<p>
[quote]
Also, who was the last president/ presidential candidate who did not attend a top tier school/ivy? And what percentage of senators went to an ivy/top tier school? and where did the supreme court justices attend school?
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We are actually in a very weird period of history in terms of presidential candidates. Clinton and the Bush 41 and 43 did attend prestigious colleges. Reagan attended Eureka College in Illinois. Bob Dole attended Univ of Kansas. John Kerry did attend Yale. Yale was been on quite a roll lately. Very few Senators and Congressmen attended prestigious colleges. In terms of the Supreme Court, I believe you are referring to their Law degrees and not their undergrad degrees. The post-undergrad degree can have a huge effect on your long-term career if it is in certain areas such as Law or if you work in academia.</p>
<p>Jimmy - I'm not a particular fan of the College Board. But I don't like shoddy argumentation of any sort. The OP made points and I rebutted them.</p>
<p>JLime- Who said state? I completely agree it must be uniform.. I meant the nat'l gov't.
A lot of the sup. court justices DID attend prestigious universities for their undergrad. most of the ones i listed, when there are 2 listed, the first one is their under grad. few went to a no-name school for undergrad.
reagan was famous for his acting career. AND he was in the military.</p>
<p>very few senators and congressmen attended presitgious colleges??
According to <a href="http://www.senate.gov%5B/url%5D">www.senate.gov</a> and the pdf you can download about where the senators of 109th congress attended school.. 57 senators attended a prestigious school. by prestigious, i mean anything at the level of (Washington University-stl, uchicago, UCLA) or HIGHER (ivies/stanford/gtown).
the other 43.. mostly military, legacy (ted kennedy), etc..
57 out of 102.. the odds look a lot better if you're from a top level school.</p>
<p>What PDF are you talking about? That seems really unlikely unless it is talking about grad schools. The following is from an Atlantic Monthly Article:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Consider the United States Senate. This most exclusive of clubs currently lists twenty-six members with undergraduate degrees from the Gotta-Get-Insa disproportionately good showing considering the small percentage of students who graduate from these schools. But the diversity of Senate backgrounds is even more striking. Fully half of U.S. senators are graduates of public universities, and many went to "states"among them Chico State, Colorado State, Iowa State, Kansas State, Louisiana State, Michigan State, North Carolina State, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Penn State, San Jose State, South Dakota State, Utah State, and Washington State. Or consider the CEOs of the top ten Fortune 500 corporations: only four went to elite schools. H. Lee Scott Jr., of Wal-Mart, the world's largest corporation, is a graduate of Pittsburg State, in Pittsburg, Kansas. Or consider Rhodes scholars: this year only sixteen of the thirty-two American recipients hailed from elite colleges; the others attended Hobart, Millsaps, Morehouse, St. Olaf, the University of the South, Utah State, and Wake Forest, among other non-elites. Steven Spielberg was rejected by the prestigious film schools at USC and UCLA; he attended Cal State Long Beach, and seems to have done all right for himself. Roger Straus, of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, one of the most influential people in postwar American letters, who died last spring at eighty-seven, was a graduate of the University of Missouri. "[Students] have been led to believe that if you go to X school, then Y will result, and this just isn't true," says Judith Shapiro, the president of Barnard. "It's good to attend a good college, but there are many good colleges. Getting into Princeton or Barnard just isn't a life-or-death matter."
<p>what you've mentioned are case studies. note it says the TOP 10 out of the fortune 500 companies CEO's.. first, 4/10 is not a small number. second, these guys didn't create or come up with the company-they may have worked their ways up the ranks. look at some stats for university of missouri and see what the average grad makes 5 years after graduating. then look at what the average grad from cornell makes 5 years after graduating.
i didn't say you HAVE to go to a good school to succeed in life-it just gives you a better chance at succeeding. (by succeed, i mean REALLY succeed, like CEO/Senator/etc)
I never said it is a life-or-death matter. but it is for some people. and most people take it very seriously (not life or death, but still serious). thats the way it is.
BTW if the person who said "we care too much" (or something to that extent) is still on, i have another idea for you. It is easy to say something is relatively unimportant when something does not directly affect you. why do you think so few people are activists for chinese labor reform? I admit, i do not take the time to campaign for these altruistic goals. it is a HUGE tendency for ALL people to underestimate or belittle something which doesnt have a direct impact on them... maybe that is why you thikn we obsess too much. in reverse, that is like a majority of american teenagers saying that the senior citizens are freaking out too much over social security.. we shouldn't tell senior citizens what to do or care about because we arent them and dont realize how it affects them.</p>
<p>I know there are flaws in some of the things that Rightwing said (non-profit, owning the admissions process, etc), but I agree with the bigger picture that she has proposed. Collegeboard is a monopoly, and colleges need to stop using Collegeboard as a service to test, rank, and measure the intelligence of kids. It's sickening</p>
<p>Everyone knows the SAT is testing how well you take tests. This doesn't measure intelligence but it measures other skills needed in college. There is a significant correlation between SAT scores and your grade in college. </p>
<p>If there wasn't such a correlation, maybe colleges would stop using the SAT but hey guess what, there is! The SAT is good for something.</p>
<p>I actually didn't spend my time reading the posts on this forum, so I dont know what your background or to what extent you are defending the collegeboard...</p>
<p>but</p>
<p>1) Yes, colleges want kids who are independent, intelligent, and WELL-ROUNDED. All of which the SATs and CollegeBoard fail to prove. </p>
<p>2) It's not a perfect, nor a good measurement of intelligence and academic abilities. It was a 3 hour test, with biased questions, and many who could afford thousands of dollars JUST learning the strategies (how to guess well, etc) to do well. </p>
<p>The problem is that we acknowledge the errors the SATS and CollegeBoard plays in trying to measure student's intelligence and academic ability, yet colleges are basing a huge chunk of their decision on these tests.</p>
<p>Yes, I hate CollegeBoard but I'd have to say colleges have to receive a bit of the blame. Afterall, it's THEIR decision to use CollegeBoard's service and to what extent they're using it. I mean why doesn't the interview (which I personally feel is important) play a similar role in admissions decisions?</p>
<p>Here is the list of where the US Senators went to undergrad. Although, several prestigious colleges are overly represented, it certainly doesn't look as if these people have a private club with a secret handshake.</p>
<p>It might just be a bit of which side you want to see. On the one hand, about a fourth went to top colleges. On the other hand, three fourths did not. Certainly, a fourth is high for only a dozen or so colleges, but it doesn't seem to be a prerequisite for success. Especially when you consider that the people of that generation who went to the elite colleges came primarily from rich families. Coming from a rich family is probably a hundred times more of a boost to your career aspirations than a undergrad degree from a brand-name college. </p>
<p>Anyway, the list is:
Huntingdon College
U Alabama
UCLA
Georgetown
Naval Academy
Randolph-Macon Woman's College
Brooklyn College
Stanford
?
Colorado College
Yale
Providence
Ohio State
U Delaware
Yale
Florida State
U Georgia
U Georgia
U Hawaii
U Hawaii
U Idaho
Brigham Young
Columbia
Georgetown
Denison & Oxford
Indiana U
U of Northern Iowa
Iowa State
Kansas State
Kansas State
Xavier
U of Louisville
Harvard & Oxford
Louisiana State
St Lawrence U
U Maine
Mount Saint Agnes College
Princeton & Oxford
Harvard
Yale
Michigan State
Swarthmore
Yale
Hofstra
U Mississippi
U Mississippi
Princeton
Washington U
U Missouri
Stanford
U Nebraska
U Nebraska
Utah State
Oregon State
Columbia
MIT
Columbia
U Illinois
U New Mexico
Harvard
Wellesley
Harvard
Duke
Wake Forest
U North Dakota
Stanford
Ohio U
Miami U (Ohio)
U of Tulsa
Oklahoma State
Brigham Young U
Stanford
Penn State
U of Penn
West Point
Brown
U South Carolina
U Tennessee
Michigan State
Biola U
Vanderbilt
Princeton
U Texas
Trinity
U Utah
Brigham Young U
Yale
St. Michael's College
Wash and Lee
UVA
Washington State
Miami U (Ohio)
Marshall U
Harvard
U Wisconsin
U Wisconsin
U Wyoming
GWU</p>
<p>It isn't fair to compare the earnings of the graduates of different colleges if the average students don't have equal qualifications. There is a study (sorry I don't have the link -- I believe it is discussed in Freakonomics) that students who were admitted to elite universities but chose to attend others had the same earnings as those who attended the elite universities. This would indicate that it is the qualifications of the students that makes the difference, not the university itself.</p>
<p>This doesn't directly bear on the SAT question, but I thought I'd throw it out for what it is worth.</p>
<p>This is not to say that an elite university might not be best for a particular applicant due to what they want to study, their personality, or any number of other factors. But I think that a simple "go to an elite university and you will be better off" conclusion is unwarranted.</p>
<p>I wouldn't call the SAT a monopoly because of the ACT, a test I happen to prefer because it seems to be a more straightforward test of knowledge, inter alia. Some people score the same on the two but others may score substantially better on one. </p>
<p>I haven't seen any answer to my initial query as to why the OP thinks that public universities using the SAT in admission decisions is unconstitutional. My husband and I are both lawyers and couldn't fathom the reasoning for this one. I'm all for imaginative legal analysis -- but let's either hear it or have the claim withdrawn. I would hope that someone who is interested in politics would avoid unsupported allegations about what the law is.</p>
<p>It has been argued that any multiple choice testing has inherent problems. See, e.g., Hoffmann, The Tyranny of Testing. I don't see how the government could do a better job.</p>
<p>micheeatsfish : I am a "he" :)
Dufus: wonderful. how many senators attended each school? I believe it is 1 for the univ of hawaii.. and many for stanford, harvard,yale, etc.
i didn't say thta no important people come from lower tier schools, just that a large percentage come from top tier schools.</p>
<p>DianeR: Thank you for some insight into law! I agree that it may not be a legal monopoly. what i meant by "unconstitutional" was applicable ONLY to state schools (like UCLA, Uconn, Univ. of texas, etc ), who receive government money. There is a parallel precedence here, in my opinion. the Umich court sup court case about AA quotas. they ruled that state schools can't use race as a factor/point. however, private schools (like amherst, which recently published it's "system" in newsweek) can still give easier spots to minorities or reduce the overall points a minority needs to get in. i think the same could work for the CB. if the gov't deems that the CB is unfair, since a private company, NOT the gov't, is getting to determine what the kids need to know to get into the school, then the govt can say that the universities they fund can't use CB tests. u can look at it this way.. if CB (or ACT) is making the tests, making the questions, they are essentially saying waht we need to know or be able to do in order to get into college. if they're doing that, shouldn't they be funding those colleges? of course. and they aren't (nor am i advocating they should). but since they aren't funding the colleges, they shouldnt get say in what you need to know to get in them. i'm focusing on public schools now, since we have some legal insight.
DianeR, how would you eval this idea from a legal standpoint?</p>
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[quote]
reagan was famous for his acting career. AND he was in the military
[/quote]
Reagan (Eureka College) had a very limited military role during WWII due to poor sightsight. He was turned down for active duty on his first physical. If you have seen any of his movies, I think you would agree that he was primarily a labor leader and governor of California before becoming President.</p>
[/quote]
Everyone knows the SAT is testing how well you take tests. This doesn't measure intelligence but it measures other skills needed in college. There is a significant correlation between SAT scores and your grade in college. </p>
<p>If there wasn't such a correlation, maybe colleges would stop using the SAT but hey guess what, there is! The SAT is good for something.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Where is your proof of this? I remember reading an article about schools that stopped needing test scores and researched that their scores had absolutely NO EFFECT on how well students performed in college.</p>
<p>i believe you were addressing a reply and not the OP, but i think i can answer that... even though i am obviously on the side of reducing CB's influence, i must admit, because it has been proven, that the SAT strongly correlates with college grades. the correlation is .91. that is extrememly significant. HS grades correlate with college grades at .95 correlation. however, they use the SAT also, instead of just going off grades, because many kids only take easy classes and then get A's, so the .95 correlation only works when students take similar rigor classes. but yes, the SAT does correlate to college grades.. it doesnt effect it as you said, i think you meant correlate. but it does correlate.
i never said we need to get rid of the idea of the test, but it's the company behind the test i do not like.</p>
<p>dufus: you are correct, i concede. however, the "main" paths to becomming president are Military, Legacy, Law. sometimes... celebrity status. but you must admit that a LARGE percentage of presidents come from upper tier schools.</p>