5 ms·

Sure, but the effect of that is to make everything more random and a lot less meritocratic. Pedigree travels everywhere and is legible. Merit is impossible to

Sure, but the effect of that is to make everything more random and a lot less meritocratic. Pedigree travels everywhere and is legible. Merit is impossible to demonstrate. Merit plus a noise term is easy to demonstrate. The noisier the process, the more of an advantage pedigree has over merit. For example, a blue-blooded asshat like Evan Spiegel will be able to get into every college no matter what happens, even though he's (by Ivy/Stanford standards) a joke. On the other hand, I've heard of IMO medalists getting turned away in this (after 2006 or so) brave new world. Any system that has Evan Spiegels outranking IMO medalists is completely broken.

ForHackernews 13y ago
Top schools are always looking for "leaders" (by which they mostly mean people who go on to be prominently successful in business and/or politics). Speigel certainly fits this mold, far more than a math prodigy who'd be more likely to wind up an anonymous quant in some financial firm.
- michaelochurch 13y ago
  Top schools are always looking for "leaders" (by which they mostly mean people who go on to be prominently successful in business and/or politics). Corrected: kids whose parents know how to play the game and have the resources to make sure their kids win it. For all the complaints people make about the SAT, that's actually the most meritocratic component of the admissions process by far. The "leadership" stuff might give middle-class clueless a warm/fuzzy feeling, but it's designed specifically to keep them out. Speigel certainly fits this mold He's a product, not a leader. Someone saw him and said, "he seems like a douchebag". Right now, douchebags are in style in the VC-funded/spider-pooping circuit. If you're looking to produce someone and sell him to your VC friends in order to sway the herd, douchebags are the least risky choice right now. far more than a math prodigy who'd be more likely to wind up an anonymous quant in some financial firm. IMO medalists have the talent to do much more. The Spiegels, on the other hand, are useless unless lifted/"produced". They create nothing, but what they are told to make. Of course, some very smart people get lazy and complacent later in life-- it happens to all sorts of people for all kinds of reasons-- but there's no way to forecast that for teenagers.
  - jessriedel 13y ago
    With respect, you sound like you're under the very common misconception that top universities are interested in educating the most academically impressive undergrads, and that it's a fight between parents to see who can trick the school into thinking their child is among the best students. In fact, universities are driven primarily to increase their influence on the world at large. When hiring professors, this can indeed mean academic acumen is valued, since impressive scholarship shapes the world and brings the university prestige. At the same time, grant-getting abilities are very important, since you can use money to buy influence in lots of ways. When selecting undergrads, academic ability has some instrumental value but very little intrinsic value to the university. This is because academic-superstar undergrads will leave the university before they exert influence with their scholarship. The universities does wants to mold the minds of future powerful people, and that usually means looking for students who are fairly (though not necessarily outrageously) smart. But to first order, you can think of the undergraduate program at top universities as a pure money-making venture. The first strategy used is near-perfect price discrimination to maximize immediate returns, i.e. "send us your parent's W2s and we'll tell you how much you'll pay". (Tuition is extremely high but most students get substantial financial aid.) The second strategy is to groom an ideal donor pool for long term revenue, and this is primarily composed of a few business superstars with a long tail of doctors, lawyers, and financial folks. These blog posts touch on some of these ideas... Sean Carroll: "The Purpose of Harvard is Not to Educate People" http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2008/05/29/the-purpose-of-harvard-is-not-to-educate-people/ http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2008/05/29/the-purp... Steve Hsu: "Defining Merit" http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/11/defining-merit.html http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/11/defining-merit.html
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      To be most cynical, I think they want to admit just enough middle-class smart kids to create the appearance of academic excellence, while letting rich mediocrities benefit from the aura effect of being in a place where it's genuinely difficult to get in if you're not rich. The soft ("leadership") component of college admissions and venture capital fill a similar role in the US, which is to launder the connections and parental wealth of the rich and make their advantages appear earned.
- mjfl 13y ago
  Oh please. I go to one of these schools and it's the same attitude that every "joke" major has that somehow by partying their way through college they will emerge more creative than the "nerds" who are trying hard. Yeah, you're a "leader", huh? Gonna be really successful with your app-idea once you outsource it to an Indian firm for $20k of your parents money? Oh and it's a blatant Facebook rip-off that you have to have your parents pay someone to manually remake for every college because you don't know what scalability is? Sounds great, if you don't make billions here's my number so I can add you to my team as an "idea leader".
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
    - michaelochurch 13y ago
      There are other billionaires, and he's an embarrassment to Stanford (although not as much of one as Lucas Duplan for Clinkle). They could've done better with that slot.
scarmig 13y ago
Why is Evan Spiegel someone we should hate? Genuine question, had to look him up. Snapchat seems no worse than half a dozen other startups...
- ForHackernews 13y ago
  He really is a genuine wanker: http://www.laweekly.com/2013-10-17/news/snapchat-evan-spiegel/?showFullText=true http://www.laweekly.com/2013-10-17/news/snapchat-evan-spiege...
  - FD3SA 13y ago
    "It's not about working harder; it's about working the system." - Evan Spiegel Yes indeed, and when it comes to working the system, wealthy elite families have achieved quite a formidable monopoly. This is an incredibly good article to act as a counterweight to all of pg's essays on merit based success. It's easy to forget that Zuck, PG, and many other successful people are part of an extremely selective elite (e.g. Ivy League attendants), and that this may have a significant impact on their success. Of course, members of this group will tell us that their Ivy League networks are totally independent of their multi-million dollar exits, but an impartial eye would scrutinize this relationship more closely.
mbesto 13y ago
Serious question - has university ever been meritocratic?
- Crito 13y ago
  No. They obviously were not more than a few decades ago (race and gender equality were issues that were not even paid lip service to until the 20th century, in many cases the late 20th century.) Even today, now that we pay lip service to these issues, they are not completely ironed out. The other issues that remain today are nothing new, and cover the rest of the 20th century. For whatever it is worth, top tier universities (particularly Ivy League schools) are very good with need-based scholarships. If Harvard accepts you, Harvard will see to it that you can afford to attend.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

ForHackernews 13y ago

Top schools are always looking for "leaders" (by which they mostly mean people who go on to be prominently successful in business and/or politics). Speigel certainly fits this mold, far more than a math prodigy who'd be more likely to wind up an anonymous quant in some financial firm.

michaelochurch 13y ago
Top schools are always looking for "leaders" (by which they mostly mean people who go on to be prominently successful in business and/or politics). Corrected: kids whose parents know how to play the game and have the resources to make sure their kids win it. For all the complaints people make about the SAT, that's actually the most meritocratic component of the admissions process by far. The "leadership" stuff might give middle-class clueless a warm/fuzzy feeling, but it's designed specifically to keep them out. Speigel certainly fits this mold He's a product, not a leader. Someone saw him and said, "he seems like a douchebag". Right now, douchebags are in style in the VC-funded/spider-pooping circuit. If you're looking to produce someone and sell him to your VC friends in order to sway the herd, douchebags are the least risky choice right now. far more than a math prodigy who'd be more likely to wind up an anonymous quant in some financial firm. IMO medalists have the talent to do much more. The Spiegels, on the other hand, are useless unless lifted/"produced". They create nothing, but what they are told to make. Of course, some very smart people get lazy and complacent later in life-- it happens to all sorts of people for all kinds of reasons-- but there's no way to forecast that for teenagers.
- jessriedel 13y ago
  With respect, you sound like you're under the very common misconception that top universities are interested in educating the most academically impressive undergrads, and that it's a fight between parents to see who can trick the school into thinking their child is among the best students. In fact, universities are driven primarily to increase their influence on the world at large. When hiring professors, this can indeed mean academic acumen is valued, since impressive scholarship shapes the world and brings the university prestige. At the same time, grant-getting abilities are very important, since you can use money to buy influence in lots of ways. When selecting undergrads, academic ability has some instrumental value but very little intrinsic value to the university. This is because academic-superstar undergrads will leave the university before they exert influence with their scholarship. The universities does wants to mold the minds of future powerful people, and that usually means looking for students who are fairly (though not necessarily outrageously) smart. But to first order, you can think of the undergraduate program at top universities as a pure money-making venture. The first strategy used is near-perfect price discrimination to maximize immediate returns, i.e. "send us your parent's W2s and we'll tell you how much you'll pay". (Tuition is extremely high but most students get substantial financial aid.) The second strategy is to groom an ideal donor pool for long term revenue, and this is primarily composed of a few business superstars with a long tail of doctors, lawyers, and financial folks. These blog posts touch on some of these ideas... Sean Carroll: "The Purpose of Harvard is Not to Educate People" http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2008/05/29/the-purpose-of-harvard-is-not-to-educate-people/ http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2008/05/29/the-purp... Steve Hsu: "Defining Merit" http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/11/defining-merit.html http://infoproc.blogspot.com/2009/11/defining-merit.html
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    To be most cynical, I think they want to admit just enough middle-class smart kids to create the appearance of academic excellence, while letting rich mediocrities benefit from the aura effect of being in a place where it's genuinely difficult to get in if you're not rich. The soft ("leadership") component of college admissions and venture capital fill a similar role in the US, which is to launder the connections and parental wealth of the rich and make their advantages appear earned.
mjfl 13y ago
Oh please. I go to one of these schools and it's the same attitude that every "joke" major has that somehow by partying their way through college they will emerge more creative than the "nerds" who are trying hard. Yeah, you're a "leader", huh? Gonna be really successful with your app-idea once you outsource it to an Indian firm for $20k of your parents money? Oh and it's a blatant Facebook rip-off that you have to have your parents pay someone to manually remake for every college because you don't know what scalability is? Sounds great, if you don't make billions here's my number so I can add you to my team as an "idea leader".
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
  - michaelochurch 13y ago
    There are other billionaires, and he's an embarrassment to Stanford (although not as much of one as Lucas Duplan for Clinkle). They could've done better with that slot.

scarmig 13y ago

Why is Evan Spiegel someone we should hate? Genuine question, had to look him up. Snapchat seems no worse than half a dozen other startups...

ForHackernews 13y ago
He really is a genuine wanker: http://www.laweekly.com/2013-10-17/news/snapchat-evan-spiegel/?showFullText=true http://www.laweekly.com/2013-10-17/news/snapchat-evan-spiege...
- FD3SA 13y ago
  "It's not about working harder; it's about working the system." - Evan Spiegel Yes indeed, and when it comes to working the system, wealthy elite families have achieved quite a formidable monopoly. This is an incredibly good article to act as a counterweight to all of pg's essays on merit based success. It's easy to forget that Zuck, PG, and many other successful people are part of an extremely selective elite (e.g. Ivy League attendants), and that this may have a significant impact on their success. Of course, members of this group will tell us that their Ivy League networks are totally independent of their multi-million dollar exits, but an impartial eye would scrutinize this relationship more closely.

mbesto 13y ago

Serious question - has university ever been meritocratic?

Crito 13y ago
No. They obviously were not more than a few decades ago (race and gender equality were issues that were not even paid lip service to until the 20th century, in many cases the late 20th century.) Even today, now that we pay lip service to these issues, they are not completely ironed out. The other issues that remain today are nothing new, and cover the rest of the 20th century. For whatever it is worth, top tier universities (particularly Ivy League schools) are very good with need-based scholarships. If Harvard accepts you, Harvard will see to it that you can afford to attend.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]