7 ms·

Top Colleges, Largely for the Elite

16 points by wallflower 15y ago

rayiner 15y ago
They have an odd definition of "elite" (top 1/4)... That's what, household income in the ~$100k range for a family that has college-aged kids? That's pretty much every household with at least one parent with a professional job (especially on the east coast, where I'd imagine most people at Georgetown are from).
- hugh3 15y ago
  What, the NYT's "elite" isn't elite enough for you? That sounds a bit elitist, doesn't it?
- forkandwait 15y ago
  Nationally, only about 27% of the population above the age of 25 has a college degree, which includes all crummy state colleges (I can say that because I got a degree from one, as an "adult learner" no less). So my guess is that about 20% of the East Coast has "at least one parent" who has a professional job. In manhattan probably 50%+, in Orange County, probably 10%. Just saying
invalidOrTaken 15y ago
The article title isn't very informative; you might as well say, "Elite colleges, largely for the top." Elite how? Academically? Income? Family connections? The real injustice, IMO, isn't in the higher education system. It's in the public K-12 system. I didn't attend a private high school, but I might as well have---my parents live in an area with sky-high property values, and the high school I attended solicits citizen donations pretty vigorously. I think we had maybe three black kids in the school, and I'm sure our graduation rate was over 90%. I have a very hard time believing that Joe Inner City had a chance of getting the same secondary education I did. I don't know what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure it starts way before college.
- hugh3 15y ago
  I don't know what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure it starts way before college I'd be inclined to segregate the schools. No, not by race, by IQ scores. Test the kids at the age of ten and split 'em up into (say) five groups depending on how well they do, and then truck 'em off to schools strategically placed to have catchment areas spread over a range of socioeconomic areas. The alphas would get the full-on deal, the best education that our species can cram into seven short years. The betas would get a slightly easier set of coursework but still be expected to be fully functional and capable of office work. The epsilons would get remedial literacy and life skills and taught to productively follow orders in order to make it through life without becoming a burglar or meth addict. It may sound cruel, but is it any worse than expecting an IQ 80 doofus to write an essay on Shakespeare?
  - ipince 15y ago
    Well, you could argue that some "IQ segregation" already happens, by virtue of having highly selective private schools, advanced placement, etc. I think the students (or parents when they're too young) should have choice though, and be able to choose how challenging they want their education to be. With high-priced private schools, this is not really the case though.
  - robobenjie 15y ago
    "They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard." -Brave New World
  - zwieback 15y ago
    That's sort of how it worked in Germany when I grew up there. At age 10 everyone gets a series of tests that decides whether they go to first, second or third tier schools. Only the first tier (9 years of high school) gets you admission to university. The second tier is meant to shuttle you toward vocational education, which is very good in Germany, and the third tier basically turns you into a laborer. There is some lateral movement between schools but it's pretty rare and in most states the schools are physically separated. I'm not sure what it's like now but at the time it seemed like the system didn't really sort by IQ but much more by the class you were already in. In principle it should be easy to move up but the reality is much different.
hugh3 15y ago
But all else equal, a low-income applicant was no more likely to get in than a high-income applicant with the same SAT score. It’s pretty hard to call that meritocracy. Wait, isn't that exactly a meritocracy? An applicant's chances of getting in are correlated with his SAT score and not with his income?
- mattdeboard 15y ago
  Ha, literally came here to copy/paste this exact thing. I am hoping this is an editorial oversight, because any other explanation would be disturbing.
- LukeShu 15y ago
  I think he misused meritocracy; I think he was looking for `plutocracy'.
  - pak 15y ago
    Isn't plutocracy even farther in the wrong direction? His point is that colleges are trying to reward the poor, not the wealthy, but are failing to do so. Maybe "ptochocracy" or "egalitarianism"?
- FaceKicker 15y ago
  I'd agree that the wording is pretty strange, but I would argue that if two applicants are exactly the same in every way, except that A's parents make $40,000/year and B's parents make $500,000/year, A should be ranked above B in terms of merit because more than likely he/she has experienced more hardship, and been able to do just as well as B in spite of it.
  - ipince 15y ago
    I do think that's what the author meant. I see the point, but on the other hand, it seems extremely hard to measure and account for. Unless the difference is abysmal, I don't think it would be right to discriminate based on socioeconomic background either.
lefstathiou 15y ago
Can someone please tell me how Ga Tech made the list (not trying to hate, I'm from GA and my dad is a yellow jacket)?
- vrikhter 15y ago
  Top 5 Engineering school. Surprised you even asked. Yes, I did go to GT. Edit: GT as I remember had a large minority student body. I believe that we graduate more african american engineers than any other school in the country. We are also a less expensive public school.
- barry-cotter 15y ago
  They're using a very, very broad definition of elite, as in there are 193 colleges in the "elite". It would be kind of unusual if a university that's comparable with MIT didn't reach that level.
barry-cotter 15y ago
Several years ago, William Bowen, a former president of Princeton, and two other researchers found that top colleges gave no admissions advantage to low-income students, despite claims to the contrary. [...] The result of these changes is that Amherst has a much higher share of low-income students than almost any other elite college I strongly suspect that Amherst's poor people recruiting is race blind. That's the only way they could find enough students in the US who are up to their academic standards. It's almost certainly an excellent long-term strategy too; the relatively poor will likely be fairly fervent in their support for the alma mater. In itself, this doesn't really matter, a college that takes in less than 2k students a year won't change anything unless the model brings in money. But it should. Taking smart people and giving them that hireable by Goldman or McKinsey stamp, that should lead to donations.

16 points by wallflower 15y ago

They have an odd definition of "elite" (top 1/4)... That's what, household income in the ~$100k range for a family that has college-aged kids? That's pretty much every household with at least one parent with a professional job (especially on the east coast, where I'd imagine most people at Georgetown are from).

hugh3 15y ago
What, the NYT's "elite" isn't elite enough for you? That sounds a bit elitist, doesn't it?
forkandwait 15y ago
Nationally, only about 27% of the population above the age of 25 has a college degree, which includes all crummy state colleges (I can say that because I got a degree from one, as an "adult learner" no less). So my guess is that about 20% of the East Coast has "at least one parent" who has a professional job. In manhattan probably 50%+, in Orange County, probably 10%. Just saying

invalidOrTaken 15y ago

The article title isn't very informative; you might as well say, "Elite colleges, largely for the top." Elite how? Academically? Income? Family connections? The real injustice, IMO, isn't in the higher education system. It's in the public K-12 system. I didn't attend a private high school, but I might as well have---my parents live in an area with sky-high property values, and the high school I attended solicits citizen donations pretty vigorously. I think we had maybe three black kids in the school, and I'm sure our graduation rate was over 90%. I have a very hard time believing that Joe Inner City had a chance of getting the same secondary education I did. I don't know what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure it starts way before college.

hugh3 15y ago
I don't know what the solution is, but I'm pretty sure it starts way before college I'd be inclined to segregate the schools. No, not by race, by IQ scores. Test the kids at the age of ten and split 'em up into (say) five groups depending on how well they do, and then truck 'em off to schools strategically placed to have catchment areas spread over a range of socioeconomic areas. The alphas would get the full-on deal, the best education that our species can cram into seven short years. The betas would get a slightly easier set of coursework but still be expected to be fully functional and capable of office work. The epsilons would get remedial literacy and life skills and taught to productively follow orders in order to make it through life without becoming a burglar or meth addict. It may sound cruel, but is it any worse than expecting an IQ 80 doofus to write an essay on Shakespeare?
- ipince 15y ago
  Well, you could argue that some "IQ segregation" already happens, by virtue of having highly selective private schools, advanced placement, etc. I think the students (or parents when they're too young) should have choice though, and be able to choose how challenging they want their education to be. With high-priced private schools, this is not really the case though.
- robobenjie 15y ago
  "They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm really awfuly glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard." -Brave New World
- zwieback 15y ago
  That's sort of how it worked in Germany when I grew up there. At age 10 everyone gets a series of tests that decides whether they go to first, second or third tier schools. Only the first tier (9 years of high school) gets you admission to university. The second tier is meant to shuttle you toward vocational education, which is very good in Germany, and the third tier basically turns you into a laborer. There is some lateral movement between schools but it's pretty rare and in most states the schools are physically separated. I'm not sure what it's like now but at the time it seemed like the system didn't really sort by IQ but much more by the class you were already in. In principle it should be easy to move up but the reality is much different.

hugh3 15y ago

But all else equal, a low-income applicant was no more likely to get in than a high-income applicant with the same SAT score. It’s pretty hard to call that meritocracy. Wait, isn't that exactly a meritocracy? An applicant's chances of getting in are correlated with his SAT score and not with his income?

mattdeboard 15y ago
Ha, literally came here to copy/paste this exact thing. I am hoping this is an editorial oversight, because any other explanation would be disturbing.
LukeShu 15y ago
I think he misused meritocracy; I think he was looking for `plutocracy'.
- pak 15y ago
  Isn't plutocracy even farther in the wrong direction? His point is that colleges are trying to reward the poor, not the wealthy, but are failing to do so. Maybe "ptochocracy" or "egalitarianism"?
FaceKicker 15y ago
I'd agree that the wording is pretty strange, but I would argue that if two applicants are exactly the same in every way, except that A's parents make $40,000/year and B's parents make $500,000/year, A should be ranked above B in terms of merit because more than likely he/she has experienced more hardship, and been able to do just as well as B in spite of it.
- ipince 15y ago
  I do think that's what the author meant. I see the point, but on the other hand, it seems extremely hard to measure and account for. Unless the difference is abysmal, I don't think it would be right to discriminate based on socioeconomic background either.

lefstathiou 15y ago

Can someone please tell me how Ga Tech made the list (not trying to hate, I'm from GA and my dad is a yellow jacket)?

vrikhter 15y ago
Top 5 Engineering school. Surprised you even asked. Yes, I did go to GT. Edit: GT as I remember had a large minority student body. I believe that we graduate more african american engineers than any other school in the country. We are also a less expensive public school.
barry-cotter 15y ago
They're using a very, very broad definition of elite, as in there are 193 colleges in the "elite". It would be kind of unusual if a university that's comparable with MIT didn't reach that level.

barry-cotter 15y ago

Several years ago, William Bowen, a former president of Princeton, and two other researchers found that top colleges gave no admissions advantage to low-income students, despite claims to the contrary. [...] The result of these changes is that Amherst has a much higher share of low-income students than almost any other elite college I strongly suspect that Amherst's poor people recruiting is race blind. That's the only way they could find enough students in the US who are up to their academic standards. It's almost certainly an excellent long-term strategy too; the relatively poor will likely be fairly fervent in their support for the alma mater. In itself, this doesn't really matter, a college that takes in less than 2k students a year won't change anything unless the model brings in money. But it should. Taking smart people and giving them that hireable by Goldman or McKinsey stamp, that should lead to donations.