| > It seems getting into America's most prestigious institution on merit is incredibly unlikely, compared to if you happened to have rich relatives. It's mostly prestigious for business. Not saying it's right, but business is almost entirely who you know. The allure of Harvard is networking and name recognition. For tech, you can make amazing contacts at CMU, CalTech, MIT, etc and there systems are at least partially more of a meritocracy. >Athletes I guess are a special American thing where universities are involved. While it might be a raw deal for basketball or football where there is a ton of revenue, this is amazing for athletes of less popular sports like swimming, track and field, softball, etc. Also, athletics give people an outlet. It's at least partially why people walk on with no scholarship. > You can't work your way out of poverty over two generations. If anything is the American Dream (arguably there's more people outside of America who have one of these, but I digress), it's being able to see your kids succeed. But they want 1st gen immigrants according to the article. Granted this was a few years back, but parents were 1st gen from an Eastern European country. It helped me in the admissions process at a top tech school. >Do they have a drop-down for ethnicity? Yes, but pretty vague (e.g; White, Pacific Islander, Asian, etc). I wrote about my parents in my admission essay. I honestly think it helped me get into the school I wanted to go to. I'm not disagreeing the system is shitty, but where you go to school isn't as important as building your network in the US. The school on my resume may have gotten me some first interviews but the people I met at jobs have gotten me every other one. I'm not a super social person, so I never liked playing this game, but people liking you is far more important than what you actually know or where you went to school most of the time. |