Reply to Nate Silver: "Go to a state school"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m confused by folks calling some Ivy League grads as coddled? Coddled by whom? 
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by the school.  Some elite schools treat their kids as "too big to fail", and don't want to impact their student body average GPA, so they let them withdraw up to the lat week before finals, whereas in big state schools, you can't withdraw that close to finals, and you just take the F or D or whatever, and make it up in the summer.  And big state schools don't hold your hand and treat you like you're "special".[/quote]

+1 OP here. The Ivy grads we have interviewed definitely came across like they had been told they were god's gift to the world. Yet they are applying for jobs with a steep learning curve. Nobody wants to hire someone that doesn't think they have anything to learn, or who will assume they are smarter than anyone who went to a state school.[/quote]

A students hire A+ students.  B students hire C students.[/quote]

Lol a person who thinks they have nothing to learn is not an A+ student. They are a nightmare. I will happily hire someone smarter than me. [b]But the people who think they are smarter than me usually aren't. Not even close[/b].[/quote]

You do realize this is a delusion that nearly every reasonably bright person holds.  Also, I have worked with hundreds of high-achieving interns/recent grads from all sorts of schools over time.  I haven't found a significant pattern with type of school and their willingness to learn.  If forced to take a stance on it, I would say I have found a slight trend for the students from elite schools a little more open to learning.  If I wanted to come up with random ad hoc theories to explain it I might say perhaps because they are a little more used to being a small fish in a big pond in college than being constantly regarded as the top of the heap.  One trend I *have* noticed is that there are always a few people at work who have a chip on their shoulder about elite schools and project all sorts of nonsense on the new employees  But the majority of us don't see it (and we also come from a range of schools) and just sort of feel bad for the people who talk that way and try to steer the recent grads from having to interact with those folks as they are not fair-minded.[/quote]

I have worked with many people who are smarter/more capable than me, including interns. They may know it, but they don't act superior or disrespectful. The people who think they are smarter than me, and show it, are usually not very smart, or at least not capable of performing well in what my office does. I have absolutely seen a pattern among Ivy grads. It may be because where I work is a place many Ivy grads see as being below them, despite it being interesting work with decent pay. It's not something I am "projecting" - [b]it's something that for example, every single person on an interview panel noticed about a particular candidate.[/b] It's people in high level leadership positions that are universally disliked because of how they treat the people they are supposed to be leading. Maybe they would be better leaders if they worked somewhere with more people they considered to be their equals. But since they don't, they do terribly.[/quote]

So how many examples are you making this more generalized reasoning from???  There's going to be arrogant folks from all sorts of life.  No need to link it to notions about "elite schools."[/quote]

You really don't see how arrogance might be something that occurs at a higher rate among people who went to "elite schools"? Lol[/quote]

I'm basing it on my direct experience: I have worked with hundreds of interns/grads and don't recognize the trends others are talking about--and my colleagues don't either.  We give evaluations to all these people that include things like collaboration skills, learning from feedback, contribution to the team (rated by other team members) etc. and there aren't number trends that align with that bias either. [/quote]

Okay? You don't see the trends, other people do. Nobody has done a real study on this so we'll never know.[/quote]

But not only do I not see the trends, I don't trust that other people can do in an unbiased way based on more than their preconceived notions and a couple of experiences that they also see through their particular filter.  Not to mention whether explicit agendas fit into the mix for some folks as some of the posts seem to suggest.[/quote]

In other words you believe you know the truth and people who see things differently are wrong. Maybe you just don't mind arrogance because you are pretty arrogant yourself. And maybe that works in your field. It does not come across well in mine.[/quote]

No, I believe that I cannot see the trends--I claim there is no discernible relationship between individual's willingness to learn/take feedback and school trends--and I don't trust that others can either.  Because it's something that is very hard to see as an individual.  I think of that as an appropriately humble stance.[/quote]

In other words, you have an opinion on this (that there is no trend), you think people who think there is a trend are wrong, yet you think you are being "appropriately humble"? I think I can see where the disconnect is between you and me.[/quote]

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