

YC Ivy League Bias - drm237
http://davidduey.typepad.com/weblog/2007/09/ivy-league-bias.html#isError:false
I enjoy reading Paul Graham's essays.  He's obviously a smart guy and usually has thought provoking and interesting essays.  He often looks at things from a different perspective and I like that a lot, although I don't always agree with his conclusions.  I've also followed along with his Y Combinator "seed investment firm."  However, I've never applied to Y Combinator or even considered applying because I've always felt like he leans heavily toward the Ivy League crowd. 
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Jd
Speaking from someone who attended one, it is very easy to go to an Ivy League
school and not excel simply because you (and everyone else there) are assumed
to excel because you attend one.

As a point of a comparison take China. China's most acclaimed school Peking
University is fiendishly difficult to get into but gives a ridiculously easy
education once you are there. Still, Peking U grads are able to go most places
they want. Schools with a science/math/engineering focus seem to do better at
maintaining a higher standard, but their students frequently come out looking
like they just popped out of a cookie-cutter - not even a hint of an
independent idea.

A fuller exploration question is of course more complicated than this, and
would have to address at least the following questions: Why did the core
curriculum of the West die? Could it be replaced with a broad and rigorous
humanities education or are broad and rigorous contradictory? If not, how can
they productively be combined?

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yters
I think the more important thing is depth and rigor. To have truly original
ideas, we need to understand the underpinnings of our current civilization.
Otherwise, many 'innovations' are merely going back down the path we came
from.

I had an undergrad education like this. We went through the main books of the
Western canon, and instead of being lectured at all the time, most of what we
did was creative and rigorously scholarly. We'd read a couple classics a week,
with a couple class debates/discussions concerning the works. Then, we'd have
to write a thesis every semester. Finally, we were highly encouraged to do
important extra-curricular activities such as acting or music. Probably one of
the best educations you can get in the US.

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Jd
St. John's?

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yters
No, it was at Biola University (private Christian college) with the Torrey
Honors Institute. Probably not quite up to par with St John's and the other
one (Thomas Aquinas?), since THI only started about 10 or so years ago.

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Jd
Fascinating. Were the THI students segregated from the rest of everyone?
Sounds like you enjoyed it? Any criticisms?

I suppose it doesn't surprise me that a conservative Christian would offer a
Western classics program. Still I am surprised I never heard of it before,
especially since it is based on D. Sayers philosophy of teaching (whom I
adore).

FYI my university's English program followed the reverse track, recently
removing Bunyan from the curriculum.

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yters
Check out scriptoriumdaily.com for the tutors' blog.

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Jd
Subscribed. Thx.

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myoung8
It wouldn't surprise me if a very large majority of YC applicants did NOT go
to the Ivy League.

Regardless of whether students/graduates of those schools are smarter, from
what I've heard there is much less of an entrepreneurial spirit in the Ivies.

If anything, I would think YC has a bias towards schools like MIT, Berkeley,
CalTech, Stanford, UIUC, etc., none of which are in the Ivy League.

(And by bias I don't mean an admissions bias, simply that a greater percentage
of accepted teams go to these schools)

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brianmckenzie
People from the 'top-tier' schools are shooting for a multitude of things
besides entrepreneurial success. I graduated from UChicago, and it seemed as
if a massive majority of my fellow students were going after law, banking, or
academia. At my five-year reunion I was one of the only people I met _not_
pursuing one of these paths. In addition, many students at these schools have
some kind of anti-business ideology or another, so subtract them from the
picture as well.

I agree that there are probably more great teams from the technical
universities and high-end state schools than from the ivies and famous private
universities.

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SwellJoe
I'm a data point on the side of YC not having an Ivy League (or "top tier")
school bias. I went to community college. For audio recording and music--I've
never taken a single computer class after high school AP classes. My co-
founder went to a good school in Australia, but I didn't know what it was when
filling out the application so I just said, "some school in Australia,
probably a good one, and probably for computer science".

That said, the number of Stanford, CMU, UC, MIT, etc. students and graduates
is quite high in YC, and I can't think of any other community college bums in
the bunch.

