Selingo WSJ Essay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a time, up to the mid to late 1980s, where the college you attended mattered. But then the slow but unstoppable push for diversity for diversity’s sake began. Schools began to offer more and more money to “underprivileged” students to diversify their student population. At first school’s worked hard to make sure that the students had the requisite talent to succeed, but as time wore on it became a numbers game and student quality no longer mattered.

The 90s and early 2000’s saw the rise of diversity in the faculty ranks, again at first with positive results. But it too became a numbers game. Now we have university leaders who got to where they were via falsified research and plagiarism not talent.

The top schools up until recently skated by on their reputations but the facades are crumbling. Now companies still recruit at top universities but have branched out to find true talent. They do their own preemployment testing to separate the high performers from those gifted As to avoid parents complaining about Larla and Larlo not getting As for $100K a year.

So, you now have parent’s complaining that they spent mid six figures on an Ivy League education only to have their kid working at the local grocery store.

But gotta keep that consulting gravy train rolling.

Someone’s kid definitely didn’t in.

Nope, both kids got into first choice schools. One now headed to Cambridge for graduate school.

Just stating the obvious on how higher education institutions have (d)evolved over the past four decades.

IKR? Remember back then when no women could go to many of these top institutions? Those were the days before women devolved everything,

Nice try a slightly dated study but - “By 1979, women became the majority gender for total fall college enrollment for the first time, and the female share of college enrollment increased gradually over time and is now about 56.5%. That means that there are currently about 130 women enrolled in a college degree program for every 100 men.” and “By 1982, women became the majority gender for bachelor’s degrees for the first time, and today women earn 57.4% of bachelor’s degrees, which means there are 135 women earning bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men.”

Source - https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-incredible-13m-gender-college-degree-gap-since-1982-favoring-women/#:~:text=By%201979%2C%20women%20became%20the,and%20is%20now%20about%2056.5%25.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a time, up to the mid to late 1980s, where the college you attended mattered. But then the slow but unstoppable push for diversity for diversity’s sake began. Schools began to offer more and more money to “underprivileged” students to diversify their student population. At first school’s worked hard to make sure that the students had the requisite talent to succeed, but as time wore on it became a numbers game and student quality no longer mattered.

The 90s and early 2000’s saw the rise of diversity in the faculty ranks, again at first with positive results. But it too became a numbers game. Now we have university leaders who got to where they were via falsified research and plagiarism not talent.

The top schools up until recently skated by on their reputations but the facades are crumbling. Now companies still recruit at top universities but have branched out to find true talent. They do their own preemployment testing to separate the high performers from those gifted As to avoid parents complaining about Larla and Larlo not getting As for $100K a year.

So, you now have parent’s complaining that they spent mid six figures on an Ivy League education only to have their kid working at the local grocery store.

But gotta keep that consulting gravy train rolling.

Someone’s kid definitely didn’t in.

Nope, both kids got into first choice schools. One now headed to Cambridge for graduate school.

Just stating the obvious on how higher education institutions have (d)evolved over the past four decades.

IKR? Remember back then when no women could go to many of these top institutions? Those were the days before women devolved everything,

Nice try a slightly dated study but - “By 1979, women became the majority gender for total fall college enrollment for the first time, and the female share of college enrollment increased gradually over time and is now about 56.5%. That means that there are currently about 130 women enrolled in a college degree program for every 100 men.” and “By 1982, women became the majority gender for bachelor’s degrees for the first time, and today women earn 57.4% of bachelor’s degrees, which means there are 135 women earning bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men.”

Source - https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-incredible-13m-gender-college-degree-gap-since-1982-favoring-women/#:~:text=By%201979%2C%20women%20became%20the,and%20is%20now%20about%2056.5%25.

Okay, I'm confused. Are you arguing that The higher education of women is a positive development or a negative development?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a time, up to the mid to late 1980s, where the college you attended mattered. But then the slow but unstoppable push for diversity for diversity’s sake began. Schools began to offer more and more money to “underprivileged” students to diversify their student population. At first school’s worked hard to make sure that the students had the requisite talent to succeed, but as time wore on it became a numbers game and student quality no longer mattered.

The 90s and early 2000’s saw the rise of diversity in the faculty ranks, again at first with positive results. But it too became a numbers game. Now we have university leaders who got to where they were via falsified research and plagiarism not talent.

The top schools up until recently skated by on their reputations but the facades are crumbling. Now companies still recruit at top universities but have branched out to find true talent. They do their own preemployment testing to separate the high performers from those gifted As to avoid parents complaining about Larla and Larlo not getting As for $100K a year.

So, you now have parent’s complaining that they spent mid six figures on an Ivy League education only to have their kid working at the local grocery store.

But gotta keep that consulting gravy train rolling.

Someone’s kid definitely didn’t in.

Nope, both kids got into first choice schools. One now headed to Cambridge for graduate school.

Just stating the obvious on how higher education institutions have (d)evolved over the past four decades.

IKR? Remember back then when no women could go to many of these top institutions? Those were the days before women devolved everything,

Nice try a slightly dated study but - “By 1979, women became the majority gender for total fall college enrollment for the first time, and the female share of college enrollment increased gradually over time and is now about 56.5%. That means that there are currently about 130 women enrolled in a college degree program for every 100 men.” and “By 1982, women became the majority gender for bachelor’s degrees for the first time, and today women earn 57.4% of bachelor’s degrees, which means there are 135 women earning bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men.”

Source - https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-incredible-13m-gender-college-degree-gap-since-1982-favoring-women/#:~:text=By%201979%2C%20women%20became%20the,and%20is%20now%20about%2056.5%25.

Okay, I'm confused. Are you arguing that The higher education of women is a positive development or a negative development?

Argument is that staring in the 1980s universities lowered standards for students and teaching and leadership staff. As a result they are now bloated, filled with mediocre teaching staff that give everyone As to keep parents that are shelling out high five and low six figures a year in tuition and fees happy while scoring well on the various college rating scales.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a time, up to the mid to late 1980s, where the college you attended mattered. But then the slow but unstoppable push for diversity for diversity’s sake began. Schools began to offer more and more money to “underprivileged” students to diversify their student population. At first school’s worked hard to make sure that the students had the requisite talent to succeed, but as time wore on it became a numbers game and student quality no longer mattered.

The 90s and early 2000’s saw the rise of diversity in the faculty ranks, again at first with positive results. But it too became a numbers game. Now we have university leaders who got to where they were via falsified research and plagiarism not talent.

The top schools up until recently skated by on their reputations but the facades are crumbling. Now companies still recruit at top universities but have branched out to find true talent. They do their own preemployment testing to separate the high performers from those gifted As to avoid parents complaining about Larla and Larlo not getting As for $100K a year.

So, you now have parent’s complaining that they spent mid six figures on an Ivy League education only to have their kid working at the local grocery store.

But gotta keep that consulting gravy train rolling.

Someone’s kid definitely didn’t in.

Nope, both kids got into first choice schools. One now headed to Cambridge for graduate school.

Just stating the obvious on how higher education institutions have (d)evolved over the past four decades.

IKR? Remember back then when no women could go to many of these top institutions? Those were the days before women devolved everything,

Nice try a slightly dated study but - “By 1979, women became the majority gender for total fall college enrollment for the first time, and the female share of college enrollment increased gradually over time and is now about 56.5%. That means that there are currently about 130 women enrolled in a college degree program for every 100 men.” and “By 1982, women became the majority gender for bachelor’s degrees for the first time, and today women earn 57.4% of bachelor’s degrees, which means there are 135 women earning bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men.”

Source - https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-incredible-13m-gender-college-degree-gap-since-1982-favoring-women/#:~:text=By%201979%2C%20women%20became%20the,and%20is%20now%20about%2056.5%25.

Okay, I'm confused. Are you arguing that The higher education of women is a positive development or a negative development?

Argument is that staring in the 1980s universities lowered standards for students and teaching and leadership staff. As a result they are now bloated, filled with mediocre teaching staff that give everyone As to keep parents that are shelling out high five and low six figures a year in tuition and fees happy while scoring well on the various college rating scales.

Huh? “Back in the day” pre-1980 you were basically auto-accepted to Harvard and other Ivy schools as long as you attended the right school (and you probably had legacy).

Student standards have increased markedly since then, though some argue 1980-2000 was the golden era of high student/meritocratic standards for top schools because they didn’t really recruit for sports the way they do now and were far more driven by test scores and GPAs (though there was still the easy admit for the legacy Exeter kid).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a time, up to the mid to late 1980s, where the college you attended mattered. But then the slow but unstoppable push for diversity for diversity’s sake began. Schools began to offer more and more money to “underprivileged” students to diversify their student population. At first school’s worked hard to make sure that the students had the requisite talent to succeed, but as time wore on it became a numbers game and student quality no longer mattered.

The 90s and early 2000’s saw the rise of diversity in the faculty ranks, again at first with positive results. But it too became a numbers game. Now we have university leaders who got to where they were via falsified research and plagiarism not talent.

The top schools up until recently skated by on their reputations but the facades are crumbling. Now companies still recruit at top universities but have branched out to find true talent. They do their own preemployment testing to separate the high performers from those gifted As to avoid parents complaining about Larla and Larlo not getting As for $100K a year.

So, you now have parent’s complaining that they spent mid six figures on an Ivy League education only to have their kid working at the local grocery store.

But gotta keep that consulting gravy train rolling.

Someone’s kid definitely didn’t in.

Nope, both kids got into first choice schools. One now headed to Cambridge for graduate school.

Just stating the obvious on how higher education institutions have (d)evolved over the past four decades.

IKR? Remember back then when no women could go to many of these top institutions? Those were the days before women devolved everything,

Nice try a slightly dated study but - “By 1979, women became the majority gender for total fall college enrollment for the first time, and the female share of college enrollment increased gradually over time and is now about 56.5%. That means that there are currently about 130 women enrolled in a college degree program for every 100 men.” and “By 1982, women became the majority gender for bachelor’s degrees for the first time, and today women earn 57.4% of bachelor’s degrees, which means there are 135 women earning bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men.”

Source - https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-incredible-13m-gender-college-degree-gap-since-1982-favoring-women/#:~:text=By%201979%2C%20women%20became%20the,and%20is%20now%20about%2056.5%25.

Okay, I'm confused. Are you arguing that The higher education of women is a positive development or a negative development?

Argument is that staring in the 1980s universities lowered standards for students and teaching and leadership staff. As a result they are now bloated, filled with mediocre teaching staff that give everyone As to keep parents that are shelling out high five and low six figures a year in tuition and fees happy while scoring well on the various college rating scales.

I guess. I wouldn't have a chance to get into my alma mater now. My kids have to learn in high school things that I had to learn in college in the 80s.

In those super stringent '80s I was in, learning what is now sometimes high School material.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These articles focus on career “success” and not money “success”.

The insurance policy is that the graduates have rich friends and/or marry someone rich. How many parents on this board earned their 1% vs married their 1%? I am semi-successful professsionally from a meh-private college; my money comes from my husband’s family, not my career.

Both former low-income, heavily aided students who met at an ivy, went to med school at a different but top school, and earn top2%. Most of our adult friends are in medicine or law. About half came from no money and did not marry into significant (top-5%)money. We are younger than the ave college parents, just turned 50, college '97. Our friends are all similar. In fact the smartest two from '97 are a top lawyer and a research MD-phD.about 40% of my ivy was on need-based aid when I attended now it is 55%. parents on dcum who went to college in the 80s have a very different understanding of college compared to people from the late 90s. The legacy friends in my adult involved alum group are predominantly new to the top incomes, and were not legacies ourselves. My ivy absolutely changed my trajectory and it continues to do the same for a larger and larger portion of the undergraduate population.

People gravitate towards people like themselves.
I am going to take a guess that you didn't know anyone of generational wealth in college or grad school - because you don't know how to recognize it. While your ivy opened doors for your generation, the next generation will have a very hard time getting into an ivy because there is no pity party for children of ivy grads.
Many 1st gens that graduate into high salary figures think they have reached an UMC level of wealth but if it's not generational, the children will be wage slaves too trying to maintain the same lifestyle and similarly without any cushion.
Wealth has cushion, those kids can choose careers like art curator or non-profit work because they just need to get by. They don't need to save.

Nailed it.

We are not super wealthy but we have generational wealth (say $20-$25M NW and 1% salary). Kids are high achieving and will do well but there is a safety net for them that most just don’t have because they will never need to save for college expenses or housing down payments. Trusts will cover those things.

Nailed what? Yes you are rich. No it is not necessary to have $20 mil to lead a good life. No, your money does not guarantee your children will be happy and productive, much less your grandchildren. Nor does it prove that a kid going to UVA will never get to the same level you are at.

I only said that we aren’t desperate for Ivy+ schools as many seem to be because there is a safety net for my kids that most don’t have. I personally went to a Public school, not an elite private.

And I am saying you are delusional about your “safety net.” Acting like you have to have $25 mil to be “safe” otherwise you have to make sure your kid gets into Harvard is … deluded. And that is what the article/book says.

That is not at all what I said, you are trying to twist my words. I was pointing out that if you do not have to worry about saving for a down payment on a house when you are starting out or worry about how to save enough in a college fund to put your children through college you have a much wider set of career choices and you may have greater freedom of choice than others. The comment was about the fact that families with generational wealth often do not feel teh same pressuresd that others do when if comes to these schools.

What parents give their grown kids downpayment money? Not one of my college friends had that. We all saved as well as took out full loans for med school and still found a way to budget. Resident salaries were 26k back then, they are 75k now! It is not that hard to save for a couple of yrs for a downpayment when you make 75k which most people can make within 5 yrs of graduating a good college. Buy smaller, flip it and sell it in a few years. You just have to study the markets.

I have seen it twce now when a kid get married and the parents give them most of the down payment on a house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This weekend I was chatting with a neighbor who said they had a grandson at Bucknell and I couldn't hep but think to myself how much DCUM hates Bucknell, lmao.

LOL

Very few heard of Bucknell and even fewer have any opinion on it. Most just dont care about some small obscure non-entity.

That's just a reflection of the company you keep. Everyone knows it's a pipeline to The Street©

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a time, up to the mid to late 1980s, where the college you attended mattered. But then the slow but unstoppable push for diversity for diversity’s sake began. Schools began to offer more and more money to “underprivileged” students to diversify their student population. At first school’s worked hard to make sure that the students had the requisite talent to succeed, but as time wore on it became a numbers game and student quality no longer mattered.

The 90s and early 2000’s saw the rise of diversity in the faculty ranks, again at first with positive results. But it too became a numbers game. Now we have university leaders who got to where they were via falsified research and plagiarism not talent.

The top schools up until recently skated by on their reputations but the facades are crumbling. Now companies still recruit at top universities but have branched out to find true talent. They do their own preemployment testing to separate the high performers from those gifted As to avoid parents complaining about Larla and Larlo not getting As for $100K a year.

So, you now have parent’s complaining that they spent mid six figures on an Ivy League education only to have their kid working at the local grocery store.

But gotta keep that consulting gravy train rolling.

It seems as if you are implying that only so-called DEI hires (women, minorities) were dishonest with their background, etc. That’s just not true.

I think he's talking mostly about Claudine Gay. She is the poster child for mediocre pseudo intellectual who has advanced on the wave of DEI preferences and more than a little bit of cheating.

Nobody doubts the academic credentials of the black academics she tried to destroy, nobody doubts the credentials of the other female college presidents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/the-elite-college-myth-268c4371?st=zZtGi8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Excerpt from his new book. His basic point is that career paths are more affected by personal ties, such as what region you come from, than the brand of the school. He claims that Ivy-plus outcomes are no different than highly ranked public universities such as Texas, UCLA and Ohio State (although I wouldn't put Ohio in that list, LOL) for most fields.

The problem, of course, is that in the DMV, desirable career paths are affected by the brand of the school, hence the worrying and lamentations on this board.

Just 6 % of all students attend a college that has an acceptance rate of </= 25%.

Perhaps parents should look beyond the top 50 colleges.

>

6% is too high. There are 11MM students at 4 year colleges so that would mean 660k attend those colleges.

There are only like 80 colleges that fit this definition and the average size of the 80 is like 5000 students.

Saw a stat of 6% similar to PP on Google.

Point is that there's an inordinate amount of focus on a few colleges. A very small percentage go there.

It's also dumb that there so much debate and disparaging of the elite schools. Bashing Rice, Vanderbilt, WashU, etc. Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a time, up to the mid to late 1980s, where the college you attended mattered. But then the slow but unstoppable push for diversity for diversity’s sake began. Schools began to offer more and more money to “underprivileged” students to diversify their student population. At first school’s worked hard to make sure that the students had the requisite talent to succeed, but as time wore on it became a numbers game and student quality no longer mattered.

The 90s and early 2000’s saw the rise of diversity in the faculty ranks, again at first with positive results. But it too became a numbers game. Now we have university leaders who got to where they were via falsified research and plagiarism not talent.

The top schools up until recently skated by on their reputations but the facades are crumbling. Now companies still recruit at top universities but have branched out to find true talent. They do their own preemployment testing to separate the high performers from those gifted As to avoid parents complaining about Larla and Larlo not getting As for $100K a year.

So, you now have parent’s complaining that they spent mid six figures on an Ivy League education only to have their kid working at the local grocery store.

But gotta keep that consulting gravy train rolling.

Someone’s kid definitely didn’t in.

Nope, both kids got into first choice schools. One now headed to Cambridge for graduate school.

Just stating the obvious on how higher education institutions have (d)evolved over the past four decades.

IKR? Remember back then when no women could go to many of these top institutions? Those were the days before women devolved everything,

Nice try a slightly dated study but - “By 1979, women became the majority gender for total fall college enrollment for the first time, and the female share of college enrollment increased gradually over time and is now about 56.5%. That means that there are currently about 130 women enrolled in a college degree program for every 100 men.” and “By 1982, women became the majority gender for bachelor’s degrees for the first time, and today women earn 57.4% of bachelor’s degrees, which means there are 135 women earning bachelor’s degrees for every 100 men.”

Source - https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/chart-of-the-day-the-incredible-13m-gender-college-degree-gap-since-1982-favoring-women/#:~:text=By%201979%2C%20women%20became%20the,and%20is%20now%20about%2056.5%25.

Okay, I'm confused. Are you arguing that The higher education of women is a positive development or a negative development?

Argument is that staring in the 1980s universities lowered standards for students and teaching and leadership staff. As a result they are now bloated, filled with mediocre teaching staff that give everyone As to keep parents that are shelling out high five and low six figures a year in tuition and fees happy while scoring well on the various college rating scales.

Huh? “Back in the day” pre-1980 you were basically auto-accepted to Harvard and other Ivy schools as long as you attended the right school (and you probably had legacy).

Student standards have increased markedly since then, though some argue 1980-2000 was the golden era of high student/meritocratic standards for top schools because they didn’t really recruit for sports the way they do now and were far more driven by test scores and GPAs (though there was still the easy admit for the legacy Exeter kid).

Sure they did, I was one such student. And, I easily got in coming from a rural HS with limited opportunities. I had solid grades and very good test scores but nothing exceptional beyond the fact that I was an excellent if slightly undersized athlete.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/the-elite-college-myth-268c4371?st=zZtGi8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Excerpt from his new book. His basic point is that career paths are more affected by personal ties, such as what region you come from, than the brand of the school. He claims that Ivy-plus outcomes are no different than highly ranked public universities such as Texas, UCLA and Ohio State (although I wouldn't put Ohio in that list, LOL) for most fields.

The problem, of course, is that in the DMV, desirable career paths are affected by the brand of the school, hence the worrying and lamentations on this board.

Just 6 % of all students attend a college that has an acceptance rate of </= 25%.

Perhaps parents should look beyond the top 50 colleges.

>

6% is too high. There are 11MM students at 4 year colleges so that would mean 660k attend those colleges.

There are only like 80 colleges that fit this definition and the average size of the 80 is like 5000 students.

Saw a stat of 6% similar to PP on Google.

Point is that there's an inordinate amount of focus on a few colleges. A very small percentage go there.

It's also dumb that there so much debate and disparaging of the elite schools. Bashing Rice, Vanderbilt, WashU, etc. Really?

Absolutely!
On DCUM, 95% of bashing is copium because their kid did not get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/the-elite-college-myth-268c4371?st=zZtGi8&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink

Excerpt from his new book. His basic point is that career paths are more affected by personal ties, such as what region you come from, than the brand of the school. He claims that Ivy-plus outcomes are no different than highly ranked public universities such as Texas, UCLA and Ohio State (although I wouldn't put Ohio in that list, LOL) for most fields.

The problem, of course, is that in the DMV, desirable career paths are affected by the brand of the school, hence the worrying and lamentations on this board.

Just 6 % of all students attend a college that has an acceptance rate of </= 25%.

Perhaps parents should look beyond the top 50 colleges.

>

6% is too high. There are 11MM students at 4 year colleges so that would mean 660k attend those colleges.

There are only like 80 colleges that fit this definition and the average size of the 80 is like 5000 students.

Saw a stat of 6% similar to PP on Google.

Point is that there's an inordinate amount of focus on a few colleges. A very small percentage go there.

It's also dumb that there so much debate and disparaging of the elite schools. Bashing Rice, Vanderbilt, WashU, etc. Really?

Absolutely!
On DCUM, 95% of bashing is copium because their kid did not get in.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Huh? “Back in the day” pre-1980 you were basically auto-accepted to Harvard and other Ivy schools as long as you attended the right school (and you probably had legacy).

No. HYP acceptance 1970-80 was about 20%. Much easier than today but not auto admit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Huh? “Back in the day” pre-1980 you were basically auto-accepted to Harvard and other Ivy schools as long as you attended the right school (and you probably had legacy).

No. HYP acceptance 1970-80 was about 20%. Much easier than today but not auto admit.

It was an auto-admit coming from the top northeast boarding schools and certain NYC & Boston privates.

Literally the way admissions worked was the headmaster of Andover would talk to Harvard head of admissions and agree on the admits…usually legacy were 100% in regardless of stats, then there were some athletes and then the “brilliant” kids that should attend Harvard.

This was a bit less pronounced towards the end of the 1970s and then really stopped with the 1980s…though it took until like 2010 for places like Harvard to no longer allow conversations between headmasters and admissions.