<p>Ah yes, I meant that he wasn’t incompetent in terms of attending Yale. . In terms of a president, well, that’s a tired subject. Regarding merit, yes, I agree he would not gotten on it alone.</p>
<p>My main question is just what is the quantifiable difference? If anyone has any data regarding cross admits (between say Harvard and U Michigan) and post graduate achievement, that would be nice.</p>
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<p>What incredible reasoning. You must be right. </p>
<p>I’ll bite for a second and suppose the above is true. Does it matter? How often are there times when a student learned significantly less because of his or her school? The onus is on the student to motivate himself or herself to succeed, and I highly doubt there is ever a barrier placed by a school itself. </p>
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<p>…what? Becoming a president is not analogous to college admissions. Good luck arguing at all that Yale was a significant reason why either of them became president. Going to a prestigious school in general probably helped them but it would be impossible to show how much.</p>
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<p>Are you seriously arguing that there are not significant different among schools and their respective programs? He does not have to reason his way to the answer: it is a product of common sense.</p>
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<p>It is not only analogous to his becoming President, it is also perhaps one of the necessary, proximate causes. If Yale employed purely meritocratic admissions policies, George W. Bush would not have been accepted; furthermore, he would not have received his MBA from Harvard. Indeed, his family connections were relevant to his success beyond their role in his education, but his chance of becoming President would have been significantly reduced. </p>
<p>The difference in quality between the education that Harvard Business School offers is on a level different from almost every other similar program in the country. The public largely recognizes this.</p>
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<p>Do you honestly believe that the quality and extent of the educational opportunities are absolutely constant across all universities? “Quality” can be a function of a university’s course offerings, research opportunities, excellence of the student body, eminence and teaching quality of the professors, track record of providing graduates with higher-quality opportunities, general and historical reputation, resources, and so forth. It is generally understood that the nation’s top universities have many of these attributes, which subsequently causes inordinate competition for attendance. If a prospective student did not subconsciously or consciously use these realities as incentives to apply, then it would probably be best for that student to re-evaluate what truly attracts him or her to the given university. </p>
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<p>It is pertinent to the general discussion that policies that admit on the basis of factors irrelevant to merit do have an effect on changing a power structure. Given the reputation of more prestigious universities to disproportionately place their graduates into higher-level positions and educational opportunities, colleges do have an influence on molding the overall workforce distribution, just as family connections do. And as I stated on the previous page of this thread, the general reputation of one’s alma mater often draw parallels with an individual’s abilities. That is, the greater the institution’s reputation, the greater the perceived abilities of the candidate. Of course, graduating with very poor achievements can be harmful for one’s future, but it is generally understood that a Harvard graduate with a 3.6 GPA, for instance, will have better opportunities than a student with a 3.9 who attended Southwest Arkansas State.</p>
<p>Seriously. Also, attending prestigious universities is advantageous if only for the people you can meet. The best and most influential go to places like Yale and Harvard. It is very likely that the connections he made while at these universities was a significant factor in his political success. His “rolodex” is probably what helped propel him to the presidency (GHW Bush included). And he couldn’t have done that probably at community college.</p>
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<p>So then it’s hardly absolute. It depends on what a student is looking for. </p>
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<p>How much better? Would George Bush actually not have become president if he had not gone to a prestigious university? Support that claim. </p>
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<p>Then why not provide some sort of argumentation? He did, anyway, so the point is moot—but it’s intellectually lazy not to provide some small bit of reasoning. It isn’t difficult. I still maintain, also, that the “quality” of an education received will depend highly on the student and hence I also question how one school can be said to provide better education than another in a vacuum, or in general which is basically what people tend to say. </p>
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<p>So you’re saying that George Bush’s attending Yale was a significant factor in his becoming president? Can you support that at all? I’m not denying that his family played a role in his acceptances (although I think it’s slightly unfair to assume he had no chance otherwise.)</p>
<p>It certainly helped him win reelection.</p>
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<p>Yeah no. People who are trying to get in these top schools have a VERY distorted view of what college is like. Most people here are normal middle to upper middle class people who did well in school. There are VERY few “connections” to be made. That said, I do have a friend whose dad held a fundraiser for Obama and another who sits on the board of directors for Nestle. Don’t ask me how she does that though, but she does.</p>
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<p>I’ll trust you on this, but at the graduate level, especially in something such as business, would you agree that there is some advantage just because of the people you meet? I’m certainly not under the impression that every one is rich at an Ivy League caliber school, but I would think the people you meet are different than the ones at a community college. By that I mean that they are more likely to succeed, and if nothing else, that will help you pus yourself to succeed (because of social pressure). I defer to you, but is that at least in some way correct?</p>
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<p>It does not require a rigorous explanation that educational opportunities and quality are not constant among all universities. </p>
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<p>Sure, of course. I believe that we have all agreed on more than one occasion that the quality of an education can be affected by a student’s initiative to utilize, manage, and exploit one’s available opportunities. But do you truly believe that the desirability of certain universities and programs that are rightly believed to be of higher quality are completely groundless? Moreover, do you believe that a school’s - not to repeat myself - course offerings, research opportunities, excellence of the student body, eminence and teaching quality of the professors, track record of providing graduates with higher-quality opportunities, general and historical reputation, and resources are absolutely non-influential on one’s future educational and career opportunities?</p>
<p>The main point is that life experiences (which do include education) are intimately associated with the life course that one pursues. </p>
<p>But the Bush family paradigm was not designed to be the focal point of this discussion. It largely became a peripheral conversation that emanated from the original consideration of the consequences of non-meritocratic admission policies. What I am more interested in noting is your comment from page six:</p>
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<p>If this were true, what benefit would there be in admission policies that haphazardly and unsystematically select the best incoming class? Do you firmly believe that it would be in universities’ best interests to adopt admission procedures in which the demonstration of merit would be held irrelevant as an admission factor?</p>
<p>Also since you both (Starbuck11 and Dbate) seem to be tangled in the view that a Yale education (or an education from one of its peer institutions) provides absolutely no additional benefits, what motivations did each of you have for applying/attending to HYP (at least in Dbate’s case)? What made it a more favorable aspiration than your local community college?</p>
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<p>Yale’s financial aid. Paying 1K a year to go to a school is enough to convince any person to go. Being Yale just made it icing on the cake. </p>
<p>The ONLY reason I applied to Ivies was financial aid. I had gotten a near full ride to my state school (University of Texas) and decided to send apps to the three best financial aid Ivies: HYP. I eliminated the other ivies and top schools because I couldn’t afford to go. My parents have three other children and three of us will be in college at the same time. </p>
<p>That said, going to Yale mostly benefits you by the drive other people have. I have been motivated to work harder just being around such people and I in turn have motivated others.</p>
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<p>At the graduate level NAME IS EVERYTHING. If you want to go to a top B-school don’t go to Yale go to Wharton or Harvard. Similarly in every field that matters (which excludes all professions that don’t make money, yeah I am that guy) Yale’s professional programs suck, except our Law School. Our med school is like #6 and B-school like #9. They really drag down the prestige of Yale IMO.</p>
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<p>Yes, I too would definitely state that the financial aid is my primary reason for applying to HYPS. The other aforementioned factors did have a considerable affect on my decision to apply as well.</p>
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<p>I completely agree.</p>
<p>NO. </p>
<p>If we are talking about 2200 SAT or above, then the income factor definitely counts. However, 2100 can be achieved without spending much money, if any at all.</p>
<p>I got over 2300 without taking any prep classes. I just borrowed old used books from my friends and studied from those. Besides, the SAT really isn’t all that hard anyway.</p>
<p>It really depends on a person’s situation and their overall application. If a person has incredible, crazy giftings with english and writing but has never exceled at math, than I think Yale would consider, say, a 750 on english and writing and 600 on math.
From looking at stats of people who get in, I would say that Yale places more emphasis, obviously, on the essays, activities, transcript than one SAT score.
I personally worked really hard studying on my own for the SAT and was able to eke out a 2230, 2240 superscored.
Also, Yale looks in context so if a person was working a lot because they were in a low income family, and didn’t have the time to take expensive prep classes or multiple sittings of the SAT, then I think they would take that into consideration.</p>