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> A lot of the value of Harvard or Stanford is that they only pick the top n% of the country. The difference between the people who go to Harvard and those tha

> A lot of the value of Harvard or Stanford is that they only pick the top n% of the country. The difference between the people who go to Harvard and those that don't has much more to do with money. Hire people with this assumption at your own peril.

seanmcdirmid 9y ago
Born Stanford and Harvard provide very generous financial aid packages to those that "get in" but aren't rich. The problem is getting in requires a lot of prep and achievement long before the college application is submitted, and that's where the rich get their leg up. And at the end of the day, that is still worth something to employers.
- bovitclan 9y ago
  The claim is not that colleges provide no value, but that going to college is not a reliable indicator of anything but privilege. Using it as an indicator of intelligence or work ethic, especially as being more intelligent and hard working than someone who got their degree from University of Phoenix, doesn't work. It's just buying into the narrative that rich people must be rich because they're smart.
  - twobuy 9y ago
    I think the parent comment was referring to Harvard/Stanford's need-blind admissions & full financial aid packages.
brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
I'm glad someone said it. Merit= very short bootstraps. This is a much denied truth here in the US, where everyone is so desperate to believe in our national mythology of anyone who works hard can do anything and be anything they want to. This myth can't even carry an aroma of truth these days. No one who has "achieved" anything ever wants to get real and admit how they really got it--- they'd rather tell you and themselves a great American tall tale. Becase if it isn't earned, if it isn't "merit" in any real sense, then what? Then does everyone have a right to opportunity? Yeikes. We don't have enough opportunity for that. Instead, we avoid facing these issues by focusing on "diversity" now... but only a certain very narrow definition of diversity, and only when we want to raise ourselves above others of merit for being so meritorious as to think of diversity. Then, we wonder if "diversity" has made us less competitive. The only answer here is money. Money. That's it.
- chronic6a5 9y ago
  > The only answer here is money. Money. That's it. Exactly. I'm rich. I didn't even work that hard; it was mostly inherited. I "bought" my way through Stanford/Harvard and learned far more than my peers, solely because I had money to pursue side projects and could hire experienced PhD tutors. I feel bad for those without enough money. With that said, I will do everything in my power to keep this status quo, whether that means donating to lobbyists or tricking others into suboptimal life decisions. Any poor person would do the same (in fact they already do with their other non-monetary resources such as time). This is absolutely not fair but that is the reality. I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot by making the playing field more fair.
- Clubber 9y ago
  I absolutely agree with what you are saying, but I also believe most hugely successful people who work, work (or worked early in their careers) just as hard as anyone else, they just happen to be working at the right thing with the right people. Of course once you are successful, you can hire people to do most of the work for you while you just monitor. Finding the right thing with the right people is where the socioeconomic status comes in, particularly having a well connected family. On my graduation year, my university created a slogan, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Having just spend 5 years getting a degree from said university, I thought that wasn't a very good slogan for such an institution. It was absolutely correct though.
  - scottLobster 9y ago
    Bill Fernandez (Apple Employee #4) did a nice interview last year where he talked about (among other things) the origins of Apple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca-LXxMpveE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca-LXxMpveE In it he talks about how Steve Jobs and company were just immersed in a technological community from a young age. They had after-school tech clubs (that the kids actually wanted to go to) as early as elementary school, virtually every Dad on the street was an engineer... yeah, no shit they created Apple. Not discounting the skills of Jobs and Woz, but they had about the most fertile soil possible in which to grow a tech company and a network of contacts from childhood. Listening to that piece made me insanely jealous. Would have killed for that kind of community as a kid.
smm2000 9y ago
Works well for most companies that hire exclusively from top tier universities. They definitely miss out on some talent but unless they need thousands of engineers, they can find all talent they need from just a few top universities. Probably overpay 10k-40k/year for that privilege compared to equally skilled/smart people from other unis but it's chump change in overall employee cost. Also makes interviewing easier - rejecting 90-95% of applicants from lower tier state schools who could not fizzbuzz is not fun.
morgante 9y ago
Not really. Money helps to get in, but elite universities provide the most generous financial aid of any schools in the country. If you come from a anything below the middle class and get in, you likely won't pay a cent.
- brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
  yes, money helps in so many ways. it sure does help you get in. It starts helping you when you are an infant. It helps the whole way. I know this because I worked in the tutoring idustry that helps people get in in exchange for money.
  - morgante 9y ago
    It helps, but it's certainly not the dominant effect. I don't know anyone who went to an elite university without significant baseline intelligence. I've seen so many students who still didn't do that well even after extensive, expensive tutoring. For example, SAT coaching only increases scores by around 50 points. [0] [0] https://www.jefftk.com/p/sat-coaching-what-effect-size https://www.jefftk.com/p/sat-coaching-what-effect-size
    - xiaoma 9y ago
      >" I don't know anyone who went to an elite university without significant baseline intelligence" Oh, I sure do. The strongest positive correlations I've noticed with elite schooling are conscientiousness, acquiescence to authority and then wealth, in that order. Intelligence is a relatively distant 4th place, thought it still correlates positively, IMO. PG actually wrote a whole essay on this topic: http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html "...what we've found is that the variation between schools is so much smaller than the variation between individuals that it's negligible by comparison. We can learn more about someone in the first minute of talking to them than by knowing where they went to school."
      - morgante 9y ago

seanmcdirmid 9y ago

Born Stanford and Harvard provide very generous financial aid packages to those that "get in" but aren't rich. The problem is getting in requires a lot of prep and achievement long before the college application is submitted, and that's where the rich get their leg up. And at the end of the day, that is still worth something to employers.

bovitclan 9y ago
The claim is not that colleges provide no value, but that going to college is not a reliable indicator of anything but privilege. Using it as an indicator of intelligence or work ethic, especially as being more intelligent and hard working than someone who got their degree from University of Phoenix, doesn't work. It's just buying into the narrative that rich people must be rich because they're smart.
- twobuy 9y ago
  I think the parent comment was referring to Harvard/Stanford's need-blind admissions & full financial aid packages.

brooklyn_ashey 9y ago

I'm glad someone said it. Merit= very short bootstraps. This is a much denied truth here in the US, where everyone is so desperate to believe in our national mythology of anyone who works hard can do anything and be anything they want to. This myth can't even carry an aroma of truth these days. No one who has "achieved" anything ever wants to get real and admit how they really got it--- they'd rather tell you and themselves a great American tall tale. Becase if it isn't earned, if it isn't "merit" in any real sense, then what? Then does everyone have a right to opportunity? Yeikes. We don't have enough opportunity for that. Instead, we avoid facing these issues by focusing on "diversity" now... but only a certain very narrow definition of diversity, and only when we want to raise ourselves above others of merit for being so meritorious as to think of diversity. Then, we wonder if "diversity" has made us less competitive. The only answer here is money. Money. That's it.

chronic6a5 9y ago
> The only answer here is money. Money. That's it. Exactly. I'm rich. I didn't even work that hard; it was mostly inherited. I "bought" my way through Stanford/Harvard and learned far more than my peers, solely because I had money to pursue side projects and could hire experienced PhD tutors. I feel bad for those without enough money. With that said, I will do everything in my power to keep this status quo, whether that means donating to lobbyists or tricking others into suboptimal life decisions. Any poor person would do the same (in fact they already do with their other non-monetary resources such as time). This is absolutely not fair but that is the reality. I'm not going to shoot myself in the foot by making the playing field more fair.
Clubber 9y ago
I absolutely agree with what you are saying, but I also believe most hugely successful people who work, work (or worked early in their careers) just as hard as anyone else, they just happen to be working at the right thing with the right people. Of course once you are successful, you can hire people to do most of the work for you while you just monitor. Finding the right thing with the right people is where the socioeconomic status comes in, particularly having a well connected family. On my graduation year, my university created a slogan, "It's not what you know, it's who you know." Having just spend 5 years getting a degree from said university, I thought that wasn't a very good slogan for such an institution. It was absolutely correct though.
- scottLobster 9y ago
  Bill Fernandez (Apple Employee #4) did a nice interview last year where he talked about (among other things) the origins of Apple. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca-LXxMpveE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca-LXxMpveE In it he talks about how Steve Jobs and company were just immersed in a technological community from a young age. They had after-school tech clubs (that the kids actually wanted to go to) as early as elementary school, virtually every Dad on the street was an engineer... yeah, no shit they created Apple. Not discounting the skills of Jobs and Woz, but they had about the most fertile soil possible in which to grow a tech company and a network of contacts from childhood. Listening to that piece made me insanely jealous. Would have killed for that kind of community as a kid.

smm2000 9y ago

Works well for most companies that hire exclusively from top tier universities. They definitely miss out on some talent but unless they need thousands of engineers, they can find all talent they need from just a few top universities. Probably overpay 10k-40k/year for that privilege compared to equally skilled/smart people from other unis but it's chump change in overall employee cost. Also makes interviewing easier - rejecting 90-95% of applicants from lower tier state schools who could not fizzbuzz is not fun.

morgante 9y ago

Not really. Money helps to get in, but elite universities provide the most generous financial aid of any schools in the country. If you come from a anything below the middle class and get in, you likely won't pay a cent.

brooklyn_ashey 9y ago
yes, money helps in so many ways. it sure does help you get in. It starts helping you when you are an infant. It helps the whole way. I know this because I worked in the tutoring idustry that helps people get in in exchange for money.
- morgante 9y ago
  It helps, but it's certainly not the dominant effect. I don't know anyone who went to an elite university without significant baseline intelligence. I've seen so many students who still didn't do that well even after extensive, expensive tutoring. For example, SAT coaching only increases scores by around 50 points. [0] [0] https://www.jefftk.com/p/sat-coaching-what-effect-size https://www.jefftk.com/p/sat-coaching-what-effect-size
  - xiaoma 9y ago
    >" I don't know anyone who went to an elite university without significant baseline intelligence" Oh, I sure do. The strongest positive correlations I've noticed with elite schooling are conscientiousness, acquiescence to authority and then wealth, in that order. Intelligence is a relatively distant 4th place, thought it still correlates positively, IMO. PG actually wrote a whole essay on this topic: http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html http://www.paulgraham.com/colleges.html "...what we've found is that the variation between schools is so much smaller than the variation between individuals that it's negligible by comparison. We can learn more about someone in the first minute of talking to them than by knowing where they went to school."
    - morgante 9y ago