<p>
[quote]
In fact there is a very easy way to force people into these professions: by paying them well. The problem is we have the money, we want to pay it, we cannot find takers anymore.
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</p>
<p>200K and a cost of living differential and I'm yours.</p>
<p>Fizik,
I am not sure why the hiring situation at your school is so desperate. In our parts there are more takers than jobs. Of course being a "homegrown" american is not a requirement, there are numerous american-educated, "all sorts of places"-born candidates, many of whom become citizens and don't count as "foreigners" anymore. :-)
Also I've always found the admissions system in the country where both you and I were educated far from perfect. :-)</p>
<p>Actually, yesterday my H fell into a discussion with a foreign-born colleague who studied in Moscow. By some mistake, although he had expressed the desire to study marine biology he was written down as having signed up for mechanical engineering. And, given the red tape, he could not switch majors! Flexible system, hmmm?</p>
<p>Parabella,
we do not need a research physicist, we need one who is capable of teaching biology majors, which is very hard to find. Last search we had 130+ candidates, most totally unsuitable. As it goes we phone interviewed about 10 of the candidates, most could not speak English. We ended up with 3 top candidates (all born outside US), one did not have work permit (which we found out on the day of the interview once we already flew him from God knows where), the other had interest in teacher education which was slightly off our goal, so we offered the job to the third one. After two years we are letting him go because his cultural attitudes make it totally impossible to work with him. His foreign-bred attitute toward students is abominable. I am afraid we learned our lesson.
The system of the country we were born in is, I agree, very far from perfect, but at least I think it is honest in its dishonesty, I am sure you know what I mean. I find it hard to swallow that the admission decisions here are made by an individual who is required to estimate someone character and leadership potential based on 10 minute read through a bunch of papers, including highly subjective recommendations. At least we had a luxury of doing what we trully wanted to do while we were kids, without thinking every minute what people in MGU would think of them. Look through the chances/admission subforums, I find myself upset by all these kids doing volunteering/joining the clubs to look good on the applications. The system produces kids who know only too well how to sell themselves. </p>
<p>Beprepn:</p>
<p>that was the point of my post, this country is not rich enough anymore to afford you.</p>
<p>Marite:
your story is an anecdote. I find it hard to believe that a person who would want to study biology in Moscow can end up at a totally different department, in a totally different university no less, since biology and engineering departments very seldom coexist in the same institution in Russia.
I read a lot on Harvard, mostly student's personal accounts, and I do not like what I read. I assume that your own child is in that institution, if so it is his/her choice, do not impose it on me.</p>
<p>Fizik:</p>
<p>Well, it is an anecdote, and one recounted to my H only yesterday. I found it hard to believe, but my H's colleague had absolutely no reason to make up that story. </p>
<p>Where do you get that I impose anything on you? I objected to your blanket characterization of the moral values of students admitted at Harvard which my S does attend. If I am imposing anything on you, it is to furnish PROOF buddy, PROOF of the moral turpitude of which you speak before you hurl insults at all Harvard students past, present and future.</p>
<p>I do not think that you warrant my continuing to engage with you. Your logic is too lacking to make any discussion of much use to me or to other readers. Good night.</p>
<p>Just finished "The Price of Admission" by Daniel Golden- another book that criticizes American colleges- he states Asian Americans are the new Jews. He also discusses the history of Jewish admisssions. Another book to get from the local library.</p>
<p>fizik, I find your statement quite incredible:</p>
<p>"we need one who is capable of teaching biology majors, which is very hard to find. Last search we had 130+ candidates, most totally unsuitable. As it goes we phone interviewed about 10 of the candidates, most could not speak English". </p>
<p>We have in this country one of the highest output of biological science PhD's. Yes, we usually get that many applicants even in second tier universities, but they are all usually outstanding candidates, with many of them being postdocs from top labs. On the other hand, I can certainly appreciate good candidates staying away from a search chaired by a bigot like you.</p>
<p>Fizik,
my husband sometimes teaches mathematics to biologists. It has almost nothing to do with his research. It's just one of the classes he has to teach once in a while. I don't know the specifics of teaching physics to biologists, but the whole story sounds a little strange to me, just a little. Our Uni is not the most prestigious, not by a long shot, but somehow every search produces a result and instances of being fired are rare and happen mostly to humanities people( the last mathematician to be let go was 100% WASP who published no papers in 3 years) . Of course this kind of search is a tricky thing.
Concerning the athletics and the rest....I am adamantly against ECs for the sake of making an attractive resume. I am for doing something after the HW is done, something you can not live without, be it sports or ukelele.</p>
<p>
<p>I do not make generalization, I comment on a trend. I find it embarassing that U of Texas system cannot hold a graduate course in Physics anymore on separate campuses - they have to teach it through distance-learning since none of the campuses has enough graduate students (a minimum is usually 5 to teach a course).
Fizik,</p>
<p>UT-Austin lists 20-25 [url=<a href="http://www.ph.utexas.edu/gradforms/grad_fall05.pdf%5Dgraduate">http://www.ph.utexas.edu/gradforms/grad_fall05.pdf]graduate</a> level physics courses<a href="excluding%20labs">/url</a> for Fall 2005. It may be that UT uses distance education to teach classes at its smaller campuses but that seems like an efficient use of resources rather than an embarrassment. Distance education permits students to live where they want and get a quality education. Can you clarify your comment?</p>
<p>I am the OP and the conversation has drifted away from my original point, but that is the nature of these forums. I was trying to understand how the current admissions system which was established over 70 years ago with the intent of restricting Jewish enrollment in the Big Three, and then adopted by almost all universities, is still serving our children now (unless of course you are a legacy or wealthy). Of course, as the author points out, the system can be used to discriminate in different ways, according to the social climate, and was used to enroll more minority students for a brief while in the 80's.</p>
<p>I have two d.'s, both make me proud. One attended Mt. Holyoke and had all the customary essay's, letters, ec's, etc. My youngest goes to McGill (hence my screen name), and the application is on-line and can be completed in 15 minutes. There are no essay's, letters of recommendation or a place to list ec's. Entrance is by merit ( or at least how they measure merit): Test scores, GPA and class rank. The applicants for each faculty are entered in a computer and the top scores get in. There is a quota system- 2/3 for Quebec students, and the remainder divided between other Canadians and internationals, including the US. It doesnt seem to have made McGill any less of a school, including school spirit, however athletics are certailnly not emphasized as in US universities.</p>
<p>Something I want to add the meritocracy with college admissions. The doors for admissions were widely opened by those very people who benefitted from meritocracy. Although there are legacy and development preferances today, admissions to the most selective schools are no longer the shoo in that it once was.</p>
<p>A good friend of mine who went to Exeter was in one of the last classes where private prep schools like his pretty much could assign their students to the top college. He laughs as he remembers feeling a bit humiliated that he was "assigned" to Dartmouth, which was Exeter's safety school those days. His daughter who was an excellent student with 1400 level SATs, a much better "catch" than he was for colleges, was rejected even with legacy preferences.<br>
There is dirty history, skeletons in the closet in nearly all things. We can only try to clean things up for the present and future.</p>
<p>The '70s/early '80s period that people highlighted as being the ideal had something else going on: birth rates started dropping in 1960 and by 1966 were below any year of the baby boom. The cohort born in 1966-1976 was far smaller than the one in the decade before; IIRC 1956 was the peak year of the baby boom. Colleges expanded greatly after WWII and again in the late '60s to accomodate floods of students; by 1982 there was lots of space and relatively small numbers of 18 year olds each year. The mid '80s saw colleges ramp up marketing efforts in order to keep the doors open. Now you have a huge cohort of 18 year olds each year and because of 20 years of marketing and brand building, every kid with a 3.75 GPA and a decent SAT score thinks he's ivy material. </p>
<p>The ivies historically were a destination for a relatively small east coast elite; now their market is national. The flagship state schools, historically the destination of choice for bright, accomplished middle class high school graduates, are now perceived by their target market as a consolation prize or safety school.</p>
<p>Early days yet, but according to the WSJ, the latest crop of student consumers is a little more savvy and we may be seeing the beginning of a backlash against the ivy frenzy. </p>
<p>In 10 years we'll be back to spots at selective schools going begging because demographics will have changed; the millenials will be aging out and there will be a period of time where kids have their pick of spots at highly selective schools.</p>
<p>Mcgilldad:</p>
<p>Mcgill is a great university. Some excellent students from our high school are attending it because one can get a great education at much lower cost than a comparable US institution.</p>
<p>By your own data, however, Mcgill is not entirely meritocratic as it reserves 2/3 of its slots for Quebec residents. It has every right to do so, and indeed must do so to fulfill its mission. But the result is not entirely meritocratic.</p>
<p>I also think that academic criteria do not fully capture the qualities a student may bring to a college, such as plastic arts, music, performing arts, or even foreign languages. I also think that while many components of the typical American college application can be manipulated and open to outright cheating, too much reliance can be put on so-called objective, quantitative scores. Teachers have different grading systems, and often reward students for non-academic behavior (neat presentation, good behavior, or plain sycophancy). As a result of these grading issues and also of students sometimes gaming the course selection system (either taking a course because of its extra weighting, or conversely taking classes to get an easy A) class rank may or may not tell the whole story about a student (and think about the 41 valedictorians in a school recently discussed on CC!). As for tests, as I mentioned, they do not capture everything a student is capable of.</p>
<p>You are very right that any system can be used to discriminate in different ways. I would not say that outright discrimination still exists as it did during the era of Jewish quotas. But there is a system of preference that privileges certain groups over others, not necessarily along ethnic lines but along income lines. As Mini points out, how many low income students are likely to engage in water polo or fencing? The desire for diversity of different kinds (ethnic, geographical, and so on) also disadvantages many applicants (think about applicants from Long Island vs. applicants from North Dakota to one of the top NE schools).</p>
<p>By the way, Karabel and Golden both graduated from Harvard. Karabel got his BA in 1972 and his Ph.D. in 1977. Golden got his BA in the 1990s.</p>
<p>"As a Jewish woman at one of the HYP schools who graduated in 1979, I know that there were plenty of Jewish and, to a lesser extent, African-American students on campus. And most of my friends were not from high-income families. I never felt like a minority"</p>
<p>Amusingly enough, I often felt like a minority at Harvard because it seemed like all my friends were Jewish and/or musicians and/or scientists - and I was neither. But that diversity was part of the fun. None of my friends were the rich future investment bankers though I know they must have been there.</p>
<p>McGillDad,</p>
<p>I live in Texas. During the mid-1990s, public college admissions in Texas changed to a formula called the Top 10% Rule where any Texas high school student who graduated in the top 10% of his/her high school class was guaranteed admission to the public college of his/her choice (although not to the major of their choice). After the Supreme Court decision in Grutter, Texas kept the Top 10% Rule but permitted universities to add other factors to admission decisions and thus adopt a more holistic decision process.</p>
<p>There are people who like and people who dislike the Top 10% Rule. Undoubtedly, it results in inequities as does every system. Nevertheless, I don't think it hurt the reputations of Texas public universities and in some areas the college rankings improved. In addition, the Top 10% Rule is more transparent and easier to understand and apply. </p>
<p>For the most part, a numbers-based or an academic index approach to admissions has pros and cons. My guess is that, at least for the next 20+ years (or until the Supreme Court changes Grutter), most American colleges will retain holistic admissions.</p>
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None of my friends were the rich future investment bankers though I know they must have been there.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Neither were mine. We must have been hanging out with the wrong people. ;)</p>
<p>I'd like to pick up on Wis75's post. He had just read another book on social policy and college admissions that suggested Asians were "the new Jews" in terms of discrimination in admissions. Yikes! This really struck home for me, thinking about what has happened at my kids' hs over the last couple of years. I don't have stats, but most of the shocking "Who didn't get in where???" anecdotes have involved top Asian students who were also distinguished in character and EC's. It could be a fluke, it's just one high school, but has anyone else noticed this?</p>
<p>Re Nester's post:</p>
<p>No I have not noticed this. I have noticed that the only Stanford admit from my D's class was ranked a little lower than 2 others who applied; the admitted one was Asian (upper-middle-class non-immigrant) while the one waitlisted was African American, a couple of others w/listed or rejected were Caucasian.</p>
<p>I have noticed that MIT has a huge proportion of Asians in their student body. I have noticed that one of the top 3 Ivies admitted Asians very disproportionally to the ethnic distribution of the applicant pool. I have noticed that Cal Berkeley, which many Northeastern students on CC view as a highly desirable institution, is something like 47% Asian, which is also, I believe, disproportionally higher than the Asian high school Sr. class population of the State.</p>
<p>Do the math. You will not find that your initial impressions play out.</p>
<p>"Amusingly enough, I often felt like a minority at Harvard because it seemed like all my friends were Jewish and/or musicians and/or scientists - and I was neither. But that diversity was part of the fun. None of my friends were the rich future investment bankers though I know they must have been there."</p>
<p>Sounds to me like you really didn't experience much diversity at all. Since the groups you hung with were a distinct minority, for some reason others didn't mix with you. Were you a member of a Finals Club? (or were you ever invited to join?)</p>
<p>Don't worry - my experience at Williams was pretty much the same.</p>
<p>Just to expound & explain a tiny bit. I'm sorry if I sounded snippy in that last post. Daniel Golden annoys me. He pretends he has breaking news, & he doesn't. (Not to anyone who's actually been reading, who has a brain, OR who has recently been through the college admissions angst.)</p>
<p>Asian educational models are decidedly different from American models. European educational models, while not exactly duplicative of the Asian, are also different from this country. So I contend that much of this supposedly shock & horror has to do with expectations.</p>
<p>In Japan, India, etc., if you "make the grade," you get in. Period. Their approach to "qualification" is very linear. One could argue that it's preferable, & indeed if your son or daughter scores highly, or is prepped to score highly, a family may prefer that model of "qualification." But that's not the current model in this country, & I don't see most U.S. colleges reverting to that any time soon. This is not to say that U.S. college admissions are NOT merit-driven, but they do have a different definition of merit & a different way of determining merit. (Re-read marite's posts.)</p>
<p>And until fairly recently, Caucasians (esp.) who were legacies, & further legacy-donors, could practically expect a son or daughter to get admitted to an "elite" as long as S or D had an excellent academic profile. That was part of the (previous) model.</p>
<p>The point is, that expectations color everything. It feels like discrimination when you see a "pattern," when the pattern may be a shift in priorities, and especially a greater inclusiveness. Many Asian American families -- regardless of how many generations were born & raised here -- have difficulty separating cultural expectations overseas from those of this country, educationally. I've seen it often. I'm sorry: those families need to get over it. Asians are <em>not</em> being discriminated against in higher education.</p>