Are students outside of the top 20 or so universities more interesting people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was reading "Excellent Sheep" the other day, and while this post isn't about his book, and while I think his viewpoint has many faults, I've been thinking a lot about whether there's a great deal of truth to the idea that elite universities select for people who are good at embracing the dullness and conformity of corporate culture, people who think that seeking "leadership positions" in various meaningless student-run clubs is a good use of time, people who need structured activity for at least 16 hours a day, people who lack some sort of spirit which is hard to identify and name but which is important. This is not to suggest that other universities are some sort of utopia, but there is some sense of excitement and even creativity there that just feels different from the lifeless hierarchy-obsession of more elite places.

In the last couple of years, I have gone with my kids to visit a number of top universities, including several top ivy leagues, Duke, and Stanford, and my kids, to my surprise, seem less than enthused. They say the students seem generally boring and rigid. I think they're right and suspect that this has been true for decades and that it is an enduring aspect of the admissions process, a process which students who are genuinely funny, fun, interesting, or creative will generally not have the willingness to endure. The point is not these universities need to change, because it is likely they can't change their admissions process to bring these types of people in without becoming significantly less selective, and it isn't clear that they even want to.

Maybe the kids you meet on school tours are tired of meeting judgmental asses like you.

+ 1,000

^
THIS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was reading "Excellent Sheep" the other day, and while this post isn't about his book, and while I think his viewpoint has many faults, I've been thinking a lot about whether there's a great deal of truth to the idea that elite universities select for people who are good at embracing the dullness and conformity of corporate culture, people who think that seeking "leadership positions" in various meaningless student-run clubs is a good use of time, people who need structured activity for at least 16 hours a day, people who lack some sort of spirit which is hard to identify and name but which is important. This is not to suggest that other universities are some sort of utopia, but there is some sense of excitement and even creativity there that just feels different from the lifeless hierarchy-obsession of more elite places.

In the last couple of years, I have gone with my kids to visit a number of top universities, including several top ivy leagues, Duke, and Stanford, and my kids, to my surprise, seem less than enthused. They say the students seem generally boring and rigid. I think they're right and suspect that this has been true for decades and that it is an enduring aspect of the admissions process, a process which students who are genuinely funny, fun, interesting, or creative will generally not have the willingness to endure. The point is not these universities need to change, because it is likely they can't change their admissions process to bring these types of people in without becoming significantly less selective, and it isn't clear that they even want to.

Maybe the kids you meet on school tours are tired of meeting judgmental asses like you.

+ 1,000

^
THIS

lol you guys get so mad if anyone suggests something slightly negative about your elite private universities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid didn't get in a T10 or T20 well then, of course. :roll: :roll:

+1. lol. amazing how these nasty postscome out here every year after all the results are known

[Anonymous]

By definition you are now getting people there who are extreme rule followers so there is less creativity and original thought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was reading "Excellent Sheep" the other day, and while this post isn't about his book, and while I think his viewpoint has many faults, I've been thinking a lot about whether there's a great deal of truth to the idea that elite universities select for people who are good at embracing the dullness and conformity of corporate culture, people who think that seeking "leadership positions" in various meaningless student-run clubs is a good use of time, people who need structured activity for at least 16 hours a day, people who lack some sort of spirit which is hard to identify and name but which is important. This is not to suggest that other universities are some sort of utopia, but there is some sense of excitement and even creativity there that just feels different from the lifeless hierarchy-obsession of more elite places.

In the last couple of years, I have gone with my kids to visit a number of top universities, including several top ivy leagues, Duke, and Stanford, and my kids, to my surprise, seem less than enthused. They say the students seem generally boring and rigid. I think they're right and suspect that this has been true for decades and that it is an enduring aspect of the admissions process, a process which students who are genuinely funny, fun, interesting, or creative will generally not have the willingness to endure. The point is not these universities need to change, because it is likely they can't change their admissions process to bring these types of people in without becoming significantly less selective, and it isn't clear that they even want to.

Maybe the kids you meet on school tours are tired of meeting judgmental asses like you.

+ 1,000

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By definition you are now getting people there who are extreme rule followers so there is less creativity and original thought.

I think this is true, but wouldn't the university have a strong incentive to have less of this, so they can have better alumni?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Quite honestly, most of the kids outside of the top schools are about as straight and narrow as they come…literally the definition of corporate sheep. Hence why you see so few famous entrepreneurs or other world beaters of all kinds of ilk from the mass market schools.

Name a famous entrepreneur.

[Anonymous]

Why would an entrepreneur want to get an elite education? That's not what highest academic universities are designed for.

You think you can collect all the status trinkets, but that's not how any of this works.

[Anonymous]

My honest impression is that people like OP who start threads like this are rather insecure and need regular reassurance that their lives or those of their kids will not be permanently compromised for not having attended a T10 or T20 university. It seems so obvious that there are many paths to a good life but they need a chorus of others weighing in that those attending the top schools are unimaginative drones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My honest impression is that people like OP who start threads like this are rather insecure and need regular reassurance that their lives or those of their kids will not be permanently compromised for not having attended a T10 or T20 university. It seems so obvious that there are many paths to a good life but they need a chorus of others weighing in that those attending the top schools are unimaginative drones.

Can people not have questions based on their observations of the world around him? Honestly, you can flip this around and say that T20 grads are increasingly pissed off about the decline of their precious credential and won't tolerate anyone questioning it.

[Anonymous]

I went to Yale, but I don't have a stick up my ass about it.

Like any school, there are all types of people there. You have people who are absolutely brilliant and fascinating, people who are passionate academics, people who make you question the school's admission criteria because they seem impossibly stupid, people who snort daddy's money for breakfast, and the type of people who may or may not be smart but have no personality and definitely saw the inside of a Kumon more than they ever saw the sun. The types OP mentions are absolutely there, but I wouldn't say they're the majority.

Re: the tours I'll agree that tour guides are boring, and tours are annoying. Parents looked at us like we were zoo animals, would ask random students questions, and we had to have signs in the main library asking them not to photograph us. Also, a tour is never going to take you where the real fun is happening.

[Anonymous]

I would say that my friends who went to top 10 schools are definitely less fun. Not that they are all stick in the muds, but just not as likely to be really silly or let life get a bit messy.

[Anonymous]

Harvard - Hard to get less interesting than any of these.

'The meme was an image of a head with “I need to get rich” slapped across it.'

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/22/business/gen-z-college-students-jobs.html

[Anonymous]

I don't know. I'm in my 40s, and everyone I know who has done something really incredible as an adult -- founded companies, wrote books that sold well, designed something, etc -- all went to top 10 colleges. They are not sheep! They forged a path of their own, thought of a totally original idea, and they had the work ethic to complete it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't know. I'm in my 40s, and everyone I know who has done something really incredible as an adult -- founded companies, wrote books that sold well, designed something, etc -- all went to top 10 colleges. They are not sheep! They forged a path of their own, thought of a totally original idea, and they had the work ethic to complete it.

You have an extremely limited social circle.