For state flagships that have lenient admission for in state students but highly competitive for OOS students, it is easily the case to see a wider spectrum of academic ability. Particularly for the schools that offer great merit aid to attract high stat students.
My D went to a rural public school with a wide variety of SES, I think it has helped her greatly, she even wrote her admission essay on the subject (something to the effect of how some people may view growing up in a rural area a curse, but she saw it as a blessing)
The college in the book was Indiana University and the students who didn’t graduate weren’t academically marginal, or at least not any more marginal than the wealthier students who did graduate and do well.
I definately looked at the numbers for each school D applied to. In the end her choice was a school that only 40% receive need-based aid with a sticker of $62K or so. We were part of that 40%. In visiting schools we got some idea of the student body in their dress, the activities offered, sports programs/arts programs, etc. In the end, there were only two schools that totally turned us off, Brown and Amherst College. FWIW, my D is used to being from the family who can’t afford “xyz” and has developed a very strong work ethic because of it. Here’s a story about Amherst College: when I asked the tour guide what the students did for food if the one food hall closed at 7 pm every night and she said “it doesn’t matter, most of us order out sushi or italian most nights, we just use the food hall for breakfast and lunch” She also went on and on about the outside laundry service and some other benefits of her school that alot of the kids took advantage of. The tour guide at Brown was dressed to the hilt in very expensive “label” clothing but didn’t have the common sense to keep us out of the rain lol.
The ability to get into college is a form of IQ test, and frequently students are further sorted by IQ through class selection. You say you didn’t choose your grad-school friends based on IQ, but everyone in grad school is pretty smart to begin with. At most grad schools you won’t find anyone with an IQ of under 110, and most will have an IQ of at least 115.
There was a study at some point (sorry, I can’t find the cite) that said that college students were quite good at estimating a fellow student’s ACT score after a five-minute conversation. Sorting by IQ happens without people even being aware of it. In fact, it takes place on a pretty massive scale once kids enter high school and start taking advanced classes, since they are likely to form strong friendships with those they actually attend class with.
Have you ever been in a group of six people, all of whom are college graduates? If so, you should be aware that the odds of this happening through random selection are about one in four thousand. If you have an advanced degree, have you ever been in a social group of six people in which all six have an advanced degree? I have, plenty of times. The odds of this grouping happening at random are roughly one in 10 million.
The nature of our society is that all of us sort and are sorted by IQ and SES to some degree. This tendency towards assortative association happens without people even knowing that it is happening. Those who say they just form friendships based on “liking” people ignore the fact that it’s easiest to meet and “like” people who are like ourselves in terms of both IQ and SES.
The only part of above post that I would challenge is the ability to predict ACT score(and thus you linked it to IQ) based on a 5 minute conversation. This discounts the person with a significantly higher nonverbal, as opposed to verbal IQ. This is the segment of our population that I have always considered as “under valued”. We base so much on language skills that the person with the 95 verbal / 125 nonverbal IQ is not thought of as being “as smart as” the person with a 125 verbal / 95 nonverbal.
Interesting observation. I wonder how much this has to do with what tour guide you get?
Ours went on about the outdoor club and how it was free and included gear rental and everything else so no out of pocket cost and no one had ot feel weird about affording this or that because it was all included.
The dining hall is open until 8:30 on weekdays, 7:30 weekends, maybe that’s new.
The ability to estimate IQ or ACT scores is not perfect, and people will make mistakes.
Thirty-point differences between verbal and non-verbal IQ are pretty rare, and when the verbal IQ is 30 points below the non-verbal one it almost always indicates some type of learning disability.
The reason we “undervalue” people with high nonverbal and low verbal IQs is because they are far less likely to be able to use their IQ to achieve easy success. A person with a 130 verbal and 100 nonverbal IQ is usually going to have a better life outcome and higher income than someone with a 130 nonverbal and 100 verbal.
Yeah, I know, I’ve been a School Psychologist for 30 years.
When my son was accepted at Yale, we had a discussion about income and wealth.
Our financial situation is fine. We pay our bills, are thrifty with our spending, and focus on what matters most to us.
We’ve had tough times, but managed OK.
I explained to him that ‘compared to the average Yale family, we’re relatively poor’, but compared to the average American family, we’re doing fine.
I’m proud that he does not pre-judge folks based on their balance sheet.
For example, he’s not impressed by a wealthy person, nor is he predisposed to think poorly of him or her.
If you restrict it to exactly 6 randomly selected people age 25+ in the US, where 31.96% have bachelor’s degrees or higher, and 11.77% have post-bachelor’s degrees, the odds are about 1 in 938 and 1 in 376,138, not 1 in 4,000 and 1 in 10,000,000. Obviously, if you have more than 6 people, the chance that any 6 of them have bachelor’s degrees or higher increases.
However, employment often shapes social groups due to the qualifications of who can be hired for specific types of jobs. The question of whether your non-employment-related social groups have similar educational attainment may be the more interesting one.
Every day, at work.
Why would this be considered unusual?
Their point was that educated people will be in self-selecting groups due to their circumstances, even if they’re not consciously intending to select groups like that for themselves.
No.
Is this a joke? I know very few people who aren’t college graduates. It would be odd for me to be in a group with more than one or two who weren’t. I work with no one who does not have a college degree. How is that unusual?
It is not unusual, unless you are comparing to a group of randomly selected people age 25+ in the US. Of course, the point is that people tend to self-segregate by SES and educational attainment (however, non-employment-related groupings are probably a better gauge on personal choices, since the type of job can be a selector for working with groups of similar (or sometimes different) SES and educational attainment).
Some colleges may actually be the most diverse in terms of SES and educational attainment situations that someone may encounter in his/her lifetime. Of course, at least for traditional-age frosh, this is really based on parental SES and educational attainment, as their upbringing and socialization up to then is based on their parents. Graduating seniors could be less diverse in these measures, since they are all on the verge of high (bachelor’s degree) educational attainment as they are establishing their own individual identities with respect to SES and educational attainment rather than being extensions of their parents in these respects (although parental resources related to SES still affect post-graduation directions).
Previous discussions on these topics:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1403571-do-your-social-circles-have-similar-educational-attainment-as-you.html
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1768358-ses-homogeneity-diversity-of-social-circles.html