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>And yet, they did not implode the moment they breathed the rarified air of the Ivy League. Some struggled or dropped out, but a number of Landry students—parti

>And yet, they did not implode the moment they breathed the rarified air of the Ivy League. Some struggled or dropped out, but a number of Landry students—particularly those who had spent more time in traditional schools—simply continued to advance. This is quite interesting: completely average students who normally would have no chance of admission can handle ivy league educations. It does appear that exclusive universities are not selecting the smartest 18 year olds in the land but bestowing a title of permanent employment and business advantage on a select group of people of average intellect.

burkaman 8y ago
I think it's pretty well known that Ivy League schools are much harder to get into than they are to get out of, at least among college-aged people. That's by design, but also partly out of necessity; it's not possible to design a curriculum so difficult that only 2,000 students in the country can graduate, and then accurately select those 2,000 students from 50,000 applicants.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Reliably picking the top 4% and tailoring the curriculum to them sounds very difficult. With a large enough potential student body and a small enough enrolment a sufficiently prestigious institution can have any kind of student population it wants. Cal Tech students are admitted purely on academic merit and they’re the only elite university in the US with a significant drop out rate. I doubt they have any graduates who aren’t in the top percentile. In practice you’re mostly right. Look at schools like Yale Law or France’s École Nationale d’Administration[1] where the student body is so smart that half of them would pass the exams if handed the reading list and syllabus for the exams and given a year to prepare. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_nationale_d%27administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_nationale_d%27administra...
  - ummonk 8y ago
    >where the student body is so smart that half of them would pass the exams if handed the reading list and syllabus for the exams and given a year to prepare. Is that unusual?
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      Yes. If you give an average class of 15 year olds high school textbooks and past exam papers and tell them you’ll give them lots of money if they get a good grade they won’t do it. Given expert instruction, dedicated time to learn and every support plenty fail. If being able to learn independently from a textbook was normal boot camps would not exist.
      - leereeves 8y ago
        Even students who are able to learn independently need credentials. And is your statement about the average class of 15 year olds based on research or is it pure speculation?
        barry-cotter 8y ago
        Credentials are very helpful but none of the boot camps gives credentials worth a damn and plenty of their graduates get good jobs. Credentials are not always bad everywhere necessary. My statement about the average class of 15 year olds is based on my exposure to the children I tutor, having been a 15 year old myself, observation and a certain amount of reading in the psychological literature, mostly the monotonic increase in conscientiousness that goes at least into the late twenties. I actually have great respect for the capacity of teenagers to learn and achieve; I just think very little of their discipline. I’ve no doubt at least a third of the average high school class could do lambdaschool’s front end or data science course. Given a similar level of support, scheduling and structure I’m sure at least a quarter could complete the curriculum of many Master’s degrees. But the average college student is older, more conscientious and smarter than the average 15 year old. Twenty percent drop out. More graduate in six years than in four. The average 15 year old is in no way prepared to self study given just text books and a syllsbus.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - whymauri 8y ago
    I always say CalTech has the smartest undergrads in the US. My friends there and the curriculum blow my mind
- m0zg 8y ago
  This problem is commonly solved in a somewhat more meritocratic fashion by having entrance exams. My alma mater had them (not in the US), and problems in the exams spanned a range from "quite hard" to "insane". You were not expected to solve everything. Then they'd grade the results anonymously, and pick the top N, where N was capacity for that year. To have a chance of passing the exam you could sign up for their prep school for a very nominal fee that only covered postage (it was by mail), and many of us did.
DuskStar 8y ago
> a select group of people of average intellect If, say, 10% of the students who were admitted this way succeeded would you change your mind? To me this sounds like the faked credentials allowed the students to skip the first filter (admissions), but that there was a second filter (top tier classes) that most of them failed.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- ubernostrum 8y ago
  It's difficult to say for certain that the Ivies are actually that high in terms of academic quality. There's a history of people literally tweaking evaluation and ranking criteria until they get the Ivies to come out at the top. For example, US New and World Report got rid of a statistician whose algorithm didn't put the Ivies at the top of their rankings, and replaced with someone who would "fix" that: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2000/09/01/playing-with-numbers/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/2000/09/01/playing-with-number...
  - arethuza 8y ago
    My wife and I both went to a middle ranking engineering/science oriented university in the UK - she later went on to go to one of the top law schools in the UK. She was shocked at how poor the actual academic standards at the latter "prestigious" organisation were - even though everyone spent a lot of time congratulating themselves for being at a top law school. It was much more difficult to get into that law school (unless you were "connected" of course) - but they really didn't expect much of people once they were there.
jonnybgood 8y ago
They advance in an Ivy League school and you still say they have an average intellect? Why do you say that? Either the majority of the students have an average intellect or these students have an above average intellect. Ivy League schools don’t look for the smartest 18 year olds. The intent is to make them the smartest 22+ year olds.
- dkarl 8y ago
  A better way to say it is that they're looking to produce the most successful 22+ year olds, in a mix that perpetuates the schools' power, wealth, and intellectual prestige. That means admitting some of the smartest 18-year-olds, as well as some 18-year-olds who will be successful because of family wealth and social connections, and then giving them an environment where they can further expand their intellectual and social advantages to get even further ahead of their peers.
droithomme 8y ago
> bestowing a title of permanent employment and business advantage on a select group of people of average intellect I don't think that elite colleges are a racket who hand out privilege like lottery tickets. It has been shown in previous studies that people accepted to elite colleges and who don't attend do as well in life as those accepted who do attend. So that does suggest that the advantage is that elite colleges simply are able to select from people who are already very talented and confer no advantage through mere attendance. On the other hand we have the Landry case. These were not random students but students who had been through a fairly unorthodox education to date, granted one that some have claimed to be fraudulent. However that education involved self study and online classes and possibly may have introduced students to the self discipline and initiative in study needed to succeed. There are also cases such as Jaime Escalante and a few others who did things such as take over a class of the worst performing drop out bone headed students at a failing school, brought them enough up to speed to be able to score well on the AP Calculus test, and to this day all of them are doing much better than any of their peers who did not have Jaime Escalante as a teacher who said he believed in them and did something that enabled them to get into good colleges when their previous chance of getting into any college at all was nil. These are not normal teachers though. The commonality is that all of them have been accused of fraud when their students do well. But their students do do well.
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  > Jaime Escalante and a few others who did things such as take over a class of the worst performing drop out bone headed students at a failing school, brought them enough up to speed to be able to score well on the AP Calculus test, and to this day all of them are doing much better than any of their peers This isn't accurate. Jaime Escalante spent years setting up a multi-year pipeline into his class. His students were selected and trained up to the standard he could enforce before they met him specifically. He's an example of effective management and academic tracking more than effective teaching. (It is true that he achieved much more with the students he was responsible for than would be expected based on demographics.)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
danso 8y ago
The Landry students referenced here -- "those who had spent more time in traditional schools" -- were not necessarily "completely average students". As the legend of T.M. Landry grew, high-performing students and their parents lobbied to get in. Maybe being affiliated with T.M. Landry boosted their chances in a way unrelated to merit, but it's also very possible these students were capable of success no matter where they graduated from. The NYT story [0] says this: > The student in the most viral video, who spent only a short time at Landry, is in his first semester at Harvard. Other Landry students have been admitted to Harvard over the past three years, but the university declined to provide information on their status. > For yet other Landry students, particularly those who spent multiple years at the school, the results after graduation have been disappointing. Some have withdrawn from college, or transferred to less rigorous programs. In any case, we've long known before T.M. Landry that students who have below-par academic credentials on paper can succeed in the Ivies. Jared Kushner, one of the most powerful men in the country right now, was accepted into Harvard despite reportedly having a mediocre GPA and test scores: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-story-behind-jared-kushners-curious-acceptance-into-harvard https://www.propublica.org/article/the-story-behind-jared-ku... [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/us/tm-landry-college-prep-black-students.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/us/tm-landry-college-prep...
DoubleCribble 8y ago
I disagree. If anything, it shows that when average students are given top-notch instructors and surrounded by highly motivated peers, those average students raise their game. The exact same thing happens in amateur sports and is why athletes with any hope of making it to the Olympics/pro will go to great lengths to find the best coaches and best teams to play on.
- fromthestart 8y ago
  You think the average person is capable of Olympic feats simply with training and dedication?
  - DoubleCribble 8y ago
    I think if you want to be the best, you've got to train with the best. Success has a positive feedback loop.
    - barry-cotter 8y ago
      Can you answer the question you were asked please? Do you think the average person is capable of qualifying for the Olympics?
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
      - Qworg 8y ago
        I do, since it has been done. Here's a reasonable example: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetorch/2018/02/20/587356461/how-an-average-american-skier-managed-to-scheme-her-way-into-the-olympics https://www.npr.org/sections/thetorch/2018/02/20/587356461/h...
        barry-cotter 8y ago
        That’s quite the non-central example. Gamesmanship, cheating and being the only San Marinan or Guamian able and willing to represent their country in some sport excepted do you think a normal person is capable of becoming conpetitive at an élite level in most sports? It didn’t work for Dan McLaughlin when he tried to go from nothing to pro in golf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_McLaughlin_(golfer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_McLaughlin_(golfer) http://thedanplan.com/ http://thedanplan.com/

burkaman 8y ago

I think it's pretty well known that Ivy League schools are much harder to get into than they are to get out of, at least among college-aged people. That's by design, but also partly out of necessity; it's not possible to design a curriculum so difficult that only 2,000 students in the country can graduate, and then accurately select those 2,000 students from 50,000 applicants.

barry-cotter 8y ago
Reliably picking the top 4% and tailoring the curriculum to them sounds very difficult. With a large enough potential student body and a small enough enrolment a sufficiently prestigious institution can have any kind of student population it wants. Cal Tech students are admitted purely on academic merit and they’re the only elite university in the US with a significant drop out rate. I doubt they have any graduates who aren’t in the top percentile. In practice you’re mostly right. Look at schools like Yale Law or France’s École Nationale d’Administration[1] where the student body is so smart that half of them would pass the exams if handed the reading list and syllabus for the exams and given a year to prepare. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_nationale_d%27administration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/École_nationale_d%27administra...
- ummonk 8y ago
  >where the student body is so smart that half of them would pass the exams if handed the reading list and syllabus for the exams and given a year to prepare. Is that unusual?
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Yes. If you give an average class of 15 year olds high school textbooks and past exam papers and tell them you’ll give them lots of money if they get a good grade they won’t do it. Given expert instruction, dedicated time to learn and every support plenty fail. If being able to learn independently from a textbook was normal boot camps would not exist.
    - leereeves 8y ago
      Even students who are able to learn independently need credentials. And is your statement about the average class of 15 year olds based on research or is it pure speculation?
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        Credentials are very helpful but none of the boot camps gives credentials worth a damn and plenty of their graduates get good jobs. Credentials are not always bad everywhere necessary. My statement about the average class of 15 year olds is based on my exposure to the children I tutor, having been a 15 year old myself, observation and a certain amount of reading in the psychological literature, mostly the monotonic increase in conscientiousness that goes at least into the late twenties. I actually have great respect for the capacity of teenagers to learn and achieve; I just think very little of their discipline. I’ve no doubt at least a third of the average high school class could do lambdaschool’s front end or data science course. Given a similar level of support, scheduling and structure I’m sure at least a quarter could complete the curriculum of many Master’s degrees. But the average college student is older, more conscientious and smarter than the average 15 year old. Twenty percent drop out. More graduate in six years than in four. The average 15 year old is in no way prepared to self study given just text books and a syllsbus.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- whymauri 8y ago
  I always say CalTech has the smartest undergrads in the US. My friends there and the curriculum blow my mind
m0zg 8y ago
This problem is commonly solved in a somewhat more meritocratic fashion by having entrance exams. My alma mater had them (not in the US), and problems in the exams spanned a range from "quite hard" to "insane". You were not expected to solve everything. Then they'd grade the results anonymously, and pick the top N, where N was capacity for that year. To have a chance of passing the exam you could sign up for their prep school for a very nominal fee that only covered postage (it was by mail), and many of us did.

DuskStar 8y ago

> a select group of people of average intellect If, say, 10% of the students who were admitted this way succeeded would you change your mind? To me this sounds like the faked credentials allowed the students to skip the first filter (admissions), but that there was a second filter (top tier classes) that most of them failed.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ubernostrum 8y ago
It's difficult to say for certain that the Ivies are actually that high in terms of academic quality. There's a history of people literally tweaking evaluation and ranking criteria until they get the Ivies to come out at the top. For example, US New and World Report got rid of a statistician whose algorithm didn't put the Ivies at the top of their rankings, and replaced with someone who would "fix" that: https://washingtonmonthly.com/2000/09/01/playing-with-numbers/ https://washingtonmonthly.com/2000/09/01/playing-with-number...
- arethuza 8y ago
  My wife and I both went to a middle ranking engineering/science oriented university in the UK - she later went on to go to one of the top law schools in the UK. She was shocked at how poor the actual academic standards at the latter "prestigious" organisation were - even though everyone spent a lot of time congratulating themselves for being at a top law school. It was much more difficult to get into that law school (unless you were "connected" of course) - but they really didn't expect much of people once they were there.

jonnybgood 8y ago

They advance in an Ivy League school and you still say they have an average intellect? Why do you say that? Either the majority of the students have an average intellect or these students have an above average intellect. Ivy League schools don’t look for the smartest 18 year olds. The intent is to make them the smartest 22+ year olds.

dkarl 8y ago
A better way to say it is that they're looking to produce the most successful 22+ year olds, in a mix that perpetuates the schools' power, wealth, and intellectual prestige. That means admitting some of the smartest 18-year-olds, as well as some 18-year-olds who will be successful because of family wealth and social connections, and then giving them an environment where they can further expand their intellectual and social advantages to get even further ahead of their peers.

droithomme 8y ago

> bestowing a title of permanent employment and business advantage on a select group of people of average intellect I don't think that elite colleges are a racket who hand out privilege like lottery tickets. It has been shown in previous studies that people accepted to elite colleges and who don't attend do as well in life as those accepted who do attend. So that does suggest that the advantage is that elite colleges simply are able to select from people who are already very talented and confer no advantage through mere attendance. On the other hand we have the Landry case. These were not random students but students who had been through a fairly unorthodox education to date, granted one that some have claimed to be fraudulent. However that education involved self study and online classes and possibly may have introduced students to the self discipline and initiative in study needed to succeed. There are also cases such as Jaime Escalante and a few others who did things such as take over a class of the worst performing drop out bone headed students at a failing school, brought them enough up to speed to be able to score well on the AP Calculus test, and to this day all of them are doing much better than any of their peers who did not have Jaime Escalante as a teacher who said he believed in them and did something that enabled them to get into good colleges when their previous chance of getting into any college at all was nil. These are not normal teachers though. The commonality is that all of them have been accused of fraud when their students do well. But their students do do well.

thaumasiotes 8y ago
> Jaime Escalante and a few others who did things such as take over a class of the worst performing drop out bone headed students at a failing school, brought them enough up to speed to be able to score well on the AP Calculus test, and to this day all of them are doing much better than any of their peers This isn't accurate. Jaime Escalante spent years setting up a multi-year pipeline into his class. His students were selected and trained up to the standard he could enforce before they met him specifically. He's an example of effective management and academic tracking more than effective teaching. (It is true that he achieved much more with the students he was responsible for than would be expected based on demographics.)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

danso 8y ago

The Landry students referenced here -- "those who had spent more time in traditional schools" -- were not necessarily "completely average students". As the legend of T.M. Landry grew, high-performing students and their parents lobbied to get in. Maybe being affiliated with T.M. Landry boosted their chances in a way unrelated to merit, but it's also very possible these students were capable of success no matter where they graduated from. The NYT story [0] says this: > The student in the most viral video, who spent only a short time at Landry, is in his first semester at Harvard. Other Landry students have been admitted to Harvard over the past three years, but the university declined to provide information on their status. > For yet other Landry students, particularly those who spent multiple years at the school, the results after graduation have been disappointing. Some have withdrawn from college, or transferred to less rigorous programs. In any case, we've long known before T.M. Landry that students who have below-par academic credentials on paper can succeed in the Ivies. Jared Kushner, one of the most powerful men in the country right now, was accepted into Harvard despite reportedly having a mediocre GPA and test scores: https://www.propublica.org/article/the-story-behind-jared-kushners-curious-acceptance-into-harvard https://www.propublica.org/article/the-story-behind-jared-ku... [0] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/us/tm-landry-college-prep-black-students.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/us/tm-landry-college-prep...

DoubleCribble 8y ago

I disagree. If anything, it shows that when average students are given top-notch instructors and surrounded by highly motivated peers, those average students raise their game. The exact same thing happens in amateur sports and is why athletes with any hope of making it to the Olympics/pro will go to great lengths to find the best coaches and best teams to play on.

fromthestart 8y ago
You think the average person is capable of Olympic feats simply with training and dedication?
- DoubleCribble 8y ago
  I think if you want to be the best, you've got to train with the best. Success has a positive feedback loop.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Can you answer the question you were asked please? Do you think the average person is capable of qualifying for the Olympics?
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - Qworg 8y ago
      I do, since it has been done. Here's a reasonable example: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetorch/2018/02/20/587356461/how-an-average-american-skier-managed-to-scheme-her-way-into-the-olympics https://www.npr.org/sections/thetorch/2018/02/20/587356461/h...
      - barry-cotter 8y ago
        That’s quite the non-central example. Gamesmanship, cheating and being the only San Marinan or Guamian able and willing to represent their country in some sport excepted do you think a normal person is capable of becoming conpetitive at an élite level in most sports? It didn’t work for Dan McLaughlin when he tried to go from nothing to pro in golf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_McLaughlin_(golfer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_McLaughlin_(golfer) http://thedanplan.com/ http://thedanplan.com/