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“The Ivy League admissions system is designed to select the most intelligent and studious students in the world. Even with legacy admissions and related scandal

by ummonk 6y ago

“The Ivy League admissions system is designed to select the most intelligent and studious students in the world. Even with legacy admissions and related scandals, the Ivy League has largely been successful in this. ... Has there ever been a higher concentration of raw intelligence and studious industry than exists right now in America's top 15 universities (and the few industries that selectively pull from them)?“ Ehh, the universities with the best concentration of talent are not the Ivies but MIT and Caltech.

kthxbye123 6y ago
Part of the problem is "the ability to do abstract symbolic manipulation" becomes conflated with "talent" which then becomes conflated with "human worth"...
- exolymph 6y ago
  Intelligence does constitute talent to a large degree. Just not virtue.
analyst74 6y ago
> The Ivy League admissions system is designed to select the most intelligent and studious students in the world If intelligence can be measured, whether using IQ or SAT scores, I don't think this is true. If intelligence cannot be measured, then this is just some grandiose perception that ivy schools have been successful at projecting.
- wpietri 6y ago
  My money's on the latter. A familiar example for me is the "Certified Scrum Master" racket. The only actual requirement for those was the ability to keep breathing throughout a short course. But they undeniably had an economic benefit for the holders, in that it made them more hireable by companies that needed some sort of blessing for their top-town control apparatus.
  - horsawlarway 6y ago
    But I genuinely enjoy folks who put that crap on their resume. It's immediately a black mark. Then again I'm mostly interviewing for the startup/small business scene, and I need people who can actually do things other than just "follow the rules". I've had the pleasure to work with some truly talented folks, and I can promise none of them had the patience with bureaucratic bs to do certified scrum training.
deleted 6y ago
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by ummonk 6y ago

kthxbye123 6y ago

Part of the problem is "the ability to do abstract symbolic manipulation" becomes conflated with "talent" which then becomes conflated with "human worth"...

exolymph 6y ago
Intelligence does constitute talent to a large degree. Just not virtue.

analyst74 6y ago

> The Ivy League admissions system is designed to select the most intelligent and studious students in the world If intelligence can be measured, whether using IQ or SAT scores, I don't think this is true. If intelligence cannot be measured, then this is just some grandiose perception that ivy schools have been successful at projecting.

wpietri 6y ago
My money's on the latter. A familiar example for me is the "Certified Scrum Master" racket. The only actual requirement for those was the ability to keep breathing throughout a short course. But they undeniably had an economic benefit for the holders, in that it made them more hireable by companies that needed some sort of blessing for their top-town control apparatus.
- horsawlarway 6y ago
  But I genuinely enjoy folks who put that crap on their resume. It's immediately a black mark. Then again I'm mostly interviewing for the startup/small business scene, and I need people who can actually do things other than just "follow the rules". I've had the pleasure to work with some truly talented folks, and I can promise none of them had the patience with bureaucratic bs to do certified scrum training.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]