‘Is the Big Sur more beautiful than Oklahoma? Is a Grizzly Bear more interesting to watch at Yellowstone than a field mouse? Is SF a nicer city than Detroit?’ Say, @SAY, are you from California by any chance?
Ever heard of E.O. Wilson, the father of sociobiology? His biological specialty is myrmecology, the study of ants. Even less interesting than looking at mice!
Nonsense? Those are the profiles of the current freshman class for Michigan and Harvard. Look it up. That’s the data. Now you’re just dissembling. Or maybe, in the words of Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, “you can’t handle the truth.”
Ellie that isn’t the data. Hey you can believe what ever you want. Hint- the mid range at HPYS has nothing to do with non-hooked admitted students. It’s hard to believe that on CC an otherwise sane person would argue that Michigan with a 50% admit rate has students equivalent to the Harvard Class. That is really a hoot. Surely now the extreme competition will switch to Michigan.
Pizza people can do what they want but as I said most people can distinguish between cities to visit and the difference between a bus driver in Chicago and a Jet pilot at United.
Petula god love you I always enjoyed having people like you on the opposing debate team. Thank you for making my argument stronger. 42 teams.
Say says in #609:
Say says in #632:
Which is it? Is there a correlation or not? BTW, I used a table based on the formula developed in the paper you cited in #609 for the analysis in #623.
Say says in #632:
DATA presented in #623 shows:
Michigan’s range of SAT for the middle 50% of the class of 2020 = 1440-1570
Harvard’s range of SAT for the middle 50% of the class of 2020 = 1410-1600
Please explain the meaningful differences between those ranges. You can’t. Because there isn’t any.
Back to a “lighter” topic - about living in Bay Area, here’s a piece written by a former FB employee: http://www.vox.com/2016/9/14/12892994/facebook-silicon-valley-expensive Note that Menlo Park where FB is at is a lot cheaper than Palo Alto… I think part of the reason why elite school graduates on the coasts are more “money aware” is the high living cost of cities like SF, LA, NYC, Boston etc. which happen to have most opportunities, especially for entry level people or those who want to make a breakthrough.
You can deny it all you want, but look at the numbers: http://admissions.umich.edu/apply/freshmen-applicants/student-profile
And, remember, we’re not talking about applicant pool. We’re talking about students who attend. Because that’s what’s important, right? The people at the school, not the people who aren’t at the school.
BTW, Michigan’s admit rate was 28.6% last year. Not 50%.
(I should add, I only used Michigan because it was the first school I thought of. I’m pretty sure that there would be many others with similar stats.)
Persons in longitudinal group who graduated HS in 1957 and reported their more recent job in that group. They surveyed the group in both 1975 (18 years out of HS) and in 1992 (35 years out of HS).
Okay, I’ll bite, not least because you just pitched three straight-up fastballs over the middle of the plate—so, in order:
[ul][]Depends on the part of Oklahoma, doesn’t it? Natural Falls State Park is at least as pretty as Big Sur, at least for my visual preferences—I mean, trees and coastline are both nice, but trees win out for me.
[]I live in Alaska, so grizzlies are cool and all, but they’re just part of the scenery after a while—they’re to be treated with respect, and I’ll happily admit it never gets old seeing one, but it’s not all that big a deal. Mice, on the other hand, have this amazingly intricate social structure—I mean, have you ever actually had the good fortune to see mice at play? Even beyond the cuteness overload factor, its’s really amazing to watch them interacting with each other.
[li]Detroit is more affordable (way more affordable), and has all the cultural amenities of a big city, just as San Francisco does. I’ve never actually lived in either, but I’ve been to both for business and leisure trips, and I have to say that I like Detroit more. It’s easier to get around and has more of the sort of stuff to see and do that I actually like.[/ul][/li]Which gets to one of the big problems I (and others) are having with your claims on this thread, @SAY. You keep making these broad generalizations based ultimately in subjective criteria, but they’re subjective judgments—and when you try to back them up with objective evidence, it has frequently turned out that you’ve either misapplied that evidence or simply made it up.
Seriously, stop it. Recognize that others feel differently than you do about much of this stuff and move on.
SAY - EllieMom linked the data. This is the part where it would be helpful and conscience-clearing on your part to say: “Oh, my bad. I didn’t realize that the middle 50% of Michigan’s class had similar scores to Harvard’s. I also mistakenly thought that Michigan had a 50% admit rate when it’s more like half of that. Because my world is California-centric, I didn’t realize that there are lots of places in this country where the smartest kids go to the state flagships and simply don’t aspire to Ivies, and lots of places in this country where any place you can go with an Ivy degree, you can get to 98% of those places with a Michigan degree.” Then plan a trip outside California. Have fun!
I just want to correct a misconception here about the intellectual chops required to become a pilot.
Early in my career I worked in recruiting in the aviation industry. It is hilarious that you folks describe becoming a pilot as some deeply analytical/intensely academic profession.
Until a few years ago, most pilots flying for commercial airlines came directly out of the military. Depending on their age, and depending on where and when they served, they ranged from capable to smart. That’s the range. A high school diploma was required at the time when most of them entered the military- and a very high percentage of those who learned to fly during the Viet Nam war were NOT college graduates (college and grad school got you deferments, remember) and none of you are likely to confuse a pilot- even a very capable one- from the very recent past- with Albert Einstein, or however you are defining genius. High school graduates. The elites- from the academies, even the air force academy- are often in management roles in commercial aviation, but relatively few went from being an officer in the air force to flying from Burbank to Boise.
Now- it’s different. There are both pilots who go to commercial flight schools, end up flying for a small regional carrier making almost nothing, and slowly working their way up to an airline you have heard of. And those still coming out of the military, although they are a different breed now that we don’t have a draft.
They are skilled, and capable, and very hard working. But not at the level that you guys are describing. And frankly- the likelihood that they are scoring in a meaningfully different way on a nationally normed IQ test vs. a bus driver- is extremely small. A bus driver in many municipalities earns more money than a commercial pilot working for one of the regional airlines. It’s a more secure job; better retirement, more union protection. Doesn’t take Albert Einstein to figure out which career is a better bet long term.
Is this a good thing for the airline industry? Deregulation has brought many changes- but the destabilization of piloting as a career has most definitely been a bad thing for the pilots. It is not a field attracting the best and the brightest, no matter what you see on your movie screen this weekend.
Palo Alto and Menlo Park are adjacent small cities. Facebook’s office is in the less expensive part of Menlo Park. The less expensive city of East Palo Alto is also adjacent to both. Facebook also has charter commuter buses from other less expensive cities like Fremont, Newark, etc…
The area is expensive, but it is not like it is completely unlivable on a six figure income, despite claims made here. Lots of households live on a lot less.
Just want to clarify and reinforce @blossom 's point.
Educational prerequisites for military pilot training fluctuated depending on perceptions of the leaders of the service and perceived need.
In the US, this went like the following:
WWI: Officers and a few enlisteds were allowed to become pilots. One did not necessarily need a college or sometimes even a HS diploma so long as one passed the physical and military academic standards to become a pilot.
Interwar years: The USAAF(Precursor to the USAF) limited pilot training to commissioned officers who all must have 4 year service academy/college degrees to start pilot training. Not sure about the Navy…but wouldn’t be surprised if they followed the USAAF policy during this period. Read many accounts of aspiring military pilots in the late part of this period who weren’t able to start training because they never attended or completed college/service academy.
WWII: Pressing need meant the USAAF and Navy dropped their 4 year college/Service Academy minimum requirement to be commissioned or limiting it to commissioned officers. Requirements first dropped to 2 years of college and later, they dropped that too when demand got too great.
One prominent example of a USAAF/USAF pilot who completed pilot training and commissioned with only a HS diploma in this period was Manuel J. Fernandez who rose to become a Captain and the #3 US jet fighter ace in the Korean War. Another was George HW Bush who deferred his education at Yale to enter and complete the Navy V-12 pilot/officer training program which made him the youngest Naval pilot in the service at the time.
From WWII up until the mid-'60s, one can become a USAF pilot without a college degree/FSA by going through a 1 year aviation cadet course. However, the feeling among the high brass that all pilots and commissioned officers SHOULD have Service Academy/college degrees during the late ‘50s…especially after the founding of USAFA in the mid’-50s meant the Aviation Cadet program was wound down with the last commissioned officers pilots and navigators graduating sometime in the mid-'60s.
I should also briefly add that other nations during WWII and Korea also had pilots who were not college graduates or even attended college.
For instance, among the top Imperial Japanese aces during WWII, the vast majority weren’t service academy/college graduates. In fact, the vast majority including famous ones like Saburo Sakai started their service as enlisted pilots with some like Sakai starting training without even completing a HS diploma(He flunked out of a public magnet HS at 16 and enlisted in the IJN not too long afterwards).
I would like to know what Sergey Brin and Jan Koum think when they read this thread.
‘Petula god love you I always enjoyed having people like you on the opposing debate team. Thank you for making my argument stronger. 42 teams.’
I haven’t seen this as a debate, SAY, but how does it make your argument stronger that I actually knew the number of Harvard teams, whereas you just made something up?
Or here’s another way to look at Michigan vs Harvard. At Harvard over 20% of students are varsity athletes (12.1% recruited and 8.4% walk-on). At Michigan only 3.8% of students play varsity sports. Those are facts. Here’s an opinion: Maybe Harvard would be more ‘elite’ if it didn’t waste so many spots on lower-achieving student athletes. Michigan is superior because it almost exclusively does not allow the hook of athletics for a student to be admitted. Now, that’s an opinion I don’t claim as a valid argument, or even believe, just an idea I came up with in 2 minutes with no factual basis.
Michigan or Harvard? Which is better? Depends on the student.
Those public-school-educated mouth breathers? LOL!
(BTW, full disclosure here. I had no idea who they were. But I’m curious and Google is my friend. And it was a point well made. 
)
Exactly. For instance, when a cousin was considering PhD programs in EE, only one of those two schools ended up being on his “to apply list”. And it wasn’t Harvard…
And about fit for college choice: if you live in eastern NC and want to be a public school teacher, I would opine that an East Carolina grad has a better chance of getting hired by the school board than a grad with a degree from Beloit or Reed or even Williams. Why? More alumni connections, and the hiring folks would certainly have heard of ECU. But I may be wrong, I’m just giving an opinion.
So what if someone from NC goes to a directional state college and comes back and works as a teacher in her home county where most of her relatives live? Is she less fulfilled than someone who goes far away to elite college and gets a high-paying job on the West Coast and visits her family once a year? Maybe she’d be able to afford a bigger house in smalltown NC vs Silicon Valley. But maybe she’d rather die than live in a little southern town. Which is better? No one can say, but her.
I don’t think anyone would argue that elite schools provide their students with great educations and other benefits. But as this thread proves, some extrapolate that to mean that those things cannot be obtained by attending a state school or otherwise “non elite” private school. Certainly, at highly selective schools, the pool of really intelligent, high achieving students is going to go deeper than large schools or less selective ones. But the assertion that really smart, high IQ, really stellar students are “not common” at state schools, particularly flagships and Honors colleges, is just completely false.
Here is a highly respected, top 25 medical school. It actually lists where the entering class in 2015 went to undergrad. Of course you will see students from the usual suspects in terms of elite schools, but there are also MANY students from state schools and other non “elite” privates in this list. Note that schools in bold face print have 3 or more students attending.
http://www.utsouthwestern.edu/education/medical-school/admissions/our-students.html
Some of the assertions made in this thread have been really distasteful.
Personally I think the more compelling argument for an elite school is for someone like me who is naturally an introvert, it’s easier to find your tribe socially in a more elite school with a denser concentration of serious students. But that’s a social argument, not an educational one.
I would agree with that, @Pizzagirl. There are a wealth of reasons for choosing an elite school for some kids. The benefits of finding the right school goes way beyond maximizing academic resources or finding good contacts. I personally think social growth is key for young people aged 18-22 or so. In fact, there could be an argument made that developing interface skills (e.g., social ones) during that time period might be woefully overlooked as a factor leading to success later in life, whether you define success solely in economic terms or more broadly than that.
I’m also in agreement with @Canuckguy’s point in #673 re. the importance of being able to think well quantitatively AND qualitatively. And that is often something that is addressed particularly well in many of the schools in the elite category (and some in the not-so-elite category as well).