In his recent essay, Paul Graham says:
Practically everyone thinks that someone who went to MIT or Harvard or Stanford must be smart. Even people who hate you for it believe it.
But when you think about what it means to have gone to an elite college, how could this be true? We’re talking about a decision made by admissions officers—basically, HR people—based on a cursory examination of a huge pile of depressingly similar applications submitted by seventeen year olds. And what do they have to go on? An easily gamed standardized test; a short essay telling you what the kid thinks you want to hear; an interview with a random alum; a high school record that’s largely an index of obedience. Who would rely on such a test?
and he finishes with:
Indeed, the great advantage of not caring where people went to college is not just that you can stop judging them (and yourself) by superficial measures, but that you can focus instead on what really matters. What matters is what you make of yourself. I think that’s what we should tell kids. Their job isn’t to get good grades so they can get into a good college, but to learn and do. And not just because that’s more rewarding than worldly success. That will increasingly be the route to worldly success.
Hear hear! Some of the smartest and most capable people I know did not attend the elite schools. He also mentions that some parents pick a kindegarden for a child these days based on the likelihood that the specific kindegarden may help their child get into Harvard. Just garbage. It’s pretty sad that people worry so much about something that, honestly, isn’t as important as they think.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Lee // Sep 11, 2007 at 10:43 pm
While this is all true to an extent, I think it is overly superficial. There are a number of reasons to count attending an elite university in someone’s favor. It should never be a litmus test, because there are ridiculously bright people who didn’t go to a great school or didn’t even go to school at all. However, people who did go to excellent schools were blessed with the chance to spend four years of their lives in an intellectually stimulating environment with tremendous resources available to them both in terms of facilities and people (faculty and students).
Of course, anecdotal evidence shows us that people can and do succeed in other environments, which may be just as stimulating as the environment at a top school. And there are some (lots!) real wankers that go to elite schools. But on a purely statistical basis, I’d imagine that you still have a substantially greater chance of coming across a real smartie at MIT than, say, at Party St.
Because this is just statistical, it can’t and must not be used as a litmus test. But because this is statistical, it can be used as a criteria to recommend a person as a potential good fit for a dynamic, creative, and intellectually demanding workplace.
I went to Harvard, and I know a tremendous number of other people who went to top schools. To me, these sentences:
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An easily gamed standardized test; a short essay telling you what the kid thinks you want to hear; an interview with a random alum; a high school record that’s largely an index of obedience.
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are unconvincing at best and offensive at worst. Most folks I know who attended a top school did not “game [the SATs]“; most of them are extremely good writers and communicators and can express their ideas in a logical and convincing fashion; and most of them excelled in high school because, in fact, they *are* smart. The fact that this pile of accomplishments makes for a somewhat arbitrary set of admissions criteria does not mean that it is not the case that people meeting the criteria might not be, on average, smarter than people not meeting (or not choosing to meet) the criteria. In fact, I think there is both strong anecdotal evidence and statistical evidence to suggest that the opposite is true.
I take issue also with your last paragraph:
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Some of the smartest and most capable people I know did not attend the elite schools.
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Well, that’s true for me too. But more of the smartest and most capable people I know *did* attend top schools. I wouldn’t want to write them off, and if for some reason I only had random criteria to force me to choose between people, there’s a good chance university might be one of the criteria I’d use, based on personal experience. But that’s just anecdotal anyway and knowing talented people from non-elite schools surely isn’t a reason to disregard the relative potential of people from top schools.
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It’s pretty sad that people worry so much about something that, honestly, isn’t as important as they think.
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I do think that environments outside of elementary school play a large role in children’s potential. But there are numerous studies–I think–that, for better or for worse, correlate success (in terms of financial success at least – happiness? less sure) with college attended, and correlate college attended with earlier schools attended. It’s probably not as important as these parents think, but that’s not to say it’s thoroughly unimportant, either.
thanks for the food for thought,
Lee
2 Rob Gonzalez // Sep 11, 2007 at 11:10 pm
Nice thoughts, Lee!
Though I’ll concede that a person who attended a top school might be more likely to be smart/more disciplined in general, I don’t buy your argument regarding a top school’s superior environment or resources. For example, big southern schools are educational destinations for a much larger range of students than are the Ivy League, and that range includes the top tier students from their respective regions. Valedictorians in Louisiana go to LSU; valedictorians in Fairfield, CT (where I went to school) go to Harvard/Standford/MIT/Williams/etc. With tens of thousands of students, the big southern schools can offer incredible resources to their students, especially those in honors classes, so they contain both smart people and vast resources. In the northeast, there exists a social-educational elitism that drives kids to work really hard to get into top schools, but that’s, to a some extent, a regional phenomenon.
I also question the implied causality regarding top kindegarden -> Harvard -> $$$ success! A study that shows a correlation doesn’t prove causality. I have a hunch that a child who’s parents put him or her into a top kindegarden would likely succeed without the top kindegarden pushing them to memorizing an extra few colors and shapes at age 6. This isn’t because the child has to be naturally more gifted to get into these programs, but rather because the family to which the child belongs cares enough about education and success that her environment growing up will likely be supportive and encouraging of academic and, possibly, financial success.
Finally, the SATs are just stupid, but I suppose there must be some standard yardwtick by which to measure all people regardless of their chosen career path…or maybe not? In the UK a child can take the A-levels and go right to engineering schoo, even if his English score wasn’t so tight. If you nail an 800 on verbal, 800 on your essay, and 600 because you just don’t like math (and therefore didn’t study, etc.), this doesn’t make you any less worthy to study English at Harvard than someone who got 770 770 770, but it’ll probably make you less likely to get in (numbers contrived, clearly…and I have no idea if the way I’m scoring the third test is even right, since that was much after my time).
-Rob