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No I was saying that the smartest kids I knew ended up in the research universities (with a couple of exceptions). The ones a step down were usually the ones at
by wutbrodo 8y ago
No I was saying that the smartest kids I knew ended up in the research universities (with a couple of exceptions). The ones a step down were usually the ones at the Ivies. The quality of an education at a research university far outstrips their reputations (particularly if you're optimizing for departments), while a big chunk of the value of Ivies is the reputation.
Ivy admissions criteria make a lot more sense if you realize that they're engineering the makeup of the anointed upper-crust of the next generation (which only the most naive idealist would think is tightly related to merit). Tech is an unusually meritocratic industry (for now), which is why, at least in my experience, the brand power of the educational institutions on your resume aren't that great a predictor of success in the industry.
- umanwizard 8y agoIvies are research universities... Princeton and Harvard in particular are some of the best research institutions in the world.
- wutbrodo 8y agoSure, the two groups aren't mutually exclusive. When I said that the smarter people I knew generally picked schools based on the strength of the depts they had some interest in, that included a couple of people who went to Ivy Leagues for those reasons. But most of the people I know who went to Ivies had no more complex a decision process than "it's an Ivy League school". Not coincidentally, ten years later, none of the people in this latter camp are doing anything particularly interesting with their lives or careers. I get that it sounds like my sample is skewed heavily towards tech,but I can only think of one or two people out of my high school friends/acquaintances who went into tech, so this particular sample isn't skewed that way