dagblog - Comments for "Marching on Pittsfield"

Although being a legacy gives

Verified Atheist — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 15:45:49 +0000

Although being a legacy gives you an advantage, it doesn't guarantee your entrance. Whether or not Dubya would be able to get in today, it wouldn't solely be due to him being a legacy. (Note: I'm not supporting the legacy advantage.)

Dubya would come under

David Seaton — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 15:37:40 +0000

In reply to And yet those elite schools

Dubya would come under "legacy", wouldn't he?

And yet those elite schools

Doctor Cleveland — Tue, 22 Feb 2011 15:19:57 +0000

In reply to Doc I think we agree totally

And yet those elite schools are vastly more academic and less oligarchical in their admissions policies then they once were. George W. Bush would not get into Yale today with the kind of grades he had.

Come with facts, or don't come at all.

Doc I think we agree totally

David Seaton — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 16:19:58 +0000

In reply to What I think my friend may be

Doc I think we agree totally that the elite of America are every day more elite. The question is are they any smarter than they were. That they may be just as dumb as the rest, would fit perfectly with the new situation. The whole point of an established oligarchy as against a democratic meritocracy is for the oligarchs to be able to find good positions for their dumb children... as smart people always find some way to get along. To maintain the prestige of certain institutions while in fact dumbing them down, would be a perfect fit.

What I think my friend may be

Doctor Cleveland — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 22:07:00 +0000

In reply to You make it all sound so

What I think my friend may be discovering is that even the elite universities in the US have been dumbed down enough to fit what American high schools are turning out.

-David Seaton, italics in original

How does your chart, which covers the entire United States, say anything about elite college and universities? Harvard and Yale and Williams and MIT haven't slacked off. The rest of the country has been allowed to suffer. The top 1% of the educational system, like the top 1% of the economic arrangement, does just fine.

And of course, you were educated decades ago, and don't know how to use figures like means. So maybe mathematical concepts weren't taught so rigorously or effectively

Look at the first column in your little chart, the column for income inequality. Do you see how the US is getting a banana-republic level of social stratification? Do you think those kinds of changes might, just might, be reflected in other arrangements.

But by parrotting the talking point about elite colleges being dumbed down, a point you make not from knowledge or evidence but from your own boundless self-esteem, you help cover up the ugly reality. Elite education is more elite than it ever has been, and the American plutocracy makes sure it stays that way. It's the poor kids who are simply allowed to go to hell.

You make it all sound so

David Seaton — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 15:25:26 +0000

In reply to The only thing I can think of

You make it all sound so wonderful, but if you look at the international rankings, you'll see that American students are quite mediocre in most fields measured. What my friend said is that the teachers are rather good, but that the kids are very ignorant and at the same time very narcissitic.

As to the difficulty of entering Williams there is an prosperous American friend of mine who is married to a Catalan and her son got into Williams on a scholorship because his mother is 1/8th Cherokee indian 1/4 African-American and he has a "hispanic" last name. Go figure.

This comment deserves a

tmccarthy0 — Sun, 20 Feb 2011 06:56:59 +0000

In reply to The only thing I can think of

This comment deserves a bravo to you DocCleveland, well said. I am in complete agreement. I haven't had those students Seaton describes, the majority of students I have had are hard working, most hold down jobs, they study hard, they work hard. There isn't anything I can say really, except I am in 100% agreement.

The only thing I can think of

Doctor Cleveland — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 16:39:00 +0000

In reply to I had a professor from the U

The only thing I can think of that would account for such a huge improvement at Williams would be ...

Maybe you can't think of many reasons because you actually don't know a lot about American higher education. Maybe you shouldn't spend so much energy trying to squeze surprising facts into your cherished theories, but try to change your theories to fit the facts.

One thing that would account for such huge improvement is that the admissions rate has plummeted (and keeps getting smaller) at selective American colleges. Williams College currently admits only about one in five students who apply. No college in America had admissions standards that strict, or nearly that strict, in the 1960s. In short, Williams College has improved because it has become much, much harder to get into. Every elite college in America has gotten much, much harder to get into. Did you not know that?

This is a fact. It is easily confirmable public knowledge. You'll forgive me if I pay more attention to those drastically-shrinking admissions rates than I do to your friend muttering about how much tougher it was in her day. It was always tougher back in your own day, David, because you were the one taking the test instead of handing it out. But that isn't evidence.

You're clearly very attached to your story in which students at elite schools don't learn anything and focus on self-esteem rather than accomplishments. But those students have actually been selected through the most grueling college admissions process ever, and they got there by compiling an absurdly impressive track record of accomplishments. They are competitive, ambitious, and focused on tangible achievement in ways that actually border on unhealthy. Almost no group of people in the history of the world fit your description of self-satisfied self-esteem junkies less than these kids would.

I had a professor from the U

David Seaton — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 12:34:37 +0000

In reply to Thanks, Doc. I concur that

I had a professor from the U of Texas Austin, tell me in the mid-90s that she could never demand of her students what was demanded of her when she was a student... she'd be in her mid-60s today. Where I think you see some difference in favor of US universities is at the post grad level... European high schools are definitely tougher than American ones. Spanish kids who have gone for the "year of American high school, living with an American family" all say that they got straight A grades without even cracking a book in US high school as juniors, everything that was being taught they had already studied in the 8th grade and that they had a devil's old time catching up when they got home.

So I would say that where they separate the sheep from the goats in the US system is at the post grad level and that an American bachelors degree is fairly Mickey Mouse and a US high school diploma nearly worthless if compared with a French Lycee "bacc".

The only thing I can think of that would account for such a huge improvement at Williams would be if before the 70s there had been some sort of "gentleman's agreement" that excluded Jews. Obviously if that were removed there would be a huge jump in academic achievement.

Thanks, Doc. I concur that

Michael Wolraich — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 18:09:59 +0000

In reply to I would respectfully submit

Thanks, Doc. I concur that the caliber of Williams students skyrocketed in the 1970s and 1980s and has remained stellar. Older alumni routinely say that they would never have gotten into Williams under the current admissions standards.

And with all due respect to Mr. Seaton's adopted country, my fellow Williams students who studied in Spain and other European countries found the universities to be unchallenging, and that's a major understatement. Even Oxford, where I studied abroad, was less rigorous than I and my American classmates were accustomed to.

(My apologies for the defensive pique.)