8 ms·
This. It is like that old adage, "Behind every great man, there is a great woman." For the modern era, it should perhaps now be, "behind every top-tier universi
by klunger 11y ago
This. It is like that old adage, "Behind every great man, there is a great woman." For the modern era, it should perhaps now be, "behind every top-tier university student, there is a helicopter parent".
It takes so much to get into one of these schools now that it seems impossible for any child without extensive support.
- zkhalique 11y agoPerhaps, following sentiments of Peter Thiel and others, it's not necessary to get into an elite school today, in order to succeed. If it was, then good education and success would still be scarce in today's world, as most people can't afford to go to Harvard, Stanford, etc. Now we have MOOCs an schools can become centers for socializing, tutoring and testing. A great teacher can educate more than 300 people a year this way.
- Thriptic 11y agoIt's never been necessary to go to an elite school to be successful; it's simply much easier to get your foot in the door with employers if you have the words "MIT" or "Stanford" on your resume as opposed to "Coursera" or some random college. Moreover, employers COME TO YOU if you are at these institutions, you don't need to go out and beg for face time.
- lemevi 11y agoThis is nonsense. Getting into elite schools opens up doors that are otherwise completely shut. At law firms, at prestigious graduate schools, in academia, in medical schools and good positions at top corporations. Every year information is collected on the various success rates for students coming out of America's universities and students from elite school make up the highest paying and most successful members of our society. This is as true now as it was twenty years ago.
- ThomPete 11y agoAll areas that are going to be increasingly disrupted by technology and digitalization. So sure for now but this will change.
- wfo 11y agoSignalling and networking and group association and stereotypes are inherently human and have remained the same for the past 6000 years of human history no matter the changes in technology. You can't just throw out contentless buzzword bingo like "disruption" and "technology" and seriously expect anyone to believe it's going to change.
- ThomPete 11y agoThats not the point. I am talking about when technology makes it obsolete to even have most doctors and lawyers.
- mozumder 11y agoIf that happens, then social status shifts to other fields, and you're back to square one. Social status will always exist. Life will always be unfair.
- eruditely 11y agoYou just have to signal the right way to show other people that you're the right type of person. Hard to explain but if you experiment you can find that this will get you a huge amount of the way.
- laichzeit0 11y agoThe only problem with MOOCS is you can't be an engineer or a medical doctor by only doing the courses you're "interested in". IT is one of the few "fields" where people can get away with a half assed academic background and the end product shows it.
- plonh 11y agoWhat does the end product show? Doctors kill plenty of patients.
- m_fayer 11y agoIf you're a parent then, your decision looks like: Let your kid be a kid and bank on society having advanced far enough to allow success without a big-brand school on your CV. Barring that, hope your kid will be driven/creative/wily enough to make do without that stamp of approval. Or, take the "safe" route and go full helicopter-parent, and give your children the best possible guarantee of success in the world as it currently stands. That's a brutal decision to have to make.
- fsloth 11y agoI'm left wondering why the parent would be compulsed to push the child agressively. Maybe it's a US thing? We are are engineer parents in northern Europe, we try to raise our kids so they remain curious and emotinally fullfilled, we wish every good thing for them - but it's really hard to imagine to go all helicopter on them. If anything, I imagine we will let them make all the right and wrong decisions about their education when the time comes - but we try to make them understand what options they have and what likely outcomes their decisions entail.
- umanwizard 11y agoElite schools in the U.S. are more competitive along arbitrary criteria than in Europe. To get into top schools in Europe, it's enough to do better on exams than everyone else. But since the U.S. public education system is so easy and perfect grades don't provide much of a signal, top schools are looking for proof that you're an "interesting person" in a lot of ways that seem a priori to be unrelated to academia.
- bwilliams18 11y agoSo encourage your kids to be interesting people, don't create an artifical construction of interestingness.
- m_fayer 11y agoGenuinely interesting people are unlikely to tick all the (arbitrary) boxes expected by the universities. They might even have an unapologetic C in a class or two.
- bwilliams18 11y agoIf you want a good education then an elite school isn't necessary. If you want access to people and an unparalleled network, then your best option is an elite school.
- drieddust 11y agoThis is a serious misconception. I did the same mistake and never earned a degree. Now despite being successful and earning well most countries will not allow me to immigrate on my own. And that's just one loss. Complete system is rigged in favor of credentialism than talent.