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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:

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.
  - jessriedel 13y ago
    Well, I think you'll find that the people in positions of power at top universities have rather leftist values. They don't make all that much money in terms of salary, so their satisfaction generally comes from pursuing those values in their own eyes. That doesn't mean they're idealistic; they often make deals with the devil to increase influence, and they are happy to sell their prestige to the highest bidder. But the hypothesis that they are helping rich people as an intrinsic goal doesn't make sense, and it isn't needed to explain their behavior. Also, my impression based on things like twin studies is that rich parents's ability give their kids unfair advantages is much weaker than you think. But that's a whole other discussion.
    - FD3SA 13y ago
      > Also, my impression based on things like twin studies is that rich parents's ability give their kids unfair advantages is much weaker than you think. But that's a whole other discussion. We're not saying kids like Spiegel are wholly untalented. They come from excellent genetic stock. But as discussed above, they are nowhere near the true outliers in terms of merit. Think Putnam Fellows, Math Olympiad Champs, etc. Yet the Spiegelites' success is so far above that of these far more talented folk in the startup scene, that one cannot help but suspect that merit appears to be worth far less than class as a determinant of success.
      - jessriedel 13y ago
        You're conflating intelligence with money-making ability. Solid intelligence helps for sure, and it's probably even true that, all things being equal, intelligence is monotonically related to money-making ability. But all other things are not equal, and there are other things necessary for money-making. In particular, colleges will look for kids with unusually high ambition, people skills, conscientiousness, leadership, etc. It can make sense to sacrifice the very far tail of the IQ bell curve in order to fish out still-very-smart people who are strong in those other necessary ways. Again, I suggest you look into twin studies if you want to see the evidence that class per se is not particularly important. But I'm not going to discuss that here.
iamthepieman 13y ago
When I was at Dartmouth I overheard some sheik (guessing by the clothes he was wearing and complexion, could have been a really tan Norwegian who liked wearing a Keffiyeh) talking on his phone outside his car. His side of the conversation went something like: "I want to talk to the dean!" pause.... "No, it must have been a mistake. My son went to Eton!" pause... "Well that's the last time I give this school 10 million dollars!"
ForHackernews 13y ago
I don't think your correction modifies anything about my original statement. HYP & Friends are interested in admitting "leaders", who are quite often children of wealthy and connected parents. The colleges don't care if an alum becomes wealthy and successful through their own gumption, or through parental connections. Either way, they reflect glory on the institution. Playing the odds, it makes more sense to bet on the scions of the powerful than the unknown genius. He's a product, not a leader. How are those two things exclusive? The next generation of leaders are products of a system that grooms them for power. Elite colleges are a winnowing system and a stamp of legitimacy for America's ruling caste. IMO medalists have the talent to do much more. Yes, but only if they choose, and the current incentive structure is all wrong. Unless they have a particular personality type[0] that favors the academic monastery over worldly riches, a rational math genius would go get rich at Goldman Sachs. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman

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.
- jessriedel 13y ago
  Well, I think you'll find that the people in positions of power at top universities have rather leftist values. They don't make all that much money in terms of salary, so their satisfaction generally comes from pursuing those values in their own eyes. That doesn't mean they're idealistic; they often make deals with the devil to increase influence, and they are happy to sell their prestige to the highest bidder. But the hypothesis that they are helping rich people as an intrinsic goal doesn't make sense, and it isn't needed to explain their behavior. Also, my impression based on things like twin studies is that rich parents's ability give their kids unfair advantages is much weaker than you think. But that's a whole other discussion.
  - FD3SA 13y ago
    > Also, my impression based on things like twin studies is that rich parents's ability give their kids unfair advantages is much weaker than you think. But that's a whole other discussion. We're not saying kids like Spiegel are wholly untalented. They come from excellent genetic stock. But as discussed above, they are nowhere near the true outliers in terms of merit. Think Putnam Fellows, Math Olympiad Champs, etc. Yet the Spiegelites' success is so far above that of these far more talented folk in the startup scene, that one cannot help but suspect that merit appears to be worth far less than class as a determinant of success.
    - jessriedel 13y ago
      You're conflating intelligence with money-making ability. Solid intelligence helps for sure, and it's probably even true that, all things being equal, intelligence is monotonically related to money-making ability. But all other things are not equal, and there are other things necessary for money-making. In particular, colleges will look for kids with unusually high ambition, people skills, conscientiousness, leadership, etc. It can make sense to sacrifice the very far tail of the IQ bell curve in order to fish out still-very-smart people who are strong in those other necessary ways. Again, I suggest you look into twin studies if you want to see the evidence that class per se is not particularly important. But I'm not going to discuss that here.

iamthepieman 13y ago

When I was at Dartmouth I overheard some sheik (guessing by the clothes he was wearing and complexion, could have been a really tan Norwegian who liked wearing a Keffiyeh) talking on his phone outside his car. His side of the conversation went something like: "I want to talk to the dean!" pause.... "No, it must have been a mistake. My son went to Eton!" pause... "Well that's the last time I give this school 10 million dollars!"

ForHackernews 13y ago

I don't think your correction modifies anything about my original statement. HYP & Friends are interested in admitting "leaders", who are quite often children of wealthy and connected parents. The colleges don't care if an alum becomes wealthy and successful through their own gumption, or through parental connections. Either way, they reflect glory on the institution. Playing the odds, it makes more sense to bet on the scions of the powerful than the unknown genius. He's a product, not a leader. How are those two things exclusive? The next generation of leaders are products of a system that grooms them for power. Elite colleges are a winnowing system and a stamp of legitimacy for America's ruling caste. IMO medalists have the talent to do much more. Yes, but only if they choose, and the current incentive structure is all wrong. Unless they have a particular personality type[0] that favors the academic monastery over worldly riches, a rational math genius would go get rich at Goldman Sachs. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigori_Perelman