[lunaru]

The real joke is that we as a society still give weight to institutions like Harvard. We as a whole are much more educated now and the idea that legacy institutions should serve as gatekeepers of education or validation thereof based on reputation alone seems outdated. These schools should be judged by the rigor and quality of their curriculum rather than the reputations of their past. And I say this as someone who graduated from one of these top schools.

[eigenvalue]

Funny, I constantly think how much more educated the educated people were in the past than today. The minimum IQ required to graduate college (and even some masters degrees) with decent grades can’t be much more than 100 at this point, but was certainly more like 115 or even 120 in the 1950s. I would argue that the vast majority of graduating college students are almost entirely unable to write a half decent essay. I’m not saying that it’s a bad thing that more people get to go to college, but let’s not delude ourselves into thinking the average person is so highly educated!

[blululu]

I’m not sure why this is getting downvoted. Every time I read through a scientific journal from the 60’s or 70’s I am pleasantly surprised by the fact that the qualitative and quantitative reasoning is clearer and more sophisticated than what I see in many contemporary publications. The OP is perhaps justified that we should fixate less in the US news rankings, but the sense of decay seems justified. Imposter syndrome is frequently brought up to reassure people but in a lot of cases I see that people are actually frauds and we mask this over with endless positive affirmations. It is genuinely upsetting to see mediocre researchers get tenure when there is such a glut of talent that is simply passed over.

[SkyMarshal]

> The minimum IQ required to graduate college (and even some masters degrees) with decent grades can’t be much more than 100 at this point, but was certainly more like 115 or even 120 in the 1950s.

Sounds like you're just making this up. Have any studies on this or something not anecdotal?

[mobilefriendly]

Most of the Ivies were much more academically rigorous in the past. There were no ideological, unrigorous majors like Sociology or Gender Studies. Graduates were expected to read both Greek and Latin.

[hardwaregeek]

Or perhaps, since IQ is relative to general population, the average person is a lot smarter due to better nutrition, less lead exposure, and access to information?

[scythe]

>The minimum IQ required to graduate college (and even some masters degrees) with decent grades can’t be much more than 100 at this point, but was certainly more like 115 or even 120 in the 1950s.

IQ is in practice affected by education (to a small extent and mostly in early childhood), but the whole point of it as a concept was to avoid measuring education. So I don't think it follows that higher IQ = more educated.

[groestl]

Education does not equal intelligence though. I know educated people who are not half as intelligent as my uncle, who really is not that educated.

[Retric]

Plenty of dumb people graduated collage in the 1950’s. The difference is we still value most of their skills while giving them a free pass for all the modern skills they don’t have. Take all that time you spent learning computers and apply it to other stuff and you would be more capable of that stuff.

So yes people on average where better at say mental math back then, but plenty of people still sucked at math etc.

[Rimintil]

> The minimum IQ required to graduate college (and even some masters degrees) with decent grades can’t be much more than 100 at this point, but was certainly more like 115 or even 120 in the 1950s

Where's your data to back this up?

[lapcat]

Harvard is private social club, a glorified country club posing as a school. The entire purpose of the institution is to perpetuate the disparity of wealth and power in society. The selectivity and exclusiveness is essential, the raison d'être of Harvard. This is the only thing we need to understand about it.

[koolba]

More importantly while there’s nothing wrong with operating a private social club, doing it with public tax dollars and claiming it’s anything but a private social club is ridiculous.

[HyperSane]

And one that rich people can just buy there children access to. Jared Kushner's dad donated $2 million to get his son into Harvard.

[hnburnsy]

And they like to keep the club exclusive...

>In the 16 years since, although the number of applicants to the College has more than doubled, the size of Harvard’s undergraduate population has remained relatively constant. This year, the College admitted 2,037 students to the Class of 2020; in comparison, 2,035 students were admitted to the Class of 2004.

IMO when your non taxable endowment gets large but your undergrad population stays the same maybe part of the endowment should become taxable.

[moomoo11]

Those schools are also where most of cutting edge research happens. And that’s why the folks who go there have such strong networks and an in-crowd mentality.

I am trying my hand at networking and I find that I get ghosted like 80% of the time when people I talk to from these backgrounds find out I’m not as qualified on paper.

[sounds]

To discriminate, whether by race or by alma mater, is innate; even if it is illegal it will still happen. Meritocracy is hard, and wounded when we characterize a flaw in a meritocracy as if that were judgment day.

Should we all abandon Harvard now? Nah, this battle is everywhere.

[credit_guy]

> The real joke is that we as a society still give weight to institutions like Harvard.

Indeed. I don't understand the fascination with Harvard when you can go to MIT.

[ghaff]

I generally agree :-) Though many of the same dynamics apply to MIT even if some of the specifics differ. MIT isn't admitting students purely on the basis of test scores.

I knew a long ago admissions director at MIT. At least at the time, they basically had an x-y chart with quantitative on one axis and qualitative on the other. There was a quantitative lower-bound cutoff but, beyond that, the two factors could balance each other out. (e.g. decent but not not fantastic SATs could be balanced out by really eye-catching qualitative factors and vice versa.)

[bradleyjg]

Keep this comment top of mind when you next are involved in hiring.

[golemotron]

It remains a Schelling Point. That's what keeps many institutions going.

[Overtonwindow]

In game theory, a focal point (or Schelling point) is a solution that people tend to choose by default in the absence of communication.

[stainablesteel]

i'd rather they get judged by the students they output rather than using only an input, ie curriculum

this better allows for competition to flourish imo

[throwaway1777]

I thought the theory was people are dumber than ever thanks to smartphones, social media, decreased attention spans, etc. I would take a bet that the average person is not even close to as smart as the average Harvard grad.

[Shatnerz]

Something like 35% of the US has graduated university[1]. I suppose the average university graduate is smarter than the average person regardless of the school they attended.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_the_...

[uejfiweun]

It's not going away, because school choice continues to be a valuable signal of how capable someone is, and graduates of "top" schools continue to have disproportionately higher impacts on society.

[dmreedy]

I would posit you might be conflating "capability" and "impact" in a manner that elides the many distinctions.

[paxys]

At some point it just becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. The smartest people in the world want the Harvard brand. They graduate and do great things. Their success gets attributed back to Harvard. So how does one measure what specifically the university is bringing to the table?

[PaulDavisThe1st]

> graduates of "top" schools continue to have disproportionately higher impacts on society.

you offer no data to differentiate between this being caused by their abilities, or their greater access to the networks that place people in high impact positions.

[giantg2]

"and graduates of "top" schools continue to have disproportionately higher impacts on society."

Source? There are many individuals who went to state schools or didn't go to college at all that have turned into billionaires, Nobel prize winners, etc.

Not to mention there's no evidence that the people who went to an elite school would have less of an impact if elite schools didn't exist.