3 ms·

I also went to a highly ranked school. It wasn't a perfect meritocracy but it was at least oriented towards merit. But my initial point remains: the idea of t

• opportune 7y ago
  See, I really don't think they are oriented much towards merit either. At least, not my idea of "merit". My idea of merit would be purely academic: test scores, grades (though these are very leaky), and academic achievements outside the classroom (e.g. performance in academic competitions). Yet many, if not most, people at highly ranked/competitive universities don't fall into the "academic" admissions bucket: there's also athletes, musicians, people with "quirky hobbies" (many of which are invented purely for college admissions), people who might have had standards relaxed a bit to meet demographic targets, and most of all kids from rich feeder schools + legacies. Then you get the rest of the students who get in purely on academic merit. In my experience those maybe make up a plurality but not a majority. They're basically there to lend legitimacy to the rich kids.
• CydeWeys 7y ago
  Isn't research the main driving force behind many universities? Would they really be affected that much by how some undergraduates got in, especially since they likely wouldn't even be participating in research anyway?