<p>So how do you explain the rash of suicides? Are those the scheduled caste/tribe members as well? </p>
<p>For those of us unfamiliar with the specifics of the tribe and caste system, perhaps you or mini can explain. Be sure to dumb it down for us lowly westerners who do not have the education to understand such intricacies.</p>
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<p>Safe journey, PG.</p>
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<p>The reason for the suicides are very simple. Indians are not at all open about mental health issues. There are suicides in regular non-elite colleges as well, in fact at a higher rate as the IIT kids are tougher in mind having gone through the rigors. It is a shame. There used to be no such thing as a shrink in India … though I believe that is changing.</p>
<p>After all the flippant comments about how the caste system can be used to explain all the depravities of Indians in the USA including teaching kids calculus at an early age, you claim not to know about SC/STs? ROFL!</p>
<p>Well, google it.</p>
<p>IP you think intelligence corresponds directly with opportunity?</p>
<p>I can think of plenty of counterexamples…</p>
<p>“I don’t. That is because a huge part of the so-called upper castes are dirt poor as well, as are the Muslims. Remember, India is a rich country with 800M poor people.”</p>
<p>True - we are back to what I said - everything you can say about India is true, but so is its opposite. There are massive number of upper caste folks who are poor, and substantial numbers of SC/ST/BC folks who are rich (take a look at the government); but on the whole, the percentages of upper caste folks who are rich are far, far, far higher than among the SC/ST/BC folks. Unlike the wealthier SC/ST/BC folks who have gained access to better education for their children, the poor among both groups don’t. So by providing affirmative action to the poor, one would ensure large numbers of truly unqualified applicants. (The answer of course is better education for the poor, all poor, in early childhood - but, as I noted in the case of our hostels which are filled with children of migrant laborers, that wouldn’t address IIT, which is a tiny, tiny, sliver of India’s population.)</p>
<p>In the long run, my cracked crystal ball suggests that India will outstrip the U.S. in economic power - simply because the people are smart and hungry! We’ll see…</p>
<p>Dont recall making any comments about the caste system in any post or thread, IP. You must have all the posters you argue with confused. But thats understandiale.</p>
<p>Oh sure, there are many counterexamples. But in general intelligence dictates success.</p>
<p>I have to disagree with that. I’d wager that an extremely driven person of average intelligence would fare better than a lazy genius.</p>
<p>mini, your last post made some great points about Affirmative Action for the poor. There is an interesting parallel to be drawn between that and the situation in the Ivies in the early 70s. When Affirmative Action first started in college admissions, the first ones to get in were from the urban poor. But they soon flunked out. So, colleges had a problem. They could either lower standards, or bring in the children of immigrant URMs who were middle class by any measure and not descendants of slaves. The former was unacceptable, so they did and continue to do the latter. The truly poor inner city Blacks for whom AA was designed got hardly any benefit.</p>
<p>I don’t know what the solution is. Perhaps it is pumping more money in the schools in the villages. But when a kid can help at the farm, it is a hard sell to bring that kid to school. When the kid hasn’t had any food because the family is one of bonded laborers, it is hard to expect the kid to do well in academics. So what do you do with this vast underclass? I am hopeful, though, that continuous migration to the cities from the villages will change the agrarian nature of the Indian economy which is the source of most of the evil.</p>
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<p>Oh sure, success is 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration. Intelligence is not innate. It is learned.</p>
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<p>It is indeed hard to distinguish between you and PG, given how much you speak for her.</p>
<p>[Scheduled</a> castes and scheduled tribes - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scheduled_castes_and_scheduled_tribes]Scheduled”>Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Nice spin, IP. I"ll take that as an apology.</p>
<p>“. So what do you do with this vast underclass?”</p>
<p>Of course, I am in Tamil Nadu, which tends to be more progressive than much of India. And this is where Affirmative Action among the IAS officers has been a tremendous success. When I first got to rural Tamil Nadu in 1977, Dalits in the area we worked were eating grass and snails - a great treat was a stewed water rat, when they could catch one. Now (as a result of land reform in some areas), we are seeing their children off to high school. No…most won’t graduate…yet. But they are basically literate (90% of the women we work with on land reform are not). A few are even making it to college (we had one who is in an engineering college visit us on Saturday). Many of the IAS people recognize where they came from, and embody a preferential option for the poor. No, I don’t see a lot of that among the SC/ST/BC folks at IIT or the big medical colleges - but I am willing to bet we will in the next generation. </p>
<p>The negative of course is that much of this vast underclass is getting poorer even as the country is swimming in money. Everything you can say is true, and so is it’s opposite!</p>
<p>We should talk about land reform in PM Mini. It’s a double edged sword.</p>
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<p>So much for the fact that TAs do have a final say on grades being a CC myth! Isn’t the usual denial that those unqualified and untrained barely-older-than-their-students only lead lectures, but do not grade papers or -heavens forbid-- decide on final grades of undergraduates? In addition to the lack of experience, one should question the lacking integrity of a TA in discussing grade policies with … her parents! </p>
<p>Well, perhaps not having TAs deciding on final grades might be a plus at the almighty IITs in India. Or did they also adopt such abysmal cost-savings measures ?</p>
<p>No TAs in India. The professors teach. And not just in the IITs. The whole concept of a TA is an American one, I think. As a TA many decades back, I did grade papers. But the prof decided the final grade, usually far more inflated than the one I would feel comfortable with. Grading is far tougher in the IITs. There is no grading to a curve, for starters. So many courses wouldn’t have a single kid getting an A, and that was just fine.</p>
<p>So Xiggi, what do you think of the selectivity of IITs vs. HYPSM now?</p>
<p>What do I think about “selectivity?” Still apples and oranges.</p>
<p>Another thread hijacked by guess who??</p>
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<p>So much for the fact that TAs do have a final say on grades being a CC myth! Isn’t the usual denial that those unqualified and untrained barely-older-than-their-students only lead lectures, but do not grade papers or -heavens forbid-- decide on final grades of undergraduates? In addition to the lack of experience, one should question the lacking integrity of a TA in discussing grade policies with … her parents!"</p>
<p>Did you miss your morning coffee?</p>
<p>I don;t see an integrity issue AT ALL. What principle was violated? No confidentiality was breached; Princeton has published grade distribution and grading policy in its own newspaper. It has been a significant issue of contention as they have tried to curb grade inflation.</p>
<p>But yes - head preceptors do read all the papers and all the exams (at least in my d’s department) (I only know about 100 or 200-level courses) and do give grades, which have to be approved by the professor, who sets the standards for scoring (and may change them). (By the way, I also did that at UChicago almost 40 years ago - am I violating some integrity standard by telling you that?)</p>
<p>(I have also been told, but I have no firsthand knowledge, that undergraduate TAs at my alma mater LAC grade problem sets. Oh, there I go, violating an integrity rule again.)</p>
<p>(Xiggi, if you really believe this post violates an integrity rule, I’ll be more than happy to ask the moderator to delete it, and its companion.)</p>
<p>I was a TA at UW a few decades ago and graded homeworks for a class. Is nt that what TAs do? If there is a key given by the prof, the TAs grade accordingly and the profs tack on some more points when the students complain about harsh grading.</p>
<p>As a STEM major from India, I can vouch for how hard it is to get into an IIT (IP makes it sound so damn easy but I do know only the best did get in, and yes I did attend an elite private boarding school that sent a bunch each year to IIT). Having attended one of the State U engineering schools, I know we had a foreigner quota specific to people who migrated from that State to a foreign country, both in engineering and medicine. I don’t remember seats that were available in the public Us for non-Indian origin students.</p>
<p>I was looking at Christian Medical College (Vellore, Tamil Nadu) charter, a private school and found that they have one or two seats for foreigners out of 60 (about 50 are reserved for Christians). </p>
<p>There are many private colleges which accept a donation to admit any type of student including a non-indian. Many study medicine in India by paying upto 110k or more upfront as a fee.</p>
<p>Although we talk a lot about IITs etc which are primarily engineering schools, there are some medical schools in India where the competition is such that probably one in 500 or so get in. There are a few schools like JIPMER where several thousand compete for kess than 30 seats. Even in CMC, the open quota where 95% of Indians belong are fighting over exactly 7 or 8 seats while the other 50 are considered sponsored by churches.</p>