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> George W went to Yale as far as I remember. I doubt that he scored super high in any IQ test. What exactly do you base your doubt on? Publicly he can be quit
by bidirectional 6y ago
> George W went to Yale as far as I remember. I doubt that he scored super high in any IQ test.
What exactly do you base your doubt on? Publicly he can be quite inarticulate, but there's accounts of him being highly intelligent.[1]
[1] https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/ https://keithhennessey.com/2013/04/24/smarter/
- muh_gradle 6y agoI was about to say. Bush is a bad public speaker, and you can disagree with all of his politics, but his professors found him intelligent. That being said, legacy admissions is still completely irresponsible, and people should be way more outraged by that.
- pc86 6y agoIrresponsible by what measure? Genetics and family wealth still have a huge influence on "future impact," and that's what these schools are selecting for. It sounds like legacy admissions are doing exactly what they're intended to do.
- solosoyokaze 6y ago> Genetics and family wealth still have a huge influence on "future impact," In what way would genetics have a huge influence on future impact? That sounds like eugenics.
- tharne 6y agoHow is it "like eugenics" to state that children inherit genes from their parents, and are often similar in many ways to their parents? That just sounds like biology. It's not helpful to trivialize terms like "eugenics".
- solosoyokaze 6y agoGenetics have no predictive power on future impact to society. Take one of those wealthy children and put them in an orphanage, see if they do the same as their siblings.
- tubesebut 6y ago> Take one of those wealthy children and put them in an orphanage, see if they do the same as their siblings. Or better yet, don't permit them to be born in the first place. Hereditary wealth should have no place in our society. It's time to sterilize the rich, and also purge those who don't contribute to the public good.
- ska 6y ago> Genetics and family wealth I suspect by "genetics" here you really mean something like "network you are born into", no?
- tharne 6y agoI'm pretty sure they mean that if two parents are of above average intelligence then they're more likely to produce children of above average intelligence.
- sanderjd 6y agoIrresponsible to society is what people are saying. You're making an "is" argument - the ivies optimizing for this "future impact" metric - where others are making an "ought" argument, that ivies ought to be focused on a different more societally beneficial metric.
- muh_gradle 6y agoBecause it's a terrible measure that is short sighted? It goes against everything affirmative action stands for? If we're going to pretend like diversity matters, then why try to justify legacy.
- _qulr 6y ago> his professors found him intelligent He had a 77% average in college, which made him a C student. He even characterized himself as an average student, which is accurate. The idea that he was a secret genius is patently ludicrous and is only proffered by political hacks.
- tharne 6y agoWhat's more, is that a "C" at most ivies is equivalent to an "F" at any other school. You don't get big donations by failing out the mediocre children of presidents and senators.
- _qulr 6y agoI don't think that's exclusive to the Ivy League. People are paying money for college everywhere, and a lot of them can barely afford it. Thus, professors are hesitant to outright fail students. I say this as a former lecturer and teaching assistant at a non-Ivy.
- tharne 6y agoGood point, I do suppose that's a growing issue everywhere, not just in the Ivy League.
- muh_gradle 6y agoFair enough. I don't know Bush's GPA. But the idea that he was objectively unintelligent and the average critic is smarter and more qualified to be president always rubs me the wrong way.
- pacman2 6y agoIQ is what you measure in a test. It does not measure creativity, ambition, empathy etc. In fact I have met people that were extraordinary good in university tests but this seemed to be their only ability. Even applying this knowledge in a laboratory or project was difficult for them. Also if you have attention deficit or something it will kill you in a test. But take kim kardashian or Paris Hilton. Without envy you have to agree that they are very successful entrepreneurs. Yet they likely were not top 5% in SAT scores.
- tharne 6y agoWhy are legacy admissions irresponsible? The author points out the schools have every incentive to maximize profit centers, and legacy admissions are a great way to do that. You admit four of five generations of a family, you'd better believe that they're going to pony up every year come donation time. Ivy League Universities have always existed to provide a finishing school for the elite, rather than providing some sort of public good. While I don't think that's a particularly noble endeavor, it's not an especially malicious one either given the abundance of top-notch (and lower cost) public universities in the U.S. If some rich parent wants to spend an order of magnitude more money on an ivy league school to give their kid more or less the same education they could have gotten at a state school, what's the big deal?
- muh_gradle 6y agoThen just end affirmative action. If that's the logic that's being used, these two things are pretty much mutually exclusive.
- chrismcb 6y agoWhy should people be enraged at legacy admissions? Especially to a private school?
- pacman2 6y agoGoogeled it. Not very impressive http://www.insidepolitics.org/heard/heard32300.html http://www.insidepolitics.org/heard/heard32300.html Yale University/Typical SAT scores 2019–20 Reading and Writing 720-770, Math 740-800 Of cause there could be an inflation. and "Bush had scored only 25 percent on a "pilot aptitude" test, the lowest acceptable grade. But his father was then a congressman from Houston, and the commanders of the Texas Guard clearly had an appreciation of politics."
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]