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a problem by any social measure. Why is this a problem at all? Elite universities should admit the best students. Science / truth is and should be epistocrati

a problem by any social measure. Why is this a problem at all? Elite universities should admit the best students. Science / truth is and should be epistocratic, rather than democratic, fair or equal. If other ethnies cannot educate their children up to Asian standards, then that's a failure of the other ethnies. Punishing Asians for consistently raising better children is victim blaming. All the more, so since it's very easy to raise successful children: study hard & consistently, value education and do lots of maths. We should celebrate the Asian focus of intellectual excellence rather than punish them.

intended 8y ago
But that has never been the only goal of most of these institutions. What you are talking about makes sense for something like the IIT in India - and take a look at the huge number of students who run from that environment to a liberal arts education in the US. To shed more light on your position - by extension we can ask why someone has to study electives and waste so much time on it. Merit is measured on the subjects that are part of their degree. The US college education is faced with a definitional crisis - they are tooled for a different era, when a college education wasn’t something every citizen was expected to get.
- YorkshireSeason 8y ago
  The US college education is faced with a definitional crisis The problem is not definitional: politics (reflecting the ethnic composition of the votership of the Democratic party) decided that social engineering is a key function of universities, in particular that women and blacks be given preference, regardless of academic merit (although the Trump government will probably try and roll this back). The problem is that this political command cannot be openly stated, for it is in direct contradiction with current law, whence universities keep their admission policies hidden / obscure. huge number of students who run from [IITs] to a liberal arts education in the US. Why is that s a problem? It's part of one's maturation to work out what one wants to do in life. More important is that IITs consistently produce excellent graduates, eg. Sundar Pichai, Sachin Bansal, or the undergraduates who developed the AKS primality test. (Note I'm not saying that IITs are ideal, indeed they can do much better.) Universities (or at least elite universities) should be judged primarily by the quality of their top graduates (for they have a disproportionate impact), and not by their failures.
sonnyblarney 8y ago
"Elite universities should admit the best students. Science / truth is and should be epistocratic, rather than democratic, fair or equal" First, it doesn't have to be, and was never necessarily meant to be, second, it depends on how you define your 'epistemological' criteria. To my point: 'just using SAT scores' would be basically a very bad way to select students. For example, some US States high schools may focus intensely on 'SAT prep'. Others may have a policy of not prepping at all. Some candidates speak English as their second language and are at a big disadvantage. "We should celebrate the Asian focus of intellectual excellence rather than punish them." This is 'intellectual excellence' on some level, but I view the 'race to perfect SAT' as competitive, not intellectual. We can all work 12 hours a day from the age of four, but is that what we want? In South Korea, they literally had to ban doing homework after 10 pm, because it was a social malaise. This is a cultural attribute, on the whole, it's certainly better than kids 'not doing homework', but my experience with South Korean students at Grad School has informed me that I don't think that this is really what we want, nor is it actually very productive. (Too clarify about my South Korean compatriots - it's they who were complaining that during their summer internships at home, they would be paid meagre wages, literally a couple thousand dollars a month - after a lifetime of intensely competitive academic endeavour) There are a number of factors at play and I think 'representation' is one of them, on some level. Also, I'm the last person to be pushing intersectional arguments, I'm generally wary of it all, and totally opposed to 'proportional representation' and that kind of stuff. I'm saying - it's a factor, that's all.
tomcam 8y ago
> consistently raising better children Most of my extended family is Chinese-born. This cohort (educated, upper middle class and above) definitely raises better test-takers. They are statistically much less likely to divorce and much less likely to be on public assistance. I value these traits enormously myself. It is not clear to me they are better children. Personal anecdata shows that many of these kids were raised with such obsessive concern with getting into Ivy League colleges that they are not complete adults, and often don't know what to do with their lives when they graduate.
- guard0g 8y ago
  Probably not beyond norm...most college graduates don't know what to do when they graduate!
- scottlocklin 8y ago
  That's an interesting perspective, but I wonder if the kids who actually get in based on merits other than test-taking are any better. My anecdata is that they are not.
  - Apocryphon 8y ago
    It's particularly relevant to tech because there is the concern that technical interviews, poorly structured, are creating a culture that favors admitting candidates who optimize for passing technical interviews.
- echaozh 8y ago
  Hmm, you may or may not be Chinese born or Chinese descendant,but your remark is still racist in the sense that you think the Chinese people are large the same and they're different from other people. It doesn't matter if you think the Chinese people are good or bad, it's racist.
makomk 8y ago
Generally, the definition of "best students" that the top universities are looking for is the ones who are best able to handle the content of the course by themselves without their parents there pushing them, because that's what it takes to succeed. They're not looking for the students who've most effectively been sheparded through intensive test prep by their parents, because that all falls apart the moment they have to stand on their own and deal with harder courses that can't be prepped for in the same way.
csa 8y ago
> We should celebrate the Asian focus of intellectual excellence rather than punish them. First, I’m going to remove the “Asian” aspect of your comment, because I don’t think the phenomenon you are speaking of is uniquely Asian. Let me frame it slightly differently. One group, let’s call them TestPreppers, are excellent at acing tests. Yes, these types of students are common is East Asia (e.g., due to the cram school culture), but they can be found other places as well (e.g., upper middle class communities in the US NE corridor regardless of race). The second group, let’s call them ThinkersDoers, are really good at identifying interesting problems and doing constructive work on that problem. These folks tend to be smart, creative, and hard working. They exist is all races (including, but not limited to, Asians). In an academic setting or some professions that have domain specific hard problems to work on, the TestPreppers are largely terrible to work with. Lots of hand holding. Lots of training. Outcomes are predictable but uninspiring. They are great grinders. That said, they will almost never contribute anything positive to your work group other than a willingness to do grunt work that others don’t want to do. Note that the doing the grunt work is valued, but finding grinders is not hard. The VAR (value above replacement — a sports stats term) is basically zero. The ThinkersDoers, however, will provide unique insights about the problem space and will advance the team in unique and valuable ways. Their VAR is very high — these folks are so difficult to find at any level. These folks are incredibly fun to work with, and you are very sad when they leave the team. I really wish that we, regardless of race, would encourage the development more ThinkersDoers rather than focus on the relatively mundane TestPreppers. Raising a TestPrepper (to the exclusion of anything else) just seems like a wasted opportunity to develop a ThinkerDoer who has the opportunity to move the needle much more substantially in any endeavor they choose to persue.
- turtlecloud 8y ago
  Best answer in all of thread. You are a true ThinkerDoer :)
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deleted 8y ago
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intended 8y ago

But that has never been the only goal of most of these institutions. What you are talking about makes sense for something like the IIT in India - and take a look at the huge number of students who run from that environment to a liberal arts education in the US. To shed more light on your position - by extension we can ask why someone has to study electives and waste so much time on it. Merit is measured on the subjects that are part of their degree. The US college education is faced with a definitional crisis - they are tooled for a different era, when a college education wasn’t something every citizen was expected to get.

YorkshireSeason 8y ago
The US college education is faced with a definitional crisis The problem is not definitional: politics (reflecting the ethnic composition of the votership of the Democratic party) decided that social engineering is a key function of universities, in particular that women and blacks be given preference, regardless of academic merit (although the Trump government will probably try and roll this back). The problem is that this political command cannot be openly stated, for it is in direct contradiction with current law, whence universities keep their admission policies hidden / obscure. huge number of students who run from [IITs] to a liberal arts education in the US. Why is that s a problem? It's part of one's maturation to work out what one wants to do in life. More important is that IITs consistently produce excellent graduates, eg. Sundar Pichai, Sachin Bansal, or the undergraduates who developed the AKS primality test. (Note I'm not saying that IITs are ideal, indeed they can do much better.) Universities (or at least elite universities) should be judged primarily by the quality of their top graduates (for they have a disproportionate impact), and not by their failures.

sonnyblarney 8y ago

"Elite universities should admit the best students. Science / truth is and should be epistocratic, rather than democratic, fair or equal" First, it doesn't have to be, and was never necessarily meant to be, second, it depends on how you define your 'epistemological' criteria. To my point: 'just using SAT scores' would be basically a very bad way to select students. For example, some US States high schools may focus intensely on 'SAT prep'. Others may have a policy of not prepping at all. Some candidates speak English as their second language and are at a big disadvantage. "We should celebrate the Asian focus of intellectual excellence rather than punish them." This is 'intellectual excellence' on some level, but I view the 'race to perfect SAT' as competitive, not intellectual. We can all work 12 hours a day from the age of four, but is that what we want? In South Korea, they literally had to ban doing homework after 10 pm, because it was a social malaise. This is a cultural attribute, on the whole, it's certainly better than kids 'not doing homework', but my experience with South Korean students at Grad School has informed me that I don't think that this is really what we want, nor is it actually very productive. (Too clarify about my South Korean compatriots - it's they who were complaining that during their summer internships at home, they would be paid meagre wages, literally a couple thousand dollars a month - after a lifetime of intensely competitive academic endeavour) There are a number of factors at play and I think 'representation' is one of them, on some level. Also, I'm the last person to be pushing intersectional arguments, I'm generally wary of it all, and totally opposed to 'proportional representation' and that kind of stuff. I'm saying - it's a factor, that's all.

tomcam 8y ago

> consistently raising better children Most of my extended family is Chinese-born. This cohort (educated, upper middle class and above) definitely raises better test-takers. They are statistically much less likely to divorce and much less likely to be on public assistance. I value these traits enormously myself. It is not clear to me they are better children. Personal anecdata shows that many of these kids were raised with such obsessive concern with getting into Ivy League colleges that they are not complete adults, and often don't know what to do with their lives when they graduate.

guard0g 8y ago
Probably not beyond norm...most college graduates don't know what to do when they graduate!
scottlocklin 8y ago
That's an interesting perspective, but I wonder if the kids who actually get in based on merits other than test-taking are any better. My anecdata is that they are not.
- Apocryphon 8y ago
  It's particularly relevant to tech because there is the concern that technical interviews, poorly structured, are creating a culture that favors admitting candidates who optimize for passing technical interviews.
echaozh 8y ago
Hmm, you may or may not be Chinese born or Chinese descendant,but your remark is still racist in the sense that you think the Chinese people are large the same and they're different from other people. It doesn't matter if you think the Chinese people are good or bad, it's racist.

makomk 8y ago

Generally, the definition of "best students" that the top universities are looking for is the ones who are best able to handle the content of the course by themselves without their parents there pushing them, because that's what it takes to succeed. They're not looking for the students who've most effectively been sheparded through intensive test prep by their parents, because that all falls apart the moment they have to stand on their own and deal with harder courses that can't be prepped for in the same way.

csa 8y ago

> We should celebrate the Asian focus of intellectual excellence rather than punish them. First, I’m going to remove the “Asian” aspect of your comment, because I don’t think the phenomenon you are speaking of is uniquely Asian. Let me frame it slightly differently. One group, let’s call them TestPreppers, are excellent at acing tests. Yes, these types of students are common is East Asia (e.g., due to the cram school culture), but they can be found other places as well (e.g., upper middle class communities in the US NE corridor regardless of race). The second group, let’s call them ThinkersDoers, are really good at identifying interesting problems and doing constructive work on that problem. These folks tend to be smart, creative, and hard working. They exist is all races (including, but not limited to, Asians). In an academic setting or some professions that have domain specific hard problems to work on, the TestPreppers are largely terrible to work with. Lots of hand holding. Lots of training. Outcomes are predictable but uninspiring. They are great grinders. That said, they will almost never contribute anything positive to your work group other than a willingness to do grunt work that others don’t want to do. Note that the doing the grunt work is valued, but finding grinders is not hard. The VAR (value above replacement — a sports stats term) is basically zero. The ThinkersDoers, however, will provide unique insights about the problem space and will advance the team in unique and valuable ways. Their VAR is very high — these folks are so difficult to find at any level. These folks are incredibly fun to work with, and you are very sad when they leave the team. I really wish that we, regardless of race, would encourage the development more ThinkersDoers rather than focus on the relatively mundane TestPreppers. Raising a TestPrepper (to the exclusion of anything else) just seems like a wasted opportunity to develop a ThinkerDoer who has the opportunity to move the needle much more substantially in any endeavor they choose to persue.

turtlecloud 8y ago
Best answer in all of thread. You are a true ThinkerDoer :)

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