<story><title>Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists</title><url>https://dynomight.net/harvard/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fossuser</author><text>&amp;gt; “On a personal note, I was accepted to an Ivy League school (though not Harvard) as a high school senior, but my family couldn&amp;#x27;t afford to send me there, so I had to go to a state school instead. My classmate and friend was accepted to MIT but also had to go to a state school because of money.”&lt;p&gt;This does fit my hypothesis that the outliers at state schools are likely undervalued in the market by recruiters. The averages at selective schools are a lot higher (work a few career fairs where you ask basic technical questions and this is obvious), but everyone is competing over them and the outliers at state schools are people like you with extenuating circumstances. Since the actual education product isn’t that different (though there is some difference), there’s probably opportunity in trying to recruit the best students from state schools companies tend to ignore.</text></item><item><author>lapcat</author><text>&amp;gt; This is a typical &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s be all equally poor&amp;#x2F;bad&amp;quot; argument.&lt;p&gt;I think you missed the point of the article, which was &amp;quot;Harvard exists to make society less meritocratic, and it does that while subsidized by everyone else.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Because selecting good people in a sea of resumes is HARD. Degrees aren&amp;#x27;t amazing proxies for productivity, but they are decent proxies.&lt;p&gt;The author discusses this: &amp;quot;The hardest part of Harvard is &lt;i&gt;getting in&lt;/i&gt;.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;High-stakes college admissions means that much of the value of a college degree is determined &lt;i&gt;before students even start college&lt;/i&gt;. If you must mark and sort young people, gross, but OK. But why do it at 18 rather than 22?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;On a personal note, I was accepted to an Ivy League school (though not Harvard) as a high school senior, but my family couldn&amp;#x27;t afford to send me there, so I had to go to a state school instead. My classmate and friend was accepted to MIT but also had to go to a state school because of money. This was decades ago, so perhaps things have changed recently, but my higher education was gated on my family&amp;#x27;s wealth, i.e., lack thereof. Was it a &amp;quot;meritocracy&amp;quot;? No fucking way.</text></item><item><author>glimshe</author><text>This is a typical &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s be all equally poor&amp;#x2F;bad&amp;quot; argument. Harvard is simply a private institution with excellent reputation and not a single person is &lt;i&gt;required&lt;/i&gt; to go there or hire someone from there.&lt;p&gt;Why do Harvard people &amp;quot;drive 20% above the speed limit&amp;quot;? Because selecting good people in a sea of resumes is HARD. Degrees aren&amp;#x27;t amazing proxies for productivity, but they are &lt;i&gt;decent&lt;/i&gt; proxies. I&amp;#x27;ve seen dozens of theories on how to interview and triage people, but few approaches beat the cost-benefit of supporting decisions based on a degree from a solid institution.&lt;p&gt;Having managed over 100+ people, I can say that &lt;i&gt;on average&lt;/i&gt; the people from better institutions are better employees - even though I have managed amazing people without college degrees and bad people with amazing degrees. The top schools can be pretty darn great, Harvard being just one of them.&lt;p&gt;Not very different than an Apple product being generally better than a product from some random vendor from Amazon with names like &amp;quot;GREAT TECH&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;SUPER QUALITY PRO&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CrazyStat</author><text>&amp;gt; The averages at selective schools are a lot higher&lt;p&gt;This is what I expected when I went from undergrad at a solid but not elite shool (top 100, ~50% admission rate) to grad school (top 10, single digit admission rate).&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not what I experienced. The undergrad students I taught and TA for at the elite school were no better, on average, than my peers at my undergrad school. They were more ambitious and entitled. They were not smarter or harder working or more engaged or motivated.</text></comment>
<story><title>Maybe the problem is that Harvard exists</title><url>https://dynomight.net/harvard/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fossuser</author><text>&amp;gt; “On a personal note, I was accepted to an Ivy League school (though not Harvard) as a high school senior, but my family couldn&amp;#x27;t afford to send me there, so I had to go to a state school instead. My classmate and friend was accepted to MIT but also had to go to a state school because of money.”&lt;p&gt;This does fit my hypothesis that the outliers at state schools are likely undervalued in the market by recruiters. The averages at selective schools are a lot higher (work a few career fairs where you ask basic technical questions and this is obvious), but everyone is competing over them and the outliers at state schools are people like you with extenuating circumstances. Since the actual education product isn’t that different (though there is some difference), there’s probably opportunity in trying to recruit the best students from state schools companies tend to ignore.</text></item><item><author>lapcat</author><text>&amp;gt; This is a typical &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s be all equally poor&amp;#x2F;bad&amp;quot; argument.&lt;p&gt;I think you missed the point of the article, which was &amp;quot;Harvard exists to make society less meritocratic, and it does that while subsidized by everyone else.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Because selecting good people in a sea of resumes is HARD. Degrees aren&amp;#x27;t amazing proxies for productivity, but they are decent proxies.&lt;p&gt;The author discusses this: &amp;quot;The hardest part of Harvard is &lt;i&gt;getting in&lt;/i&gt;.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;High-stakes college admissions means that much of the value of a college degree is determined &lt;i&gt;before students even start college&lt;/i&gt;. If you must mark and sort young people, gross, but OK. But why do it at 18 rather than 22?&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;On a personal note, I was accepted to an Ivy League school (though not Harvard) as a high school senior, but my family couldn&amp;#x27;t afford to send me there, so I had to go to a state school instead. My classmate and friend was accepted to MIT but also had to go to a state school because of money. This was decades ago, so perhaps things have changed recently, but my higher education was gated on my family&amp;#x27;s wealth, i.e., lack thereof. Was it a &amp;quot;meritocracy&amp;quot;? No fucking way.</text></item><item><author>glimshe</author><text>This is a typical &amp;quot;let&amp;#x27;s be all equally poor&amp;#x2F;bad&amp;quot; argument. Harvard is simply a private institution with excellent reputation and not a single person is &lt;i&gt;required&lt;/i&gt; to go there or hire someone from there.&lt;p&gt;Why do Harvard people &amp;quot;drive 20% above the speed limit&amp;quot;? Because selecting good people in a sea of resumes is HARD. Degrees aren&amp;#x27;t amazing proxies for productivity, but they are &lt;i&gt;decent&lt;/i&gt; proxies. I&amp;#x27;ve seen dozens of theories on how to interview and triage people, but few approaches beat the cost-benefit of supporting decisions based on a degree from a solid institution.&lt;p&gt;Having managed over 100+ people, I can say that &lt;i&gt;on average&lt;/i&gt; the people from better institutions are better employees - even though I have managed amazing people without college degrees and bad people with amazing degrees. The top schools can be pretty darn great, Harvard being just one of them.&lt;p&gt;Not very different than an Apple product being generally better than a product from some random vendor from Amazon with names like &amp;quot;GREAT TECH&amp;quot; or &amp;quot;SUPER QUALITY PRO&amp;quot;.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lapcat</author><text>&amp;gt; the outliers at state schools are people like you with extenuating circumstances.&lt;p&gt;Being middle class is an extenuating circumstance? ;-)</text></comment>