spongemaster

@flmon239 @SBleftCA @MarketPalmer_ Thanks. I’m limited by characters. All of these are pretty well known examples of competitions for the kids at these top schools and mean oodles more than SATs. That said, cheating is becoming a real problem for all of them.

@SBleftCA @spongemaster4 @MarketPalmer_ They’re all academic competitions. Math Olympiads, John Locke is a writing contest for under 18, ISEF is a science and engineering fair… HYPSM = Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and mit

I graduated high school with a guy who got a perfect ACT score (twice), played multiple varsity sports, was in band, National Honors Society, student council, had the highest possible GPA, a clean record, volunteered, AND was a minority. ...and he still didn't get into Harvard or Yale when he applied. Why not?

@quiettom2000 @BradleyKellard I agree about the test scores, by the way. And I find it amusing that I seemed to anger someone for saying, “I went to Harvard and Harvard has always has idiots.”

Well, the best way to measure objective iq would obviously be test scores, which they eliminated the requirement for the bottom rung to keep their averages up and still be able to admit morons. Just need to put two and two together. Since they pulled the rug out from objective measurement, subjectively it is obvious that the mindset that has taken over favors diversity and mindless adherents to a certain philosophy over brainpower. Yes, this has been a long process going back probably 70 years of questionable admits, but it’s gotten worse. They admit legacy and academic stars of course but rhe seas if mindless zombies with vacant stares and poor vocabulary are hard to ignore. And yes, I’ve been out of school for a while, but I worked for and competed with organizations that draw heavily from ivy leagues and I have seen a notable quality decline if anecdotes are helpful.

Malcolm Gladwell revealed why you shouldn't go to Harvard: 1. America does not have a shortage of students who want science and math degrees. It has a shortage of students who finish them. Half of all high school seniors who intend to study STEM drop out by the end of their second year. The problem is not interest. It is persistence. 2. The obvious assumption is that smarter students persist longer. So Gladwell tested it. At Hartwick College, a small liberal arts school in New York, the top third of math SAT scorers took the majority of STEM degrees. The bottom third dropped out in large numbers. The data seemed to confirm it. Smarter kids stick around longer. 3. Then he looked at Harvard. The bottom third of Harvard's math SAT scores are equal to the top third at Hartwick. By the logic above, everyone at Harvard should graduate with a STEM degree. They are all brilliant. Nobody should be dropping out. 4. Harvard showed the exact same pattern as Hartwick. Top students graduated. Bottom students dropped out like flies. Even though the bottom Harvard students were objectively brilliant by any global standard. Something else entirely was driving the dropout rate. 5. That something is called relative deprivation theory. Human beings do not measure themselves against the world. They measure themselves against the people immediately around them. A Harvard student in the bottom third does not think I am in the top one percent of all students globally. They think that kid next to me keeps getting everything right and I keep getting it wrong. So they quit. 6. The research from UCLA puts a specific number on it. Your odds of graduating with a STEM degree fall by two percentage points for every ten point increase in the average SAT score of your peers. Choose Harvard over the University of Maryland and your chance of finishing a STEM degree drops by thirty percent. Thirty percent. Just to put a brand name on your resume. 7. Relative position matters more than absolute position when it comes to confidence, motivation, and self belief. The eightieth percentile student at Harvard looks up at the people above them and feels like they cannot compete. The number one student at a state school feels like they can conquer the world. That feeling drives everything. 8. The practical hiring implication is radical. Class rank matters more than institution name. Gladwell argues companies should have a don't ask don't tell policy for where someone went to college. Hiring only from top schools means missing the top students from every other school. That is not smart hiring. That is brand worship. 9. When choosing a college, never go to the best school you get into. Go to the school where you are guaranteed to be near the top of your class. Being a big fish in a smaller pond does not just feel better. It statistically produces better outcomes than being a small fish in the most prestigious pond available. 10. So why do we keep choosing Harvard over Maryland? Because we are flattered. Because the acceptance letter feels like validation. Because we make an irrational decision in a moment of enormous flattery and call it ambition. Gladwell's conclusion is simple and brutal. When we have the chance to join an elite institution we do things that are genuinely against our own interest and we feel great about it the whole time.

@quiettom2000 @BradleyKellard Alll fair points. My parents met at Harvard in the 40s. All of their children when there (early 70s to late 80s). All of us know tons of Harvard dummies Now I know low double digit kids at Harvard, some are idiots. A few are brilliant beyond belief. Seems about the same to me

@quiettom2000 @BradleyKellard Sorry to bust your bubble, but Harvard has ALWAYS had loads of idiots—and perhaps I’m one of them! I’m just asking you to prove that it is a lot worse today than in prior years.

Wow you sound so cool all these people you know! Do you also know how to use your brain and observe trends and process information, sounds like the answer is no. For one example among many, Harvard dropped test score requirements in 2021 through 2026. Anyone with an honest and functional brain can understand this was done to admit people who can’t score well on what are effectively iq test proxies. And if you really want to debate the glaringly obvious decline at these schools, maybe it’s true that you’ve been hanging around too many braindead academics who are great at verbal manipulation but are incapable of accurate real world predictions. That said, of course some, but fewer, of the people they admit are still brilliant and the original post was still wrong. I’d choose a Harvard degree over some no name obviously even if just for the brand.

@quiettom2000 @BradleyKellard How many current Harvard students do you know? How many previous Harvard students do you know? How many current Harvard faculty do you know? How many previous Harvard faculty do you know? You may know more than I, but it is extremely unlikely.

@BradleyKellard Are you out of your mind? Even if it’s true and you leave the stem degree your degree is still infinitely more valuable than a degree from whatever hartwick is I’ve never heard of it. And Yes Harvard is currently full of idiots, but it is still a strong brand sadly

@quiettom2000 @BradleyKellard Harvard has ALWAYS had lots of idiots. It also has lots of some of the most brilliant people on the planet.

@goatpurple1 @CoreyWriting Which schools?

@CoreyWriting Schools want diversity not merit

The same is true for many private schools. Counselors at Exeter, Andover, Deerfield, Choate, etc. have to inform families that there's a quota on how many students colleges are willing to take from their school. No matter how well prepared, schools want diversity on all fronts.

@texasGSDgirl @JohnLeFevre Sarah Palin was a blithering idiot, and your argument is that because she was a woman no one should have pointed this out?

@JohnLeFevre I got a big clue about the true nature of "feminism" when the press savaged Sarah Palin and got clean away with it.

If Melania wasn’t married to Trump, she’d be on every magazine cover as the most elegant, dignified First Lady in modern history. If Gwynne Shotwell didn’t work for Elon, she’d be universally celebrated as one of the greatest executives alive. The same people who worship “strong women” suddenly go blind when she stands next to the wrong man.

@Saintsing79 @JamesSurowiecki Barry, I love how you defend Pete. And I’m even more impressed by the photo with that big gun!

Weak men who never served know nothing about the circuit failure training, which is meant to condition your mind and body to push through pain and mental fatigue. If the goal was pure strength, you would lift heavier, to failure, with more rest. But since you've never served, and contribute nothing to society, you critique form in a failure circuit training workout. How pathetic.

This is a tough exercise for a 46-year-old. But why does Hegseth never extend his arms in any of his weight-lifting reps?

@John_Fanta Well said, and it applies to 99% of life.

Good luck with everything Brock. Keep saying yes to opportunities even if it’s a sport you’re not as familiar with. You never know what one yes can turn into. And there are no bad connections. Keep saying hello to people. And treat every step of the journey like the Super Bowl.

@seanluomdphd @zagrebbi Super smart kids major in classics. IMO getting an 800 in math is pretty easy, these guys get 800s in English.

@zagrebbi The “edging out” is probably statistically non significant. Very few classics majors and broad estimate error.

Average SAT by major at Columbia. Classics improbably edges out Math and Physics for the top spot at 1529. Sociology is on the bottom (1422), though "Ethnicity & Race Studies", "Public Health", and "Human Rights" aren't too far in front. The within-school spread is 100 points or so — around half of a standard deviation of the SAT-taker population.

@BradFriedman713 You are far too kind. Neither Hilbert nor Von Neumann left academia, both got paid peanuts compared with a mediocre financier, and both of these men are responsible for the world we live in today.

University-led research findings have fundamentally shaped the modern world we enjoy, directly & indirectly. The people who uphold these spaces for advancement deserve credit. This is a phenomenally short-sighted & lazy take.

@2itshorizon @deep29jariwala For 99.9% of kids, MIT would be a disaster. And good state colleges are fantastic for lots of kids, including the very brightest and hardest working—and the infinite corridor is filled with their graduates. But is MIT “worth it?” For some, yes.

@spongemaster4 @deep29jariwala And what the child can do without that experience, the gap in between. A state college will charge $15-20k per year. For most kids, a good state college will be good enough.

None of these are worth it for this price. Even Harvard Caltech MIT Stanford are not worth it for this price. Especially in this day and age.

@LocasaleLab You make a lot of statements about MIT. What supporting evidence can you provide?

Universities continue to believe that good public relations can conceal their decay. MIT spent more than a decade purging dissenters, driving out some of its most accomplished scientists, and rewarding mediocrity, conformity, bureaucracy, and careerism. Now it seems to think a few flashy patriotic advertisements are enough to restore public trust. They still do not understand the problem. We are not fooled.

@therapy69420 @WestsideLAGuy If you crush it at Stony Brook studying math or Physics you are elite MIT/CalTech level and could either go to a top grad school or make 2x a Harvard MBA your first year out of college.

@WestsideLAGuy you’re not from New York but I’ll give you a general example. If 50-100 kids from stuy or science go to Binghamton or stony brook because it’s cheaper is that failure? Are they stupid failures? Is going to uc San Diego or Irvine in CA does that mean they are second tier??

Not gonna lie. Whenever I meet someone who attended one of these feeder high schools but went to a non-top 25 college, I look down on them with utter contempt. Like a rich heir who threw away his inheritance through sheer stupidity.

@Upstatebigmouth @dchidyllo @financedystop @ThinkAppraiser If you go by the median student, Harvey Mudd, CalTech and MIT have the top students in the country, and it isn’t even close. And even though most folks haven’t heard of Mudd, employers certainly have, which is why they command salaries second only to MIT.

@dchidyllo @financedystop @ThinkAppraiser Harvey Mudd? Never heard of it.

More than a dozen colleges have now crossed the $100,000/year threshold when tuition, fees, room, board, and living expenses are included: Harvey Mudd ($104,512) Duke ($103,975) USC ($103,162) Barnard ($103,000) Washington University in St. Louis ($102,260) Smith ($102,226) Fordham ($102,188) Claremont McKenna ($101,990) Vassar ($101,051) Wesleyan ($101,030) Georgetown ($100,864) Colgate ($100,224) Haverford ($100,026) A four-year degree at any of these schools now exceeds $400,000. Per Ny Mag

@dchidyllo @financedystop @ThinkAppraiser IMO, Harvey Mudd may be the best college in the nation. 2nd highest starting salary upon graduation (behind MIT) 2nd highest mean SAT, 2nd highest in students getting PhDs. Plus access to Pomona and CMC classes. Plus it is beautiful.

@financedystop @ThinkAppraiser 7 of those places 95% of the population has never even heard of and provide no upside in job prospects.

@potential__sam @literaryeric If you think Georgia Tech is garbage, then I know why your son got rejected everywhere: his father is an idiot. A conclusion confirmed by thinking that SATs and grades are the only thing that matters. (And I HIGHLY doubt that 1590.)

@literaryeric The girl getting into 4 ivies is suspicious. My son had the most stacked admission packet you can imagine. 1590. Valedictorian. All of it. Rejected from every ivy, every UC, even garbage like Georgia Tech. Very broken system.