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<p>However, most of the “prestigious” colleges do not have very diverse students in terms of family economic background.</p>
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<p>That depends on the size of the company and what they are willing to pay. With a selection of 15,000 new graduates a year in that top 1%, there are plenty of choices. And aren’t most unhooked applicants in the Top-10 schools in the top 1% nowadays, just to get in? </p>
<p>I recall that Google, some years ago, paid for a large puzzle-application insert in the national Mensa magazine.</p>
<p>I’ve also read that, in computer science, many companies claim to only hire the top 1%. This is a bit of a fallacy, however:</p>
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A lot of companies think they’re hiring the top 1 percent because they get 100 resum</p>
<p>Many of the degrees on the list are not the ones that the person finishes with. Many of us with sociology, English, philosophy and other degrees DO go to law school and DO practice law (for a while at least). The sociology degree was a useful part of my undergraduate experience, as was writing an honors thesis. Have found it increasingly useful in my more recent career in public health as well. Only did retail when I was in HS & college, BEFORE I got my sociology degree. :)</p>
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I think the point was that all companies combined can’t hire in the 99% range. My company is typical, saying we hire only the best, which means we make an offer to the best candidate applying for an opening that we must fill, and hope the offer is accepted (and, no, we don’t recruit at MIT 
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<p>Agree with ucbalumnus.<br>
As the arecent SCOTUS arguments demonstrate, schools my want to favor some groups of applicants over other applicants even if the latter groups come from relatively more disadvantaged backgrounds.
Also, this “diversity” word is a trick that is used just to get around what people really want to do. I know it, Adcoms know it, you know it. For instance, a freshman non-US Citizen from Mexico does not count for adding “diveristy” according to Adcom’s definition. Now, if in the middle of they college career they get a Green Card or US Citizenship, then suddenly they count as “diversity”? Why? Does the fact that they just got a piece of paper will now significantly improve their perspectives in the classroom and make them create a better learning environment for other students? Not to mention that there are many applicants with very diverse backgrounds and perspectives that do not count for “diveristy” just because they do not fall in the U.S. Census definitions of ethnic/race backgrounds.
To keep with the theme of this thread, if admissions preferences were not used, then when employers go to an institution to recruit, they will be more sure that every student indeed have similar academic qualifications.</p>
<p>Hmmm. I guess my sister’s friend is an anomaly. She majored in anthropology, and then went to an ivy league medical school for both her studies and residency.</p>
<p>^ Yes! These medical schools are filled with anomalies, students extremely high on the academic and personal scales who want to study medicine. Sometimes it seems those majors other than biology are favored.</p>
<p>Biology majors make up about half of applicants and admits to medical school. In other words, the other half major in something other than biology.</p>
<p>^ Which leads to another version of the same old question: Given two otherwise equivalent candidates (who never are), would the anthropology major be favored over the biology major? Surely there’s been a study…</p>
<p><a href=“https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/[/url]”>https://www.aamc.org/data/facts/applicantmatriculant/</a> (see table 18) indicates that, superficially, social studies major applicants and matriculants have slightly higher MCAT scores and matriculation rate, but slightly lower GPAs, than biology major applicants and matriculants.</p>
<p>How about a study that shows which majors medical schools favor when the numbers are the same?</p>
<p>You may want to ask this question on the pre-med forum.</p>
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<p>To keep the topic as simple as possible, I will use brighter and more eager, willing, and able to learn as the main criterion recruiters are looking for from here on in. I know and respect that not all job categories has such a focus. Some may focus on studiousness, others on work experience, connections etc.</p>
<p>I am not arguing that there are not outstanding students in all disciplines. There are outstanding students in almost all universities as well, but recruiters are clearly targeting the elites for efficiency sake. My argument is that it would be even more efficient to recruit by disciplines, because some disciplines are simply too exacting for hooked applicants who do not have that level of academic ability.</p>
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<p>You are absolutely right, but that is not what I was arguing about. How many times have we heard from adcoms that they are not admitting perfect students but are admitting a perfect class, or something to that effect. MITChris described them as academic stars and MIT admit only 31% of the class in 2014 on that basis. Since MITs yield is far less than 100%, I expect maybe 15% of the graduating class to fall into that category. This is not what I would call a meritocracy.</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/882019-statistics-mit-2014-admissions-cycle.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/massachusetts-institute-technology/882019-statistics-mit-2014-admissions-cycle.html</a></p>
<p>It was a few passages from Charles (The Bell Curve) Murrays articles in the WSJ in 2007 that got me thinking along this line. Here is one of them, (about someone with an IQ a bit below 100, at the 49th percentile):</p>
<p>It is not within his power to learn to follow an exposition written beyond a limited level of complexity, any more than it is within my power to follow a proof in the American Journal of Mathematics. In both cases, the problem is not that we have not been taught enough, but that we are not smart enough.</p>
<p>So how do we find those with stronger academic ability than an unhooked grad of Harvard with a PHD from MIT like Murray? Look for those who has the power to follow a proof in the American Journal of Mathematics of course.</p>
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<p>Precisely correct.</p>
<p>Certainly every company in the world can “target” the top 1%. But just as most students won’t get into the tippy top schools most companies won’t get the top 1%. Especially since many in that group have no interest in working for “companies” period (at least not in the common usage of the term “company”). THey become doctors, and dentists, and college professors, and go into politics or government, or become writers or artists or actors or musicians or , well, you get the point.</p>
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<p>Most companies really don’t want the top 1%, except perhaps where they can be hidden away in research or IT. The top 1% tend to question authority and silly company policies. These folks are more like to get fired than the friendly incompetent who never is a threat to anyone’s chance of promotion.</p>
<p>I think employers also care about “fit.” There really is no such thing as the “top 1%” for all employers, and for all jobs. They recruit at the colleges where they believe they are most likely to find recruits who will meet their needs.</p>
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<p>Parental income is positively correlated with a child’s IQ, SAT/ACT scores and other measures of academic achievement, so this is not surprising or problematic at schools that admit the best students.</p>
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<p>What happens to that debt if you emigrate? Just wondering.</p>
<p>Sounds like an Interpol death wish.</p>
<p>[Universities</a> Are Vocational Schools](<a href=“http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2012/10/universities_are_vocational_sc.html]Universities”>http://www.mindingthecampus.com/originals/2012/10/universities_are_vocational_sc.html)
by Richard Vedder</p>
<p>finds that the mid-career earnings of some humanities majors (English, history, and philosophy) are decent, based on a study “The Returns to College Education”, by Coelho and Liu, available online.</p>