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Is it really unfair to hold someone to a higher standard because they went to a 'good' school? I think part of the way we estimate future performance is by exam

by JoelPM 17y ago

Is it really unfair to hold someone to a higher standard because they went to a 'good' school? I think part of the way we estimate future performance is by examining past performance, and performing well at a name-brand school should indicate ability to perform well at tasks for which their education prepared them. On the other hand, doing well at a non-name-brand school doesn't mean another person can't perform well, it just means that you can't predict quite as easily how well they'll do. If you give an easy exam and everyone scores 90% or better you don't know much more about the person who scored 100% than you do about the person who scored 90%. If, on the other hand, you give an extremely difficult exam that results in a curve with the 90% cut-off at 80% and the 10% cut-off at 20% you know much more about the abilities of those who did well compared to the abilities of those who did poorly. I think people tend to view a name-brand college as a the very tough exam and a non-name-brand college as the easy exam. Whether or not this is a safe assumption is another question.

_pius 17y ago
Is it really unfair to hold someone to a higher standard because they went to a 'good' school? I think part of the way we estimate future performance is by examining past performance, and performing well at a name-brand school should indicate ability to perform well at tasks for which their education prepared them. On the other hand, doing well at a non-name-brand school doesn't mean another person can't perform well, it just means that you can't predict quite as easily how well they'll do. I agree with this, which is why I put "unfairness" in quotes in my other response. There's a certain political correctness that makes people uneasy about comparing two candidates based on the schools they went to. The fact is, the rigor of training for the same degree varies wildly depending on the school you attended. If you're comparing two seemingly equivalent unknowns who've got no body of work other than a degree, I think it makes perfect sense to bias towards the person who completed the better program.
- JoelPM 17y ago
  I should have been more clear about what I was responding to - this commend by rdr: "does that imply that certain people are held to a higher standard due to where they went to college? that seems unfair both to those people (who have unreasonably elevated expectations) and to everyone else (who have lowered expectations since they don't have a name-brand diploma)." I agreed with both your original comment and the follow-up. The question of fairness got me thinking, though, and I wanted to present one way of thinking about it.

by JoelPM 17y ago

_pius 17y ago

Is it really unfair to hold someone to a higher standard because they went to a 'good' school? I think part of the way we estimate future performance is by examining past performance, and performing well at a name-brand school should indicate ability to perform well at tasks for which their education prepared them. On the other hand, doing well at a non-name-brand school doesn't mean another person can't perform well, it just means that you can't predict quite as easily how well they'll do. I agree with this, which is why I put "unfairness" in quotes in my other response. There's a certain political correctness that makes people uneasy about comparing two candidates based on the schools they went to. The fact is, the rigor of training for the same degree varies wildly depending on the school you attended. If you're comparing two seemingly equivalent unknowns who've got no body of work other than a degree, I think it makes perfect sense to bias towards the person who completed the better program.

JoelPM 17y ago
I should have been more clear about what I was responding to - this commend by rdr: "does that imply that certain people are held to a higher standard due to where they went to college? that seems unfair both to those people (who have unreasonably elevated expectations) and to everyone else (who have lowered expectations since they don't have a name-brand diploma)." I agreed with both your original comment and the follow-up. The question of fairness got me thinking, though, and I wanted to present one way of thinking about it.