4 ms·

I'm aware that there was a discussion about the other extreme on HN a month ago -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482257 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?i

I'm aware that there was a discussion about the other extreme on HN a month ago -- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482257 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=482257 -- but I need to vent off a little. Forgive me if I go off on a tangent. I've recently graduated from a high school in India and I haven't spent a day thinking about how idiotic the education system is here. I wish I could have been a part of a culture that encouraged well-roundedness and recognized passionate kids, rather than one that exclusively rewarded academic performance. Having spent some time at an elementary school both in the US and in India, I can assure you that there is a great disparity in pedagogy even at that level. My school wouldn't give a rat's ass about those who didn't get awesome grades. And doing so required one to allocate a disproportionate amount of time to rote learning. I would always rather spend time hacking (and perhaps slacking), like I have being doing ever since I was 8. It's hilarious to see what gets passed for extracurricular activities here. All "club presidents" are just required to set up a 15 minute inter-house quiz containing 10 or so questions. For four straight years, I was never picked by my teachers to be president/secretary of the computer club, even though I was known by my peers as "the comp guy", and had won competitions, etc., etc.. Some four random sycophants who got better grades than we were chosen instead. The shit really hit the fan last year, and my parents decided to talk to the principal about this. The principal was overly defensive, and said the faculty was looking for "leadership qualities" (for conducting a stupid quiz, yeah right). Of course, they never did anything in the first place to create these "leadership qualities". A month later, during a parent-teacher meeting, my parents and I were taken to the principal, who blamed my parents for making me a complete introvert. She couldn't see that possibly the school's fault, considering that I had been there for 11 years. And whenever I've won some sort of a competition, teachers would tell me "you're wasting my time, and shouldn't have any hobbies at this young an age". I've qualified for my country's training camp for the IOI this year, and I'm fairly confident I will get a medal. Will any Indian college notice this? Nope. Hell, even my school won't notice that. Thankfully, I have parents who can afford to send me to a college in the US. I've been accepted by some decent but not-so-selective public universities, but I don't think the really good schools will admit me, because I have mediocre grades and no "leadership qualities", and I respect their decision: in this discussion, brandnewlow has reassured that the admissions process, despite a few idiosyncrasies, is pretty good. Plus, there isn't really much of a cut-throat competition for getting admission. Hell, I learned a lot just by applying. For instance, writing a few essays, showing them to others for advice on how to improve them, and repeatedly editing and proofreading them were things I had never done before. Sorry for this terribly incoherent rant.

brandnewlow 18y ago
I wouldn't go so far as to say it's pretty good across the board. I was proud of the work I did at my employer, but who knows, maybe they pick names out of a hat at Yale! Evidence suggests as much :) Die Yalies. I read a good number of Indian applicants during my short stint in admissions. They were, for the most part, completely indistinguishable from one another. Perfect scores. Perfect grades. They all faxed in 20 pages of certificates, honors and awards. They all had the same list of leadership positions in school clubs. We had a few folks on the team who had traveled over there and were able to parse through these applicants to find the really good ones, but it was crazy how similar all the applicants from India were. I figured the schools had imperfect data about what we were looking for, so they had all constructed some sort of a rubric and were sending kids of type X to Princeton, Y to Harvard, Z to Williams, etc. If I were to meet a 16-year-old promising student in India, my advice to him would be the same advice I'd give to the asian students in the U.S. Go to clown school. Join a circus. Build a rocket. Do SOMETHING that could not have come from your parents or teachers.
- screwperman 18y ago
  Wow, Princeton's admissions process seems to be more thorough than I could have imagined. However, you seem to be referring to those expensive international schools where most Indian applicants come from. Typical Indian schools like the one I used to attend are quite different: only 5 (out of 120) of us from this year's graduating class have applied to American universities (though I know that at least 2 students in the past 4 years were accepted by Princeton). Nevertheless, it's quite insightful.
Raplh 18y ago
The good news is that an Indian student from an American college has a much easier time getting in to good American graduate programs (with 100% aid) then an Indian student from an IIT. This was definitely true at University of Rochester EE Dept when I was on the admissions committe, and I would be surprised if it were not somewhat generally true. In the sense of getting in to an American graduate program, you are "hacking the system" by going to American undergrad. (Of course, you are hacking it for an Indian admit. Americans get that advantage for free, which in pg essay lingo is a form of corruption).

brandnewlow 18y ago

I wouldn't go so far as to say it's pretty good across the board. I was proud of the work I did at my employer, but who knows, maybe they pick names out of a hat at Yale! Evidence suggests as much :) Die Yalies. I read a good number of Indian applicants during my short stint in admissions. They were, for the most part, completely indistinguishable from one another. Perfect scores. Perfect grades. They all faxed in 20 pages of certificates, honors and awards. They all had the same list of leadership positions in school clubs. We had a few folks on the team who had traveled over there and were able to parse through these applicants to find the really good ones, but it was crazy how similar all the applicants from India were. I figured the schools had imperfect data about what we were looking for, so they had all constructed some sort of a rubric and were sending kids of type X to Princeton, Y to Harvard, Z to Williams, etc. If I were to meet a 16-year-old promising student in India, my advice to him would be the same advice I'd give to the asian students in the U.S. Go to clown school. Join a circus. Build a rocket. Do SOMETHING that could not have come from your parents or teachers.

screwperman 18y ago
Wow, Princeton's admissions process seems to be more thorough than I could have imagined. However, you seem to be referring to those expensive international schools where most Indian applicants come from. Typical Indian schools like the one I used to attend are quite different: only 5 (out of 120) of us from this year's graduating class have applied to American universities (though I know that at least 2 students in the past 4 years were accepted by Princeton). Nevertheless, it's quite insightful.

Raplh 18y ago

The good news is that an Indian student from an American college has a much easier time getting in to good American graduate programs (with 100% aid) then an Indian student from an IIT. This was definitely true at University of Rochester EE Dept when I was on the admissions committe, and I would be surprised if it were not somewhat generally true. In the sense of getting in to an American graduate program, you are "hacking the system" by going to American undergrad. (Of course, you are hacking it for an Indian admit. Americans get that advantage for free, which in pg essay lingo is a form of corruption).