5 ms·

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.
  - Alex3917 18y ago
    "There are differences in how kids are raised." Agreed. The differences come from the parenting styles of high-SES parents, not the money itself. "I think whatever difference this engenders fades in the mid-teens" The personality characteristics may or may not fade over time, but by the time kids reach their mid-teens the academic differences between high-SES and low-SES students are so great that most low-SES kids could never get into an elite college. We're talking a reading-ability gap of three or four grade levels, slightly less for math since most high-SES parents don't have their kids doing math over the summers.

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.
- Alex3917 18y ago
  "There are differences in how kids are raised." Agreed. The differences come from the parenting styles of high-SES parents, not the money itself. "I think whatever difference this engenders fades in the mid-teens" The personality characteristics may or may not fade over time, but by the time kids reach their mid-teens the academic differences between high-SES and low-SES students are so great that most low-SES kids could never get into an elite college. We're talking a reading-ability gap of three or four grade levels, slightly less for math since most high-SES parents don't have their kids doing math over the summers.