A new (and larger) Chetty study on elite college admissions is released today

Parents Forum
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Well, no, or rather I am pointing out something different.

It is more like if a given elite college stopped being interested in producing the sorts of graduates that the elites of US business wanted to hire into certain positions, then the elites of US business would stop hiring the graduates of that college.

Like, they wouldn’t be saying, “Huh, Harvard has turned itself into an MIT clone, but we used to hire 5 people a year from old-Harvard and only one from MIT, so now we have to hire 5 people a year from new-Harvard.” Instead, they would more likely say, “So this means we will now only be hiring one person a year from new-Harvard.”

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That’s actually interesting - I’ve never looked into it (because we try to optimize for peer environment, which is knowable in advance, not outcome, which isn’t):

on what dimensions in the corporate or academic world do Ivies grads as a group do better that MIT/Caltech ones?

(I know we never had an MIТ grad US president, I’ll give you that; whether that’s good or bad is debatable:)

ETA: but for what it’s worth, Israel has an MIT grad PM:)

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So going with anecdotes, my husband attended a non-competitive public college but is much, much more successful than his many friends that went to MIT (in our direct friend circle we’ve got 10+ MIT grads). In fact most of them have nice comfortable careers as engineers or software developers. That being said, I wouldn’t say that it doesn’t matter where you go, but people tend to overestimate the importance of the school while underestimating the importance of personal attributes that lead to success. Since most students – even fantastic ones - aren’t going to be accepted to MIT (or equivalent) should we let them believe their chances for success are lost because they didn’t get in?

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I’m not sure what you exactly meant by aristocracy and technocracy. Singapore is neither, IMO. The fact that its current Prime Minister was the son of a former prime minister doesn’t necessarily mean it’s an aristocracy. By all indications, he is highly competent, not only in his technical skills, but also in ways he’s able to communicate with the people there.

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One of the things that seems odd to me about these discussions (but maybe it is just on CC) is the focus on the needs and desires of CS and engineering kids and the lack of concern about students interested in other fields.

If the liberal arts colleges increase the number of admitted students who want to focus on CS and engineering fields, their other departments might die out or be reduced even further. So if part of their mission is to have robust departments across many fields, but a disproportionate number of students are applying who want to go into engineering and computer science, more of those kids are going to be disappointed than kids who are interested in other fields. My rising senior (who has wide interests and is currently undecided about major) has been told outright by her guidance counselor that she has a better chance of admission at many colleges if she focuses on her very strong interest in the humanities and the arts on her applications than if she talks about her interest in engineering. I bring this up becuase I think a lot of the frustration that I keep reading seems to come from students who aim for a CS or engineering degree. Thus, a 790 or 800 Math SAT is seen as proof of talent over a kid who might be a crappy math student but interested in studying Italian or Comparative literature or History or whatever. I don’t know how much of that is really about the type of family that uses this site the most.

And now I will say something that I know will be anathema to most posters. My oldest is at an elite college. And nine months of being surrounded by rich people there did what the previous four years at a private school did not. She went from being primarily interested in a career in the humanities to a summer job at a management consulting firm. And even though the summer is not even yet over, she has already signed a contract to return next summer. They offered a bigger bonus if she committed immediately, so she is dropping her opportunity to explore other careers next summer in favor of the guarantee of a job in a field that she perceives as more lucrative but she hasn’t particularly enjoyed this summer. I just think the money was too tempting say no. And while I am sure many posters would consider this a positive outcome because she’ll make a lot more than in other potential summer jobs, I am somewhat disappointed (keeping my lip zipped so she doesn’t know). I wish that she had at least waited and forgone the higher bonus to give her more time to consider other potential jobs.

I personally think the culture at her college is a bit toxic around money and her friendship group has made her think that management consulting and possibly finance are more desirable than her previous interests. Seems surprising to me that it took only nine months to get there after 12 years of being fascinated with other subjects. So I think it would be great if those ivy+ schools admitted fewer rich kids. I think the wealth creates a certain culture that I consider unfortunate. No one needs to debate me on this topic since it represents my values and I understand that many feel differently. And in any case, my kid doesn’t know that I wish she hadn’t already signed up for another summer. It makes me hope that the rising senior considers a different set of colleges (which ironically might cost us a lot more to attend compared to the elite ones with the fantastic no-loan financial aid).

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That doesn’t mean that the other schools have to operate the way they do now. They received plenty of donations from people who don’t care about legacy or donor preferences, and with their reputations, they can do even better with those donors if they want to.

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Two sons of the current Primer Minister of Singapore graduated from MIT (both in CS, I believe). They aren’t in politics as of now, but who knows. One of them may run Singapore one day, giving “evidence” to the argument by some that Singapore is an aristocracy. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Read “Excellent Sheep”. It’s been around for a while. But your D may be responding less to “rich kids” than kids who need to succeed at whatever is most selective.

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If it was just an anachronism that became tradition at a few select schools, like rowing at Oxbridge… But when I see public universities diverting efforts, hiring, funds, real estate - then the question becomes different for me?

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So this immediately runs into a huge self-selection problem. Harvard and MIT grads do not all want the same jobs, indeed many chose their college path in light of their job goals, and so it is extremely difficult to control for all that.

But we are not really talking about “better” in the sense of value added for a student with those interests. The example I gave was actually based in part on the understanding that new-Harvard, as an MIT clone, would converge on MIT in terms of these self-selection factors too.

With that background, let’s do a couple obvious comparisons.

In terms of per capita PhD program placement, MIT crushes Harvard. MIT is 4th on this list, Harvard way down at #31.

OK, but in terms of per capita “T14” law school placement, Harvard is #3 on this list, MIT didn’t make the top 30:

OK, so it turns out there are a lot of lawyers not just in important positions in the legal world, but also in government positions and indeed business positions. And Harvard College grads are disproportionately represented in those positions, and this is part of why.

OK, so now imagine new-Harvard becomes a clone of MIT. I would bet new-Harvard would end up way higher on that PhD list, and eventually would converge on MIT. I would also bet new-Harvard would drop off that law school list.

Meaning, I don’t think new-Harvard, as an MIT clone, would keep sending all those graduates to the T14 law schools, and then on to the same positions in law, government, and business. Because of course not.

OK, what about direct business placement? Well, here is an IB study:

Harvard is #2 on the per capita list. MIT, not on the list at all. I don’t actually know that it is harder on an individual basis to get into IB from MIT, as that author explicitly states, because of the self-selection problem. But I am quite confident if Harvard became an MIT clone, it would drop off this list too.

OK, so that’s the world we live in. Again, I would suggest Harvard’s position near the top of the T14 law school list and IB list reflect that world, they don’t create it. And MIT is not at the top of these lists, because it isn’t trying to be, and neither are most of the students who go to MIT trying to achieve those outcomes.

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My point was that different societies have different ideas of merit, and then the rest of what I wrote followed from there.

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Looking at bullets 2 and 3 the richest 1% score higher on these factors because of resources and a willingness to devote those resources to achieving excellence across many of the factors that elite schools value as part of the admissions process.

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I definitely don’t want to debate your values.

But I will just throw out that I am very skeptical about trying to disentangle the web of social and economic forces that lead to the schools that operate like that dominating the “top” 20 or so universities in the US News rankings.

However, there is a world of other excellent colleges available, some of which send far fewer kids into high-paying business careers. And in fact, many have truly excellent placement records, fanatically loyal alumni networks, and so on.

So, my personal thought is families already have the power to control their own fates by opting out of the “Ivy+” system and instead thinking about the “best” colleges for their children in a different way.

Changing the “Ivy+” system to better reflect their values, on the other hand, seems like a largely impossible task to me.

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It would be interesting to see a list of the schools that send the most students to T10 PhD programs by field, rather than all PhD programs. Does such a list exist?

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That is true in the sense it is voluntary.

What they have sometimes argued (when pressed) is their own internal data and analysis and experience supports the conclusion that in the extremely long run, the time scale on which they operate, multi-generational relationships help lead to higher giving.

There has been some empirical pushback, but none of that, to my knowledge, has really tried to test these theories on a sufficient time scale.

So I personally have no idea if they are right or not.

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Did they really? Or, did they just ‘codify’ what was always in place. I would lean towards the latter. It was less of an issue not that long ago when people recognized these schools as great schools but were more likely to attend what was elite in their ‘region’ if they were looking to attend an elite school.

For perspective it wasn’t that long ago that Ivy’s had admissions rates of 30% and schools like Northeastern was above 95%.

This is wrong and was wrong as well all recognize it as such.

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Fair enough! Let’s wish each other that our kids end up at their top choices next year! :clinking_glasses:

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Jon Boeckenstedt typically puts the data in nice Tableau tables. Here is the one with the data from 2016-2020 (the most recent), where you can sort by doctoral area.

Source data is from the NSF, goes back 60+ years, and is available here: https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf22321

Build your own table here: NCSES | NSF

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I have seen lists something like that in specific fields. I don’t think I have seen a list like that which includes all PhD programs.

Like, here, for example, is a “T10” Philosophy PhD program feeder study:

Which makes sense to me. Like, if you are interested in going to a top Philosophy PhD program, you might want to know about undergrad placement in top Philosophy PhD programs. You wouldn’t see much relevance to undergrad placement in top Chemical Engineering PhD programs. And therefore a list that combined the two is just adding noise around the signal.

But that list is instructive in that in Philosophy, Harvard is back to being a top PhD feeder, with 8 in that study. MIT–which itself actually has a qualifying PhD program in Philosophy–only had 1 (see Note 5).

OK, so that PhD feeder list does NOT show that MIT sends more students to top PhD programs than Harvard in every single field.

But I think it does show that in general, more people who go to MIT want to go to a PhD program, in whatever it may be.

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So maybe Harvard is not infallible after all.