13 ms·

This is bewildering to me as well. There are many talented students in second-tier (if we have to use ranking to define them) public universities. For example,

This is bewildering to me as well. There are many talented students in second-tier (if we have to use ranking to define them) public universities. For example, many kids in small midwest towns didn't know much about the prestigious private colleges, and if they heard of them, they were scared off by the expensive tuitions. They didn't know a large part of the expenses would be taken care of by need-based financial aid. In many cases, that kid is the first in the whole family who got into college. Naturally, they enroll the state's public universities. I met several students like this. In one project for an advanced AI class, I was awed by a student's code written in SML. It was his first experience using a functional programming language. He not only grasped the concepts but also applied it in coding exceedingly well. I talked to him a few times. Very smart and a nice guy. If he didn't even get an interview opportunity just because he went into a second-tier public university, shame on the hiring managers.

thebooktocome 11y ago
> They didn't know a large part of the expenses would be taken care of by need-based financial aid. Midwesterner here (who did know about prestigious private schools, tyvm). I've yet to see a "need-based financial aid" package that made a private school worth it. Ugh, the Bay Area attitude toward the Midwest is so exhausting. What a surprise that there are smart people that graduate from public schools! Jeesh.
- akhilcacharya 11y ago
  I'm sure Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and probably Penn have finaid that would make going there worth it. Honestly, I'd take out loans just for the name and prestige.
bpchaps 11y ago
It's much worse if you don't have ANY sort of degree, despite having skills. I once applied for an internal job at a major options exchange to go from NOC to app support and managed to get an interview with HR. When I got up there, the HR person looks at my resume, notices a lack of degree and says "Sorry, we require that you have a degree." I quit about a month later to do a near identical job for higher pay and aced it. Their loss. Lesson learned? If a company requires a degree, permanently refuse to work with them in the future, since, for some reason, they love calling back a year later with a great opportunity I can "learn" at.
- atemerev 11y ago
  Got to a job offer once as a software engineer in a US-based high frequency trading company, without any degree. Say what you want about "greedy financists", but they really don't care about anything except getting the job done.
  - bpchaps 11y ago
    Hah, yep! I'm now doing freelance remote Linux work for HFTs because of that fact. :) Another guy I know wrote a hugely profitable HFT equity system without a degree at 20 years old.
RogerL 11y ago
Indeed. As a child living in a mountain town in NH I had no idea financial aid existed. I was always told by my parents that I would never go to college because they couldn't afford it. I believed them until a guidance counselor called a meeting with my parents where he laid out all the options. by then my GPA was quite poor due to not doing the work (it was always trivial to past tests w/o doing the homework, so why bother with it), so top tier was out. And, it doesn't matter. You get the education that you want, for the most part. I did independent study when a class wasn't offered, as did my friends. I'm sure there are substandard colleges (I've interviewed people that just weren't prepared for the field, and digging into their classwork showed why) but in general it holds. Go to the local gas station, talk to the clerk, and you very well be encountering an IQ that exceeds yours by a standard deviation or two. I was almost that clerk until that guidance counselor gave me a different future. And I know people from high school that are that clerk, and have formidable minds. Top school doesn't mean too much at all. Yes, kids who get themselves there by their bootstraps are to be admired. But the amount of support given to many there makes it pretty easy to get in at least one school. I never once had help with my homework from my parents - they couldn't do it if they tried (and, they didn't try). I went to school hungry, and didn't eat breakfast or lunch - no money for it. Last time I ate before/in school was 5th grade. I shivered all day because they kept the heat low and i didn't have sweaters to wear. I wasn't allowed to do extracurricular activities for reasons. And so on. That all says 0 about what I can do, know, think, feel, accomplish, except to the extent it taught me not to be held back by challenges. It says nothing negative about me, except that I was pretty unworldly when I entered the world at age 18. I changed that soon enough. I just snort, internally, when somebody feels the need to name drop where they graduated from. Means almost nothing. Did you do interesting research or something there? That means something. Did you learn and grow? That means something. Did you face hardship and learn those life skills? Etc. All that matters, not the name.

thebooktocome 11y ago

> They didn't know a large part of the expenses would be taken care of by need-based financial aid. Midwesterner here (who did know about prestigious private schools, tyvm). I've yet to see a "need-based financial aid" package that made a private school worth it. Ugh, the Bay Area attitude toward the Midwest is so exhausting. What a surprise that there are smart people that graduate from public schools! Jeesh.

akhilcacharya 11y ago
I'm sure Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and probably Penn have finaid that would make going there worth it. Honestly, I'd take out loans just for the name and prestige.

bpchaps 11y ago

It's much worse if you don't have ANY sort of degree, despite having skills. I once applied for an internal job at a major options exchange to go from NOC to app support and managed to get an interview with HR. When I got up there, the HR person looks at my resume, notices a lack of degree and says "Sorry, we require that you have a degree." I quit about a month later to do a near identical job for higher pay and aced it. Their loss. Lesson learned? If a company requires a degree, permanently refuse to work with them in the future, since, for some reason, they love calling back a year later with a great opportunity I can "learn" at.

atemerev 11y ago
Got to a job offer once as a software engineer in a US-based high frequency trading company, without any degree. Say what you want about "greedy financists", but they really don't care about anything except getting the job done.
- bpchaps 11y ago
  Hah, yep! I'm now doing freelance remote Linux work for HFTs because of that fact. :) Another guy I know wrote a hugely profitable HFT equity system without a degree at 20 years old.

RogerL 11y ago

Indeed. As a child living in a mountain town in NH I had no idea financial aid existed. I was always told by my parents that I would never go to college because they couldn't afford it. I believed them until a guidance counselor called a meeting with my parents where he laid out all the options. by then my GPA was quite poor due to not doing the work (it was always trivial to past tests w/o doing the homework, so why bother with it), so top tier was out. And, it doesn't matter. You get the education that you want, for the most part. I did independent study when a class wasn't offered, as did my friends. I'm sure there are substandard colleges (I've interviewed people that just weren't prepared for the field, and digging into their classwork showed why) but in general it holds. Go to the local gas station, talk to the clerk, and you very well be encountering an IQ that exceeds yours by a standard deviation or two. I was almost that clerk until that guidance counselor gave me a different future. And I know people from high school that are that clerk, and have formidable minds. Top school doesn't mean too much at all. Yes, kids who get themselves there by their bootstraps are to be admired. But the amount of support given to many there makes it pretty easy to get in at least one school. I never once had help with my homework from my parents - they couldn't do it if they tried (and, they didn't try). I went to school hungry, and didn't eat breakfast or lunch - no money for it. Last time I ate before/in school was 5th grade. I shivered all day because they kept the heat low and i didn't have sweaters to wear. I wasn't allowed to do extracurricular activities for reasons. And so on. That all says 0 about what I can do, know, think, feel, accomplish, except to the extent it taught me not to be held back by challenges. It says nothing negative about me, except that I was pretty unworldly when I entered the world at age 18. I changed that soon enough. I just snort, internally, when somebody feels the need to name drop where they graduated from. Means almost nothing. Did you do interesting research or something there? That means something. Did you learn and grow? That means something. Did you face hardship and learn those life skills? Etc. All that matters, not the name.