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"Having attended an elite school" is a proxy for that. Info available at 2nd link.

by Futurebot 10y ago

morgante 10y ago
It's not that good of a proxy though. There are still tons of poor students at elite universities.
- jacalata 10y ago
  From the article >In 2006, at the 82 schools rated “most competitive” by Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges, 14 percent of American undergraduates came from the poorer half of the nation That doesn't sound like 'tons'.
  - morgante 10y ago
    14 percent is still thousands of students. Equating elite universities with privileged upbringings is stereotyping. Like most stereotypes, it's grounded in truth but also unfair I worked really hard to be able to get into an elite university and to get the scholarships to pay for it. When people automatically assume that my education means my family is wealthy, it discounts the enormous amount of work which I (and other low-income students) did to get there.
    - stolsvik 10y ago
      You are confirming the point that was made!! It is harder for "poor folks" to get in. It is easier for wealthy kids to get in. You should state ".. and I had to work my way in there - my folks aren't wealthy!" as a bi-sentence every time you mention your education. I bet most people immediately would understand what it implied: This is an achiever!
      - morgante 10y ago
        No I'm not. Even if fewer poor students get in, that definitely does not mean you can make the reverse assumption: that everyone who attended an elite university is wealthy. For all we know, these results are dominated by poor students who worked hard enough to get into an elite university (which, by the way, wouldn't be a crazy assumption: my CS classes had a lot more income diversity than, for example, political science ones).
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
mgraczyk 10y ago
I see. It doesn't seem like the data used by the linked article provides any evidence for or against your hypothesis. The data here is perfectly compatible with a contradictory hypothesis: upbringing does not matter and top schools/employers are good at selecting future high performers. I'm not endorsing either hypothesis, but the data here supports the above just as much as your hypothesis (which is to say, not much).

"Having attended an elite school" is a proxy for that. Info available at 2nd link.

morgante 10y ago

It's not that good of a proxy though. There are still tons of poor students at elite universities.

jacalata 10y ago
From the article >In 2006, at the 82 schools rated “most competitive” by Barron’s Profiles of American Colleges, 14 percent of American undergraduates came from the poorer half of the nation That doesn't sound like 'tons'.
- morgante 10y ago
  14 percent is still thousands of students. Equating elite universities with privileged upbringings is stereotyping. Like most stereotypes, it's grounded in truth but also unfair I worked really hard to be able to get into an elite university and to get the scholarships to pay for it. When people automatically assume that my education means my family is wealthy, it discounts the enormous amount of work which I (and other low-income students) did to get there.
  - stolsvik 10y ago
    You are confirming the point that was made!! It is harder for "poor folks" to get in. It is easier for wealthy kids to get in. You should state ".. and I had to work my way in there - my folks aren't wealthy!" as a bi-sentence every time you mention your education. I bet most people immediately would understand what it implied: This is an achiever!
    - morgante 10y ago
      No I'm not. Even if fewer poor students get in, that definitely does not mean you can make the reverse assumption: that everyone who attended an elite university is wealthy. For all we know, these results are dominated by poor students who worked hard enough to get into an elite university (which, by the way, wouldn't be a crazy assumption: my CS classes had a lot more income diversity than, for example, political science ones).
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

mgraczyk 10y ago

I see. It doesn't seem like the data used by the linked article provides any evidence for or against your hypothesis. The data here is perfectly compatible with a contradictory hypothesis: upbringing does not matter and top schools/employers are good at selecting future high performers. I'm not endorsing either hypothesis, but the data here supports the above just as much as your hypothesis (which is to say, not much).