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> “On a personal note, I was accepted to an Ivy League school (though not Harvard) as a high school senior, but my family couldn't afford to send me there, so I

> “On a personal note, I was accepted to an Ivy League school (though not Harvard) as a high school senior, but my family couldn't afford to send me there, so I had to go to a state school instead. My classmate and friend was accepted to MIT but also had to go to a state school because of money.” This does fit my hypothesis that the outliers at state schools are likely undervalued in the market by recruiters. The averages at selective schools are a lot higher (work a few career fairs where you ask basic technical questions and this is obvious), but everyone is competing over them and the outliers at state schools are people like you with extenuating circumstances. Since the actual education product isn’t that different (though there is some difference), there’s probably opportunity in trying to recruit the best students from state schools companies tend to ignore.

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lapcat 3y ago
> the outliers at state schools are people like you with extenuating circumstances. Being middle class is an extenuating circumstance? ;-)
- colingoodman 3y ago
  This word choice surprised me as well. The average Big 10 tuition for nonresidents is approaching $40,000. It is better for in-state tuition, but locking students into wherever they happened to grow up also seems unfair.
  - EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
    Maybe states are paying them for locals so there is more graduates staying in the state and paying good taxes?
  - lapcat 3y ago
    In my case, I attended a Big 10 school specifically because I was a resident, so the tuition was in-state.
- gonehome 3y ago
  I just meant things like couldn’t afford tuition, don’t know how or can’t get loans, or couldn’t move from family, or w/e - someone who was accepted but didn’t go due to stuff unrelated to getting in (my dad was also in this category). Some large percentage of people think they’re middle class so it’s hard to know what that means without specifics. A lot of elite schools do cover tuition now if your parents are below a certain income, but it’s imperfect and doesn’t scale with number of siblings etc.
api 3y ago
Recruiters and HR people are usually not subject matter experts, so they don't have the expertise to select great people from among outlier groups or from the larger population. They end up relying on indicators like top schools or top prior employers. I've hired outstanding people for dev roles with all kinds of backgrounds including self-taught, low-mid tier state schools, unfinished college, etc., but that's because I am a developer and I can tell who knows things and who doesn't. I couldn't do the same for, say, a mechanical engineering position since I am not an expert in that field.
- gonehome 3y ago
  Yeah, this is one reason why I think the outliers at state schools are undervalued. These heuristics are indirect and lead to inefficient selection, competition over the same scarce resources. If you’re a startup there’s a strategic advantage in trying to look for talent where others aren’t and leveraging your own subject matter expertise to do so. In moneyball the scouts selected on stupid stuff rather than on base percentage - if you know what to actually look for you can find stuff mispriced.
  - ghaff 3y ago
    >Yeah, this is one reason why I think the outliers at state schools are undervalued. What I've always heard about the big state schools is that you can get in (probably relatively easily) and then you can either spend your days doing a lot of doing sports and partying (not that there's anything wrong with that in moderation) or you can get a pretty world-class STEM degree.
  - api 3y ago
    > If you’re a startup there’s a strategic advantage in trying to look for talent where others aren’t and leveraging your own subject matter expertise to do so. That's the huge take-away, and why startups and other small to medium sized businesses are so critical for class mobility.
CrazyStat 3y ago
> The averages at selective schools are a lot higher This is what I expected when I went from undergrad at a solid but not elite shool (top 100, ~50% admission rate) to grad school (top 10, single digit admission rate). It's not what I experienced. The undergrad students I taught and TA for at the elite school were no better, on average, than my peers at my undergrad school. They were more ambitious and entitled. They were not smarter or harder working or more engaged or motivated.
- gonehome 3y ago
  My observation from doing hundreds of interviews at career fairs was the fancy schools (Stanford) had students that were way better at basic questions. This isn’t a perfect metric, but it’s signal. If your peers in undergrad were your friends, you were probably selecting a non-representative group (smart people you liked) and your job as a TA shows you a more random sample (or even skewed negative, poor students grubbing for grades). At least that’s my guess (selection bias). Of course if I’m wrong there’s an even bigger opportunity in undervalued students, but I’ve done enough interviews to believe that’s not true.
  - monetus 3y ago
    Your reaction to the parent was wondering at selection bias in schools, which was a nice context to me wondering at the selection bias you have in interviews. Thanks.
    - gonehome 3y ago
      Yeah there's definitely a selection bias in an interview setting too, but since I was doing the same thing in both locations (career fair interviews as a company employee) there was more in common between the groups and me (imo) as opposed to undergrad peers/friends when you're an undergrad and students you TA when you're a grad student.
  - MichaelZuo 3y ago
    I agree and have noticed this too. Even the median kid from Stanford, Harvard, etc., has a level of elevator pitching skills that are unmatched by anyone below the 90th to 95th percentile at 'lower ranked' schools. In terms of raw smarts I wouldn't make so bold a claim, but in terms of what folks can realistically assess in a single minute of interaction...
squokko 3y ago
The best way to get the elite school benefits as a state school undergraduate is to attend a graduate program at an elite school. The financial ROI on a Yale JD or Harvard MBA will be really strong, and if you want a paid-for program you can do a PhD.
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lapcat 3y ago

> the outliers at state schools are people like you with extenuating circumstances. Being middle class is an extenuating circumstance? ;-)

colingoodman 3y ago
This word choice surprised me as well. The average Big 10 tuition for nonresidents is approaching $40,000. It is better for in-state tuition, but locking students into wherever they happened to grow up also seems unfair.
- EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
  Maybe states are paying them for locals so there is more graduates staying in the state and paying good taxes?
- lapcat 3y ago
  In my case, I attended a Big 10 school specifically because I was a resident, so the tuition was in-state.
gonehome 3y ago
I just meant things like couldn’t afford tuition, don’t know how or can’t get loans, or couldn’t move from family, or w/e - someone who was accepted but didn’t go due to stuff unrelated to getting in (my dad was also in this category). Some large percentage of people think they’re middle class so it’s hard to know what that means without specifics. A lot of elite schools do cover tuition now if your parents are below a certain income, but it’s imperfect and doesn’t scale with number of siblings etc.

api 3y ago

Recruiters and HR people are usually not subject matter experts, so they don't have the expertise to select great people from among outlier groups or from the larger population. They end up relying on indicators like top schools or top prior employers. I've hired outstanding people for dev roles with all kinds of backgrounds including self-taught, low-mid tier state schools, unfinished college, etc., but that's because I am a developer and I can tell who knows things and who doesn't. I couldn't do the same for, say, a mechanical engineering position since I am not an expert in that field.

gonehome 3y ago
Yeah, this is one reason why I think the outliers at state schools are undervalued. These heuristics are indirect and lead to inefficient selection, competition over the same scarce resources. If you’re a startup there’s a strategic advantage in trying to look for talent where others aren’t and leveraging your own subject matter expertise to do so. In moneyball the scouts selected on stupid stuff rather than on base percentage - if you know what to actually look for you can find stuff mispriced.
- ghaff 3y ago
  >Yeah, this is one reason why I think the outliers at state schools are undervalued. What I've always heard about the big state schools is that you can get in (probably relatively easily) and then you can either spend your days doing a lot of doing sports and partying (not that there's anything wrong with that in moderation) or you can get a pretty world-class STEM degree.
- api 3y ago
  > If you’re a startup there’s a strategic advantage in trying to look for talent where others aren’t and leveraging your own subject matter expertise to do so. That's the huge take-away, and why startups and other small to medium sized businesses are so critical for class mobility.

CrazyStat 3y ago

> The averages at selective schools are a lot higher This is what I expected when I went from undergrad at a solid but not elite shool (top 100, ~50% admission rate) to grad school (top 10, single digit admission rate). It's not what I experienced. The undergrad students I taught and TA for at the elite school were no better, on average, than my peers at my undergrad school. They were more ambitious and entitled. They were not smarter or harder working or more engaged or motivated.

gonehome 3y ago
My observation from doing hundreds of interviews at career fairs was the fancy schools (Stanford) had students that were way better at basic questions. This isn’t a perfect metric, but it’s signal. If your peers in undergrad were your friends, you were probably selecting a non-representative group (smart people you liked) and your job as a TA shows you a more random sample (or even skewed negative, poor students grubbing for grades). At least that’s my guess (selection bias). Of course if I’m wrong there’s an even bigger opportunity in undervalued students, but I’ve done enough interviews to believe that’s not true.
- monetus 3y ago
  Your reaction to the parent was wondering at selection bias in schools, which was a nice context to me wondering at the selection bias you have in interviews. Thanks.
  - gonehome 3y ago
    Yeah there's definitely a selection bias in an interview setting too, but since I was doing the same thing in both locations (career fair interviews as a company employee) there was more in common between the groups and me (imo) as opposed to undergrad peers/friends when you're an undergrad and students you TA when you're a grad student.
- MichaelZuo 3y ago
  I agree and have noticed this too. Even the median kid from Stanford, Harvard, etc., has a level of elevator pitching skills that are unmatched by anyone below the 90th to 95th percentile at 'lower ranked' schools. In terms of raw smarts I wouldn't make so bold a claim, but in terms of what folks can realistically assess in a single minute of interaction...

squokko 3y ago

The best way to get the elite school benefits as a state school undergraduate is to attend a graduate program at an elite school. The financial ROI on a Yale JD or Harvard MBA will be really strong, and if you want a paid-for program you can do a PhD.

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