4 ms·

No one doubts if unknown schools have any good candidates at all. It's all about probability of finding number of good candidates. Top schools are all about pr

by sytelus 12y ago

No one doubts if unknown schools have any good candidates at all. It's all about probability of finding number of good candidates. Top schools are all about providing fat pipelines of possibly talented individuals with very high probability. And let's not kid ourselves that every school has very large pool of talent. No one turns down offer from Stanford for the opportunity to study at Fayetteville State. The most likely reason person ends up at non top 5 schools is because they couldn't get in those. This implies that pretty much every one wants to study at top school. So top school gets first cut at widest possible selection of candidates and left over goes elsewhere. So the talent is indeed concentrated at top 5 schools. Again keep in mind probabilities (take a course! This is one of the most important subject to learn, IMO) - it doesn't imply that talent is non-existent in other schools. So the probability of hiring 100 talented candidates who can get through same grueling interview at Fayetteville State should be fairly lower than at Stanford or MIT.

mindcrime 12y ago
No one turned down offer from Stanford for the opportunity to study at Fayetteville State Probably not, but my hypothesis is that there are people at, say, Fayetteville State, that could have gone to Stanford but never even bothered applying. Maybe they thought they couldn't afford it, maybe they didn't want to move so far from home, who knows. And I also believe there are people who "couldn't get in" to, say, Stanford, who would still have excelled at Stanford had they attended. Some people aren't good high school students for any number of reasons, but are much better college students, but they don't have the grades to get into the "elite" schools. So sure, if you came from a family who emphasized getting into Harvard or Stanford, and drove you relentlessly to get great grades, and provided all the support you needed all through high-school, and you were well fed everyday and had after-school SAT training, etc,, etc., then you probably should have gotten a 1600 on the SAT and gone to Harvard. But a LOT of people were missing one or more of those elements in their upbringing. Not to mention, some people (this was my story) basically just blow off high-school because they're bored senseless, resent being forced to attend, and aren't the people with the right temperament to be part of the cool clique and therefore despise huge swathes of their time at school. Of course, that same kid is probably going home and building Tesla coils and experimenting with high-voltage electronics, or writing code or something after school, but it isn't reflected in their grades, and it won't help them get into an "elite" school. Also keep in mind that I'm not saying that a Fayetteville State or UNC Pembroke represents a "fat pipeline". But I am saying it represents a pipeline, and one where a resource starved startup is less likely to be competing against Google or IBM or Facebook or Yahoo, etc., for people.
- gojomo 12y ago
  Interestingly, merely applying to top schools seems a very strong signal of future earning potential – whether or not you're admitted. See for example the details here: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-...
  - mindcrime 12y ago
    That is interesting. Thanks for sharing!
- Amezarak 12y ago
  Well, I'm just an anecdote, but I think that's definitely true. I never made less than an A in high school and I made a perfect score on the ACT. I feel pretty confident that had I applied at a "top school" I would have had a fair chance of getting in. Maybe not - I probably would have been weaker on the non-academic admission requirements. I ended up going to a local community college for free and then transferring to a state university where eventually I got my graduate degree. I received several awards while there for academic performance, had some papers published with my name on them, and had a 4.0 again. Frankly it never even occurred to me to apply to other schools. I just wasn't interested and nobody talked about it. If you asked me now why I didn't, I couldn't really tell you. Looking back, I'm sure some of it was moving away from home. In retrospect I would have been worse off financially - the scholarship didn't hold past the CC, so I paid cash for the rest (I worked a _lot_) until I got a TA position and graduated debt free. I think though some people in SV would still look at that in askance though, and see that as saying something - "hey, this guy's not as motivated" or "this guy wouldn't be as dedicate as much of his life" and maybe that's true. In terms of work performance, though, I don't see a difference and I've always received extremely positive reviews. No doubt there are things I'm missing out on, like the kind of connections I might have made at a top school, but I'm doing pretty well for myself and I don't regret anything.
burntsushi 12y ago
> No one turns down offer from Stanford for the opportunity to study at Fayetteville State. The most likely reason person ends up at non top 5 schools is because they couldn't get in those. I am extremely skeptical of this line of reasoning because it assumes that only important criterion for choosing a school is whether it's good or not (or, alternatively, whether it has brand recognition, depending on one's perspective). There are a vast swath of other reasons that could rank more highly then whether a school is good or not. Two reasons easily in reach are geography and financial resources. I certainly restricted my choice based on those criteria well before whether the school was any good, and I don't regret it at all.

by sytelus 12y ago

mindcrime 12y ago

No one turned down offer from Stanford for the opportunity to study at Fayetteville State Probably not, but my hypothesis is that there are people at, say, Fayetteville State, that could have gone to Stanford but never even bothered applying. Maybe they thought they couldn't afford it, maybe they didn't want to move so far from home, who knows. And I also believe there are people who "couldn't get in" to, say, Stanford, who would still have excelled at Stanford had they attended. Some people aren't good high school students for any number of reasons, but are much better college students, but they don't have the grades to get into the "elite" schools. So sure, if you came from a family who emphasized getting into Harvard or Stanford, and drove you relentlessly to get great grades, and provided all the support you needed all through high-school, and you were well fed everyday and had after-school SAT training, etc,, etc., then you probably should have gotten a 1600 on the SAT and gone to Harvard. But a LOT of people were missing one or more of those elements in their upbringing. Not to mention, some people (this was my story) basically just blow off high-school because they're bored senseless, resent being forced to attend, and aren't the people with the right temperament to be part of the cool clique and therefore despise huge swathes of their time at school. Of course, that same kid is probably going home and building Tesla coils and experimenting with high-voltage electronics, or writing code or something after school, but it isn't reflected in their grades, and it won't help them get into an "elite" school. Also keep in mind that I'm not saying that a Fayetteville State or UNC Pembroke represents a "fat pipeline". But I am saying it represents a pipeline, and one where a resource starved startup is less likely to be competing against Google or IBM or Facebook or Yahoo, etc., for people.

gojomo 12y ago
Interestingly, merely applying to top schools seems a very strong signal of future earning potential – whether or not you're admitted. See for example the details here: http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/ http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-...
- mindcrime 12y ago
  That is interesting. Thanks for sharing!
Amezarak 12y ago
Well, I'm just an anecdote, but I think that's definitely true. I never made less than an A in high school and I made a perfect score on the ACT. I feel pretty confident that had I applied at a "top school" I would have had a fair chance of getting in. Maybe not - I probably would have been weaker on the non-academic admission requirements. I ended up going to a local community college for free and then transferring to a state university where eventually I got my graduate degree. I received several awards while there for academic performance, had some papers published with my name on them, and had a 4.0 again. Frankly it never even occurred to me to apply to other schools. I just wasn't interested and nobody talked about it. If you asked me now why I didn't, I couldn't really tell you. Looking back, I'm sure some of it was moving away from home. In retrospect I would have been worse off financially - the scholarship didn't hold past the CC, so I paid cash for the rest (I worked a _lot_) until I got a TA position and graduated debt free. I think though some people in SV would still look at that in askance though, and see that as saying something - "hey, this guy's not as motivated" or "this guy wouldn't be as dedicate as much of his life" and maybe that's true. In terms of work performance, though, I don't see a difference and I've always received extremely positive reviews. No doubt there are things I'm missing out on, like the kind of connections I might have made at a top school, but I'm doing pretty well for myself and I don't regret anything.

burntsushi 12y ago

> No one turns down offer from Stanford for the opportunity to study at Fayetteville State. The most likely reason person ends up at non top 5 schools is because they couldn't get in those. I am extremely skeptical of this line of reasoning because it assumes that only important criterion for choosing a school is whether it's good or not (or, alternatively, whether it has brand recognition, depending on one's perspective). There are a vast swath of other reasons that could rank more highly then whether a school is good or not. Two reasons easily in reach are geography and financial resources. I certainly restricted my choice based on those criteria well before whether the school was any good, and I don't regret it at all.