
How to Level the College Playing Field - adenadel
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/07/opinion/sunday/harold-levy-college.html
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80386
Maybe we shouldn't keep the college system around in its current form at all.

In Iran, there's something called the Guardian Council. If you want to run for
an election, the Guardian Council has to approve you first. If they don't
approve you, you can't run.

We don't have that in America, and that's generally considered a good thing.
What we do have is an emphasis on credentials -- and the opportunity to get
these credentials is gatekept by admissions officers.

For example, look at the Supreme Court. Every current justice went to either
Harvard or Yale -- mostly Harvard. The last one not to attend either was
O'Connor. So, in practice, we have a guardian council here in America, which
determines, among (many) other things, who can get on the Supreme Court.

There's also the issue that not everyone understands the college game -- not
just admissions, but the importance of going to a brand-name college in the
first place. There are still a lot of parents and counselors and so on out
there who think the only thing that matters is getting the degree, no matter
where it's from. So if you don't come from a background where people know the
game, you're screwed for life, unless you can become a successful
entrepreneur.

~~~
logfromblammo
To be more precise, the name of the institution on the degree matters for only
a handful of universities. If you don't have one of those names, it doesn't
matter which name you have.

If the kid isn't getting in to one of the prestige-brand schools, the parents
and counselors are correct--many of the public universities and lesser-known
private colleges are essentially the same. But there is also a third tier,
composed mostly of community colleges, correspondence schools, and for-profit
"nationally accredited" colleges. That credential might not be enough to pass
by all gatekeepers.

Different universities occupy the top tier for different industries. For
instance, in software, MIT counts, but in politics, it doesn't.

It's not really the quality of the institution, but the strength of the brand,
and the nepotism by alumni. And it's the people you met that can pry open an
opportunity for you later. We don't live in a meritocracy. You still have to
know someone who knows someone.

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brohoolio
Definitely an interesting piece.

While college has the potential to be a great equalizer, society needs to
focus on the school system before kids reach college.

Teachers walked out in three states because they are so underpaid. Teacher
have second or third jobs.

You want everyone to have an equal footing? Let’s adequately fund our
education from k-12. And while we are at it let’s have some universal pre-k.

If we do both, we can have a more merit based society. If we just focus on
colleges, it won’t solve root cause.

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njarboe
If the traits that produce a person of high "merit" are 50% due to genetics
and another 25% to environment from conception to age 3 (as most studies
suggest), how to you plan on solving the "root cause" of the problem? In the
US at least, people a more and more mating with their peers in IQ,
conscientiousness, and culture. With the huge variation in human traits, a
meritocracy is going to see massive inequality especially over generations.
Careful what you wish for.

~~~
konceptz
Do you have a source for these statistics?

You put merit in quotes and then stated percentages plus the claim that there
is a growth in similar IQ partnering.

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iguy
50% genetic + 50% "unshared environment" is the rule of thumb for any complex
trait, I assume that's what GP had in mind.

Unshared env is a polite way of saying noise; approximately 0% "shared env"
i.e. parenting, education, etc. (There are many caveats, obviously.)

You could do worse than
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ#Estimates)
as a place to start.

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akhilcacharya
I think there are good points here - but the fact remains that it is
impossible to send every "qualified" candidate to a top school. What can we do
to make _not_ going to a top school less disadvantageous?

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eli_gottlieb
Make the top schools open up more seats, be they public or private.

~~~
bilbo0s
That's not a pragmatic solution though. Where will the top schools find more
"top" professors to teach and mentor all those new students? There are some
legitimate logistical realities that constrict the size of top schools. I'm
not sure they can be made any larger without compromising educational quality.

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eli_gottlieb
>Where will the top schools find more "top" professors to teach and mentor all
those new students?

A shortage of smart, ambitious PhDs seeking policy positions is, fortunately,
_not_ a problem our society has. Quite the contrary.

~~~
bilbo0s
But a shortage of ACCOMPLISHED PhD's seeking policy positions, IS,
unfortunately, a problem our society has.

You're dealing with a situation where the PhD, in and of itself, is not really
much of an accomplishment.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I think it's kinda bullshit to claim that most PhDs are bullshit.

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bilbo0s
Not what I said.

What I said was that when one is in the situation of selecting a professor to
be hired at an Ivy, the PhD in and of itself, is not really an accomplishment.
It's more akin to an "entrance fee".

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spodek
1) Say there is an absolute measure or at least good enough to base a
meritocracy on. If top schools are diverging from it, are they not then
rejecting top students? Shouldn't other colleges then be able to recruit those
rejected top students and become top schools? But the opposite is happening --
top schools are becoming more exclusive.

2) If diversity means different values, then doesn't that mean different
people will value different attributes? Doesn't that mean everyone deserves to
go to a top school, or at least everyone who thinks he or she is great by his
or her values?

Point 2 suggests that a meritocracy is impossible because there are too many
dimensions and measures, all the more so the more you value diversity.

I'm not promoting the above. It's just what came to mind reading the article.
I'm not sure what it missed because it doesn't sit right, but it suggests
whatever top schools are doing is working and that a meritocracy isn't as
tenable as you'd think.

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drewg123
"This may seem counterintuitive, but please stop giving to your alma mater.
Donors to top universities...."

Wow, I guess this assumes that the NYT's readership all went to "top
universities".

I happen to donate heavily to my alma mater, which is a no-name state school.
I donate to their honors college, which offers academic merit scholarships.
This program is what allowed me graduate debt free. On the other hand, I don't
even answer the phone when my (private, elite) graduate school asks for money.

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ianai
I feel like there is way too much heterogeneity in education. One bad Apple
teacher/professor will ruin significant portions of a generation. At th
college level, I’ve seen people lose scholarships because some professor had
an axe to grind - just for the sake of being mean.

Then things like the SATs and GRE compound the problem. Little human knowledge
accurately boils down to true/false, multiple choice, or robot graded
literature. I also used to hear tales of foreign students memorizing whole
books of solutions and essay examples. I competed with them while still doing
homework and taking tests - no rime for memorizing at any required scale.

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wallace_f
Access to top-tier education _and_ credentials simply needs to be a
competitive effort open to every person on the planet, not held hostage and
available via a selection process which has socioeconomic biases.

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sokoloff
What is the competitive process that you envision that has no socioeconomic
biases?

(I agree with you in an idealistic way, but I see millions of micro and dozens
of macro problems with trying to implement it.)

~~~
wallace_f
The work of people more gifted would be useful, as I doubt my first guess
attempt would be the most ideal solution. But what I imagine would be ideal
would be competition among solutions themselves, as well as more realistic
competition among education providers.

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wallflower
Legacy admissions probably tip the scale in close calls.

I applied to my mother's alma mater which is a top 10 ranking University. I
had nowhere near the GPA needed and they wrote back with a nice form rejection
letter that says that they had given special consideration as the child of an
alumni and regret not being able to offer an invitation to next year's class.

Then I've heard stories of parents donating $2M to get their legacy (child) in
to an Ivy League with below average grades.

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pluto9
> Then I've heard stories of parents donating $2M to get their legacy (child)
> in to an Ivy League with below average grades.

I had a friend who got into Notre Dame that way. His wealthy alumni
grandfather took him and the dean out to dinner one night and slid a generous
"donation" check across the table. Guy had something like a 1.8 GPA from high
school. He got in.

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RickJWagner
Some nice ideas from a montivated individual.

I hope MOOCs can play a part, too. They seem to hold hope for large-scale
change in the outdated college system.

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RickJWagner
Nice ideas, from a person with their heart in the right place.

I like the 'microcolleges' idea, I hope this and MOOCs can help solve this
problem.

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mettamage
If I was an American,I'd go to uni in Sweden, Norway or Germany. International
+ free/cheap education.

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Naritai
But that ignores a key underlying tenet of this discussion - that what school
you graduate from is a major factor in your employability in the upper
echelons of American society. If you want to get a top job in DC or Manhattan,
you'd better graduate from a school that's on the interviewers' very short
list of 'good' schools.

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brewdad
If my HS age son decides to go to college in Europe, I fully expect he'll do
so with the goal of remaining there to work after graduation. If current
trends in the US continue, I would strongly encourage it.

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Naritai
Alright, but that's an entirely different topic. Save that one for the
emigration-from-US thread.

