Harvard Professor Steve Pinker on the Ideal Elite University Admissions System

Parents Forum
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<p>My experience of Yale as an earthly paradise was pretty similar to that described by JHS–although I came from a high school that was pretty weak, and I knew nothing about the professors (or much of anything else) at Yale except that it was a really great school with a lot of smart students. My parents didn’t know much about it, either, and my guidance counselor essentially knew less than nothing. But I had a great experience there, both in my classes and in ECs. I had classes with some famous English professors (these were not always the best classes), and in other departments as well.</p>

<p>My son graduated from Yale recently, and I’d say that his experience was pretty similar. He was a music major, which put him in different circles, but he was very happy with his classes and his ECs. He’s a graduate student at Juilliard now, and he says that the level of discussion and writing is not up to the level of Yale (which helps him now). My daughter is a current student, and has a more driven and competitive personality than either me or my son, and I wold say that Yale is more stressful for her, partly because she always feels like she should be doing more. She’s had really excellent classes, though (mostly), and amazing opportunities (especially for somebody interested in writing–in fact, she went to hear Zadie Smith speak yesterday, and saw Tom Stoppard last week).</p>

<p>I think both when I attended, and now, students at Yale had multiple viewpoints–they were very interested in their classes (especially their majors), but they were also very invested in the ECs that meant most to them. Beside all that, they were interested in their futures and their careers. Back then, large numbers of us were looking at law school and business school, but I only took one course in my whole time at Yale that I thought might be helpful in one of those professional schools: accounting. It wasn’t really much help. All those kids going into finance and consulting aren’t necessarily taking many–or any–courses aimed at those careers.</p>

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<p>Sounds pretty ideal to me, JHS.
But what one makes of- and takes from- one’s college years depends on that individual. And now we’re back, again, to holistically trying to determine which kids are primed for a multi-faceted intellectual (and to some extent, social) experience. It’s not all about stats. </p>

<p>Only rare kids apply with evidence of real intellectual drives, the sort I think all of us on this thread get. Like it or not. No matter their scores. They’re 17 and used to ‘doing what the man says.’ They have yet to really burst forth. That is, in the many ways they can or could. You look for those inklings.</p>

<p>Now that both of mine have graduated and I see them in a different continuum (ie, not just on college breaks,) I am bowled over by the results of their college experiences (which included plenty of hard work and plenty of hard play.) There is no way to predict that when they apply to college. We try to know them and hope for the best. </p>

<p>This really isn’t about glorifying a tippy top, assuming some fairy dust will be sprinkled on them. Nor is it about taking kids who excel in any one aspect, and assuming how they will ripen. </p>

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<p>Let me preface this by saying that in this post specifically, I am not really meaning to be contentious, though it probably will come across that way.</p>

<p>mathmom, I think that if one is going to contest Pinker’s statements, then one ought to refer to what he really said (not the digest on this forum). Here are Pinker’s comments on working on the student newspaper, which he terms “clearly educational,”</p>

<p>“Some of these activities, like writing for the campus newspaper, are clearly educational, but most would be classified in any other setting as recreation: sports, dance, improv comedy, and music, music, music (many students perform in more than one ensemble). The commitments can be draconian: a member of the crew might pull an oar four hours a day, seven days a week, and musical ensembles can be just as demanding. Many students have told me that the camaraderie, teamwork, and sense of accomplishment made these activities their most important experiences at Harvard. But it’s not clear why they could not have had the same experiences at Tailgate State, or, for that matter, the local YMCA, opening up places for less “well-rounded” students who could take better advantage of the libraries, labs, and lectures.”</p>

<p>I doubt that your housemate was really spending <em>all</em> her time at the Crimson, and yet graduated summa cum laude. If that is true, could you please contact her and ask her about her choice of classes? There are no doubt a lot of students on CC who would like to become Harvard summas without the necessity of spending any time on class work! Maybe they could pick up some hints on course selection. :)</p>

<p>JHS, your experiences at Yale (and afterwards, no doubt) show in your posts. I often learn something from your posts. Yale then does sound like Paradise–or the closest available approximation.</p>

<p>In giving priority to learning from the faculty, rather than learning from fellow students, I am probably reflecting a STEM bias. My fellow students at Not-Quite-Tailgate State generally did not know much about math or science that they did not learn from the faculty, essentially at the same time that I learned it. While a good number of the students in my cohort and the years +2/-2 from us became faculty members in STEM, no one would be gasping that I knew them back then. </p>

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<p>May also be time for some to re-read the original link.</p>

<p>I think my question is, why do so many assume a kid can only stretch in so many ways? </p>

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<p>Well, I can’t speak for her, but I was only one A short of graduating summa myself and believe me, I did not spend huge amounts of time doing homework or trying to keep up with the reading. I’m not proud of it, but I wrote at least one paper for a social science course having only read about three pages of Nietsche. I got a B+. If you came to Harvard well prepared it was not that hard to write an “A” paper. It’s true that Pinker okayed writing for the newspaper, and she says that what she learned from it was as valuable as anything she did for classes. </p>

<p>In my experience taking a lot of courses at the Graduate School of Design was one way to get easy A’s. I wrote way better than any of those architects! :smiley: And unlike the architects I didn’t live in the studio, so I did the reading.</p>

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QM, thanks for focusing on this statement by Pinker. I think it gets at the core of why so many of us take exception to his opinions: the idea that the arts are merely “recreation” as opposed to the really important stuff he values. It’s a remarkably tone-deaf statement for somebody in the academy to make.</p>

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<p>So all those claims that the “hardest thing about Harvard is getting in” are true after all, @mathmom? And here I always believed that to be an urban myth!</p>

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<p>^I don’t know if it still is, but if you came from a good school, it was then. My sil, had never written a research paper or anything longer than the standard five paragraph essay, and turned out to have an LD in foreign languages. She found her first year at Harvard very difficult. I thought it was much easier than high school - especially since I was really interested in most of my courses. But I am a terrible procrastinator and did most of my weekly homework Sunday after dinner.</p>

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<p>I think its true about most of the upper Ivy’s. Getting is is daunting and largely beyond your control. Once you’re there, there isn’t any desire to flunk you out or embarrass you to send you home. </p>

<p>Pinker has some good points about testing, but he might be happier at Swarthmore (no offense intended to Swarthmore, but don’t they note that they rank high in the production of PhD holders or candidates?). The problem that Pinker really has is that not even the kids he would admit are likely to agree with him about what they want to be part of. There are undoubtedly students who share his view of how their own time is best spent, but my guess is that many of them don’t want to be surrounded only by others who are like them.</p>

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<p>Well, if it is true of about most of the “upper” Ivies, that’s pretty depressing and just perpetuates the argument that professors are “phoning it in” in their teaching of undergraduates at a lot of them.</p>

<p>I worked my a$$ off at that most ignoble of Ivies, Penn, to earn decent grades. But I’d gone to some pretty terrible public schools (and never learned to type!) before I got there, so I’m sure I wasn’t as well prepared as most Harvard kids. Nonetheless, most of my professors were incredibly demanding.</p>

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<p>Oh, many of us from tough high schools found college much easier. It’s not the only basis on which to judge. </p>

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<p>I think this whole question of how “hard” or “easy” highly selective colleges are is a bit misleading. Some kids from very demanding high schools may find that college is “less work,” in the sense of less reading, fewer tests and less class time in general. This was true of my kids. This doesn’t mean that the material being taught is less mentally challenging, though. Or perhaps the term I really want is not mentally challenging, but rather something more like mentally engaging. These are smart kids. It may not necessarily be that difficult for them to understand what a professor is teaching, but it may still be fascinating, useful, and engaging. It may not be that difficult for them to write a really good paper–but that may be because they are able to write good papers in the first place, and they are able to understand the material quite well. If this is the case, and if the professors don’t see grading as a competition, it’s not strange at all that there will be many high grades.</p>

<p>My own experience was that college was much, much harder than high school, both in terms of the amount of work required, and the challenge of understanding the material. For certain classes (math and French), my preparation was weak, so they were quite difficult for me. For others, such as English, history, etc., I guess I would say that although the material was clearly much more “difficult” than anything we studied in high school, it still wasn’t all that difficult for me to understand. But it was much more engaging than the easy high school material.</p>

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<p>The fact that mathmom’s friend graduated summa while being EIC of the Crimson doesn’t mean that Harvard is easy. (I don’t know how it worked in mathmom’s day, but today, I think you have to be in the top 5% to graduate summa.)</p>

<p>There are people at top schools who are both brilliant and well prepared academically. One Yalie I know about --not my kid-- got straight As for his first 5 semesters. He then began EIC of the campus paper and during the next 3 semesters, he did get a couple of non-A grades, but still graduated summa. In addition, he was an officer in a campus political organization. He then became a presidential speech writer for George W. Bush–straight out of college. I imagine being EIC of the campus paper and involved in politics were more important in getting that job than his GPA. Ater his stint in the White House, and ghosting the Shrub’s autobiolgraphy, he went to Yale Law. He’s now a Supreme Court clerk. </p>

<p>I went to a non HYP Ivy and I worked my tail off too, Lucie. I went to a Midwestern public high school and didn’t realize until I got to college just how weak it was. I had to work a lot harder than my classmates who were smarter and my classmates who were better prepared and a LOT harder than my classmates who were both. </p>

<p>Did you ever see the movie “The Way We Were?” The Barbra Streisand character is in college and works all semester on her short story. The night before it’s due, the Robert Redford character and his friends come into the restaurant where she works part-time as a waitress. He is in the same class and she asks him what he wrote his story about. He says–truthfully–he hasn’t begun it as yet. She is flabbergasted.</p>

<p>Well, a class or two later, the prof hands back their short stories. She earned a B+. The prof reads aloud the best story submitted. It belongs, of course, to the Redford character. </p>

<p>There are people like that in the world. Harvard has a disproportionate number of them. </p>

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<p>I understand all of that, @hunt, @lookingforward, and @jonri‌. </p>

<p>I’m talking about courses where the sheer volume of material assigned is truly daunting. I’m certain a smarter and better prepared student could have found it much “easier” to earn a top grade than I did, but my professors (at least in my major) assigned a ton or reading. There just weren’t enough hours in a day to do all of it and any other coursework (never mind holding a job or sleeping!). </p>

<p>I know a lot of very accomplished Swarthmore grads, and I’ve never heard any of them brag about skating through college while earning top grades. </p>

<p>Although I will say, that student I mentioned way up-thread (the one who’s working on his doctorate in theoretical mathematics at Princeton), changed his undergraduate major from physics to math because all his physics classes were just “too easy” for him at his lesser Ivy. So maybe you’re on to something about the ‘best and the brightest.’ Although this is the same kid Harvard, Yale and Princeton rejected for undergrad!</p>

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<p>Hunt, your son’s experience is not what Pinker is referring to with the “music, music, music” line. Your son is currently at Juilliard, if I am remembering a few posts back correctly. So his interest in music is at a professional level. As I read it, Pinker is referring to time-demanding choral involvement (for example) by students who have no professional prospects in music at all. For this group of students, the involvement in music is culturally uplifting, and it may have intellectual content (depending on the works being performed), but it is essentially in the category of “entertainment,” just as it is “entertainment” when I go to hear a symphony or a performance by a string quartet.</p>

<p>Also, I think the description of Harvard classes as “easier than high school” does not apply in the sciences. I only have a few points of reference on this, but one student I knew was a valedictorian (true #1, no tie) at Bronx High School of Science, and he got a B in the electricity & magnetism class his first year. The sciences seem to be plenty demanding. Bill Gates, who had a string of A’s, got one C+, as mentioned before–it was in organic chemistry.</p>

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Perhaps Pinker would be happier teaching someplace where the only courses a student takes are in his major, and are directly related to his future professional career. Aren’t all those electives just “entertainment” by this definition? I mean, I took calculus in college, but since it was entirely useless to me in my career, wasn’t it just “entertainment” for me? (Sort of like a Sudoku puzzle, perhaps.) Or at best, simply simply broadening general education? And what about all those scientists studying all those topics that have no specific application in industry–why should we value their efforts, which, after all, are merely to satisfy their own curiosity?</p>

<p>If Pinker doesn’t value a liberal arts education, he should consider going somewhere that doesn’t offer one.</p>

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<p>One thing to point out is that Yale recruits fewer athletes than its peers, and is actively encouraging scientists (early writes and a February STEM weekend) which really does make it’s focus somewhat (though not entirely) different.</p>

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<p>In some respects are you redefining snowflake? The poor kid who can’t pursue academics at a high level and have side interests which may also be time consuming? This gets odder. Yes, maybe Pinker wants that cinder block institution, all work, all the time. Maybe some of the intellectual chitchat between classes becomes another distraction? </p>

<p>How far are some of you willing to take this, as some sort of mental wandering? The concept of expanding one’s mind, in whatever ways, per whatever interests…again, is not counterproductive to academics. What ARE some of you thinking? Or is this just a game?</p>

<p>Pinker, btw, barely teaches undergrads, as far as I can tell. </p>

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<ol>
<li><p>I can see some of Pinker’s frustration with music ECs. My understanding is that now it’s essentially assumed that anyone in the Whiffenpoofs at Yale is actually taking a year off from actually attending college. That would bug me a little – and I know it bugs their parents (but their parents are also proud: a Whiff!). </p></li>
<li><p>My future spouse was an example of someone who had to work her tail off to do well at Yale. She came from a terrible rural high school, where at most they read 2-3 books per year, and she had never written a paper longer than five pages, handwritten. She left high school a year early because there was nothing going on there for her. At Yale, she was certain that everyone was smarter and knew more than she did, and that the only way she could keep up was to work 24-7. She didn’t work 24-7 on her classes, though. She was very involved in campus politics, to the point of being a public figure, served on some important student-faculty-administration committees, was involved in counseling teenage girls at a health center in the Hill neighborhood, and was employee #1 of what eventually became Claire’s Cornercopia. She graduated summa. She never wanted to be an academic; she’s a policy wonk/activist/public official (depending on the year) in a specific field; she has an impressive list of actual accomplishments in the world, not just honors.</p></li>
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<p>I don’t know if she would have satisfied Pinker’s academic-only criteria. She was never a great standardized test taker, and she had very good grades from a completely unreliable school, one that sent only a handful of kids anywhere other than UMass or local community college, and where half of the graduates didn’t bother with college at all. She was rejected at Smith.</p>

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<p>deleted. I don’t want to interrupt if JHS is going to post.</p>