4 ms·

> If X is a path to upper-middle class or above, it's almost inevitable that filters and gates are put in to place that primarily work to ensure it's available

> If X is a path to upper-middle class or above, it's almost inevitable that filters and gates are put in to place that primarily work to ensure it's available only to children of the upper-middle class or above. Once X is widely known as a path to wealth, entry level positions get flooded with applications (e.g. a junior posting at my company could easily receive 1000 resumes) beyond what they are capable of judging on an individual basis. Once companies hit this point, they start looking for heuristics to cut down on the amount of searching they need to do. "Gatekeeping" is these heuristics. Consider that for most top law firms, if you're not coming out of the top 3 law schools they're not interested. Why? Because those schools do a good job of filtering out bad candidates, and offer up enough good ones to fully meet the hiring needs of the company, figuring any generational geniuses they miss will make a name for themselves some other way and can be hired later. So why does the gatekeeping all seem to help upper-middle class people? As a former educator I'm going to say it's because when it comes to the skills companies are looking for on average children of upper-middle class people are better if for no other reason than they've generally had much more money spent on their education and training, to the tune of over a million dollars compared to lower class peers.

France_is_bacon 5y ago
>Consider that for most top law firms, if you're not coming out of the top 3 law schools they're not interested. Yes, and this is certainly not a new phenomenon. I used to work with a recruiting department at a large upper-end law firm. They only took new associates from the top 10 universities. This was 35 years ago. So there's nothing new under the sun.
foobarian 5y ago
I used to get kinda miffed that super popular restaurants like Border Cafe in Harvard Square do not take reservations, so you basically have to wait an hour or two to get a spot. But from their point of view it makes perfect sense. Why would they go through the trouble if they fill their tables at 100% with a line around the block to boot? That's how I think of the hiring pipelines as well. p.s. Yes this is out of date somewhat but I promise Border Cafe was a hopping place 20 years ago :-)
- hinoki 5y ago
  Reservations are worse. You have cancellations, and fragmentation if any party leaves early. This can more than make the difference between a restaurant being profitable or not. Although I’m not sure this can be extended by analogy to only hiring from “top” schools. Beyond, they don’t don’t need to do something so they don’t.
- wrycoder 5y ago
  And Casa Mexico 20 years before then :-)
- jqgatsby 5y ago
  Pu pu hotpot, anyone?
- whearyou 5y ago
  My place!! You heard it shut down right?
bsanr 5y ago
>As a former educator I'm going to say it's because when it comes to the skills companies are looking for on average children of upper-middle class people are better if for no other reason than they've generally had much more money spent on their education and training, to the tune of over a million dollars compared to lower class peers. This is funny to me, because in most debates about the function and efficacy of public schools, I'm assured by the other side that money isn't the issue.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  It's not the state money. It's all the private money the parents dump on top. The tutoring, the extracurricular, the sports, the summer camp, etc, etc, etc, all the shit that teaches them the norms of white collar society so they can fit in enough to do ok in college and beyond.
- Hermitian909 5y ago
  They're partly right. The US has some aggressively stupid educational policy such as teaching reading via 3 cueing (which I won't go into here), but they've also fallen for a bit of accounting trick. Most obviously, schools being funded via property tax in most states means rich districts tend to receive more money than schools in poorer districts. Less obvious is that because the US doesn't offer many services generally those that are offered are often routed through the schools and attributed to the education budget e.g. many kinds of therapists and aides are part of school budgets in the US but are part budget under various health department budgets in other countries and thus those countries' total spend on students is undercounted. Similarly, countries that invest in making sure there are enough social services to ensure a good life for even the bottom 20% of society need to spend a lot less fixing the problems that arise from growing up with a bad home life and get more bang for their buck.
_dain_ 5y ago
>So why does the gatekeeping all seem to help upper-middle class people? As a former educator I'm going to say it's because when it comes to the skills companies are looking for on average children of upper-middle class people are better if for no other reason than they've generally had much more money spent on their education and training, to the tune of over a million dollars compared to lower class peers. the extra education didn't go into developing useful skills, but into teaching them how to navigate the UMC status signaling games. that is where the entire premium goes. if they are smarter it is bc of direct filtering by SAT at the admissions stage and indirect genetic confounds, not because elite institutions actually teach useful things better.
- Hermitian909 5y ago
  > the extra education didn't go into developing useful skills, but into teaching them how to navigate the UMC status signaling games. that is where the entire premium goes As someone who taught kids like this I can't agree. I taught hundreds of kids real math, writing, and programming skills that I now use in my professional life as a highly paid software engineer. Some of those kids have reconnected with me as adults to tell me I made a difference in their lives and credit my teaching (which their parents paid thousands for) as a very meaningful part of their success.
- urthor 5y ago
  The problem is that the UMC status signalling game is heavily correlated with success in the real world. Especially in law, where the status signalling game is a prerequisite in a very serious sense for doing the job, attracting wealthy clients. If you hire someone from a working class background you basically need to teach them that on the job. Even in engineering it happens.
  - _dain_ 5y ago
    status signalling games are correlated with success in the real world almost by definition, but that does not mean they are useful to society or that we should tolerate ever greater shares of resources ploughed into them. it is a zero sum game!

France_is_bacon 5y ago

>Consider that for most top law firms, if you're not coming out of the top 3 law schools they're not interested. Yes, and this is certainly not a new phenomenon. I used to work with a recruiting department at a large upper-end law firm. They only took new associates from the top 10 universities. This was 35 years ago. So there's nothing new under the sun.

foobarian 5y ago

I used to get kinda miffed that super popular restaurants like Border Cafe in Harvard Square do not take reservations, so you basically have to wait an hour or two to get a spot. But from their point of view it makes perfect sense. Why would they go through the trouble if they fill their tables at 100% with a line around the block to boot? That's how I think of the hiring pipelines as well. p.s. Yes this is out of date somewhat but I promise Border Cafe was a hopping place 20 years ago :-)

hinoki 5y ago
Reservations are worse. You have cancellations, and fragmentation if any party leaves early. This can more than make the difference between a restaurant being profitable or not. Although I’m not sure this can be extended by analogy to only hiring from “top” schools. Beyond, they don’t don’t need to do something so they don’t.
wrycoder 5y ago
And Casa Mexico 20 years before then :-)
jqgatsby 5y ago
Pu pu hotpot, anyone?
whearyou 5y ago
My place!! You heard it shut down right?

bsanr 5y ago

>As a former educator I'm going to say it's because when it comes to the skills companies are looking for on average children of upper-middle class people are better if for no other reason than they've generally had much more money spent on their education and training, to the tune of over a million dollars compared to lower class peers. This is funny to me, because in most debates about the function and efficacy of public schools, I'm assured by the other side that money isn't the issue.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
It's not the state money. It's all the private money the parents dump on top. The tutoring, the extracurricular, the sports, the summer camp, etc, etc, etc, all the shit that teaches them the norms of white collar society so they can fit in enough to do ok in college and beyond.
Hermitian909 5y ago
They're partly right. The US has some aggressively stupid educational policy such as teaching reading via 3 cueing (which I won't go into here), but they've also fallen for a bit of accounting trick. Most obviously, schools being funded via property tax in most states means rich districts tend to receive more money than schools in poorer districts. Less obvious is that because the US doesn't offer many services generally those that are offered are often routed through the schools and attributed to the education budget e.g. many kinds of therapists and aides are part of school budgets in the US but are part budget under various health department budgets in other countries and thus those countries' total spend on students is undercounted. Similarly, countries that invest in making sure there are enough social services to ensure a good life for even the bottom 20% of society need to spend a lot less fixing the problems that arise from growing up with a bad home life and get more bang for their buck.

_dain_ 5y ago

>So why does the gatekeeping all seem to help upper-middle class people? As a former educator I'm going to say it's because when it comes to the skills companies are looking for on average children of upper-middle class people are better if for no other reason than they've generally had much more money spent on their education and training, to the tune of over a million dollars compared to lower class peers. the extra education didn't go into developing useful skills, but into teaching them how to navigate the UMC status signaling games. that is where the entire premium goes. if they are smarter it is bc of direct filtering by SAT at the admissions stage and indirect genetic confounds, not because elite institutions actually teach useful things better.

Hermitian909 5y ago
> the extra education didn't go into developing useful skills, but into teaching them how to navigate the UMC status signaling games. that is where the entire premium goes As someone who taught kids like this I can't agree. I taught hundreds of kids real math, writing, and programming skills that I now use in my professional life as a highly paid software engineer. Some of those kids have reconnected with me as adults to tell me I made a difference in their lives and credit my teaching (which their parents paid thousands for) as a very meaningful part of their success.
urthor 5y ago
The problem is that the UMC status signalling game is heavily correlated with success in the real world. Especially in law, where the status signalling game is a prerequisite in a very serious sense for doing the job, attracting wealthy clients. If you hire someone from a working class background you basically need to teach them that on the job. Even in engineering it happens.
- _dain_ 5y ago
  status signalling games are correlated with success in the real world almost by definition, but that does not mean they are useful to society or that we should tolerate ever greater shares of resources ploughed into them. it is a zero sum game!