<p>^^ “Because a construction worker wants to his son to have the best education possible, in a encouraging, proper, safe environment” = aka elite</p>
<p>The beginning is no good, but the second half is very interesting. I wonder if he wrote that as a resignation letter, because at the bottom it says “William Deresiewicz taught English at Yale University from 1998 to 2008.”</p>
<p>Threads about this article that ran previously (and there have been several) tended to the view that the piece said more about the writer than about his subject.</p>
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<p>As a student at a public university (albeit a top 5 one), I can tell you that many of us do have deep and intellectual conversations outside of the classroom, although unlike Ivy students we tend to discuss these things over a few cold Bush Lights rather than a venti double skim ice mocha frappuchino light. ;)</p>
<p>I turned down less elite schools to go to Yale because it was cheaper for me to attend Yale. My instate public university would have cost $20000 a year, while Yale costs less than half of that. Does that make me an elitist?</p>
<p>I just feel that elite universities are highly competitive because they are highly capable of persuading prospective students to apply for admission, not because they are highly capable of delivering quality education.</p>
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<p>The evidence does not support your position. If students are truly interested in being challenged academically, programs like higher-energy physics or theoretical mathematics would be over-subscribed, and Caltech would be winning cross-admit battles with HYP. Instead, I saw applications swelled at St. Andrews when Prince William arrived, and Brown’s reputation jumped when JFK Jr appeared…</p>
<p>^ NYU with the Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen Twins :)</p>
<p>"The evidence does not support your position. If students are truly interested in being challenged academically, programs like higher-energy physics or theoretical mathematics would be over-subscribed, and Caltech would be winning cross-admit battles with HYP. Instead, I saw applications swelled at St. Andrews when Prince William arrived, and Brown’s reputation jumped when JFK Jr appeared… "</p>
<p>Are you suggesting an absolute association with rigor and the sole pursuit of physics and mathematics?</p>
<p>I never intended to provide evidence for my position. I can’t really; it’s a subjective matter.</p>
<p>“As a student at a public university (albeit a top 5 one), I can tell you that many of us do have deep and intellectual conversations outside of the classroom, although unlike Ivy students we tend to discuss these things over a few cold Bush Lights rather than a venti double skim ice mocha frappuchino light.”</p>
<p>As I already stated, I don’t question that many students at state universites are intellectual. I suggested that it is more common at elite universities. </p>
<p>I’m not sure whether you’re kidding with the last comment or simply perpetuating a negative and largely false stereotype.</p>
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<p>When it comes to human behaviours, it is dangerous to speak in absolute terms. (We always have outliers). In general, however, if you want to emerge yourself among the brightest, then that is where you want to be. Here is a graph of how the students in various disciplines compare on the GRE (just scroll down a little):</p>
<p>[econphd.net</a> Admission Guide](<a href=“Loading...”>Loading...)</p>
<p>What is even more impressive is how physics and math majors do on the LSAT, supposedly the domain of wordsmiths and not quant jocks:</p>
<p>[Average</a> LSAT Scores for 29 Majors with over 400 Students Taking the Exam](<a href=“http://www.uic.edu/cba/cba-depts/economics/undergrad/table.htm]Average”>Business | University of Illinois Chicago)</p>
<p>I have often seen people being judged by the supposed quality of the college they attend; I think it is more accurate to judge them based on their major.</p>
<p>“I have often seen people being judged by the supposed quality of the college they attend; I think it is more accurate to judge them based on their major.”</p>
<p>That is absurd. You think someone is smarter because their interests lie in the mathematical sciences?</p>
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<p>Nope. I am saying that if you want to be with the brightest and the best, that is where you will find them. Putting aside political correctness for a moment, this can not be news. Students in Europe and Asia have accepted it for a long time. Do you remember Princess Di said that she must have a brain the size of a pea because she could not understand the stuff? Do we not have expressions such as " You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure this out."?</p>
<p>If your true intention is to rub shoulders with the rich and the famous, then we are dealing with something entirely different.</p>
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I agree with you – but only to an extent. I agree that most math/physics students are bright, but I disagree that THE best and brightest are necessarily always found in those fields. </p>
<p>Think of math/physics as Harvard and humanities as, say, Berkeley or Michigan. While Berkeley may have as many extremely bright students as Harvard in raw numbers, it may lag in percentages.</p>
<p>Um. Intelligence and intellect are very different things. A math student may have a large amount of a certain KIND of intelligence, but that doesn’t mean he or she is intellectual at all.</p>
<p>“Do you remember Princess Di said that she must have a brain the size of a pea because she could not understand the stuff? Do we not have expressions such as ‘You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure this out.’?”</p>
<p>Someone’s joke and a common expression don’t prove anything relevant. The average GRE score for a given major doesn’t prove which field has the smartest people. Nothing can prove that, in fact. There is no general construct of intelligence. </p>
<p>“A math student may have a large amount of a certain KIND of intelligence”</p>
<p>Exactly. I know kids who are excellent at math but deficient in language skills, and vice-versa. Beethoven was a genius, but that doesn’t mean he pushed the frontiers of theoretical physics. </p>
<p>My math teacher and physics teachers (both of whom originally double majored in mathematics and physics) are good at math and science, but their speech is ungrammatical and their vocabularies limited. Conversely, my English teacher never took past geometry but excels in the traits my math and science teachers do not. I can’t claim any of them to be generally more intelligent than the others, even if one scores highest on the GRE AND the LSAT.</p>
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<p>We are actually in agreement. In a previous post, I did talk about outliers.</p>
<p>I was not thinking about sociology in Harvard vs. sociology in Berkeley, I was thinking more about sociology at Harvard vs. physics in Berkeley. ;)</p>
<p>Percentages is not the important issue here. We make connections, one person at a time.</p>
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<p>See if I understand you right. You want to study at an elite college for the deep and frequent intellectual conversation that you are not sure exist? What kind of reasoning is this?</p>
<p>C’mom. Just admit you really want to rub shoulders with the rich and famous. Most do. There is nothing wrong with it. Really. </p>
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<p>I don’t think you folks know what you are talking about. If you want to talk about intelligence and intelligence testing, you must know what main stream science has to say about it. Home-spun theories simply do not hold up to analysis.</p>
<p>The science of intelligence and intelligence testing is psychometrics, a sub field of psychology. You have to get up to speed on the work done there in the last century to appreciate the topic. I suggest the following to start:</p>
<p>For what we know about intelligence and its testing :</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1994WSJmainstream.pdf[/url]”>http://www.udel.edu/educ/gottfredson/reprints/1994WSJmainstream.pdf</a></p>
<p>For a brief update on the topic:</p>
<p>[Scientific</a> American Presents: Feature Article: The General Intelligence Factor: November 1998](<a href=“http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/1198gottfred.html]Scientific”>http://www.psych.utoronto.ca/users/reingold/courses/intelligence/cache/1198gottfred.html)</p>
<p>Where it fits into the field of psychology (need to register):</p>
<p>If you are really serious about it, I suggest the work of Arthur Jensen. A friend of mine, a PhD in statistics tried to find faults with his research and came up blank. Very impressive. I am a bit embarrassed to see folks who know nothing about research design tried to do the same.</p>
<p>“See if I understand you right. You want to study at an elite college for the deep and frequent intellectual conversation that you are not sure exist? What kind of reasoning is this?”</p>
<p>You’re not understanding me right.</p>
<p>I never indicated my doubt that intellectualism is present at top colleges. I’m not sure from where you got that impression. It might be because you are failing to distinguish between intelligence and intellectualism.</p>
<p>“C’mom. Just admit you really want to rub shoulders with the rich and famous. Most do. There is nothing wrong with it. Really.”</p>
<p>That’s not remotely close to my intent.</p>
<p>I’m not sure why you’ve brought up a debate over intelligence, as it has nothing to do with my original point. I haven’t doubted the intelligence quotient’s ability to predict success.</p>
<p>I don’t care about what the IQs of those around me are. As I stated previously, I want to be around intellectual and motivated people. </p>
<p>Even if my goal was to be around the smartest people, I don’t understand how those links describing the working scientific definition of general intelligence support your claim that the fields of mathematics and physics have “the brightest” people.</p>
<p>I read this thread, then went back and actually read his article. One point that struck me was his complaint about how “elite” education has become more about vocational/professional training (with post grads heading to law, medical or business schools), rather than purely “intellectual.” But after looking up more information about the author, I discovered that after being a junior professor, he was then denied tenure at Yale, which seems to be rather common according to a few articles. I knew someone who had his PhD in Anthropology who was working as a janitor at our local middle school because an academic appointment anywhere (his dream) was almost impossible to find. Isn’t that a huge reason why so many young people are chosing professional careers over academia? (Employment over pure intellectualism with no job)</p>