Average IQ at Harvard?

siserune · March 4, 2007, 12:17am

The factors cited here as lowering the grad student IQ average have, if anything, a stronger negative effect on the undergrad population IQ at Harvard.

To take some examples from above:

--- undergrads who don't enter grad school within 5-6 years of graduation may include some who have amazing business options due to their brilliance, but for every one of those, there are several Harvard undergrads whose grades, ambitions and talents (or lack thereof) support neither a grad-school application nor appetizing job prospects. That is, the population of "grad school avoiders" oversamples the bottom of the spectrum, just as the population of PhD students at Harvard oversamples the top.

--- weak PhD departments tend to be weak undergrad departments, except that they are often larger at undergrad level. There are many more English majors in proportion to undergrad than at PhD level, because funding is scarce for comparative literature and poetry compared to engineering.

--- some departments do indeed rely on lab work and recommendations to admit students, more so than IQ surrogates per se. However, this is also true for the undergrad population, where credentials including lab work and recommendation letters (not to mention evidence of work ability such as grades and "class rank") are far less discriminating and IQ-loaded than for the grad students. What mollyB forgets is that those PhD lab slaves in biochemistry, chemistry, etc had to pass IQ-loaded filters such as getting good grades in Orgo and Physical Chemistry in order to be live candidates for admission, which again puts them ahead of the lower 30 percent of Harvard undergrads (or 50 or 20, it doesn't change the conclusion).

--- the international pool is far stronger at grad level than undergrad, for obvious reasons. Over and above the usual litany, let me also note that of the 8-9 percent of "international" students at undergrad level, 20-25 per cent are from Canada and a similar share are from American international schools abroad, schools for diplomats and similar admission paths that are no harder than the domestic US admissions. Relatively few of the internationals at undergrad level at Harvard come from the hypercompetitive brilliant-and-hungry pool that populate the PhD programs later on.

The list can be continued. The bottom line is, again, that:

PhD admission oversamples the top of the undergrad IQ spectrum and undersamples the bottom, and the same is true for selecting tenured faculty from those with PhD's.

molliebatmit · March 4, 2007, 12:51am

I got a B in organic. P-chem too. The kids who got A's in those classes at MIT (and Harvard) as undergrads are not in my PhD program, because they are in medical school or working as consultants.

One fact we know is that Harvard undergrads have, on average, very high SAT scores. A fact we don't know is the average SAT or GRE scores of Harvard graduate students; I would strongly suspect that the average Harvard grad student got a lower percentile on the GRE than the average Harvard undergrad got on the SAT, simply because undergraduate admissions places more emphasis on SAT scores than graduate admissions does.

sakky · March 4, 2007, 1:53am

[quote]
firstly i will like to admit that english is not a department full of internationals... i dont know how that got into my list... u will notice that except at one place i have never mentioned english

[/quote]

Well, it frankly doesn't matter whether it was on your list at all. I was talking about ALL Harvard GSAS students, which includes the humanities, the social sciences, and so forth.

I can introduce you to some Harvard graduate students in the social sciences who freely admit that they don't think they're geniuses, and still wonder to this day why Harvard admitted them (after all, they were rejected by plenty of other graduate programs).

[quote]
2ndly, IITs have a 100% yield...

[/quote]

False. They do not have a 100% yield. I know that because I know a number of Indians who got into IIT, but chose American schools like MIT instead. So the fact that they are here in the US by definition means that IIT's don't have a 100% yield. In fact, there are plenty of Indians who have gotten into IIT but have chosen to study somewhere else (chiefly at a Western university). For example, there is quite a large contingent of Indians not only in US universities, but also at Ox-bridge (and I'm not talking about Indian-British people, but Indians from India). I have to imagine that at least one of them got into IIT.

[quote]
it has a 2% acceptance rate

[/quote]

True, but that's because of a quirk in the IIT system. To get into IIT, all you have to do is score highly on just one exam (the IIT-JEE exam). That's it. Now, granted this is a difficult test. But if you score highly, you're in. So you could have done absolutely terrible in high school - just terrible, but if you somehow manage to score highly on that exam, you're in.

So think about what that means. It means that many Indians treat the IIT-JEE as basically a 'hail mary' - especially those who did poorly in high school and therefore don't have means to get into any other school. Honestly, you have nothing to lose by taking the exam. If you do poorly, oh well, you don't get into IIT.

Think of it this way. Let's say that Harvard were to now run admissions purely on an entrance exam, the way that they used to 100 years ago. We all know what would happen. We'd have all these guys show up to take the exam just to see if they might get lucky. There would be guys who barely graduated from high school who would try the exam, just to see if they could get into Harvard. Honestly - why not try it?

The point is, the 2% figure is a highly highly misleading figure. Every single testtaker of the IIT-JEE is considered to be an "applicant". It would be like if Harvard were to count every single person who took the SAT or ACT as an "applicant". What happens in the US is if you do poorly on your standardized tests, you probably won't apply to Harvard because you know you won't get in, so why waste all that time in even applying? But if we were counting every single SAT/ACT test-taker as an "applicant", then Harvard's "admissions percentage" would drop like a rock .

[quote]
IIT is not tough at all.

[/quote]

Oh really? Then perhaps you'd like to explain to IIT grad Sudhakar Shenoy that it's 'not tough at all'. Seems to me that he found it to be pretty tough.

*Sudhakar Shenoy recalls fondly that “IIT taught us critical thinking because you can only survive there if you can think.” He attributes his success in business today to what he learned at IIT. “We learned survival skills. It toughened you because it was like living in a war zone every day. We were on edge all the time. I still have a few nightmares a year, waking up with a start believing that I have failed to study for an exam.” *

<a href="http://littleindia.com/january2003/Dream%20Team.htm%5B/url%5D">http://littleindia.com/january2003/Dream%20Team.htm</a>

Heck, in your own 60 Minutes article (which I actually saw when it was aired the first time, so I know it quite well), Vinod Khosla doesn't seem to remember his time in IIT as 'not tough at all'.

"“When I finished IIT Delhi and went to Carnegie Mellon for my
master's, I thought I was cruising all the way through Carnegie Mellon
because it was so easy, relative to the education I had gotten at IIT Delhi,” says Khosla. "

[quote]
most will NOT choose harvard i can assure you, despite Indian economic conditions being inferior to US because at the end of the day what matters to Indians due to their cultural upbringing is the quality of education and not standard of living... and if u still are wondering if that maybe true, look at this

[/quote]

Uh, no, that is NOT true, as the quality of education does NOT trump standard of living for Indians.

Consider the following quote:

"As Achal Mehra (IIT Kanpur, editor of Little India Magazine) coyly says, “IIT doesn’t want anyone to know this, but it hasn’t been the people at the top of the class that have gone on to be successful. It’s actually those who spent their time in activities outside of academics that have been most successful"

<a href="http://littleindia.com/january2003/Dream%20Team.htm%5B/url%5D">http://littleindia.com/january2003/Dream%20Team.htm</a>

Besides, I'll put it to you this way. If IIT is really such a great place to advance yourself socially and economically, then why is it that not a single Prime Minister of India has ever studied at IIT? You have Indian PM's who graduated from British universities (Manmohan Singh at Oxford and Cambridge, Rajiv Gandhi at ICL and Cambridge, Indira Gandhi at Oxford). Why is it that none of the top 10 richest people in India went to IIT? Azim Premji went to Stanford, Kumar Mangalam Birla went to LBS. It could be more than just the top 10, I just got tired of checking. But anyway, I think the point has been made - if IIT is really so great, shouldn't it be producing more of the elite economic and political class within India?

<a href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/results.jhtml?passListId=77&passYear=2004&passListType=Person&searchParameter1=&searchParameter2=&resultsStart=1&resultsHowMany=25&resultsSortProperties=%2Bnumberfield1%2C%2Bstringfield2&resultsSortCategoryName=Rank&passKeyword=&category1=category&category2=category%5B/url%5D">http://www.forbes.com/lists/results.jhtml?passListId=77&passYear=2004&passListType=Person&searchParameter1=&searchParameter2=&resultsStart=1&resultsHowMany=25&resultsSortProperties=%2Bnumberfield1%2C%2Bstringfield2&resultsSortCategoryName=Rank&passKeyword=&category1=category&category2=category</a>

[quote]
and by the way, all u have been doing is saying why grads are not brilliant... but y do u think the undergrads are?

[/quote]

I never said that undergrads were all brilliant either. It's a matter of degree (no pun intended). I have seen no evidence to indicate that Harvard PhD GSAS students are in any way more brilliant than Harvard undergraduates. Obviously they're more mature, they've read more, and they obviously know how to do research. But brilliant? By any reasonable definition of 'brilliance', I have detected no difference between UG's and grads.

sakky · March 4, 2007, 2:23am

[quote]
weak PhD departments tend to be weak undergrad departments, except that they are often larger at undergrad level. There are many more English majors in proportion to undergrad than at PhD level, because funding is scarce for comparative literature and poetry compared to engineering.

[/quote]

It is true that some departments are funded better than others. But the effect of this in terms of 'brilliance' is highly ambiguous. See below.

[quote]
--- some departments do indeed rely on lab work and recommendations to admit students, more so than IQ surrogates per se. However, this is also true for the undergrad population, where credentials including lab work and recommendation letters (not to mention evidence of work ability such as grades and "class rank") are far less discriminating and IQ-loaded than for the grad students.

[/quote]

Actually, you just hit upon a major issue right there. Harvard grad school admits * by department *. Yet the fact is, some Harvard departments are just not as good as others. The shining example would be DEAS (Engineering and Applied Sciences), which, although it is certainly better than the average engineering department in the country, let's face it, is nowhere near to being elite. Come on. We all know that the strongest and most serious engineering grad students in the world don't want to go to Harvard. They'd rather go to MIT. Or Stanford. Or Berkeley. Or perhaps Caltech or Illinois. To them, Harvard would be a safety school. The same thing could be said for the Harvard French department, ranked #17 in the NRC. So you end up with Harvard grad students in French who couldn't get into any of the top French programs (which would be places like Yale or Princeton). Many other examples exist.

Hence, what that means is that you end up with plenty of graduate students who are not that great, but who end up in Harvard because they got in through one of the weaker departments. In fact, quite a few of them have actually gamed it this way - that they couldn't get into Harvard for undergrad, so going there for grad school in one of the weaker departments allows them to 'backdoor' their way into Harvard. So now they can say that they're a Harvard student (but not mention the fact that they're in a relatively weak department)

You can't do that for Harvard undergrad. Undergrad admissions are completely integrated and unified - all applicants are judged by the same criteria, regardless of major. Hence, you can't sneak into Harvard undergrad by applying to one of the weaker departments. That backdoor doesn't exist.

[quote]
--- the international pool is far stronger at grad level than undergrad, for obvious reasons. Over and above the usual litany, let me also note that of the 8-9 percent of "international" students at undergrad level, 20-25 per cent are from Canada and a similar share are from American international schools abroad, schools for diplomats and similar admission paths that are no harder than the domestic US admissions. Relatively few of the internationals at undergrad level at Harvard come from the hypercompetitive brilliant-and-hungry pool that populate the PhD programs later on.

[/quote]

If anything, the issue of internationals I think actually STRENGTHENS my argument. That's because international students, especially from non-English speaking countries, tend to be the ones to apply to technical grad programs, including engineering programs. And, like I said, the Harvard DEAS program is relatively weak. The students who tend to go to DEAS for grad school tend to be the ones who couldn't get into any of the top engineering schools like MIT or Stanford.

Mr_Payne · March 4, 2007, 4:39am

[quote]
One fact we know is that Harvard undergrads have, on average, very high SAT scores. A fact we don't know is the average SAT or GRE scores of Harvard graduate students; I would strongly suspect that the average Harvard grad student got a lower percentile on the GRE than the average Harvard undergrad got on the SAT, simply because undergraduate admissions places more emphasis on SAT scores than graduate admissions does.

[/quote]
This is an extremely poor argument due to self selectivity. The pool taking the GRE is much, much smaller and biased towards the top. Naturally anyone who takes the GRE will likely have a lower percentile than their SAT percentile. How many people who take the GRE had an SAT score below 1000? Perhaps maybe 5%?

tokenadult · March 4, 2007, 9:46am

As usual, Sakky is pointing to specific examples and verifiable facts. I too don't think that the base acceptance rate on the JEE is a sufficient "proof" that the Indian Institute of Technology campuses are the hardest universities in the world to get into. Difficult, to be sure, and full of very smart and highly motivated students, but Sakky's point is one that I have made elsewhere in cyberspace: the correct way to compare pass rates on the JEE to base acceptance rates for United States universities is to compare the ENTIRE population of high school students who take the required tests (at Harvard, either the SAT I or the ACT plus any three SAT II Subject Tests) and then see how many "applicants" end up being admitted at each school. That gets closer to a true selectivity figure that is comparable internationally. In India, Taiwan, China, Russia, Japan, and in general all the countries with a national examination system there are students at the bottom of the application pool who have NIL chance to get into college, and more who have no chance to get into each country's most desired college. Those poorly prepared high school students don't really provide a lot of competition for the students who are best prepared.

The late Julian Stanley, who probably was personally acquainted with more really high-IQ students than anyone since Lewis Terman, wrote an authoritative textbook on educational testing with Kenneth Hopkins. Studying how IQ tests compare to college entrance tests, they concluded that IQ test scores vary not according to general intelligence, but according to scholastic ability (Hopkins & Stanley 1981, p. 348). They noted

[quote]
The Binet scales and their descendants are perhaps the most publicized accomplishments of modern psychology. The term IQ, though often misunderstood, is a household word. The practical success of the “IQ test,” in its ability to place individuals along a spectrum of scholastic aptitude from dull to bright and in its relationship to school and occupational success, has overshadowed doubt about what the tests were measuring in an exact, psychological sense.

[/quote]

They went on to mention the famous discussion of the meaning of the word “intelligence” in the Journal of Educational Psychology in 1921, in which fourteen psychologists came up with fourteen distinct definitions for that term, leading Harvard Professor of Psychology E. G. Boring to declare that intelligence is “that which an intelligence test measures,” avoiding the issue of checking the construct validity of IQ tests. Hopkins and Stanley were more up to date with the latest research in 1981 than many authors on gifted education were decades later when they wrote (p. 364),

[quote]
Most authorities feel that current intelligence tests are more aptly described as 'scholastic aptitude' tests because they are so highly related to academic performance, although current use suggests that the term intelligence test is going to be with us for some time. This reservation is based not on the opinion that intelligence tests do not reflect intelligence but on the belief that there are other kinds of intelligence that are not reflected in current tests; the term intelligence is too inclusive.

[/quote]

This thread is months old, started before some current participants had ever made even one post to CC. The concern of the OP was that his IQ might be much below the average IQ of Harvard students, and thus that he might have little chance of being accepted to Harvard. The way to deal with that issue is the same way Indian students deal with the admission requirements of IIT: go through the admission process and see what happens. Since then, the thread has ramified with many speculative statements about who has what IQ at Harvard, with only one post (post #30) actually citing a source for an estimate of the IQ of Harvard students in general that actually derives from giving IQ tests to Harvard students. The original article related to that news story says that the researchers determined IQs for a sample of Harvard students with a short-form IQ test.

[quote]
Participants completed the Vocabulary and Block Design subtests of the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale—Revised (WAIS-R; Wechsler, 1981). Raw scores were age scaled, combined to form a composite, and converted to a full-scale equivalent, using standard guidelines (Brooker & Cyr, 1986). IQ estimates compiled from this “short form” correlate at r .91 with full-scale WAIS-R IQ scores (Brooker & Cyr, 1986). Because IQ scores using the short form typically overestimate IQ by 3 points (Brooker & Cyr, 1986), IQ scores were adjusted by subtracting 3 points from the total for each participant.

[/quote]

tokenadult · March 4, 2007, 10:49am

From the original published research paper by the author mentioned in the news article cited in post #30, I have finally found a figure for the range of IQ scores among Harvard undergraduates.

[quote]
Eighty-six Harvard undergraduates (33 men, 53 women), with a mean age of 20.7 years (SD = 3.3) participated in the study. All were recruited from sign-up sheets posted on campus.

[/quote]

[quote]
The mean IQ of the sample was 128.1 points (SD = 10.3), with a range of 97 to 148 points.

[/quote]

Both the highest IQ figure found in the Harvard sample and the lowest are interesting in light of the discussion above in this thread.

<a href="http://www.nidsci.org/pdf/carson-peterson-higgins.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.nidsci.org/pdf/carson-peterson-higgins.pdf</a>

microsoft · March 4, 2007, 11:39am

[quote]
I can introduce you to some Harvard graduate students in the social sciences who freely admit that they don't think they're geniuses, and still wonder to this day why Harvard admitted them (after all, they were rejected by plenty of other graduate programs).

[/quote]

...and I can introduce you to some Harvard undergraduate students who freely admit that they don't think they're brilliant, and still wonder to this day why Harvard admitted them. This was no point.

[quote]
"They do not have a 100% yield. I know that because I know a number of Indians who got into IIT, but chose American schools like MIT instead. So the fact that they are here in the US by definition means that IIT's don't have a 100% yield."

[/quote]

They are very few in number. If not 100% it is still close to 100% something like 99%. This is a well know fact. Harvard yield figures (60% or 70 %) comes nowhere near the IITs.

[quote]
"In fact, there are plenty of Indians who have gotten into IIT but have chosen to study somewhere else (chiefly at a Western university). For example, there is quite a large contingent of Indians not only in US universities, but also at Ox-bridge (and I'm not talking about Indian-British people, but Indians from India). I have to imagine that at least one of them got into IIT.... why is it that not a single Prime Minister of India has ever studied at IIT? You have Indian PM's who graduated from British universities (Manmohan Singh at Oxford and Cambridge, Rajiv Gandhi at ICL and Cambridge, Indira Gandhi at Oxford). Why is it that none of the top 10 richest people in India went to IIT?"

[/quote]

Umm, No. There are plenty of Indians who study at western univs but these are not the people who got into IITs. I never said the ordinary Indian does not prefer a US univ. But those who get into IITs they dont look any further. At least 99% of them. Secondly, in India politics is not a respected profession. It is full of people who dont even have a college degree. Brilliant Indians never join Indian politics. Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaramm, Arun Jaitley and a few other top notch politicians are the very few extremely motivated people who decided to join politics to do something for the country. IITians inveitably follow the research or business path. So it is no wonder you dont see top politicians who were IITians.

[quote]
"To get into IIT, all you have to do is score highly on just one exam (the IIT-JEE exam)."

[/quote]

Do you have any idea how tough that exam is? If not you should take a look at some of the question papers. People cant clear that terrifying exam even after preparing for 5 years or more because it is based not on information but on innovation. There are thousands of coaching institutes of India who run exclusive IIT coaching centers and their advertisements carry only 3-4 alumni who managed to get into IIT. That turns out to be sufficient for their marketing.

[quote]
"So you could have done absolutely terrible in high school - just terrible, but if you somehow manage to score highly on that exam, you're in."

[/quote]

Someone who doesnt do well in the Indian High Schools (which is way easy compared to IIT standards though much higher than US standards) has zero chance of clearing IITs. As I said, IITs require special coaching. It is the toughest exam in the world. Cracking it brands you brilliant.

[quote]
"We'd have all these guys show up to take the exam just to see if they might get lucky."

[/quote]

Get lucky huh? You think you can get lucky in three 3-hour long papers (one each in maths, physics and chemistry) full of the toughest questions? If you do you are speaking without information. Also bear in mind that before you are allowed to take the IIT exam you have to take the IIT screening test. The screening test allows only around 20000 of the 300000 students who appear for the exam. And then the final exam selects around 4000 people. If you think you can get lucky in this system you are wrong. You can get lucky in the harvard undergrad admissions but not in the IITs.

[quote]
Oh really? Then perhaps you'd like to explain to IIT grad Sudhakar Shenoy that it's 'not tough at all'. Seems to me that he found it to be pretty tough.

[/quote]

It is not tough when you say the IIT-JEE is a tough exam. At IITs the academic pressure is not high because the best brains are studying. Sure it maybe tough for a US undergrad but not the IITians. What makes it tough is that there is a social pressure on you to excel in all fields. When I said IIT life is not tough, I meant IIT academic life is not tough due to the quality of the students. If you ask Sudhakar you will find out that it was not that he was studying all the time and found the academics tough. I am sure he called it tough after being exposed to the US academic quality (which has other advantages and I am not saying that Indian system is superior). IIT college life is great fun and if you have any doubt you should just clarify from Sudhakar.

[quote]
"Uh, no, that is NOT true, as the quality of education does NOT trump standard of living for Indians."

[/quote]

It does when the choice is between IIT and harvard.

[quote]
"Why is it that none of the top 10 richest people in India went to IIT?"

[/quote]

Dont you think you have confused yourself? We were discussing of intellectual abilities here. The most brainy people are not the ones who go on to become the richest. They could have if they wanted to but their priorities are different.

So now if you start judging brilliance by bank balance I am helpless. But still let me remind you that:

<ol>
<li>the richest americans like buffet went to nebraska, adelson went to CUNY, ellison went to Illinois, allen went to washington state, walton to arkansas, dell to texas at austin, alice walton to trinity university and bill gates dropped out from harvard. So all this noise u r making about IITians not having the best businessman from India doesnt do your arguments much good. A university cannot be judged by the rich men it produces.</li>
<li>But still if you will like to know the business acumen of IItians: Vinod Khosla founded Sun Microsystems, Rajat Gupta is MD of McKinsey, Arun Sarin is CEO of Vodafone, Rekhi is CTO of Novell, Victor Menezes is Vice Chairman of Citigroups, Narayanmurthy is founder of Infosys, Satch Pai is Vice President of Schlumberger, Arun Netravali is President of Bell labs, Arjun Malhotra founded HCL technologies, Ronojoy Dutta president of United Airlines, Avi Nash is advisory diretor of Goldman Sachs, Rakesh Gangwal CEO of US airways, Srivastava is corporate vice president of microsoft, Padmasree warrior is CTO of motorola, etc etc etc... the list is endless.</li>
<li>Regarding the achievements of IITians in research I dont even know where to begin. Suffice to say that the MIT, Stanford, Berkeley engineering schools have the largest number of fellowhip recipients from IITs.</li>
</ol>

[quote]
"By any reasonable definition of 'brilliance', I have detected no difference between UG's and grads."

[/quote]

No? Then you should talk to some physics or maths or eco or business grads. Sure that there are some deps like sociology which have brilliance comparable to undergrads but you would be careful not generalizing that to all departments since GSAS is huge.

[quote]
"Yet the fact is, some Harvard departments are just not as good as others. The shining example would be DEAS (Engineering and Applied Sciences), which, although it is certainly better than the average engineering department in the country, let's face it, is nowhere near to being elite."

[/quote]

So? There are still a large number of graduate programs which are top in their fields and why do you choose DEAS only. It doesnt prove anything when you claim to be "talking about ALL Harvard GSAS students".

[quote]
"so going there for grad school in one of the weaker departments allows them to 'backdoor' their way into Harvard."

[/quote]

Talking of backdoor entries, there are plenty of legacy admits at undergrad level. They come nowhere near being called brilliant. At least the grads cross a minimum threshold, these undergrads dont even cross that. They are just there because their parents are famous or donated large amounts of money to harvard or are influential. That's why it is best not to bet on the quality of a random harvard undergrad. But you can do it for an MIT/Stanford undergrad and you will be safe.

[quote]
"If anything, the issue of internationals I think actually STRENGTHENS my argument. That's because international students, especially from non-English speaking countries, tend to be the ones to apply to technical grad programs, including engineering programs."

[/quote]

Not true. Harvard is know for its Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Economics and Business. They attract the top notch here from foreign countries. The fact that internationals abound in grad programs just proves that the selection for grad programs is much tougher and if anything leads to better student quality. This is also strengthened by the small number of seats in the grad programs. So when we talk of a random or average undergrad vs a random or average grad, the chances are that you will find the grad much brighter.

foolonthehill161 · March 4, 2007, 11:56am

microsoft, I think sakky was just trying to make a point about IIT's possibly misleading acceptance rate.

microsoft · March 4, 2007, 12:43pm

[quote]
The point is, the 2% figure is a highly highly misleading figure. Every single testtaker of the IIT-JEE is considered to be an "applicant". It would be like if Harvard were to count every single person who took the SAT or ACT as an "applicant". What happens in the US is if you do poorly on your standardized tests, you probably won't apply to Harvard because you know you won't get in, so why waste all that time in even applying? But if we were counting every single SAT/ACT test-taker as an "applicant", then Harvard's "admissions percentage" would drop like a rock .

[/quote]

Here is what I think is wrong with your assumptions. You think IIT-JEE is like a SAT exam in which all Indian high school students sit. No! Most high school students dont sit for IIT-JEE simply because they dont think they will get in. It is something exactly analogus to the situation where you wont consider applying to Harvard if you think you have no chances. You can use your SAT scores to apply for Lesley and not Harvard. You dont have to do anything special for Lesley. But IIT-JEE results can be used for admission only to IITs. You CANT use it for admission to any other college. That is why taking IIT-JEE means APPLYING to IIT. It is a different system in India. Dont draw unjustified parallels.

Most students dont appear for IIT-JEE simply because they dont think they have the chances. (Why pay the fees if I know I wont get in? Very few Indians have the luxury of going about paying application fees to places where they dont have any chance.) Appearing in IIT-JEE is exactly like applying to IITs. If you get the required cut-off marks you are accepted.

There are some (very few) who just think that "oh well! I know I am not good enough but let me pay the fees and take a try at the IIT admissions" but these are very few in number.

In a similar way you have hundreds of students who apply to Harvard just "in case" some miracle happened and they got in. They are the ones who are largely responsible for the "low acceptance rate" (by US standards) of Harvard.

It is a big mistake to compare SAT with IIT-JEE. Unlike SAT, there are no generalized tests that Indian students are required to take. Their admissions are based on engineering entrance exams like All India Engineering Entrance Exams, Common Entrance Test, West Bengal Joint Entrance Exam and so on. The admissions to pure sciences and Arts are controlled by your board exam results which you appear for at the end of the high school and personal interviews. Those who take the IITs are those few students (300000 is small number for Indian population standards) who have been working hard and dream to make it to the IITs. It is exactly the same as applying to IITs.

If we were to search for an analog of the total number SAT takers for India, you will have to look for the total number of high school students in India who are studying science (and hence maybe considered for IIT admission) and that is a daunting number. I managed to find the statistics for one of them from wikipedia: West Bengal. It has 750000 people who pass out annually each year. If I consider only a third of them (since there are three distinct streams in India: science, arts and commerce) and multiply that with 26 (since India has 26 states) I have the number of "equivalent SAT takers" as 6500000.

That will bring down the acceptance rate of IITs to 0.092%. Of course my calculations are flawed because:

<ol>
<li>I considered number of students who are studying commerece, arts and science are nearly the same (when the truth is number of students in arts is much higher... but hey that just makes my figures more conservative).</li>
<li>I assumed that all states have nearly same population (not a bad assumption because West Bengal is an average sized state).</li>
<li>I assumed that all students studying science are interested in a college degree (when in reality many in India cant afford to pay for college).</li>
</ol>

But still the calculations support what I was trying to prove: equating number of SAT takers with number of people who appear for IIT-JEE is a mistake. The acceptance rate of IITs is a correct figure because these IIT-JEE test takers all have prepared for the exam and in essence are "applying" to the IITs.

sakky · March 4, 2007, 6:44pm

[quote]
...and I can introduce you to some Harvard undergraduate students who freely admit that they don't think they're brilliant, and still wonder to this day why Harvard admitted them. This was no point.

[/quote]

Sure it is, because I am dispelling the romanticized notion that all, or even the vast majority of grad students are brilliant (or at least think they are).

[quote]
They are very few in number. If not 100% it is still close to 100% something like 99%. This is a well know fact. Harvard yield figures (60% or 70 %) comes nowhere near the IITs.

[/quote]

Uh, the Harvard yield is about 80%, as can be verified below. I would like to see you verify the IIT yield data. I'll be waiting.

<a href="http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/SearchResults.aspx%5B/url%5D">http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/cool/SearchResults.aspx</a>

[quote]
Umm, No. There are plenty of Indians who study at western univs but these are not the people who got into IITs. I never said the ordinary Indian does not prefer a US univ. But those who get into IITs they dont look any further. At least 99% of them. Secondly, in India politics is not a respected profession. It is full of people who dont even have a college degree. Brilliant Indians never join Indian politics. Manmohan Singh, P. Chidambaramm, Arun Jaitley and a few other top notch politicians are the very few extremely motivated people who decided to join politics to do something for the country. IITians inveitably follow the research or business path. So it is no wonder you dont see top politicians who were IITians.

[/quote]

Again, I will be waiting for you to prove your 99% figure.

Secondly, if these IIT grads go into research or business so much, then why is it thatthe top 10 (maybe more) richest Indians never went to IIT? Seems to me that these guys went into business, and did quite well for themselves without any IIT background.

[quote]
It is not tough when you say the IIT-JEE is a tough exam. At IITs the academic pressure is not high because the best brains are studying. Sure it maybe tough for a US undergrad but not the IITians. What makes it tough is that there is a social pressure on you to excel in all fields. When I said IIT life is not tough, I meant IIT academic life is not tough due to the quality of the students. If you ask Sudhakar you will find out that it was not that he was studying all the time and found the academics tough. I am sure he called it tough after being exposed to the US academic quality (which has other advantages and I am not saying that Indian system is superior). IIT college life is great fun and if you have any doubt you should just clarify from Sudhakar.

[/quote]

How about this. Together, you and I will attempt to contact him and ask him to clarify his statement, and if he responds, we will together print his response here. If you are the ones who are doubting his words, then you should be the one to ask him, not me. After all, I am not the one who is doubting what he says or needs clarification. You are. But since I don't mind helping, I will join you in asking him.

[quote]
It does when the choice is between IIT and harvard.

[/quote]

I would like to know more about this claim. Can you present cross-admit data between IIT and Harvard?

[quote]
Dont you think you have confused yourself? We were discussing of intellectual abilities here. The most brainy people are not the ones who go on to become the richest. They could have if they wanted to but their priorities are different.

[/quote]

Uh, no, I think that YOU have confused yourself. You were the one who first brought up other factors like lifestyle, i.e. your "standard of living" quote that has nothing to do with brilliance. I am simply exploring your gambit.

If you just wanted to talk only about brilliance, then why did you even bother to bring up other factors in the first place?

[quote]
1. the richest americans like buffet went to nebraska, adelson went to CUNY, ellison went to Illinois, allen went to washington state, walton to arkansas, dell to texas at austin, alice walton to trinity university and bill gates dropped out from harvard. So all this noise u r making about IITians not having the best businessman from India doesnt do your arguments much good. A university cannot be judged by the rich men it produces.

[/quote]

And similarly, your discussions of 'standard of living' also do your argument no good. If you choose to bring in outside factors, I am allowed to do the same.

[quote]
2. But still if you will like to know the business acumen of IItians: Vinod Khosla founded Sun Microsystems, Rajat Gupta is MD of McKinsey, Arun Sarin is CEO of Vodafone, Rekhi is CTO of Novell, Victor Menezes is Vice Chairman of Citigroups, Narayanmurthy is founder of Infosys, Satch Pai is Vice President of Schlumberger, Arun Netravali is President of Bell labs, Arjun Malhotra founded HCL technologies, Ronojoy Dutta president of United Airlines, Avi Nash is advisory diretor of Goldman Sachs, Rakesh Gangwal CEO of US airways, Srivastava is corporate vice president of microsoft, Padmasree warrior is CTO of motorola, etc etc etc... the list is endless.

[/quote]

And none of them are on the list of the richest Indians. I guess the list isn't endless enough to include them.

[quote]
3. Regarding the achievements of IITians in research I dont even know where to begin. Suffice to say that the MIT, Stanford, Berkeley engineering schools have the largest number of fellowhip recipients from IITs.

[/quote]

I don't know what you mean by this. In the case of MIT grad engineering, the vast bulk, in fact, almost certainly the majority of grad students (which I guess you would call 'fellowship recipients') are former MIT undergrads. That's because of the inherent incestuouism of MIT - MIT loves to admit its own undergrads. The same is true at Stanford. It's not quite true at Berkeley (Berkeley is less incestuous), but nevertheess, frankly, there doesn't seem to be that many IIT people at Berkeley either.

Now, if you want to say that IIT grads go to Berkeley, Stanford, or MIT for grad school as opposed to other grad schools, well, yeah, sure that's true, because they are the top grad engineering programs in the world. But at the same time, many MIT undergrads also go to the top engineering grad schools in the world, notably MIT itself, but also Stanford and Berkeley.

[quote]
No? Then you should talk to some physics or maths or eco or business grads. Sure that there are some deps like sociology which have brilliance comparable to undergrads but you would be careful not generalizing that to all departments since GSAS is huge.

[/quote]

First off, why should I talk only to them? GSAS has many majors. I was always talking about ALL of GSAS.

Secondly, you REALLY hurt yourself by mentioning business. Trust me, I know HBS more than you will EVER know it. Do you REALLY think that the Harvard Business School doctoral grads are really that 'brilliant'. Oh really? Hey, I'm sure they'd like to think so, but candidly, many of them have jokingly said that they are in the getting their business doctorates partly because they just aren't good enough to get a pure econ doctorate. Hence, they jokingly refer to themselves as 'failed econ PhD's'. That's why they take an easier, less theoretical sequence of graduate economics.

In particular, consider the case of Organizational Behavior, which I talked about before. OB is actually a joint program between GSAS and HBS, and is basically applied sociology. A lot of OB grad students have basically jokingly called themselves people who weren't good enough to get a real sociology PhD. And already, a sociology PhD, frankly, doesn't require a lot of brilliance. Yet many OB grad students jokingly call themselves failed sociology students. You never hear of a sociology student calling himself a failed OB student.

In fact, what you are hitting at is one of the cleavings that exist at Harvard. HBS has always had a problem of academic credibility relative to the rest of Harvard, and HBS research has often times been dismissed by other Harvard schools as non-rigorous and fluffy. Of course, HBS always shoots back by saying that, ha ha, our researchers and faculty get paid much better than yours do, and our research, even if it is fluffy, is far more likely to be read and implemented by real-world practitioners.

But the point is, I think you have a highly highly romanticized view of business academics. I wish it was true, for personal reasons, that HBS grad students really were superbrilliant. But I know it's not really true. And they know it too. I can perhaps point to one business subfield - finance - that might qualify for brilliance. But the others? Please.

[quote]
So? There are still a large number of graduate programs which are top in their fields and why do you choose DEAS only. It doesnt prove anything when you claim to be "talking about ALL Harvard GSAS students".

[/quote]

DEAS is an excellent example - even more so because it ties into your discussion of IIT. Those IIT grads who go to Harvard DEAS are usually the ones who, frankly, weren't good enough to get into MIT. Just like most people who end up in DEAS weren't good enough to get into MIT.

But we don't have to talk about just DEAS. See below.

[quote]
Talking of backdoor entries, there are plenty of legacy admits at undergrad level. They come nowhere near being called brilliant. At least the grads cross a minimum threshold, these undergrads dont even cross that. They are just there because their parents are famous or donated large amounts of money to harvard or are influential. That's why it is best not to bet on the quality of a random harvard undergrad. But you can do it for an MIT/Stanford undergrad and you will be safe.

[/quote]

Ahem, and you don't think there aren't legacy admits at the Harvard grad level? You really don't think so? Then why do I seem to recall a question on the Harvard grad app specifically asking me whether my parents graduated from Harvard?

And about Stanford specifically, why do you think that it is 'safe' to look at Stanford undergrads, but not Harvard undergrads? You don't think that Stanford runs legacy admits? Perhaps you'd like to read the following.

<a href="http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2005/4/13/legacyAdmissionsDoesAFamilyHistoryAtTheFarmMatter%5B/url%5D">http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2005/4/13/legacyAdmissionsDoesAFamilyHistoryAtTheFarmMatter</a>

Even at MIT, which runs fewer legacy admissions, still has vestiges of it.

*Even at MIT, where we pat ourselves on the back for our meritocratic ways until our skin is raw, admissions staffers report that legacies are granted an additional review before their rejection is finalized. *

<a href="http://www-tech.mit.edu/V121/N14/col14nesmi.14c.html%5B/url%5D">http://www-tech.mit.edu/V121/N14/col14nesmi.14c.html</a>

[quote]
Not true. Harvard is know for its Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Economics and Business. They attract the top notch here from foreign countries. The fact that internationals abound in grad programs just proves that the selection for grad programs is much tougher and if anything leads to better student quality. This is also strengthened by the small number of seats in the grad programs. So when we talk of a random or average undergrad vs a random or average grad, the chances are that you will find the grad much brighter.

[/quote]

So let's talk about that some more. Let's look at the USNews graduate rankings for the programs you cited, except for business, which I had already discussed above.

Physics:

<ol>
<li> Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.0
Stanford University (CA) 5.0 </li>
<li> California Institute of Technology 4.9 </li>
<li> ** Harvard University (MA) 4.8 **
Princeton University (NJ) 4.8
University of California–Berkeley 4.8 </li>
</ol>

Mathematics:

<ol>
<li> Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.0 </li>
<li> ** Harvard University (MA) 4.9 **
Princeton University (NJ) 4.9
Stanford University (CA) 4.9
University of California–Berkeley </li>
</ol>

Chemistry

<ol>
<li> Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.0
University of California–Berkeley 5.0 </li>
<li> California Institute of Technology 4.9
** Harvard University (MA) 4.9 **
Stanford University (CA) 4.9 </li>
</ol>

Biology

<ol>
<li> Stanford University (CA) 4.9 </li>
<li> ** Harvard University (MA) 4.8 **
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 4.8
University of California–Berkeley 4.8 </li>
</ol>

Economics:

<ol>
<li> Massachusetts Institute of Technology 5.0
University of Chicago 5.0 </li>
<li> ** Harvard University (MA) 4.9 **
Princeton University (NJ) 4.9
Stanford University (CA) 4.9
University of California–Berkeley 4.9 </li>
</ol>

Hence, of all these sciences that you have cited, ** Harvard is not the top program **. According to the rankings, MIT is better than Harvard in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and economics. Stanford is better than Harvard in biology and physics. Berkeley is better than Harvard in chemistry. Caltech is better than Harvard in physics. And plenty of other schools are tied with Harvard in various fields. Hence, if student preference correlates with departmental strength (and I think it does so and strongly), it means that even in those fields that you cited, microsoft, the majority of the best students prefer to go somewhere else rather than Harvard. For example, there are plenty of physics graduate students who go to Harvard because they, frankly, weren't good enough to get into MIT, Caltech, or Stanford.

Undergrad, however, is completely different. Harvard undergrad has clearly the top yield, and the highest preference by far, as demonstrated by the Hoxby RP study.

And that's obviously just talking about those 'brilliant' fields that you cited and of which Harvard is relatively strong in. That's not even talking about, again, DEAS. Or the humanities. Or all the other fields that comprise GSAS.

The bottom line is this. Harvard undergrad tends to draw the very best candidates from at least the US, and to a lesser extent the world. For example, the vast majority of people who get admitted to both Harvard and Berkeley for undergrad will choose Harvard. Harvard also beats MIT and Stanford in terms of undergrad cross-admits. However, at the graduate level, things flip. The best students get scattered among a wide number of graduate schools, and Harvard holds no advantage relative to certain other schools. For example, Harvard holds no discernable advantage vis-a-vis MIT at the graduate level, and in fact, it is MIT that arguably holds the advantage (in terms of having higher rated grad programs, on average). After all, MIT is either ranked above or tied with Harvard in every single discipline above. Harvard beats MIT in none of them. The same with Stanford and Berkeley - Stanford and Berkeley also beat or tie Harvard in every single discipline above.

Look, microsoft, if you were to use MIT graduate students as an example of brilliance, I might go along with you (although I think even that ha difficulty). After all, MIT doesn't offer the fluffy graduate programs in the humanities and social sciences that Harvard does that don't really require brilliance. MIT is the best engineering school in the world, and is also higher ranked than or tied with Harvard in the sciences, math, and economics as seen above. You'd therefore be making a much stronger case if MIT was your example of brilliant graduate students. But Harvard? Come on. There are just too many Harvard grad students in fluffy disciplines, or guys in DEAS or Harvard sciences who weren't good enough to get into grad school somewhere else (i.e. MIT, Stanford, or Berkeley), to really say that these guys are brilliant. They're good researchers, very well read, highly knowledgeable about modeling and experimental design. But brilliant? That's a stretch.

sakky · March 4, 2007, 6:46pm

[quote]
Here is what I think is wrong with your assumptions. You think IIT-JEE is like a SAT exam in which all Indian high school students sit. No! Most high school students dont sit for IIT-JEE simply because they dont think they will get in. It is something exactly analogus to the situation where you wont consider applying to Harvard if you think you have no chances. You can use your SAT scores to apply for Lesley and not Harvard. You dont have to do anything special for Lesley. But IIT-JEE results can be used for admission only to IITs. You CANT use it for admission to any other college. That is why taking IIT-JEE means APPLYING to IIT. It is a different system in India. Dont draw unjustified parallels.

[/quote]

I am not advocating the drawing of unjustified parallels. But the point is, the 2% "admit rate" of IIT is performed using a completely different methodology than the American admissions process, and hence, should not be compared. That is ALSO an unjustified parallel, and I think you know that.

Inaina · March 4, 2007, 8:32pm

For heaven's sake, beside Harvard and MIT what other university consistently stay in the top five? Other colleges may have a particular field of expertise, but they hardly stay in the top five for all fields. Considering that all fields of sciences are interrelated, I would think that you would be better off at a college where a broader agenda is offered than at one where you have a great exposure to physics but nil in terms of molecular chem.

ConfidentialCLG · March 5, 2007, 1:00am

sakky and microsoft:

Let me put it to you this way:

You think that IIT posting a 2% admit rate is an exaggeration, then look at IIMs and AIIMS (the elite business and medical schools in India.) IIMs claim that they have 1300 general seats for 195000 applicants. This comes to about 0.667% admit rate. And that AIIMS claim that they have 45 seats for 80000 applicants, which gives a 0.056% admit rate.
Now, if my math is correct and those statistics aren't misleading, do those IIMs and AIIMS graduates are 10 or 100 times more intelligent or successful than Harvard graduates. Are they even 10 times more competitive? I doubt that.
My point is that those Institutions in India posting their admission rates as the main criteria to prove their or their students' superiority to their US counterparts is very misleading. And you guys are seriously mistaken to use this particular criteria in your arguments for intellectual superiority.

Mr_Payne · March 5, 2007, 2:30am

Sakky, your argument fails on one crucial point. It doesn't make sense.

Why you even think that the average Harvard undergrad has the same (or higher) intelligence than the average Harvard grad student just makes no sense. I would think that several graduate schools have higher IQs than Harvard undergrads.

The Harvard undergrad that attends Harvard grad school will likely have a higher GPA than the average Harvard undergrad. Seems like a far assessment. Do you disagree with this hypothesis? Do you disagree that grades are a good proxy for intelligence?

Secondly, I'm not sure I buy the argument that Harvard is the most intelligent undergraduate institution. I would guess that MIT/CalTech are more intelligent than Harvard on the undergraduate level (and grad level too). This is just something I noticed...it doesn't really affect your argument.

tokenadult · March 5, 2007, 10:03am

Mr. Payne, where are the data? Why don't you take a look at specific data?

Mr_Payne · March 5, 2007, 12:23pm

Unfortunately, the vast majority of this thread is speculation. I have no problem adding to that.

microsoft · March 5, 2007, 5:18pm

[quote]
Sure it is, because I am dispelling the romanticized notion that all, or even the vast majority of grad students are brilliant (or at least think they are).

[/quote]

...and in the process u have successfully dispelled notions of brilliance of undergrads by supporting this line of argument (which I still find a "no point")

[quote]
I would like to see you verify the IIT yield data. I'll be waiting.... Can you present cross-admit data between IIT and Harvard?

[/quote]

The IIT yield data is not available on the net. So I can't direct you to a website. The reason it is not there is simply because IITs have no rivals in India and the yield is nearly 100%. So there is no point in keeping track of this record. If you want I can send you a number of IITians contacts who will support this.

Unlike the West where you have each and every data available on website, the same does not hold true for India. The statement regarding IITs was true to the best of my knowledge. The following quote will perhaps make you believe.

"Murthy?s own son, who wanted to do computer science at IIT, couldn?t get in. He went to Cornell, instead. Imagine a kid from India using an Ivy League university as a safety school."

<a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/19/60minutes/main559476.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/06/19/60minutes/main559476.shtml</a>

If not then the best way is really to conatct Indians (in India not in US).

[quote]
Secondly, if these IIT grads go into research or business so much, then why is it that the top 10 (maybe more) richest Indians never went to IIT? Seems to me that these guys went into business, and did quite well for themselves without any IIT background.

[/quote]

I dont understand your logic of equating richness with brilliance. Getting rich is totally different matter than being a top notch businessman (it depends on such matters as family legacy, etc).

[quote]
If you are the ones who are doubting his words, then you should be the one to ask him, not me.

[/quote]

I dont care about what you heard or read from somewhere. I stick by my claim that life at IITs is great fun and here are some quotes from IITians:

1) "Life at IIT Kgp was probaly the best part of my life till date. I spent five best years of my life there... and given an oppurtunity I would love to go back to have the fun that I had then."

<a href="http://people.cs.vt.edu/%7Ebramesh/personal/%5B/url%5D">http://people.cs.vt.edu/~bramesh/personal/</a>

2) "The four years I spent at IIT Kharagpur were the best years of my life. I learnt a lot, enjoyed life to the maximum and had a lot of fun in general."

<a href="http://www.cdsp.neu.edu/info/students/asrivast/personal.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.cdsp.neu.edu/info/students/asrivast/personal.htm</a>

3) "Any fond memories of IIT? NN: I spent the best years of my life here. I was in H-8, and it was great.So I attribute a lot of importance and respect for the time I spent here.I was G.Sec Cult and organised MOOD-I. Such activities helped a lot to improve my organisational skills."

<a href="http://www.iitbombay.org/info/ypoint/sp99int.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.iitbombay.org/info/ypoint/sp99int.htm</a>

Ask any IITian (even those who have been in US for more than 20 years) and you will hear the same thing. IIT life was the most fun-filled period of my life. I learned a lot, enjoyed a lot and grew a lot as a person.

[quote]
And similarly, your discussions of 'standard of living' also do your argument no good. If you choose to bring in outside factors, I am allowed to do the same... If you just wanted to talk only about brilliance, then why did you even bother to bring up other factors in the first place?

[/quote]

God! I had said standard of living is not considered by people in India when considering matters like education and brilliance. YOU brought in richness as a criterion (and continue doing so for god knows what reason). It is unfair since
India is much poorer than US and you cant compare intellectual quality of academic institutions by the wealth of alumni.

In any case, your points are doubly hollow since the richest americans didnt goto the top undergraduate institutions.

[quote]
And none of them are on the list of the richest Indians. I guess the list isn't endless enough to include them.

[/quote]

...and again and again u bring up wealth.

[quote]
Trust me, I know HBS more than you will EVER know it. Do you REALLY think that the Harvard Business School doctoral grads are really that 'brilliant'. Oh really?

[/quote]

I really trust you. I have no doubt they come nowhere being called brilliant after seeing your arguments in favoring the average undergrad over the average grad. How the hell did HBS come in? We have been sticking to GSAS and the college all through I thought. HLS, HMS, Divinity nothing came under scrutiny why should HBS come in? If the word business confused you, I was referring to the GSAS program "Business Economics" which is distinct from "Economics".

[quote]
I think you have a highly highly romanticized view of business academics.

[/quote]

What unfounded impressions.

And regarding legacy admits, everybody knows they form a major chunk of Harvard undergrad admissions. At grad level, the fact that your parents attended harvard cant get you in simply because they are looking for people with brains to do research. MIT undergrad admissions only gives 2nd interview chances to legacies. They dont blindly admit any moron just because he or she happened to be child of someone very important.

[quote]
Hence, of all these sciences that you have cited, Harvard is not the top program.

[/quote]

Oh now you have come down to bashing Harvard's credentials even in well-respected programs huh? I thought you would know that differentiating between ranks 1,2,3 according to USNEWS rannkings doesn't make any sense. USNEWS itself admits that it is not useful to differentiate between universities which are at the top. Of course you know this, you are just arguing for argument's sake.

[quote]
The bottom line is this. Harvard undergrad tends to draw the very best candidates from at least the US, and to a lesser extent the world.

[/quote]

What is best? The best at high school level huh?

[quote]
MIT is the best engineering school in the world, and is also higher ranked than or tied with Harvard in the sciences, math, and economics as seen above.

[/quote]

You again got confused. Why bring in MIT? I was restricting the comparison to Harvard undergrads and grads.

And yet all the volume you wrote does not tell me or anybody why the Harvard undergrads are more brainy than the Harvard grads.

[quote]
sakky and microsoft:

Let me put it to you this way:

You think that IIT posting a 2% admit rate is an exaggeration, then look at IIMs and AIIMS (the elite business and medical schools in India.) IIMs claim that they have 1300 general seats for 195000 applicants. This comes to about 0.667% admit rate. And that AIIMS claim that they have 45 seats for 80000 applicants, which gives a 0.056% admit rate. Now, if my math is correct and those statistics aren't misleading, do those IIMs and AIIMS graduates are 10 or 100 times more intelligent or successful than Harvard graduates. Are they even 10 times more competitive? I doubt that. My point is that those Institutions in India posting their admission rates as the main criteria to prove their or their students' superiority to their US counterparts is very misleading. And you guys are seriously mistaken to use this particular criteria in your arguments for intellectual superiority.

[/quote]

confidential, I agree with you that it is not right to use acceptance rate for measuring quality of education globally. I personally believe a place like MIT is definitely better than IITs. But the figures are totally correct. The acceptance rate of IIT is indeed lower than 2%. The main reason for this is the huge population of India. But no matter how you define the acceptance rate, IITs have the lowest acceptance in the world. It is that in a country when you have so many students trying to get into the IITs which have a small number of seats, the acceptance rate is bound to be very very low. Some people here have been doubting the truth in the acceptance figures for IITs and I was just trying to convince them that it is a right figure. I never claimed the superiority of IITs on the basis of acceptance rate.

tokenadult · March 5, 2007, 5:41pm

Who is more intelligent, the person who drops out of Harvard and makes billions of dollars as a business owner, or the person who stays at Harvard, graduates and goes to Harvard graduate school, and then eventually becomes a Harvard professor? Would you want to know what the Harvard professor's subject of specialization was before answering that question?

microsoft · March 5, 2007, 5:53pm

[quote]
Who is more intelligent, the person who drops out of Harvard and makes billions of dollars as a business owner, or the person who stays at Harvard, graduates and goes to Harvard graduate school, and then eventually becomes a Harvard professor

[/quote]

... and then goes on to win the nobel prize? Well I would chose the nobel winner as more intelligent.

Just as you exaggerated your point by saying the drop-out will make billions of dollars, I played my part.

I believe we are confusing brilliance with success here. Both of our examples really characterized success and not brilliance.

It's a pity how money is always what you get judged by in this country.

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