5 ms·

It's too bad that most of the benzos will be off-patent by the time these kids are in college. Otherwise, I'd move my entire net worth into pharma stocks. Ther

It's too bad that most of the benzos will be off-patent by the time these kids are in college. Otherwise, I'd move my entire net worth into pharma stocks. There's a paradox one notices when comparing elite college admissions in 1993 vs. 2008. Admissions to top colleges are much harder to attain, but actually a lot less meaningful. The noise in the admissions process seems to have quintupled, due in part to the (often successful) efforts of wealthy parents to beat the system, and the relative inability of admissions offices to detect and counter this trend. Top colleges are 2-3 times more selective in 2008, with acceptance rates at the Ivies down into the single digits. At the same time, virtually every professor at an elite college will tell you that admitted students are noticeably worse each year, while professors at state schools notice the students getting much better. I blame the Common Application, which has made it easier to apply to 10+ schools, making the process noisier and, consequently, creating a lot of anxiety on the part of students who previously had a lock on at least one top school (and moreso, on the part of their parents). This led to a positive feedback loop; it bolstered the admissions-gaming industry, which made the process even noisier, which led to more anxiety... ad nauseum.

Alex3917 18y ago
Based on casual observation, I'd say the reason student quality is dropping even as top colleges get much more competitive is probably because wealthy kids are less likely to get into top colleges, not more. It used to be that almost everyone who got into a top college was super wealthy, but now grades and SAT scores matter much more. These highly credentialed kids might get better college grades than kids merely from high-SES families, but they generally aren't as smart and don't have the same level of critical thinking skills. If you take classes over the summer you will notice the student quality is much higher, for mostly the reason that the students there are the ones with the most money instead of the best grades (since scholarships don't cover summer classes.) /Things you can't say
- CSchonwald 18y ago
  where do schools like mit and caltech fit in that continuum then?
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    I think in general you get kids who have higher grades but less intellectual curiosity. I don't think MIT and Caltech are any different, but I think they seem different because we think of a good engineer as being someone who is good at rote memorization and not as someone who is intellectually curious. Whether this is true or not is another story. (And there are actually studies that tie intellectual curiosity to SES. Hart & Risley's book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children covers this very rigorously.)
    - sanj 18y ago
      I saw exactly the opposite. A recent issue of Harvard's alum magazine talks about how about 35% of their undergrads going into 'finance'. I can't imagine anything less intellectual curious -- especially at the entry level. Just because something is more easily measurable (ie, a math or engineering exam) does not mean it is less intellectually interesting. http://www.xkcd.com/451/ http://www.xkcd.com/451/
      - Alex3917 18y ago
        "I think in general you get kids who have higher grades but less intellectual curiosity." I meant at all top colleges, not just at MIT and Caltech. I agree with you about Harvard.
      - time_management 18y ago
        Finance can be intellectually interesting, but you're right about the entry-level. Quant jobs are okay, but the rest of it's mind-numbing, and IBD analysts are glorified garbage disposals for grunt work.
    - time_management 18y ago
      And there are actually studies that tie intellectual curiosity to SES. There are differences in how kids are raised. Working-class kids are raised to respect rules and follow orders, hence adornments like "the bell" in high school. Upper-middle- and upper-class kids are encouraged, in school, to be creative and critical thinkers. I think whatever difference this engenders fades in the mid-teens, when the types of people who attend elite colleges tend to develop independent minds regardless of how they were raised.
- time_management 18y ago
  Frankly, I don't believe you. No offense, but on this issue, I don't think you know what the fuck you're talking about. Why would you suspect that SES is more predictive of "student quality" than academic accomplishment? Let's consider IQ, for example, on which there's ample data. IQ is more highly correlated to academic accomplishment (~0.5) than economic/occupational success (~0.4). SES is the success of the parents, which has got to be less predictive of IQ than success of the individual. While IQ is clearly not the right definition of "student quality", the non-IQ components are traits like creativity, ambition, and willingness to work hard. Creativity is probably independent of SES, and the latter two traits, in aggregate, favor working-class students over the rich. If you take classes over the summer you will notice the student quality is much higher, for mostly the reason that the students there are the ones with the most money instead of the best grades (since scholarships don't cover summer classes.) If you're talking about high school summer programs, I can speak from experience on this one. I've attended CTY, Mathcamp, and MO(S)P. The first two are probably not affordable to most working-class families (MOP is free to those who qualify). The students at these programs are indeed, as a group, better than elite college students, but this is because these sorts of summer programs are actually a lot more selective than Ivy League undergraduate programs, not because many of them are expensive.
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    "Why would you suspect that SES is more predictive of "student quality" than academic accomplishment?" It obviously depends on how you define student quality. If you define student quality as the college GPA of the student then I don't think SES is a great predictor. However, what I was responding to was the sentence: "virtually every professor at an elite college will tell you that admitted students are noticeably worse each year." When I hear this, I suspect that the professors are defining student quality as whether or not students have the personality traits typically imparted by high-SES parents (such as intellectual curiosity), not whether students are able to ace their final exams. I went to CTY too, and I agree that the quality of kids is higher than at the elite colleges, and I agree that it is because the programs are more selective. However, part of that is the fact that the higher you raise the bar, the more SES matters-- because at some level you need every advantage you can get (both SES and IQ, not one or the other.)

Alex3917 18y ago

Based on casual observation, I'd say the reason student quality is dropping even as top colleges get much more competitive is probably because wealthy kids are less likely to get into top colleges, not more. It used to be that almost everyone who got into a top college was super wealthy, but now grades and SAT scores matter much more. These highly credentialed kids might get better college grades than kids merely from high-SES families, but they generally aren't as smart and don't have the same level of critical thinking skills. If you take classes over the summer you will notice the student quality is much higher, for mostly the reason that the students there are the ones with the most money instead of the best grades (since scholarships don't cover summer classes.) /Things you can't say

CSchonwald 18y ago
where do schools like mit and caltech fit in that continuum then?
- Alex3917 18y ago
  I think in general you get kids who have higher grades but less intellectual curiosity. I don't think MIT and Caltech are any different, but I think they seem different because we think of a good engineer as being someone who is good at rote memorization and not as someone who is intellectually curious. Whether this is true or not is another story. (And there are actually studies that tie intellectual curiosity to SES. Hart & Risley's book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experience of Young American Children covers this very rigorously.)
  - sanj 18y ago
    I saw exactly the opposite. A recent issue of Harvard's alum magazine talks about how about 35% of their undergrads going into 'finance'. I can't imagine anything less intellectual curious -- especially at the entry level. Just because something is more easily measurable (ie, a math or engineering exam) does not mean it is less intellectually interesting. http://www.xkcd.com/451/ http://www.xkcd.com/451/
    - Alex3917 18y ago
      "I think in general you get kids who have higher grades but less intellectual curiosity." I meant at all top colleges, not just at MIT and Caltech. I agree with you about Harvard.
    - time_management 18y ago
      Finance can be intellectually interesting, but you're right about the entry-level. Quant jobs are okay, but the rest of it's mind-numbing, and IBD analysts are glorified garbage disposals for grunt work.
  - time_management 18y ago
    And there are actually studies that tie intellectual curiosity to SES. There are differences in how kids are raised. Working-class kids are raised to respect rules and follow orders, hence adornments like "the bell" in high school. Upper-middle- and upper-class kids are encouraged, in school, to be creative and critical thinkers. I think whatever difference this engenders fades in the mid-teens, when the types of people who attend elite colleges tend to develop independent minds regardless of how they were raised.
time_management 18y ago
Frankly, I don't believe you. No offense, but on this issue, I don't think you know what the fuck you're talking about. Why would you suspect that SES is more predictive of "student quality" than academic accomplishment? Let's consider IQ, for example, on which there's ample data. IQ is more highly correlated to academic accomplishment (~0.5) than economic/occupational success (~0.4). SES is the success of the parents, which has got to be less predictive of IQ than success of the individual. While IQ is clearly not the right definition of "student quality", the non-IQ components are traits like creativity, ambition, and willingness to work hard. Creativity is probably independent of SES, and the latter two traits, in aggregate, favor working-class students over the rich. If you take classes over the summer you will notice the student quality is much higher, for mostly the reason that the students there are the ones with the most money instead of the best grades (since scholarships don't cover summer classes.) If you're talking about high school summer programs, I can speak from experience on this one. I've attended CTY, Mathcamp, and MO(S)P. The first two are probably not affordable to most working-class families (MOP is free to those who qualify). The students at these programs are indeed, as a group, better than elite college students, but this is because these sorts of summer programs are actually a lot more selective than Ivy League undergraduate programs, not because many of them are expensive.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  "Why would you suspect that SES is more predictive of "student quality" than academic accomplishment?" It obviously depends on how you define student quality. If you define student quality as the college GPA of the student then I don't think SES is a great predictor. However, what I was responding to was the sentence: "virtually every professor at an elite college will tell you that admitted students are noticeably worse each year." When I hear this, I suspect that the professors are defining student quality as whether or not students have the personality traits typically imparted by high-SES parents (such as intellectual curiosity), not whether students are able to ace their final exams. I went to CTY too, and I agree that the quality of kids is higher than at the elite colleges, and I agree that it is because the programs are more selective. However, part of that is the fact that the higher you raise the bar, the more SES matters-- because at some level you need every advantage you can get (both SES and IQ, not one or the other.)