5 ms·

Except for, you know, Letters of Recommendation, which at top schools are often the deciding factor. All else being near-equal (or not), a letter from a Kennedy

Except for, you know, Letters of Recommendation, which at top schools are often the deciding factor. All else being near-equal (or not), a letter from a Kennedy is going to get you into Brown versus say, a regular high school teacher that many of comfortable-but-not-connected suburban students applying to college will be using. Maybe a local lawyer, if you’re special. Those are who families who scream “meritocracy” should be directing their ire at, not the applicants (usually with more impressive results and stories considering the background they grew up in, compared to—sorry!—a hum-drum suburban also-ran) _think_ they’re better than, which ultimately is what a meritocracy boils down to. Ultimately the only answer that will give you, or your kids, peace is accepting the fact that schools will curate the student body they want. They’ve admittedly done a good job at it! Complain all you want about Harvard tilting the scales, they’ve done an amazing job maintaining their reputation and exclusivity. If they don’t accept you, they don’t want you. If they do, they do. It’s that simple.

ecshafer 3y ago
I want to get rid of letters of recommendation as well. I would personally like to go off of only a single nationwide standardized test.
- TurkishPoptart 3y ago
  Nope, these are "racist" now. I'm not going to explain why at the risk of getting downvoted.
- thebradbain 3y ago
  I personally could not think of a more boring way to curate a student body, but even more so than that, I think that’s completely unfair to the many, many way-more interesting people who make up top schools’ student bodies: why does Jimmy Also-Ran with the perfect score on a single test and nothing else get to go to college while track-star Olympiad with a 4.0 doesn’t?
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    Aren’t plenty of PISA high-ranking nations from the East Asian countries to Germany highly reliant upon placement examinations in student educational destinations? It might not feel very American, but it’s widely practiced.
    - MandieD 3y ago
      In Germany, it's all about Abitur results: comprehensive exams and portfolio of work in a few subjects you've chosen to focus on, and really only for a few high-demand majors like medicine or law (everywhere) and computer science (at the top tech schools); for every other major, it's a matter of getting decent marks that prove you're likely prepared for university. Not picking mathematics as one of your major Abitur subjects would probably be disqualifying for computer science. There's nothing like the SAT (single, high-stakes general aptitude test used nationwide); Abitur standards are set and evaluated by each state. While there's a reputational difference between, say, Technisches Universität München and Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden, fees are the same at both, and cost of living of course is higher for TUM just because Munich is really expensive. At least in tech in Germany, there is nothing resembling the prestige merely attending MIT/Stanford/CMU carries in the US. Of course there's a network effect from studying at TUM or RWTH instead of OTH-AW, but not nearly as pronounced. There are no private, elite universities, no university-sponsored sports teams, no legacy admissions, no giant individual donors hoping to secure a university spot for a lazy/dull kid. Lazy/dull rich kids go to private high schools if they can't hack it in public university-prep school.
      - Apocryphon 3y ago
        Thanks for the very comprehensive information. Curious what you think of this opinion about the lack of elite schools in Germany not being a good thing- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789051
  - School-Cotton 3y ago
    Because universities are academic institutions, not track-and-field training facilities (or at least they are in countries that take education seriously, unlike the US). Who cares how boring it is?
- dfadsadsf 3y ago
  The problem with a single nationwide standardized test is that kids will spend an inordinate amount of time (and money) studying for it. Major downside is that time is mostly wasted learning tricks to answer questions instead of learning something valuable. People spend years studying for IIT exam in India and there is zero chance of scoring well on the test without prep.
  - thatfrenchguy 3y ago
    And because they spent so much time studying for those tests, they did not study real interesting skills that could be useful for their career later as well...
  - janalsncm 3y ago
    The fact of the matter is that unless you pick names out of a hat wealthy people will always have an advantage. But standardized testing can reduce the correlation with wealth in ways that other factors can’t. Yes, standardized testing isn’t perfect. It is biased towards those with time and money to prepare. But it’s also biased towards people who are good at problem solving, critical thinking, and a work ethic to actually do the preparation.
- tivert 3y ago
  > I want to get rid of letters of recommendation as well. I would personally like to go off of only a single nationwide standardized test. That is not good. China has that, and I would not consider the culture it fosters healthy at all. What you then get is kids who literally have no life beyond studying for the test and the results of one point on the exam having a massive effect on ranking and therefore outcome.
Apocryphon 3y ago
Not to detract from your larger point, but these days, it might depend on the Kennedy.
- loeg 3y ago
  They're all bad! https://www.joshbarro.com/p/the-kennedys-were-always-bad https://www.joshbarro.com/p/the-kennedys-were-always-bad
  - Apocryphon 3y ago
    Even this random one seems weird and out of touch: https://www.insider.com/jfk-grandson-jack-schlossberg-viral-anti-restaurant-video-2023-7 https://www.insider.com/jfk-grandson-jack-schlossberg-viral-...
underlipton 3y ago
The answer has always been to close the delta between the value of a Harvard degree and wherever else your kid can actually get into. The unspoken (or uncomfortable) aspect of that is that Harvard et al. receive outsize prestige because they're associated with outsize wealth, and access to that wealth through the personal and professional connections one can garner there. Wealth concentration in society is the fundamental issue. When median wealth is higher and the range smaller, influential families will have less with which to "bid up" a spot at Harvard. They might choose another institution, that "wherever else" we mentioned earlier. So now your kids are friends. Or maybe not (it's not such a big deal, since they're not THAT much wealthier than you are). This becomes the dominant paradigm. Decentralize education, as it were.
- RajT88 3y ago
  Exactly so. I know a guy who got into the top MBA program in the nation (U of C). He had no undergrad degree, but was born to a wealthy family. His wife was born to an even wealthier family, and he quickly after flunking out of undergrad within a few years found a career as an executive. Connect the dots on how all that works. (Curiously he insists he's a "pulled himself up by his bootstraps" type character)

ecshafer 3y ago

I want to get rid of letters of recommendation as well. I would personally like to go off of only a single nationwide standardized test.

TurkishPoptart 3y ago
Nope, these are "racist" now. I'm not going to explain why at the risk of getting downvoted.
thebradbain 3y ago
I personally could not think of a more boring way to curate a student body, but even more so than that, I think that’s completely unfair to the many, many way-more interesting people who make up top schools’ student bodies: why does Jimmy Also-Ran with the perfect score on a single test and nothing else get to go to college while track-star Olympiad with a 4.0 doesn’t?
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  Aren’t plenty of PISA high-ranking nations from the East Asian countries to Germany highly reliant upon placement examinations in student educational destinations? It might not feel very American, but it’s widely practiced.
  - MandieD 3y ago
    In Germany, it's all about Abitur results: comprehensive exams and portfolio of work in a few subjects you've chosen to focus on, and really only for a few high-demand majors like medicine or law (everywhere) and computer science (at the top tech schools); for every other major, it's a matter of getting decent marks that prove you're likely prepared for university. Not picking mathematics as one of your major Abitur subjects would probably be disqualifying for computer science. There's nothing like the SAT (single, high-stakes general aptitude test used nationwide); Abitur standards are set and evaluated by each state. While there's a reputational difference between, say, Technisches Universität München and Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden, fees are the same at both, and cost of living of course is higher for TUM just because Munich is really expensive. At least in tech in Germany, there is nothing resembling the prestige merely attending MIT/Stanford/CMU carries in the US. Of course there's a network effect from studying at TUM or RWTH instead of OTH-AW, but not nearly as pronounced. There are no private, elite universities, no university-sponsored sports teams, no legacy admissions, no giant individual donors hoping to secure a university spot for a lazy/dull kid. Lazy/dull rich kids go to private high schools if they can't hack it in public university-prep school.
    - Apocryphon 3y ago
      Thanks for the very comprehensive information. Curious what you think of this opinion about the lack of elite schools in Germany not being a good thing- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789051 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36789051
- School-Cotton 3y ago
  Because universities are academic institutions, not track-and-field training facilities (or at least they are in countries that take education seriously, unlike the US). Who cares how boring it is?
dfadsadsf 3y ago
The problem with a single nationwide standardized test is that kids will spend an inordinate amount of time (and money) studying for it. Major downside is that time is mostly wasted learning tricks to answer questions instead of learning something valuable. People spend years studying for IIT exam in India and there is zero chance of scoring well on the test without prep.
- thatfrenchguy 3y ago
  And because they spent so much time studying for those tests, they did not study real interesting skills that could be useful for their career later as well...
- janalsncm 3y ago
  The fact of the matter is that unless you pick names out of a hat wealthy people will always have an advantage. But standardized testing can reduce the correlation with wealth in ways that other factors can’t. Yes, standardized testing isn’t perfect. It is biased towards those with time and money to prepare. But it’s also biased towards people who are good at problem solving, critical thinking, and a work ethic to actually do the preparation.
tivert 3y ago
> I want to get rid of letters of recommendation as well. I would personally like to go off of only a single nationwide standardized test. That is not good. China has that, and I would not consider the culture it fosters healthy at all. What you then get is kids who literally have no life beyond studying for the test and the results of one point on the exam having a massive effect on ranking and therefore outcome.

Apocryphon 3y ago

Not to detract from your larger point, but these days, it might depend on the Kennedy.

loeg 3y ago
They're all bad! https://www.joshbarro.com/p/the-kennedys-were-always-bad https://www.joshbarro.com/p/the-kennedys-were-always-bad
- Apocryphon 3y ago
  Even this random one seems weird and out of touch: https://www.insider.com/jfk-grandson-jack-schlossberg-viral-anti-restaurant-video-2023-7 https://www.insider.com/jfk-grandson-jack-schlossberg-viral-...

underlipton 3y ago

The answer has always been to close the delta between the value of a Harvard degree and wherever else your kid can actually get into. The unspoken (or uncomfortable) aspect of that is that Harvard et al. receive outsize prestige because they're associated with outsize wealth, and access to that wealth through the personal and professional connections one can garner there. Wealth concentration in society is the fundamental issue. When median wealth is higher and the range smaller, influential families will have less with which to "bid up" a spot at Harvard. They might choose another institution, that "wherever else" we mentioned earlier. So now your kids are friends. Or maybe not (it's not such a big deal, since they're not THAT much wealthier than you are). This becomes the dominant paradigm. Decentralize education, as it were.

RajT88 3y ago
Exactly so. I know a guy who got into the top MBA program in the nation (U of C). He had no undergrad degree, but was born to a wealthy family. His wife was born to an even wealthier family, and he quickly after flunking out of undergrad within a few years found a career as an executive. Connect the dots on how all that works. (Curiously he insists he's a "pulled himself up by his bootstraps" type character)