6 ms·

Relatedly, if Harvard isn’t a good place for smart and not rich kids to socialize with rich kids, why would people want to go there? The point of Harvard is tha

by uxp100 3y ago

Relatedly, if Harvard isn’t a good place for smart and not rich kids to socialize with rich kids, why would people want to go there? The point of Harvard is that you can become pals with a senator’s son. There are other schools if pure academic achievement is your primary interest. I don’t think some of the students discussing this topic realize why they want to go to Harvard, which is partly because of the legacies. Of course, this is a pretty cynical take, but I didn’t really understand the schools I was applying for at all when I was at that age.

vosper 3y ago
> The point of Harvard is that you can become pals with a senator’s son That's half the point. The other half is to say that you went to Harvard.
- koheripbal 3y ago
  .... Which is important because it flags you as someone connected to rich people
- alephnerd 3y ago
  You can do this at relatively less selective Public Schools as well. One of my friends who attended UIUC was roommates with the son of the CEO of a Fortune 100 Tech Company, and close friends with the son of the CTO of another unrelated Tech Fortune 100. Another one of my buddies at UCSF ended up rooming with the daughter of owner of one of the major DNC SuperPACs. Public schools absolutely have strong alumni networks as well despite not necessarily having legacy admissions.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    What are the odds of this, though? I went to a state university, and I didn't meet anyone rich or famous. My roommate peed on our carpet.
    - didgeoridoo 3y ago
      I went to Yale. My roommates were rich and famous. They still peed on the carpet.
      - lapcat 3y ago
        But that was the most notable thing about my roommate.
    - alephnerd 3y ago
      Pretty high if you went to a flagship or top tier public university (eg. UCLA, Cal, Big 10, UDub, etc). This dataset from the economic mobility lab at UCR is great to find which schools have an elite student body - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobilit... Also, I went to an Ivy-or-Ivy Adjacent program and my roommate also vomited on my bed after getting plastered during rush week (I accidently returned the favor a weeks after during my rush).
      - lapcat 3y ago
        > Pretty high if you went to a flagship or top tier public university (eg. UCLA, Cal, Big 10, UDub, etc). I went to a Big 10 university. "Some 843 UW–Madison alumni serve as CEOs, and nearly 16,000 hold an executive management position. Additionally, as of November 2018, the current CEOs of 14 Fortune 500 companies have attended UW–Madison, the most of any university in the United States." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Wisconsin%E2%80%93Madison?#Alumni https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Wisconsin%E2%80%... That sounds like a lot, but in any given semester, UW enrollment is 40-50K, and it awards 10K degrees every year.
        alephnerd 3y ago
        You might have attended in a different era as well. I attended a very affluent Bay Area HS (there kind where the VPs and C-Suites of tech and biotech companies sent their kids) and they overwhelmingly sent their kids to top public schools (they were targeting top STEM programs, which by default skewed public excluding Stanford/MIT/CMU/Cornell). A couple of their kids attended CS@UW Madison and most of us applied there as a backup in case we didn't get into one of the T10 CS programs. This was the early-mid 2010s. The key thing is going to an elite program. Doing CS at a school like UDub or UIUC means you open the door to VCs, IBs, and Founders who all also attended that elite program (as well as their equally elite parents). You might not get that network majoring in English or Horticulture at either college, but you definetly will if you're in a top program. In addition, Asian (India, China, SK) Elites target colleges based on how the specific major they are targeting ranks. As this overwhelmingly skews STEM and Business, you end up getting a massive cohort of foreign elites at Public schools. A lot of this is also because of targeted branding by public unis and regional private schools to undercut the more established private unis like Harvard. For example, within India Harvard has a weaker pop culture branding and alumni network than a top CS program like Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, UIUC, or UC Berkeley.
alephnerd 3y ago
Harvard without Legacy Admissions will still retain the Harvard brand. For example, UCs don't offer a legacy bump, yet Berkeley and UCLA still retain a major brand presence in the Tech and Finance industry both within North America and Asia. In fields such as Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Law, and Business Harvard does hire very strong faculty AND gives them a significant amount of funding and autonomy to continue their own research pursuits. Also, in my own friend group and as someone who attended one of these Ivies+Ivy Adjacent Programs, just getting into either a T20 school overall or a T10 school in your field is more than enough to gain the prestige cachet needed for your field. The alumni networks in these 20-30 public and private universities are strong enough that you'd be able to do well globally. While legacy does play a role in the undergrad experience, it's not like CMU, UT Austin, UVA, UW, or UCLA don't have students from elite backgrounds even though they might not have the street cred of "HAVHAD".

by uxp100 3y ago

vosper 3y ago

> The point of Harvard is that you can become pals with a senator’s son That's half the point. The other half is to say that you went to Harvard.

koheripbal 3y ago
.... Which is important because it flags you as someone connected to rich people
alephnerd 3y ago
You can do this at relatively less selective Public Schools as well. One of my friends who attended UIUC was roommates with the son of the CEO of a Fortune 100 Tech Company, and close friends with the son of the CTO of another unrelated Tech Fortune 100. Another one of my buddies at UCSF ended up rooming with the daughter of owner of one of the major DNC SuperPACs. Public schools absolutely have strong alumni networks as well despite not necessarily having legacy admissions.
- lapcat 3y ago
  What are the odds of this, though? I went to a state university, and I didn't meet anyone rich or famous. My roommate peed on our carpet.
  - didgeoridoo 3y ago
    I went to Yale. My roommates were rich and famous. They still peed on the carpet.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      But that was the most notable thing about my roommate.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    Pretty high if you went to a flagship or top tier public university (eg. UCLA, Cal, Big 10, UDub, etc). This dataset from the economic mobility lab at UCR is great to find which schools have an elite student body - https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobility/ https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/college-mobilit... Also, I went to an Ivy-or-Ivy Adjacent program and my roommate also vomited on my bed after getting plastered during rush week (I accidently returned the favor a weeks after during my rush).
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > Pretty high if you went to a flagship or top tier public university (eg. UCLA, Cal, Big 10, UDub, etc). I went to a Big 10 university. "Some 843 UW–Madison alumni serve as CEOs, and nearly 16,000 hold an executive management position. Additionally, as of November 2018, the current CEOs of 14 Fortune 500 companies have attended UW–Madison, the most of any university in the United States." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Wisconsin%E2%80%93Madison?#Alumni https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Wisconsin%E2%80%... That sounds like a lot, but in any given semester, UW enrollment is 40-50K, and it awards 10K degrees every year.
      - alephnerd 3y ago
        You might have attended in a different era as well. I attended a very affluent Bay Area HS (there kind where the VPs and C-Suites of tech and biotech companies sent their kids) and they overwhelmingly sent their kids to top public schools (they were targeting top STEM programs, which by default skewed public excluding Stanford/MIT/CMU/Cornell). A couple of their kids attended CS@UW Madison and most of us applied there as a backup in case we didn't get into one of the T10 CS programs. This was the early-mid 2010s. The key thing is going to an elite program. Doing CS at a school like UDub or UIUC means you open the door to VCs, IBs, and Founders who all also attended that elite program (as well as their equally elite parents). You might not get that network majoring in English or Horticulture at either college, but you definetly will if you're in a top program. In addition, Asian (India, China, SK) Elites target colleges based on how the specific major they are targeting ranks. As this overwhelmingly skews STEM and Business, you end up getting a massive cohort of foreign elites at Public schools. A lot of this is also because of targeted branding by public unis and regional private schools to undercut the more established private unis like Harvard. For example, within India Harvard has a weaker pop culture branding and alumni network than a top CS program like Carnegie Mellon, Stanford, UIUC, or UC Berkeley.

alephnerd 3y ago

Harvard without Legacy Admissions will still retain the Harvard brand. For example, UCs don't offer a legacy bump, yet Berkeley and UCLA still retain a major brand presence in the Tech and Finance industry both within North America and Asia. In fields such as Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, Law, and Business Harvard does hire very strong faculty AND gives them a significant amount of funding and autonomy to continue their own research pursuits. Also, in my own friend group and as someone who attended one of these Ivies+Ivy Adjacent Programs, just getting into either a T20 school overall or a T10 school in your field is more than enough to gain the prestige cachet needed for your field. The alumni networks in these 20-30 public and private universities are strong enough that you'd be able to do well globally. While legacy does play a role in the undergrad experience, it's not like CMU, UT Austin, UVA, UW, or UCLA don't have students from elite backgrounds even though they might not have the street cred of "HAVHAD".