school."
for my PhD... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:for my PhD... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:for my PhD... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:for my PhD... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some - acturial sciences springs to mind - have a serious negative towards masters (and, heaven forefend, PhDs) without real-world experience.
And then, of course, there's math ... where one degree leads to the next leads to the next leads to an academic position ... ;) (Actually, this holds true for certain University positions - e.g. English, History - but is completely reversed for others - e.g. Engineering - where they pretty much won't touch you without a good deal of real world experience (which was learned the hard way when the professors came staight from the ranks of the grads for many generations, and were teaching steam engines when the world was running on IC)
More seriously, sometimes continuing on the 'education' track is easier without taking time off ... you don't lose the mind-set. And sometimes (oh, Engineering and certain Sciences) the 'education' following your first degree becomes indistinguishable from 'work' (i.e. research)
There is a growing trend, in certain fields, for 'continuing' education. The acturies mentioned above generally follow a fairly rigid timeline ... degree and certification, two years work, masters, two-three years more work, PhD. Life Insurance has the LOMA series (which is taken concurrently with working, and averages four or five years to complete). And I can't remember the number of times I've smiled politely and declined when some !@#$ suggested I take an M$CE/SA/xy course.
Best advice I have was originally coined awhile back ... "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education."
Re:for my PhD... (Score:2, Informative)
In short: don't believe the hype.
Re:for my PhD... (Score:5, Informative)
Please back up your assertions. This is completely false. I speak as a college counselor with about 8 years of experience.
It does matter what undergraduate college you go to, but reputation, prestige, and ranking have nothing to do with it. Here is the principle:
When you look at results, most of the prestigious schools are defeated, beaten down, and put to shame by a relatively unknown class of schools, the small liberal-arts college. The mechanism should be obvious: small classes; professors who love to teach, have no research burden, and take an interest in your work; broad education that teaches you mental skills, not just job skills.
Since we're talking about grad school, let's take the percentage of graduates from college that eventually earn a PhD (from any institution, not necessarily the same one). So we're talking about your personal chances of getting a future PhD as a result of undergraduate college choice. Here's the top of that list:
I'll leave out the rest. Buy Loren Pope's excellent book Looking Beyond the Ivy League if you want the rest of the chart. Interesting to note, Princeton is the first of the vaunted Ivies to make this list at #21 (11.7%), and only because it is the one that behaves most like a small college. The next Ivy to show its face is Harvard at #37 (9.0%). Three of the Ivies and Stanford don't make top 50.
The list plays out the same way whatever measure you choose: MCAT scores, grad/med/law school admission rates (often 30-100% better than the prestige colleges), leaders and prominent figures produced, you name it.
Although their population is collectively tiny, the small liberal-arts schools produce half the professional scientists in this country. (Don't be fooled into thinking you need a technical school for a technical education.)
And now, here's the real kicker: many of these schools are not very selective. Reed, #3 on the list, will take you if you've got a B+ average, around 1300 on the SAT, and some demonstrable intellectual curiosity. But they will invariably turn out graduates that surpass those at famous schools.
Schools like Harvard deserve no credit for admitting "successful" people and then graduating "successful" people. I went there, and it improved me not at all. It's much more impressive to see a school take in an average student and make them great; or a good student and make them stellar.
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Dum de dum.
Re:for my PhD... (Score:2)
Sure. I'm the process of applying to graduate school. Purdue was the most upfront about admissions out of all of the schools I've applied to:Other schools I've looked at have said similar things; we take into account where you got your degree from, essentially.
Re:for my PhD... (Score:2)
They are scaring away applicants o purpose. Ph.D. admissions are generally done by the professors that might advise you. The admissions criteria fluctuate from year to year depending on who is doing the culling. One year numbers will be used to cull the list to a manegable amount before it is sent to the professors in the sub-field you're intereseted in, the next year someone who reads every application will be in charge and students who didn't finish their BS/BA but started a leading company in the field gets his application read and gets in.
When I applied I got into every school but my safety school, I think that tells you how arbritary it is. Once you realize that they are not even trying to be fair rejection letters don't have a huge effect on you. They are just trying to build a class of students that will satisfy the professors...and by in large they succeed at that goal.
Re:for my PhD... (Score:3, Insightful)
As for "popular prestige," the term is vague because I'm simplifying. But it roughly refers to the school's standing in popular culture. There obviously is no agreement on it. Yet, the most common objection I hear when recommending schools is, "I've never heard of it." People will be steadfastly adamant on this point, often spluttering and rationalizing on the spot (and sounding like morons) when I ask for evidence and justification. If I press the issue, it invariably turns out that they can't even name a couple of dozen schools in total (not including "University of X"). So much for "popular prestige."
The term is about as vague as your reference to "academic reputation." Now, if you mean that you've done the legwork to find out hard facts about the department you're applying to, then I applaud you. Any component of "reputation" that is not factually verifiable is probably hearsay.
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Dum de dum.
Re:for my PhD... (Score:4, Funny)
It is nonsense to judge a college by who they ADMIT.
Judge a college by who they PRODUCE.
I hear NYU has a high rate of student pregnancy. Guess they PRODUCE a lot of our country's best.
C'mon. Colleges don't produce people. Sex produces people.
Re:for my PhD... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think that the story behind the percentage of graduate students might be a little bit more complicated than the one you present.
It is true that small class environments are better. One has to think about the kind of student that decides to go to one of these "lesser known"1 schools over a more famous one. Most of the time these students will be people who are more interested in the work they will be doing in school than in the self-promotion value of the degree. Thus they see their college education as worthwhile in and of itself instead as just another requirement to fullfil on the way to success.
1 I use quotation marks because while most people don't know about schools like swarthmore or haverford people who make decisions in graduate schools do.
Re:for my PhD... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:for my PhD... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:for my PhD... (Score:2)
That said, the experience I had as an undergrad working with professors is what helped my PhD chances immensely. But the most important thing is having a good mentor. Some professors who are "top in their fields" might be located at schools whose undergraduates student bodies are considered mediocre. However, if you churn out really good research with a good advisor, it doesn't matter, even if the school might have been considered "second-tier" when you were 18 years old.
Re:for my PhD... (Score:2)
And "prestigious institutions" don't mean much for graduate work; it's the departments that matter. Many ivy league schools have some mediocre graduate departments, while some public universities with mediocre undergraduate records have world-renowned graduate departments in certain subjects.
Re:six figure high school drop out (Score:2, Funny)
Re:for my PhD... (Score:2, Interesting)
While you can get somewhere without a good education, I can tell you as an engineer, and as a college recruiter we do look at transcripts and resumes. I can also tell you the school that you come from matters. If you went to a Tier 3 state supported school, you better do significantly better than someone who comes from a Tier 1 school. The academic programs are generally much tougher in the Tier 1 schools, and we expect slighly lower grades from those applicants on average. And this is not just generalization.
After I finished undergrad and moved to my first apartment, I started taking classes at the local university. It was a farce. Compared to the work I did in my undergraduate classes it was nothing. I took graduate classes before leaving undergrad and they involved quite a bit work. The classes I took at the local university were mostly memorization and had very little to do with learning concepts and theories. ie: Memorizing details of the 8086->Pentium processors does not a Computer Architecture class make. That lasted for two classes, as I thought I chose a bad class. The next semester I transfered to the arch-rival of the Tier 1 I went to as undergrad (they have a local campus) and things were more like I would expect.
Also, low grades don't always reflect inability to learn the subject. Sometimes it's from laziness, an unwillingness to work, or not caring about the work. This is the last kind of person we want to hire. You don't have to have straight A's and participate in 50 activities. But you do have to demonstrate a healthy like for this type of work, and a willingness to...well, work. Involvment in extra-curricular projects or practical experience is a nice plus.
For academic positions, research, publications, etc. take a more prominent position. But either way, what managers/professors look for is that you really are interested in the field, and that you don't want to get a degree just to have the paper.
Motivation and skill are key. Poor academic performance is a good indicator one of them is missing. Success at a more challenging university generally indicates you have more of both.
Since (Score:5, Funny)
English Universities are so dull by comparison. Like most students in England I had to rent private accommodation for my second and third years, but it never occurred to us to build a whole culture around collectively renting a rather dilapidated house in Clapham. It wasn't even single sex accommodation, so we couldn't engage in the fun and games of para-homosexual activities - Girls just don't have the same grip on your loyalties as your Greek brothers
Then there's sheer joy alcohol seems to bring fraternity members.. By the time I went to university the delights of getting dangerously drunk at parties had started to seem mundane. But to American students in fraternities, the bravado of excessive alcohol consumption is a an exciting new and illicit game where you can prove yourself worthy to all your male friends and simultaneously circumvent college alcohol policy - thereby proving what a rebel you are too. Gosh.
I am also rather fond of the references to ancient Greece. It reeks of a history far nobler and grander than anything a British University can instil its students with, and the wearing of togas must make it seem as authentic as a ploughman's lunch.
I think what I am trying to say is that Fraternities give young Americans the chance to grow up in their own time, and that it is regrettable that no similar opportunity is afforded to European Students. In particular, I find it sad that even some American students forego the opportunity to wear togas and claim to be Greek. Really this should be mandatory, so every graduate will be secure in the knowledge that they have gained something much more valuable than a degree from an American University - a little badge with some Greek letters on it.
Although I am not American, I admire the system so much that I would dearly love to become an honorary member of a fraternity. I have set my heart on becoming an alumni of Theta Omicron Sigma Sigma Epsilon Ro Sigma. I do so hope this is possible
Re:Since (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Since (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Since (Score:2)
Re:Since (Score:3, Insightful)
If your wicket's not already sticky in reverie, I have two more words taken from the British Boy's Own Lexicon: soggy biscuits, a treat seemingly unique to the cuisine of that northern island country of queens.
I'm not serious, of course - I love England, and we'll pretend I didn't wish I could have spent my formative years in boarding school there, myself. The point is, you're making (ethnic?) prejudicial slurs against "the Greeks", begging comparison back to your own quirky system. In the U.S., the partying buffoons are allowed to expose themselves, have a good time, burn out, and eventually become used-car dealers and fast-food restaurant managers; in yours, they seem rather more likely to become "captains of industry." That's only natural, since you've had a few hundred more years to build up the Old Boy (bedsheet) Network.
Re:Since (Score:2)
I am aware of a Canadian variant called "Cream the cookie", which I learned of in summer camp (and, thankfully, never participated in).
Re:Since (Score:2)
I'm sure it was the "English" Canadians, though. The "French" Canadians would have called it "biscuits du creme fraiche," or something like that
Re:Since (Score:3, Funny)
In the U.S., the partying buffoons are allowed to expose themselves, have a good time, burn out, and eventually become used-car dealers and fast-food restaurant managers
...or President of the United States, even.
Re:Since (Score:4, Informative)
Either way, I haven't seen it in ages. This one is good enough for PhysicsGenius [slashdot.org]
Re:Since (Score:2)
Yeah, because the inability to understand dry humour and getting upset about something which isn't an attack on your country but a criticism of something which happens there is a perfect excuse to be a racist! In case you're as simple as you sound, THE PREVIOUS SENTENCE WAS SARCASM.
I don't even think going at all is that important (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I don't even think going at all is that importa (Score:2, Insightful)
Take interest in professional associations, ensure that in your work assignments you make use of the skills you learnt (analytical, critical thinking, good judgement), retain connections with your peers in the industry from university, etc. Make better use of your education.
Studies show that after 5-10 years, university educated students catch up and surpass those that didn't go to university. University pays off eventually, but you have to make it work for you.
Re:I don't even think going at all is that importa (Score:2)
Think about it this way (Score:3, Funny)
Nobody is forcing you to work there for that amount. That's like saying "I'm the king of spain and I'm stuck shovelling pig shit for a dollar a day, boy being king sure sucks!"
You are equating university degree with your crappy job and let me assure you, it's also possible to find many crappy jobs without a degree as well.
Re:I don't even think going at all is that importa (Score:2)
Re:I don't even think going at all is that importa (Score:2)
Some fields seem to want degrees more than others, but I do see people succeed without them. It is becoming more expected over time, simply because american high schools are so bad, employers want to see an extra 4 years of seasoning. Anyone under 30 in the US ought to have, or be working on a degree, because the trend isn't going to change - if anything, demographic changes in the next decade or two will leave the US with more university seats then needed, and thus probably result in almost everyone of that age cohort attempting to get degrees as standards at the bottom rungs sink.
ostiguy
Qualifications (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Qualifications (Score:2, Insightful)
OK, but what do they do when HTML becomes obsolete? I know it's a hackneyed point, but education really does - in my experience - broaden the mind. After a degree in physics (because that was what I found interesting) I got a job in electronics without too much problem. Others, with more vocational electronics qualifications, found it easier. Since then I have moved fairly easily into systems design and control systems; some people who (over-) specialised in electronics are now struggling.
Re:Qualifications (Score:2)
Re:Qualifications (Score:2)
First I would never consider an education a waste of time, but you do bring up a good point about what the job focus needs. At least in America businesses often require a degree and experience. Granted most of these job descriptions are used as deterrence rather than a true representation of what they really need. But to get a good job in the Technology industry it is an unwritten law that you need a degree. At least for some one whom is just writing a bit of HTML I would say should take at least associates in a related filed? Many people who teach them selves c++ with book don't know the true way to format or how and what to program. Nothing like a good school can teach you. Not going to college is kind of like playing a piano without ever learning how to read the sheet of music, or even the basics of music. You can get some great musicians, but they are few, and in our society would really ever make it that far just from the discriminations of people who have gone to college and have achieved a certain level in the job market.
Re:Qualifications (Score:2)
But usually when someone says they want to code HTML for the rest of their life, what they really mean is maybe one of:
a) code online user interfaces for the rest of their life. To this person I might suggest a degree in art or psychology;
b) write and format/typeset online content for the rest of their life. To this person I might suggest a degree in english, or some other solid foundation that a journalist might take; or
c) develop online markup languages and data representations for the rest of their life. Here you might really want a good solid computer science degree, with a thorough understanding how how everything works together (since that's what a markup language is, really: glue)
So you're right, not every computer-related job necessarily needs a "computer science" degree. But instead of recommending that they just go out and get a job, and rely on work experience to carry them forward, I would suggest that they at least consider a good, solid foundation in a related field so that when HTML becomes obsolete, they don't go obsolete with it.
Re:Qualifications (Score:2)
huh (Score:3, Insightful)
E.g. if you become the head of a medium-sized business selling widgets worldwide then you have "succeeded". Big Fucking Deal.
The point of life is to have fun. That's it.
I recommend not working. Why give most of your life to an unfeeling corporation ?
I also recommend not getting married. It always ends in tears.
Forget what society expects you to be. Ignore what your parents want you to be. Be what you want to be- for yourself and no-one else.
graspee
Re:huh (Score:5, Insightful)
There's an old saying that if you want to be happy you need three things.
1. Something to do - Usually translates to some sort of job. You'll never be happy if you don't contribute to society and waste the gifts you've been given.
2. Someone to Love - Go ahead never take a risk because it ends in tears. Marriage also ends in tears of laughter. I've shed tears in my marriage but I can't imagine my life without her.
3. Something to look forward to - Without hope, life is pointless. You sound like you need something to look forward to.
A couple of more thoughts on your less salient points.
E.g. if you become the head of a medium-sized business selling widgets worldwide then you have "succeeded". Big Fucking Deal
I hate to break the news to you but the Big Fucking Deal of being the head of the medium-sized business isn't the glamorous challenge of selling widgets, its the lifestyle which such a position would afford you. It means a comfortable house, a car more enjoyable than a used Hyundai, and the resources to travel and enjoy a few vacations.
The point of life is to have fun. That's it.
If you think thats the entire point of life, you're missing the point. Perhaps the point is making a difference in the lives of others. That head of a business employs other people and in a small mundane way, probably makes the world a better place.
Having fun is much easier with a job. I enjoy skiing. Lift tickets cost money. I enjoy gadgets. Gadgets costs money. The irony is that if you make money your goal, you're doomed to unhappiness and you won't have any fun. A money centered or self centered life will guaranteee very little fun and very little joy.
I choose joy.
Re:huh (Score:5, Interesting)
Comment : The point of life is to have fun. That's it
Reply : If you think thats the entire point of life, you're missing the point
I kinda disagree. IMHO, there's no ordained point to life. You decide what the point of your life is (depending on your outlook). No obligation or duty is imposed on you to make any difference in anyone's life, even your own. But that's not going to work out very well.
"Driven" people succeed anyway (Score:2)
The point of the article seem to me to be NOT anything to do with the value (or lack thereof) of a name-brand diploma at all. It struck me as being about how *driven* a person can be, and how that can lead them to succeed despite not having top-level "credentials".
Re:"Driven" people succeed anyway (Score:2)
I cover that in my root-level comment "Personality matters".
I was just replying to the immediate parent's reply to its parent.
Re:"Driven" people succeed anyway (Score:2)
Finally spent those last two mod points over in the sysadmin discussion, which strikes me as being oddly in parallel with this one, except there one should substitute "mindset" for "driven".
Or maybe just genericize it to all fields, with "insert your talent here".
Re:huh (Score:2)
With a hope-based mind, life becomes a painful grind of must-have this or that. Better just to sit with what is.
There are extremes, I don't think that is hope, that's either materialism or greed. I don't necessarily agree being perfectly content is better than materialism. For one, being perfectly content doesn't exactly move things along, there is a balance.
Re:huh (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, you have a crappy job, no prospects and women can't stand the sight of you.
Therefore, you define happiness as containing none of those things.
Boy, that sure is profound.
Re:huh (Score:2)
does it matter at all? (Score:5, Insightful)
I've come to the conclusion that school doesn't matter at all except for three things:
1. You might learn something, but NOBODY will know that except you. If it helps you--great. Maybe you could have learned on the job or from a book too.
2. Some idiotic people require you to have a degree, but they don't care from where. There are a lot of these people, some of them will wield a great deal of power over your life.
3. You might make some friends. You friends might help you to get a job or some important break some day. If you go to an expensive school you might wind up with expensive friends who can get you an expensive break.
So going to a "good school" I think boils down to getting "expensive friends" and if you think that will be important to your career (obviously it would help Spielberg get his first film out) then maybe it's worth paying the $$$ and working your ass off to get in.
I've also heard that the programme at Harvard, etc., really isn't any more difficult than at other schools. The tough part is getting in.
So...
It doesn't surprise me at all that there is little difference between going to a good university and going to a "bad" one. It wouldn't even surprise me much if someone wrote up a study showing that there wasn't a lot of difference between going to university and not going.
The same argument would work: maybe the kind of people who apply to universities are the "good people" who will succeed--and if they don't actually go to university they will still be good people who will succeed.
In my work experience (computer related) I found that my education was pretty critical getting the first one or maybe two jobs. After that people only cared about my experience--so whatever the value of an education is, it's short lived in my career. I can imagine it's the same everywhere.
hmm, reminds me of something neal stephenson wrote (Score:3, Interesting)
i went to a place called TAMS (texas academy of mathematics and science; class of '96). basically your last two years of high school are your first two of college, so by the time you're 18 you've racked up 60 to 80 college credits (fully two thirds of my class were national merit scholars, we had five or six out of ~180 with perfect SAT scores, to give you a bit of an idea what the place was like). by any measure, this is the start of an interesting childhood... what strikes me as odd, perhaps proving mr. stephenson's theory, is that comparing the people I know who stayed in regular high school vs. the ex-TAMSters, the ex-TAMSters have a much larger deviation from "the beaten path"... Most of the folks I know from my old high school stayed pretty close to what they (or their parents, or society as a whole) expected their path to be. the TAMSters on the other hand, are all over the farkin' map. doctorates and dropouts, financiers and filmmakers... we're too young yet (24ish) to have had the time to make a big impact on society, but with backgrounds like these, i'm thinking something interesting is going to happen becuase of these folks
Observational Selection ? (Score:3, Insightful)
The effects of a rejection could be positive or negative. There could be many reasons why Greg Forbes Siegman did what he did...too many variables and circumstances. "theorising" does not seem to be the right thing to do.
Re:Observational Selection ? (Score:2)
Re:Observational Selection ? (Score:2)
The only thing the name-brand diploma (indeed, ANY diploma) changes, is your potential *entry points* of success. Example: if you're a kid who is naturally driven to make lots of money, but drop out of school in the 9th grade, you may well become the biggest drug dealer in your neighbourhood, because THAT is the limit of opportunity for success given the entry points available. Take the same person up thru a couple years of community college, and he may well become the biggest local MacDonalds franchise owner instead. Given an Ivy League diploma, he may become a partner in a big law firm.
Whereas if you're a kid who is NOT driven to "succeed" (however you may define that, but I'll use money for the sake of consistency), and you drop out at the 9th grade, you may well be content with a nice steady janitorial job. With a couple years of college, perhaps with managing one of your "driven" buddy's MacDonalds franchises. Whereas if you did the Ivy League thing, you might be content with basic background legal work, with no thought of partnerships or pretigious accounts.
I've hired many people and it doesn't matter (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I've hired many people and it doesn't matter (Score:3, Informative)
Absolutely. In successful companies, labs, (whatever), you want people who are capable, productive, and can work and play well with others. For instance, it was once reccomended to me by our former chair of neurosurgery that you take the potential job candidate out to dinner. If you cannot eat with that person or are uncomfortable there, they will never work out in your business or lab and for the most part I have found this to be true. (another interesting bit....I have found that some of the best scientists are also pretty damn good cooks).
As for the ivy league school bit you talked about earlier, it's interesting that it seems to get you into the door at many places (especially in England and in certain places on the east and west coasts), but getting into the door is no guarantee of success. I have seen more than one knucklehead from an ivy league school suck up many resource $$'s before leaving for another position having accomplished nothing. As for me going to an ivy league school, yeah, I was accepted into Stanford based upon college entrance scores, but finding out tuition was going to be $25,000/year, I was shocked and dismayed as I did not know where I was going to find the money to go to a state school at the time. However, I am happy with my decision not to go as I did not have to take out loans and any extra money I did not spend on tuition simply went into investments. Would it have been nice to go? Yes, but not for $100k and financial aid was not guaranteed.
Re:I've hired many people and it doesn't matter (Score:2, Interesting)
Except that Stanford isn't an Ivy League school =) Sorry.. I just had to bite and point that out.
However, semantics aside, that doesn't really mean anything. Stanford is one of the finest colleges in the country and probably produces graduates just as strong, if not stronger, than a large portion of the Ivy League.
For some people, myself included, the Ivies are actually a bit of a turnoff. In high school, I noticed that most people who were applying to Ivies were doing so soley because they "needed" to go to an Ivy... not because they actually liked the school or thought it was a good fit for themselves. I can't tell you how many of these people applied to _every_ Ivy, without having even visited most of them. At that point, I decided that I definitely didn't want that. I had dealt with people like this all of my life - there was no way I was going to do it again for the next four years.
Now, I'm not saying that all Ivies student are like this. While visiting friends at Ivies I've met a lot of very nice kids who I really got along with. However, at the same time, I've perceived a very definite aura of pretentiousness with the oh-so-familiar, "Oh, so you don't go to an Ivy?", etc.
There is even a phrase used by some to describe people who share my views - "Ivy Envy." And you know what.. the people who use that phrase are the very people who I'm talking about. But to each his own. Some people want that and others don't.
Although the college you attend may help you in your first step out of college (whether that is law school, graduate school, or your first job) in the end, it doesn't really matter. If in ten years people are still judging you on the college you went to, instead of the person that you are, then I'd say that you're probably surrounding yourself with the wrong people.
But that's just my 2 cents...
decline of the lone geek (Score:2, Insightful)
Thus the best course of action would be to goof off by socializing where-ever you can. Socialize, socialize, socialize. Go to a cheap school and save yourself the money.
Jobs that one can do without much interaction are slowing being shipped overseas to people who are paid $2 an hour. The lone geek is going the way of the factory worker.
That's just life.
Re:how about technical achievements? (Score:2)
In the work our company does, a PhD is not really required. In fact, a PhD in any hard science from any reasonable university means that you have the technical skills to do the job. Therefore, the real issue is how do you fit into the corporate culture, and whether you can communicate the results of our work in written and oral forms. Hence the focus on communication skills and personality.
One of the things I learned after college is very few people actually continue to work in the area of their degrees. Nonetheless, the skills developed during that degree -- for a PhD that means the ability to work on one's own, the perseverance demonstrated by completing the PhD, and general technical skills -- are valued.
one factor.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's look at the facts:
From a forbes article [forbes.com]: The vast majority of the 234 U.S. billionaires whose education level is tracked by Forbes magazine through 1999 finished college; 100 have some form of advanced degree, but 41--that's 18%--never got their college diplomas and two never even finished high school.
The world's richest man(i don't have to stress here
The point I am trying to make is not that education doesn't help you or isn't necessary, but rather bookish/college education is not the be all or end all in making a person a great individual or entrepreneur or leader.
Quick everyone! (Score:2)
Now where is my billion dollars?
incomplete analysis (Score:2)
A good education gives you a choice: you can limit your risks and your rewards, or you can accept a lot of risk and possibly make it to the very top. Most people apparently do the rational thing given this choice: they limit their risk and their rewards. Most people are happy with a decent income, a nice family, predictable work, and reasonable success at their job. Most people deep down don't really desire to be Bill Gates or Steven Spielberg.
Personality matters. (Score:5, Insightful)
The college you go to doesn't matter*
*Elitist wall-street and legal firms not included.
Re:Personality matters. (Score:2)
1. when it was time for me to look for a summer internship which could hopefully lead to a job many large companies aggressively marketed themselves to CS undergrads in my department this was in stark contrast to some of my friends who went to larger schools but are doing the same work and are absolutely equally qualified.
2. One person I know at princeton was able to get in touch with senator Frist through the university because of his envolvment with our student government. That's the kind of access that can only help when trying to get your foot in the door in any field.
But before you call me elitist I should say that I dont think the name of your school should come into question when deciding where to apply in the long run picking the school that's right for you based on the environment you want and the fields you want to pursue is far more important.
From my own experience: Right on! (Score:2)
Everything that article says is so very true.
And there is still one thing I might want to add:
The reason for going to a University should be that you want to learn, not that you want a degree. If you can't gain that amount of self esteem (spelling???) without a degree it's almost shure a degree isn't the right thing for you. That probably is more so when studying an art.
If I where young again (gee I'm 32 now...:-) ) I'd be even more reckless. I'd pick the masters I've allways considered the best of trade, let's say for instance Frank Miller the comic artist, back a backpack travel to him, knock on his door and ask him to let me help him with anything I can offer for free and therefore let me look over his shoulder while he's drawing. For now I don't give a shit what papers or titles people have. They hardly mean zilch apart from showing their ability to walk the treadmill.
What counts is what ones self is willing to do and what ones self considers a great achievement or a poor performance. It's difficult, requires honesty but in the long run get's you farther. I bet that's the common demoninator all the people we call 'originals' have.
reputation != education (Score:2, Interesting)
Most college rankings seem to rely on reputation, peer-review, famous faculty, research, and the education recieved by graduate students. Instead undergraduate is by and large who you are and how much your worth, not brains. And to top it off, and this really got me, a large number of the 'best-of-the-best' schools use a partial or full pass/fail system to hide GPAs. This means that if you pass (usually 50-65% on course webpages), you get a pass - equal to a 3.0 when converted to a GPA by the school. Quite a nice trick, especially for those that use a partial system to hide tougher courses where GPAs would fall.
And the graduate programs aren't all that great at times. Many take 1 year to complete, not two. I actually laughed when I looked at UC Berkeley's for Computer Engineering: 10-11 crh (out of 24) can be applied to any 100-level or above course. Okay, okay, its not ivy-leage, but the school has a good rep.
So ivy-leage schools having great reputations is false, and I can tell you numerous stories related to me by PhD graduates from them. The thing is, for some people reputation is just as or more important than the education - like the MBA programs. Stanford and many others don't actually release an MBA student's grades to potential employers, but the key aspect to their program lies in the connections built in, advice from famous CEOs, and the education. The mere fact that Stanford is on your resume determines your salary.
So repeat after me: reputation does not equal education. And the article shows this, the name attached to his degree didn't make much of a difference. You just have to decide what mixture you want, obscurity vs fame, hardcore vs. hand-holding.
stating the obvious? (Score:2)
I wish more parents would think about this when theyre pressuring their kids to do after school activities that they have no interest in and take AP classes which arent right for them.
That said you cant totally discount the advantages to going to a big name school. But these advantages have less to do with the curriculum than they do with the people you can come in contact with both while at the university and after you graduate. For example there arent many places where you can take a course from ed Felten on IT and the law, and a course on programing from Kernighan while at the same time studying photography with emmet gowin. But like I said before having a prestigious faculty to work with doesnt do you any good unless you put the time in to get to know them.
Reporter misstates Dale's & Krueger's findings (Score:2, Informative)
"Dale and Krueger noticed something odd. In many cases, they found that applicants who were rejected by brand-name schools did as well in later life as those who were accepted."
Not so.
What Dale & Krueger noted is that people who were accepted by highly selective schools, but chose to attend less selective schools, later enjoyed the same level of professional success, on average, as their peers who did matriculate at the highly selective schools.
It may also be worth mentioning that D & K found this to the case only when the less selective school was only moderately less selective (so, for example, Harvard might be foregone in favor of, say, NYU, but not Remedial U.)
When I interview, I ignore education entirely (Score:5, Insightful)
Everything else depends on how you answer my programming questions. If you have an MIT Ph.D, what good is that if you don't know answers to rudimentary programming questions? I don't care about "capacity to learn" at this point, I want someone who can produce. Being a big thinker is far less important to me than the ability to crank out good code fast. In fact I have found the big thinkers to be more useless than the humble trench soldier.
Your team will be full of mediocrities. (Score:5, Interesting)
I am currently working for a company in which the director of software, who has a major problem with Ph. D.s, feels like this. He proudly says that Ph. D. are useless and that he would not trust them to code unsupervised.
Well, over the past few years, he turned down lots of resumes just because they had "Ph. D." on them. He hired a bunch of people with BS from no-name colleges because of the experience listed on the resume and their supposed familiarity with currently popular coding methodologies and paradigms.
This guy turned down people so brilliant that, in a just world, he would have been cleaning their socks.
However, one of the team leads here had enough political clout to resist this, and he packed his team with people with advanced degrees from good schools. Despite being specifically warned by the said Director of Software that he would be fired if his team slipped. The salaries offered to these people were up to 20% less than those offered to the "experienced programmers".
As you might guess, I am in this latter group. For my sins, I have a Ph.D from a good school.
Well, guess what happened?
It took longer for the Ph.Ds to "boot up", as it were, to become familiar with the development environment, to learn the finer points of C++ etc. But once that happened, they started outperforming the rest so much that it was not even funny. They delivered faster, their architectures were so much better designed, and their code had far fewer bugs.
Finally, when the product deadlines started slipping, the same Ph. Ds (whose component had less than 1% of all the filed bugs) were put to work to help the others pull their shit together.
I worked on fixing bugs in several components filed by the so-called experienced programmers. What I found was an appalling mishmash of poorly thought-out, poorly designed code held together by glue and duct tape. Race conditions and memory leaks abounded.
However, I also found that these "experienced programmers" were masters of political maneuvering, deflecting blame and of the ignoble art of covering their sorry asses. They had a good excuse for every bug found in their code.
However, over time, it became obvious to the higher management as to who are the really valuable people in the Software group. When the layoffs came (as they have done everywhere), they hit mostly the "experienced programmers". The Director of Software is now on the run trying to cover his ass for his choice of hires.
Magnus.
The wrong way of thinking (Score:2)
A great person will be great no matter what. Charasmatic leadership will not be stiffled by a degree from a state school, or even no degree at all. Strong technical abilities will shine in the work place, if you went to a tech college or the best engineering school in the country. A truly strong and/or smart person will simply not be held back. It can't happen, otherwise they weren't that great or strong to begin with.
Even if the extremely talented individual doesn't land a job with HP, ATT or Cisco doesn't mean they won't invent the next best thing. If that person lands in some po-dunk firm, and he is truly great, he will make the next best thing, and make his company the next big IPO. In fact, I would argue that the smaller the firm that person lands in, the better the chances of that person being allowed to invent something special.
Now, the question should be asked, does the school a person goes to allow a mediocre person more success than they deserve. In this case, I think it is obvious that the school matters. A mediocre lawyer that went to Harvard is going to do a lot better for themselves that a mediocre lawyer that went to NY City college night school.
your competition is what matters (Score:3, Insightful)
However when you go to a top school which has higher admission requirements, your peers are generally smarter or harder working than at a local community college. Guess what? This matters when classes are graded on curves as you compete and learn from your classmates. This is what really matters.
University matters for other reasons (Score:2, Insightful)
There are some things which a university, or rather, the life around the university has to offer which are not so obvious. It allows people to 'find themselves': to become a lot more 'relaxed' in life. it allows one to experiment, to find things they like, to learn how to live with people. it builds character. It's a weird thing, which is not easily put into words, but believe me: there is time enough to work later on. There are people at my university which spend all time studying and there are those who still live with their parents. Those people wont learn anything. Sure, they'll probably get A grades, but they will have missed SO MUCH.
A reason people are more eager to hire people from a university is not because they 'know' more, it's because they have proven they are able to finish a job. This is why credentials are also important later on.
Success in life lies not with how much money you make, it's character and personality which will decide how 'successfull' you are.
Just my 2ct rant.
As Bill Cosby put it.... (Score:2, Insightful)
How about outside of IT/Tech Industry? (Score:2)
What about the rest of the world? What about Investment Banking positions? Do they care about academic reputation when hiring (anecdotally, I'm guessing they do) ? How about law firms? Management consulting? Are these the sort of places that only recruit at top-tier schools?
Re:How about outside of IT/Tech Industry? (Score:2)
I know a maid from El Salvador who came to this country with nothing, and now owns a chain of restaurants.
This is News? (Score:2)
I'm a highschool dropout. I have no college edumacation whatsoever. I make plenty of money and have a good time - in both cases moreso than many of my college grad friends. I've worked with a couple other dropouts who kicked ass, too.
I certainly don't think school is bad - if it's what you want, and if it's the way you learn best than go for it... but successs comes from within.
Cheers.
My choices (Score:2)
Why does this matter? Well, no one had ever heard of the small one. So that made me unsure at first, even though I decided to go there. What ended up happening is that my profs recognize me by name and not "a kid who is in one of my classes." No teacher aides, no 3 mile walks to my next class, etc. Also, being that close to the school has given me some great opportunities to do things esp. with the labs there.
I'm hoping that a future employer will look at what I've learned, my experiences, and most importantly, me when evaluating me for a position, and not the name of the school I went to.
One Qualification Of Many (Score:2)
If you have two people, both equally qualified, yet one has a higher GPA than the other, you'll take that one first.
But...
If you have one person with a great degree and a great GPA who has spent five years in a junior position and one who has an average GPA from an average school who has spent five years being promoted rapidly to positions of responsibility, you'll take that one over the "educated" one.
If the great GPA/school has spent five years bouncing around "Dave's Home Web Publishing" and other unheard of, now out of business, little companies while the average GPA/school candidate has worked through companies that you respect in the same field, you're more likely to take them.
So, GPAs and the school you go to help but they're by no means essential. What you quickly find is that it's only your last qualification or two (including where you worked) that count.
Also, how you word your resume can hide almost anything: "2.0 GPA from Cornell" can be "BSc from Cornell" while "4.0 GPA from University of BFIowa" can be "BSc Computer Science - 4.0 GPA" Either one of those gets you "in the door" to an interview. After that, it's just down to how well you can sell yourself.
And remember, by the time you've finished your second job: "Managed $2m project with a $12m return on investment plus a staff of 10" looks a lot better than "3.9 GPA from Berkley" to most corporate suits. My degree only takes a single line of my resume now - my last two jobs take five to ten times that.
I come from a family of school haters (Score:2)
My father immigrated to the United States in the early 70s. He had the equivalent of perhaps a 5th grade education. He learned to speak English by watching the Flintstones in his tiny flat while working construction for some company. He eventually saved up enough money to move his family here too.
In the late 70s he was laid off. Since then, he has run a fruit store, partially owned a Pizza place, and today he runs a construction company. In my opinion, he provided very adequete shelter, food, and clothing for his 4 kids and wife remarkably well under the cirmcumstances, and is now financially well off that he owns and rents 3 houses, and has a sound retirement plan, and can still give his kids a boost if they need it ("Dad, can I borrow $85,000 to buy a house?").
My dad also helped my eldest sister go to college. She trained to be an architect, worked for someone else for about 10 years, and very recently started her own firm. She also agrees that school is meaningless bullshit, but regrets that it was required for her choice of career.
My second eldest sister received a GED after dropping out of High School. Since then she has been a hair stylist, a pastry chef at some top rated restaurants, a stock broker assistant, a mother of two, and is currently pursuing a successful graphics design business which services the culinary industry.
My older brother dropped out of High School when he was 16, and worked construction with my father until about 28. After that he went to work for a construction supplier, grew his department by perhaps 500%, and eventually started his own construction equipment sales business which seems to be doing him well.
Myself? I graduated High School, skipped college, studied computers, worked MCS at Dean Witter, then worked at an ISP for 3 years, and now I run my own computer consulting practice which I think has remarkable potential.
When you're in High School it's easy for those sadists to make you think you're going to be a fucking loser for not obeying their rules. Sadly, it can really get to some of the students. While the white kids who shoot up their schools make the news, there are thousands of others who take their own lives every year who you never hear about.
But the truly disturbed people are the ones who believe the mantra, and devote their entire lives to fanatic pursuit of the straight A's, who craft every action in their life so that it appeases the all powerful college admissions, and then the big corporation which will employ them. These are the people who I feel for now. They believed that the formula for success was to follow the rules, take no risks, do as you're told, think inside the boundaries. They are wrong, this is the formula for mediocrity.
It's not until maybe a year or two after you're out of school that it occurs to you that you've spent years of your life putting up with bullshit, that everything that your teachers swore would happen has in fact been a lie, and that your life isn't really over. In fact, more the opposite, you find that your life is now beginning.
If you're in that situation now, please don't let it get you down. Everyone is shouting at you about how important it is, but if you have any intelligence at all, it's really not. Once you exit the hell that is education, a sudden sensation of freedom will wash over you. For awhile you will be terrified, afraid, but soon you realize that what you mistook for fear is in fact something you've simply never experienced until now: Unlimited potential.
The piece of paper? It is an inferior substitute for experience, intelligence, and creativity. If you already possess one of these essential traits, you don't need to waste your time trying to obtain a superficial surrogate.
Do something worthwhile with your time. Anything you do is the right decision--the only truly wrong decision you can make is deciding to do nothing.
This is retarded (Score:2)
Interesting research (Score:2)
It only "really doesn't matter..." (Score:2, Funny)
Otherwise it matters!
Besides, I thought the /. party line was that school is irrelevant. Or did that notion die with the dotcoms?
This whole spielberg thing is nonsense. (Score:2)
Now, the article did not argue that university is useless, or that the best schools are bad. But there are those in this thread who seem to think because famous person x did not graduate from college, therefore a college degree is useless. This is just absurd.
I have a degree in film production from the school that rejected spielberg. [usc.edu] I am also a worthless film director. My student films are incoherent crap. I heard, over and over again from the people that didn't get in the story of Spielberg's rejection. It is always cited as proof that school is a waste of time, the USC production program is stupid, etc. I asked my advisor about the Spielberg effect. He told me that that's what USC film uses to describe people who insist on measuring their success against the wunderkind like Spielberg. The fact was that Spielberg was rejected because USC cinema had nothing to offer him. He was already a talented film maker. He didn't want to learn the craft, he wanted to direct films. Film school would have done nothing for him.
I am obviously biased. But I am very glad I went to school and got an expensive degree. It was worth every penny, not because it put me in a position to be a super successful and famous film director. You can't teach that. But you can teach the sort of universal skills that I use every day in my work. School was useful for me. I specialized in cinematography and also did a lot of computer graphics learning on the side. I had a chance to learn from some amazing teachers(and some bad ones too of course). I got my hands on equipment you can't just play with on your own. And I got to learn the way things are done and why, instead of having to go out and screw up on my own. I was very prepared for my career. (I work as a 3d artist) A one semester cinematography course from Woody Omens was worth the price of admission.
Universities are not designed to create the super succesful. Those people are not created, they are born. Universities are intended to teach people a broad range of information, to create well rounded individuals capable of success in any aspect of their future careers. In school I learned to speak french, the history of japan and how to draw. I also learned the basics of editing, cinematography, animation, sound, direction and acting. I am terrible film director. I don't feel bad about that. I am not going to be Steven Spielberg. Nor am I going to be Hemingway or Nabokov. University is not for the geniuses. Its for the rest of us. So put it to rest. Just because people who don't go to university are succesful does not mean that universities are useless. If people that didn't go to high school learned algebra on their own, would you claim that Universities offer nothing? No, a degree is not necessarily an indicator of future performance. But it will often be useful to YOU in your career.
an ivy leaguer speaks (Score:2, Informative)
True greatness. (Score:3, Insightful)
I really shouldn't have to be saying this, but the things that lead to sucess are character and hard work. Where one goes to school makes no difference at all. The ivy league schools get a good reputation because they are able to pick and choose applicants who they believe have the character and intelligence to suceed. From there it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Going to Harvard no more gives you character and discipline any more than not going there deprives you of them.
When one looks at history it is evident that most of the great discoveries and accomplishments were achieved by those with mediocre academic records. Einstein was working as a patent clerk because he couldn't get a teaching job. Edison didn't even have a sixth grade education. Both Newton and Maxwell were undistinguished prior to their major discoveries.
Once upon a time people understood that it is character and hard work that lead to greatness, why our culture has forgotten that I just don't know. Nowadays people seem to think that success is some kind of trick, or is achieved though one's image. So people chase after degrees from the ivy league because they think that if other people think that they are great then they will be. Sorry Charlie, the most someone with that approach will achieve is the ability to con everyone including themself. True greatness comes from within and it is not something that can be bought, faked or manufactured.
Lee
Depends on what you want to do (Score:3, Informative)
For my chosen profession, law, where you went to school makes all the difference in the world - and it matters not a hill of beans.
If your goal is to end up on the U.S. Supreme Court, well, five of the nine current justices went to Harvard Law (Darth Bader graduated from Columbia but went to Harvard), two went to Stanford, and the other two went to Northwestern and Yale. Roughly the same goes for most federal district and appellate judges.
Want to work for Bill's daddy at the 213-attorney Seattle home office of Preston, Gates and Ellis? Ask yourself, where do they do on-campus interviews? Aside from the local schools (Seattle U. and the Universities of Washington and Oregon), PG&E recruits from Bezerkely, Columbia, U of Chicago, Duke, Georgetown, Harvard, Michigan, Northwestern, NYU, Penn, Stanford, UVA, and Yale. Only about a third of their hires come from the local schools, and most of those are from the ultra-super-mega-hyper-prestigious (just ask 'em, they'll tell ya) UW. In other words, your chances of being hired by them are about zero if you did not attend any of those schools - and this firm is based in Seattle. I would submit that most large law firms have similar hiring practices.
Before giving up hope, though, consider what it's like to work there. Sure, the pay is good and the resources are near infinite, but the hours are long - 100 hour weeks are the norm rather than the exception. What are you doing then, practicing real law, representing real clients? Hardly. Most of the work involved is adding a few more zeroes to the end of some already-obscenely-wealthy white guy's bottom line. Finally, the careers there are generally quite short - a select few make partner, but most are cut loose after a few years.
Okay, so what's a young non-Ivy JD grad to do? Practice real law, of course. Represent ordinary people in real-world disputes and actually go to court once in awhile. Most attorneys make their living this way and their clients don't much care where they went to law school.
In sum, the black-and-white answer is that there is no black-and-white answer.
Re:Teacher from HELL (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Teacher from HELL (Score:2)
Re:Who is the richest man again? (Score:2)
Re:Who is the richest man again? (Score:2)
Whoa. I.Q. and E.Q. aren't "good measures". A standard IQ test may tell if you have mental advantage in certain conditions, but not in all of them.
The simpler example will bring out the larger. Take a poor family, who has their child of 5 or 6 selling bags of nuts. The child packages different types of bags depending on the number of nuts per bag. Same child, also sells them, on the street, accepting cash, making change and not getting gyped. You take this child, and give her a math test. You'll find that this child to be able to do math really well to the degree of what this child does. Will this child be able to handle fractions, variable substitution, word problems and equation solving? That's something that would later determine if this child is a good math student. Because the child did well on the math test only means the child does well in those particular problems.
So what's the point? I.Q. and E.Q. tests can be easily flawed. The typical ones will give you a 'score' of 'ability' in a specific context. What if you gave me an IQ test in French? I'd do poorly since I understand very little french.
Depends on how you mean though, no? Would I want my doctor to not have gone through 10 years of college? Would I want my lawyer not to have? What about a programmer to work on cryptography algorithms or write a distributed database system? Now what about my junior programmer who writes web scripts? The salesman at macy's? Depends on the context, eh? Some of the richest people are there because of biz smarts, being in the right place at the right time, and education....some mix of it. Some need it, some don't.
Btw, I graduated from college, got my BA. Does my GPA and degree reflect who I am? To some degree. My experience in various types of coding (machine language, logic, high level programming) has given me some advantage to recognize problems and solutions. So it wasn't useless.
Re:School Entry Criteria (Score:2)
There's nothing troll about this comment, it's the truth. Universities are money making institutions first and foremost, if you don't believe it then you haven't attended one.
I can't begin to tell you how many people I've met that were allowed 'tenative' enrollment because they had none of the prerequisites so that the administration could get its greasy little hands on that prize of all prizes, financial aid money. Hell, as a grad student TA at my current university, you're forced to sit through the 'how things work' orientation, and there they give you a list of classes in which you are NOT allowed to give a student an F in because 'college is hard and students need chances' rrt wrong no, college administration needs more money so keep the student around longer.
I've also had the misfortune to work with someone that is on the 'academic excellence' comittee here, and the requirements for excellence and renewal of a contract for a professor is 1. how much money they bring in, 2. how much they produce, 3. how many grad students they turn out. 2 and 3 can be overlooked if 1 is well satisfied, and it doesn't matter what quality a teacher the person is.
So, in conclusion, he's right. If it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, and tastes like a duck then it's probably a duck, and they should just waive the requirements for admission and what have you and allow everyone to attend.
Re:School Entry Criteria (Score:2)
Re:School Entry Criteria (Score:2)
Now, if I can afford to attend, and I have grades that suggest I can hack it, then why should I be denied?
Re:School Entry Criteria (Score:2)
Pity then that the entrance criteria condem it to be second rate at best. A third of the places are still reserved for children of Alumni.
The advantages of going to the 'top schools' in the past used to be that you would meet the right people to help with your career. These days senior management tends to come from the MBA schools and so your undergrad school does not matter as much as where you did your MBA.
Better teaching can help you succeed, but as far as teaching goes Harvard does not impress me. Harvard shops for big names whose best work is generally behind them. The actual teaching tends to get done as often as not by grad students. I know as my wife TA'd a Harvard course.
Of course the one redeeming feature of Harvard is that you can take classes at MIT so you can still get a world class education.
Re:School Entry Criteria (Score:2)
Then why not do away with the affirmative action for the children of the rich and make it equal opportunities for everyone?
It is very difficult to measure the 'qualifications' of candidates in the US because unlike most countries there is no national test of academic achievement. The SAT quizes used in the US are designed to test 'aptitude'. When I was at MIT we didn't use them for admissions, there was simply no correlation between SAT scores and how well the kids did - although there is a slot on the application for the score because folk who take them tend to want to add it.
A more interesting question than whether legacies are as qualified as the other entrants would be whether they achieve as much.
I'm aware that MIT and CalTech don't preference legacies in admission, and I commend them for it. But they're unique in that respect.
No they are not, I can't think of a single international class institution that has a formal bias in their admissions system in favor of legacies. Certainly not Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester or any of the UK Universities.
I did a bit of research into some of the Ivy league schools. It appears that the press comments on the fact that Bush only got into Yale as a legacy has caused some recent changes.
Harvard's policy has changed, it now states that "Q: Are a student's chances of admission enhanced if a relative has attended Harvard? A:The application process is the same for all candidates. Among a group of similarly distinguished applicants, the daughters and sons of alumni/ae may receive an additional look". Interestingly the question is not actually answered, the Yale system which admitted Bush used the same admissions ?process for all applicants, it was just that legacies got in with much lower grades. Basically Harvard are trying to play both sides of the fence, they want to claim to be equal opportunity while also telling their allumni donors that their child can expect special treatment.
According to the Asian American Political Coalition [arthurhu.com] The average combined SAT score of Harvard legacies was 35% lower than for all those admitted, and legacies were more than twice as likely to get in. Thirty-six (36%) percent of Harvard legacy applicants were admitted versus only 17 percent of all applicants.
I did quite a bit of searching on the Yale site and could not find any mention of the lecacy issue whatsoever. This is kinda curious since one would expect that if the college was now selecting on merit it would want to say so in the wake of all the media criticism.
However even with reform in student selection Yale and Harvard will take much longer to erase the long term consequences of their other discriminatory policies - in particular not hiring jewish faculty. MIT became a research powerhouse in Engineering in the 60s and 70s because it was the only first rank university in the area who would give Jewish faculty tenure at the time.
Unfortunately it appears that the only way that people can get upset about this particular type of discrimination is by viewing it through the prism of race. Certainly there is a racial dimension - the legacy quotas and preferences are also effectively discrimination against minorities. Harvard's attempts to keep 'affirmative action' appear to be motivated in part by the realisation that if they cannot use affirmative action to correct the imbalances caused by their bias towards legacies their affirmative action for legacies might become an illegal racial bias.
However it is also notable that people such as the failure in the Whitehouse who benefited from this type of discrimination in their favor can be so opposed to affirmative action.
Re:Ummm ... could 2 yrs Jr college be better yet? (Score:2)
I can't believe how many people should actually be attending their community colleges instead of going right to a four-year college. Indeed, many of the colleges here in California actually like people who have gotten an Associate degree from a community college because they've proven you can do college-level work, more or less.
Re:I do say old chap (Score:2)
Ironically, we're not very big on saving either, so most of us end up spending the money in absurd ways. Big apartments that we never see because we're always at work. Sportscars that max out at 180 mph (300 kph, in Britishian), but only serve to slog us through the gridlock on the way to and from work. Children we don't have time to raise.
Could somebody over there come over and throw a bucket of cold water on our economy? Before we go crazy and start invading obscure third world countries or something.
I guess this post just proves the maxim, "Sufficiently advanced cynicism is indistinguishable from trolling."
Re:Spielburg? Interesting choice. (Score:2)
Re:I am a high school senior (Score:3, Informative)
No, it means deferred. I think you're assuming and awful lot about what the admissions people care about, over-estimating your own credentials, and under-estimating your peer's. MIT is one of the preeminent technology schools in the world. You are probably a great student, but the number of applicants to a school like MIT is enormous. Out of a pool this large, there are bound to be people better qualified than you. Them's the breaks. I don't think MIT gives cares about if you played a sport or not.
I'm applying there for grad school (among many other places). I will graduate from Virginia Tech this May with a 3.6 in-major GPA and about the same for my cumulative GPA. I'm doing undergraduate research next semester. I'm a computer science major with a minor in math and a minor in physics. And I think my chances of getting into MIT are slim.
Things like President of National Honor Society club, etc. There was a kid at my school who got in early at Princeton with a 1250 SAT (thats not good) because he played water polo. Last year, one of my friends won the National Merit Scholarship to attend Johns Hopkins....and they wouldnt even admit him!
An SAT score of 1250 is just fine. SAT scores are bunk. They demonstrate one thing: your ability to take the SATs. You don't know why these people were accepted and rejected, so stop pretending.
That's because (Score:2)
That's because college is grade 13, 14, 15, & 16 no matter where you go.