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by bigbillheck
1899 days ago
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> ike let's say you grow up ok but you can't really afford to join the ski club or for a tutor and maybe you work in the evenings but you crush the SAT/ACT because you're incredibly intelligent. How will universities like MIT take that into account? If the kid's that smart then presumably they'll have a top GPA as well. Absolute GPA of course is gameable, but class ranking really isn't. Texas at least has a "top 10%" law (https://news.utexas.edu/key-issues/top-10-percent-law/) which would get them in to a state school, and if that kid was really hankering for MIT then maybe they can transfer. If they're lucky enough not to be in Texas, well, there's nothing wrong with state schools in any of the other several states, and furthermore there's no shame in going to a community college first if you have to. |
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I definitely wouldn’t make that assumption.
> If they're lucky enough not to be in Texas, well, there's nothing wrong with state schools in any of the other several states, and furthermore there's no shame in going to a community college first if you have to.
Oh no doubt. I went to two public state universities and I believe my education was just as good as I’d find anywhere. Though there are differences (opportunities), the education is pretty good overall. But! That doesn’t tell the whole story. Many of the kids I went to school with in undergrad had taken classes like AP Physics, or AP Chemistry, or math beyond geometry. I didn’t. So I had to work much harder in some classes. I failed Calculus I twice before getting an A (maybe a B+? Don’t remember) and moving on with my life. For other students this could send them out of engineering, or maybe out of school altogether, and I’d argue it’s not really an intellect thing more so than it is not being on a level playing field to start with. This is an issue even at state schools. Maybe more so if they lack enough resources to cover tuition and room and board. People growing up in poverty (not that I did myself but much of my family did) think debt == bad or maybe they’re afraid to ask for help.
I guess that’s to say, I think it’s a problem in the entire system, all the way down to elementary school (Lebron James Family Foundation is doing a good job in my view of trying to address this).
My main issue with Ivy League schools is the perception and recruiting exclusivity. Wanna work at Goldman? Yale. Google? Harvard. Netflix? CMU. Etc.
Not a whole lot of tech recruiting going on at, say, Ohio University where I did my undergrad. Fuck those kids. Not in our recruiting footprint. Not one of our “target schools”. As if you need to go recruit at Duke to hire a BA?
In my personal life I do a lot of work to try and get more employers and recruiters down there and find ways to help. It’s tough sledding. Sometimes I wonder why I bother when it seems like so few others care.
I fantasize like damn if I had a ton of money or a huge grant there are so many things I’d love to try and do. It’s just too hard to quit my full time work. I’ll have to wait until I’m older and financially secure.