<p>Also, our county fair is nothing compared to Disneyland. </p>
<p>Signed, </p>
<p>A former annual passholder</p>
<p>I don’t even know if we have a county fair!</p>
<p>Our State Fair is pretty darned awesome, though. Where else can you get fried butter? :o</p>
<p>“But there aren’t that many truly gifted”. </p>
<p>I agree.</p>
<p>“I have friends whose parents are very well-connected to HPYMS and their kids attend. …… those kids can get a huge advantage by attending elites”.</p>
<p>This is what the Rivera study seems to show. I think this is the biggest advantage for attending an elite.</p>
<p><a href=“Percolator: Brown and Cornell Are Second Tier”>Percolator: Brown and Cornell Are Second Tier;
<p>Thank goodness other employers are more enlightened:</p>
<p><a href=“How Elite Business Recruiting Really Works | National Review”>http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/285160/how-elite-business-recruiting-really-works-jim-manzi</a></p>
<p>“I suspect that URMs, especially those from poor families, also get a huge advantage”.</p>
<p>Adding another piece to the big puzzle, research in Canada shows that an elite school can help anyone with a “funny name”, not just URMs and the poor:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/frances-woolley/do-employers-care-about-a-universitys-reputation/article2313152/”>http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/frances-woolley/do-employers-care-about-a-universitys-reputation/article2313152/</a></p>
<p>I know for DD, her decision was based on fit, where she would be pushed academically & where she felt the most at home…ironically, its the school where she never wanted the apply to. I never divulge where she is going to college unless someone asks…I never want to appear to be bragging. </p>
<p>“I have friends whose parents are very well-connected to HPYMS and their kids attend. …… those kids can get a huge advantage by attending elites”</p>
<p>Can we go back to Hunt’s point? Why does it have to be about gaming a system or getting a “huge advantage” socially, networking-wise, and / or financially? Why can’t it just be – those of us who went think the experience is one we’d like to have our kids have, and if we can pay for it, what’s the big deal – rather akin to Hunt’s analogy with the BMW?</p>
<p>^Because we are not hard-wired like this.</p>
<p>If we were, knowing what we know from the Canadian study I posted, you would expect more people doing what this kind professor is suggesting:</p>
<p><a href=“How liberal students could change affirmative action debate (essay)”>How liberal students could change affirmative action debate (essay);
<p>Just think. A chance to play Mother Teresa. What not to like?</p>
<p>
Maybe the schools would fill up with full-pay internationals from Asia. More likely, there would be enough white and Asian students who aren’t strong liberals to make up the difference. It would have no impact at all on URMs, because there already aren’t enough URMs with minimum stats for those selective colleges–those colleges are already admitting URMs with stats substantially lower than average in order to get the relatively low percentage of URMs they have now.</p>
<p>"^Because we are not hard-wired like this."</p>
<p>Who says? Hunt and I clearly are hard-wired like this. We ourselves went to elite schools, met our spouses there, we enjoyed our time, all else being equal we wanted our children to enjoy similar experiences, assuming they were academically qualified and so inclined, which they were. We saw no reason to have them go to “lesser” schools to make some kind of point. Over and out. </p>
<p>And the remedy the article proposes is rather silly, because you change an institution from the inside, not the outside. </p>
<p>@Pizzagirl, your post suggests that you misunderstand what @expatCanuck was saying and perhaps what the article was trying to say. I believe he is saying that humans are not hard-wired not to game the system to favor themselves or their kids. </p>
<p>You, Hunt and I are probably good examples of this. I went to three elite schools and taught at one. If I have a kid who can benefit from them, I would want him or her to do so. I can afford it and the one child who would want the challenges and advantages elite institutions can provide is doing what your kids did. Unhooked kids might have been stronger than your kids or mine (though of course mine is brilliant and perfect …) but the advantages you as a parent can convey to your kids might cause your kid (or mine) to get in ahead of the unhooked kid (though in this particular case, my kid in fact attended a school where he had not hook, but you get the point). And your kids, like the ones I mentioned above, may well get </p>
<p>Clearly the remedy the author proposes is intentionally naive. I assumed that he was trying to twit the hypocrisy of liberals who on the one hand decry the racism or other isms of elite schools but wouldn’t give up their own or their kids’ chances to garner advantage from the privileges that they have created/inherited over time. </p>
<p>@shawbridge, I think you meant @Canuckguy. Me, I’m a product of the Canadian public school system (U of Toronto, U.W.O., Osgoode Hall), and damned proud of it, eh?</p>
<p>Still, I took expatSon on visits to over a dozen U.S. schools (mostly LACs), and a couple of Canadian schools.</p>
<p>This past March, during lunch in a Dalhousie eatery, my son looked up at me between mouthfuls and remarked, “The cafeteria workers are discussing theology.”</p>
<p>He starts there this fall, and I couldn’t be more pleased. He’ll receive a fine education for (by modern U.S. standards) a bargain price, and be afforded all the benefits of a full research university. And he even gets credit for his AP studies.</p>
<p>@expatCanuck, oops. You are correct. The commenter was @Canuckguy. I wonder if this is a case of Canuckism that should be reported to the PC police. Of course, that would be a big problem in my home as my wife is Canadian, my kids are dual citizens, we own property in Canada, and I’ve been on the boards of several Canadian companies.</p>
<p>One expat Canuck to another @expatCanuck - Dalhousie, really? I didn’t do Osgoode Hall, but I’m pretty sure you can find a lot better schools than Dalhousie in the US at comparable cost with merit scholarships; maybe even without merit scholarships.</p>
<p>I’ll wager on my son’s intellect 99 times out of 100, but his scholastic performance to date didn’t net him sufficient merit to get even close to Dal’s $8K / year in tuition (notwithstanding an ACT score in the 93rd percentile). Nor were his grades going to garner admission to U of T, McGill or UBC.</p>
<p>That said, the cost is just a bonus. Dal’s resources for marine biology and environmental science are excellent, as is their Centre for Foreign Policy – all areas which expatSon loves. While I’d rather see him at a LAC, I really can’t fault his decision.</p>
<p>@shawbrige You described my position well. The good professor’s piece put a smile to my face. I kept smiling… just can’t help it.</p>
<p>When people tell me they love diversity but refuse to live in diversity, or claim an elite education is unnecessary but would not consider sending their own anywhere else, I see a problem.</p>
<p>As far as passing the advantage to the progeny goes, Collins at UPenn has been saying that for years (bottom 2 paragraphs and the top of the next page):</p>
<p><a href=“Penn: Page not found”>Penn: Page not found;
<p>Interesting, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Very interesting article, @Canuckguy. I loved Spence’s work and Collins’work is surprising (and not as it is just the systemic version of what I was describing). </p>
<p>@shawbrige If elites are flooded with applicants seeking a more distinguished credential because college degrees have become common (Labaree), and the system can be gamed by those who are the most privileged, then what Bain and BCG (the Munzi article above)are doing make perfect sense. Screening by a combination of SAT, GPA, demanding quantitative courses and interview will most certainly separate the truly able from the pretenders.</p>
<p>I find by simply knowing the school and the major in a casual conversation can give me a lot of that information. In the mind of some, this line of thinking must seem subversive, for it would undo part of their carefully- crafted plan of succession, done consciously or otherwise. </p>
<p>It also goes a long way in explaining the hostile reception I sometime receive.</p>
<p>@Hunt That will never happen.</p>
<p>The elites know as long as they maintain their status as "handmaiden to power”, their coffers will be full and the plebeians will be begging for entry.</p>
<p>The delicious irony for me is always this: If the elites admit on the basis of academic merit, the plebeians would lose interest. We know in our heart of hearts our precious snowflakes are not really that special. Holistic admission gives them a fighting chance, while a pure merit approach would not. My chess vs backgammon analogy all over again.</p>
<p>If the elites aren’t admitting on the basis of academic merit, where are all of those academically meritorious students going instead?</p>
<p>I guess what irks me most about Canuckguy’s theories is that even though both my wife and I went to Yale, and we both went to top professional schools, and our kids both went to Yale, nobody has given us the secret handshake for the hidden power elite.</p>
<p>@Hunt, I see kids of various elites get into elite schools in part because of their parents’ eliteness. Example: Harvard’s Z-List. (<a href=“The Harvard Crimson”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014/4/3/the-legend-of-the-z-list/</a>). Princeton luminaries kid gets in even though perfectly fine but not sensational. That means other kids are going to Penn or Tufts or Haverford or Michigan or Berkeley who might gone to Harvard or Princeton but for the admits of scions of the elite list. One such elite kid’s best school was Tufts and the other was also non-Ivy. They displace other kids. </p>
<p>For more normal alums, you know how to coach your kids to look good to elites and they get some admissions advantage. Nobody needs to give you the secret handshake for your kids to have an advantage relative to other kids who are comparable intellectually but don’t have elite parents.</p>
<p>Yeah, I coached my son on how to get a 2390 on the SAT on his first try with no prep. You are right, of course, about these advantages, but they only go so far. I get really tired of suggestions that the students at the most selective colleges don’t exhibit academic merit. It’s a crock.</p>
<p>Of course, there are elites at all the top schools–rich people and celebrities included. But they are a minority. Many of the hooked students are hooked because they are URMs or athletes–and a lot of those athletes are not from fancy backgrounds. The fact is that almost all of the students accepted by Harvard, Yale, et al. are very, very high academic achievers. They might spot you a couple of hundred SAT points, or a few Bs if you’re a legacy, but the only people who get in with significantly lower stats are development cases (of which there just aren’t that many), recruited athletes (especially in the “helmet” sports), and some URMs. But even those people have high stats, compared to average states. Most legacy applicants are rejected.</p>
<p>Of course, anybody is free to believe that Yale is fully stocked with rich ruling-class people. I just happen to know from personal experience, both 30 years ago and now, that it isn’t true. Indeed, it’s gotten even less elite than when I was there, with higher percentages of public school graduates, more ethnic diversity, and more people receiving financial aid. But I guess all of that is camouflage for the real purpose, which is to educate the scions of the power elite.</p>