24 ms·

I like how we're immediately jumping to "this is going to ruin the financial success of future graduates and thus hurt future fundraising." "Thing I like must

I like how we're immediately jumping to "this is going to ruin the financial success of future graduates and thus hurt future fundraising." "Thing I like must be directly responsible for this other thing that happened later" is sad to see from someone from what's supposed to be one of our nation's best schools. Turning high school into middle school and college into high school, etc, in terms of adult supervision isn't my favorite thing in the world, but it's also something that been happening since long before you made it to a college campus in the early 2010s. So it's not very clear that it's going to cause corporate or economic pain. The social arguments are much more compelling, but also far harder to unwind. Parents have been both complaining about but also calling for this sort of thing for decades.

pigscantfly 4y ago
It was a (possibly-overly-blunt) attempt to tie this cultural shift to outcomes the bureaucracy cares about, but absolutely the biggest loss is to the undergraduate culture and future students' experiences. Both future grads and the university will obviously be fine financially.
- majormajor 4y ago
  My theory is that the root cause is the financialization and rat-race-ification of everything. You gotta go to college to make a good living. You gotta go to a TOP college especially. You gotta work your ass off in high school to get in. And so everyone just is told their whole childhood to compete harder and harder in this race to the bottom and there's no more room for interesting experiences since a truly interesting experience isn't guaranteed to sound as good on an application as a boring "interesting experience" run-of-the-mill extracurricular schedule. Leaving in room for insanity and creativity is counter to what this money-above-all-else societal push for undergrad education wants. But hey, we gotta do that because if we don't, China will! It's not the students who benefit from having to work twice as hard to get the same degree.
  - xbar 4y ago
    Perhaps Stanford was culturally co-opted.
  - quantified 4y ago
    I put it up to the helicopter-parenting mentality on the part of administrators. Make things safe and predictable, treat 18-22 year olds like either children or 50-year olds
  - pvarangot 4y ago
    Yeah degree inflation is really hard on you if for whatever reason you buy into that. The Meritocracy Trap is a good read if you want to witness the existential horror of someone that realizes it's a thing when they come out on the other side.
    - majormajor 4y ago
      I don't know where you're going with "if for whatever reason you buy into that" or whatever. But it's just mathematics. Normalization, basically. If there are X high school seniors in the country, and Y incoming seats in Stanford's next class, you can't take everyone. So if everyone works harder on their profile it's the same as if nobody does. I don't think it's in question that this has happened. I would also go a bit further and say that I believe that assembly-lining more "directed" academic effort into every bit of students' time is going to be counter-productive for innovation and creativity, since those are by nature more spontaneous.
    - astrange 4y ago
      The word "meritocracy" itself was invented for a book about how it's a bad idea that can't work, so it's a surprise to see anyone legitimately trying to do it. See: Goodhart's Law.
      - necovek 4y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy — thanks for the pointer!
dave_sullivan 4y ago
I think his point was more along the lines of "While you are at an elite school you should socialize and build your social network. That social network will become your starting professional network after school. Less opportunity for socialization will reduce the potential size of this network." Seems reasonable to me.
- watwut 4y ago
  > Communal living houses (“co-ops”) encouraged casual nudity, while fraternities threw a raucous annual “Greek Week” If the access to professional social network requires participation in the above, then I see why people see issue with that. In an ideal world, your professional future would not be dependent on your willingness to walk around naked or your enjoyment of raucous party. (Neither should damage your future, but should not be the key to access either.) And in particular, I find it completely inconsistent with idea of meritocracy.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - Dan_Sylveste 4y ago
    Meritocracy isn't real. It's a nice ideal but it isn't real.
    - claytongulick 4y ago
      Can you describe what you mean by that in more detail? Are you claiming that each individual's capabilities are the same as everyone else's?
      - watwut 4y ago
        Not op, but I interpreted it as the fact that world is not fair. People dont go up purely on merit, skills, talent, you name it. As in, the nepotism described and defended in these threads is not the only kind of merit breaking factors.

pigscantfly 4y ago

It was a (possibly-overly-blunt) attempt to tie this cultural shift to outcomes the bureaucracy cares about, but absolutely the biggest loss is to the undergraduate culture and future students' experiences. Both future grads and the university will obviously be fine financially.

majormajor 4y ago
My theory is that the root cause is the financialization and rat-race-ification of everything. You gotta go to college to make a good living. You gotta go to a TOP college especially. You gotta work your ass off in high school to get in. And so everyone just is told their whole childhood to compete harder and harder in this race to the bottom and there's no more room for interesting experiences since a truly interesting experience isn't guaranteed to sound as good on an application as a boring "interesting experience" run-of-the-mill extracurricular schedule. Leaving in room for insanity and creativity is counter to what this money-above-all-else societal push for undergrad education wants. But hey, we gotta do that because if we don't, China will! It's not the students who benefit from having to work twice as hard to get the same degree.
- xbar 4y ago
  Perhaps Stanford was culturally co-opted.
- quantified 4y ago
  I put it up to the helicopter-parenting mentality on the part of administrators. Make things safe and predictable, treat 18-22 year olds like either children or 50-year olds
- pvarangot 4y ago
  Yeah degree inflation is really hard on you if for whatever reason you buy into that. The Meritocracy Trap is a good read if you want to witness the existential horror of someone that realizes it's a thing when they come out on the other side.
  - majormajor 4y ago
    I don't know where you're going with "if for whatever reason you buy into that" or whatever. But it's just mathematics. Normalization, basically. If there are X high school seniors in the country, and Y incoming seats in Stanford's next class, you can't take everyone. So if everyone works harder on their profile it's the same as if nobody does. I don't think it's in question that this has happened. I would also go a bit further and say that I believe that assembly-lining more "directed" academic effort into every bit of students' time is going to be counter-productive for innovation and creativity, since those are by nature more spontaneous.
  - astrange 4y ago
    The word "meritocracy" itself was invented for a book about how it's a bad idea that can't work, so it's a surprise to see anyone legitimately trying to do it. See: Goodhart's Law.
    - necovek 4y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rise_of_the_Meritocracy — thanks for the pointer!

dave_sullivan 4y ago

I think his point was more along the lines of "While you are at an elite school you should socialize and build your social network. That social network will become your starting professional network after school. Less opportunity for socialization will reduce the potential size of this network." Seems reasonable to me.

watwut 4y ago
> Communal living houses (“co-ops”) encouraged casual nudity, while fraternities threw a raucous annual “Greek Week” If the access to professional social network requires participation in the above, then I see why people see issue with that. In an ideal world, your professional future would not be dependent on your willingness to walk around naked or your enjoyment of raucous party. (Neither should damage your future, but should not be the key to access either.) And in particular, I find it completely inconsistent with idea of meritocracy.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- Dan_Sylveste 4y ago
  Meritocracy isn't real. It's a nice ideal but it isn't real.
  - claytongulick 4y ago
    Can you describe what you mean by that in more detail? Are you claiming that each individual's capabilities are the same as everyone else's?
    - watwut 4y ago
      Not op, but I interpreted it as the fact that world is not fair. People dont go up purely on merit, skills, talent, you name it. As in, the nepotism described and defended in these threads is not the only kind of merit breaking factors.