[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.

[uejfiweun]

You're right, I definitely could have worded this one better in hindsight. I guess the downvotes are my lesson.

[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?

[gregw2]

You look at who got accepted to Harvard but didn’t go.

[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.

[boeingUH60]

A higher number of those billionaires, Nobel prize winners, and political leaders in the US went to elite schools like Harvard and Yale.

They undoubtedly have higher impacts on society, not because they are the smartest, but because having an elite school degree unlocks opportunities that are not available to average person…for all our talks about meritocracy, humans still pay more attention to signaling, branding, and marketing…and the elite schools know how to milk that for money and power.

[giantg2]

"A higher number of those billionaires, Nobel prize winners, and political leaders in the US went to elite schools like Harvard and Yale."

Again, any numbers on that?

"not because they are the smartest, but because having an elite school degree unlocks opportunities"

Or did they go to an elite school because they already came from money, which is the true source of those opportunities.

[listenallyall]

> any numbers on that?

Current US Supreme Court:

  Alito - Yale 
  Coney Barrett - Notre Dame
  Brown Jackson - Harvard
  Gorsuch - Harvard
  Kavanaugh - Yale
  Kagan - Harvard
  Roberts - Harvard
  Sotomayor - Yale
  Thomas - Yale

Noticing anything?

[giantg2]

That's 9 people in one profession. A profession that specifically has restrictions on who can be a lawyer and judge. I can name people who didn't graduate from college, or graduated from non-ivy schools too. Considering technology is extremely influential in shaping out lives, you'll probably find it interesting how many of these people never even graduated from college.

https://www.developgoodhabits.com/successful-people-college/

I'm looking for actual stats.

[uejfiweun]

It's common sense, it's just a numbers game. Harvard has like 8000 undergrads or whatever, while your typical state school has ~60000. All I'm saying is that if you take a random student from both these populations, the Harvard student is statistically more likely to be some uber-successful wunderkind. In no way am I trying to say that people from non-elite schools are inherently less capable.