<p>“The day admissions starts running purely on merit is the day HYPS et al will lose their allure.” </p>
<p>I think this is an interesting quote. But what if a scenario like this occurred ? It seems like the elite schools will make exceptions for those who can make a name for themselves EVEN if they are under qualified. In the end the insitution just wants to bolster their image and name and thus repeat the cycle.</p>
<p>Mosmordre is right. Princeton exists to graduate Princeton alumni who will bolster and perpetuate Princeton’s prestige. To that end, Sotomayor is a huge success.</p>
<p>You guys are right. No one respects oxbridge anymore…</p>
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I don’t reveal personal information online.</p>
<p>Oxbridge undergrad isn’t purely meritocratic. Interview much?</p>
<p>^^^ All Oxbridge applicants meet an academic standard. Since more people meet that standard than there are spots, they do interviews. That is not what things are like in our system.</p>
<p>And if you don’t think that’s meritocratic, Todai and other Asian universities operate on a strict test score admission policies and do fine. Attending a prestigious university is actually more important there.</p>
<p>Oxford isn’t meritocratic-it has always shown a bias for upper class applicants:</p>
<p>[Times</a> Higher Education - The slow but certain arrival of equality at Oxford University](<a href=“The slow but certain arrival of equality at Oxford University | Times Higher Education (THE)”>The slow but certain arrival of equality at Oxford University | Times Higher Education (THE))</p>
<p>Also our conception of its “eliteness” in the US is in large part based on its history (and its association with Bill Clinton)-when Oxford used to practice admissions just like HYP did in the past.</p>
<p>It’s interesting you brought up the Asian universities-in those countries success in life is directly correlated with what type of school you went to so they can afford to do admissions like that. Since anybody who wants to be anybody in those countries pretty much has to go to one of those schools, they don’t need to care about personal qualities and the other stuff. In the US you do. Also, although these schools students’ went through a rigorous admissions process, these schools when measured in world rankings suck for their eminence in their home countries. The top scholars in the world won’t go there to teach, they’ll come to HYPS et al because of the prestige and the better resources.</p>
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<p>i would just like to quote this for future references.</p>
<p>^^ Futurexreject You are the third (i think) person to quote this! I don’t know how to quote, but when I read that it hit on everything I was thinking about !!</p>
<p>^^^ Also, I wanted to add to the quoted text above, that my friend (at Columbia) right now feels the “symptoms” of living in another socio-economic class, as his class mates are insanely rich. It took him a while to get used to the culture, but there is a huge disparity between elite and the average American college. I also really like the base ball analogy!</p>
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<p>Since this has evolved into a Sotomayor bashing thread:</p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - At Yale, Sotomayor was sharp but not outspoken](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/29081]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/29081)</p>
<p>People would be surprised by the extent to which she tries to understand the law to apply it, said Kougasian, who also worked alongside Sotomayor at the New York County District Attorneys Office after they graduated. Temperamentally she is reluctant to take a bold step when a prudent one would do. </p>
<p>According to her former classmates, Sotomayor has always been an intellectually curious person, though sometimes quietly so…And while she was unquestionably bright, she never emerged as a star as someone who would one day be nominated to serve on Americas highest court. </p>
<p>Some of her classmates chose to stay mum on the topic of her candidacy: Seven of them declined to comment on her suitability for the job, saying that they disagreed with her politically and did not want to oppose her publically. </p>
<p>While well-liked, she was not considered the brightest in her year… according to many classmates… over half of those interviewed said that, 30 years ago, news of her selection would have surprised them.</p>
<p>If you had come up with a list of people in our class that would be named to the Supreme Court, she would not have been on it, said one former classmate. </p>
<p>She tends to write narrow opinions, said Schoenfeld, Sotomayor’s former clerk. She writes to litigants, litigators and district court judges not to be included in legal textbooks.
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In 1978, when interviewing for jobs, Sotomayor accused the firm Shaw, Pittman, Potts & Trowbridge of discriminating against her because of her Puerto Rican heritage.**</p>
<p>I don’t know Sotomayor, but she graduated summa cum laude from Princeton and received the Moses Taylor Pyne Prize. Both are extremely high hurdles. I can’t speak for her qualifications as a judge, but she’s undoubtedly quite bright. I came from a highly regarded public high school and found that I wasn’t as well prepared as the prep school kids and had to step up my game quite a bit when I got to Princeton. She came from a high school in the South Bronx, she probably had to learn how to work with intensity at a high level, how to think in a different way.</p>
<p>From the Daily Princetonian, “The Pyne Prize — an annual award given to one or more graduating seniors who have manifested exceptional scholarship, leadership and personal character — is the highest general award bestowed by the University upon an undergraduate.” The one Pyne Prize winner I know is Eric Lander, and a blogger named doctorscience wrote about him “I mean, the Pyne Prize winner for my year (1978) was Eric Lander, and he’s pretty much smarter than anyone.”</p>
<p>Neither summa cum laude nor the Pyne Prize get awarded lightly. In particular, very few people graduate summa cum laude from Princeton. I couldn’t find the percentages, but it is not high. Pyne Prize winners are usually pretty impressive. She could have gotten a bit of a bump by being a Latina for the latter and did explicitly get a bump for her political activism there as the awarders pay attention to contributions to the community as well as grades and general impressiveness, but not for summa cum laude. The professors take that very seriously, in my experience. I don’t think you’d be in the running for the Pyne Prize if professors did not think you were really strong. </p>
<p>Princeton should be proud, by the way. Three alumna who I think serve as strong role models: Sotomayor, Elena Kagan also summa cum laude who left as Dean of Harvard Law School to become Solicitor General and was also a candidate for SCOTUS, and let’s not forget Michelle Obama. And then, there’s Sam Alito. Supreme Court appointments are of course political nominations and I think the brilliance of the Sotomayor choice was that it is causing the Republicans to dis the fastest growing segment of the voting population.</p>
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<p>Killbilly, I’d like for you to expand on this, if you would. If you can talk about decisions she’s made other than that one with the firefighters (christ that one has been done to death), I’d be interested.</p>
<p>Waiting for killbilly’s response . . .</p>
<p>as am i; killbilly seems to know quite a bit about law, unless killbilly is only reiterating what he/she heard some commentator say.</p>
<p>Add me to the list of fans of bclintonk and post #9…</p>
<p>I did not see your question; I will be happy to answer your questions, but you’re being fairly vague. What do you want to talk about?</p>
<p>[POLITICO.com:</a> Videos](<a href=“http://www.politico.com/largevideobox.html?bcpid=14146694001&bclid=1201016315&bctid=29848454001]POLITICO.com:”>http://www.politico.com/largevideobox.html?bcpid=14146694001&bclid=1201016315&bctid=29848454001)
Here are Sotomayor’s oral argument tapes. If you want to get a sense of how she judges cases you should listen to them and read some of her decision.</p>
<p>What do you dislike about her rulings/opinions? Why do you think she would be a terrible Supreme Court Justice? I think (hope) that that is specific enough. You obviously have a strong opinion about it, given your previous posts in this thread.</p>
<p>I doubt anyone could successfully argue that she would, for sure, make a terrible Justice. The argument, I take it, is that she would make an unspectacular, mediocre Justice.</p>