few more things about college

I'm actually as disturbed by this emailer to the Daily Dish's criticism as I am by Peter Thiel's piece in the first place.

The difference between Harvard and its highly selective (i.e., wealthy) franchises from the rest of the colleges rests not with their undergraduate educational model but with the motivations and accomplishments of their students. Plenty of perfectly bright kids don’t work very hard in high school. And even some that do, and do well, go to colleges that don’t challenge them. And to round out those kids, there are plenty who didn’t have the opportunities to cultivate their intelligence, coupled with some kids who just aren’t that bright.

The intimation that the advantage of Harvard et al. is that they challenge students more academically is undercut by just about everybody who went to one of those schools. You'll find that most Ivy league students will freely admit that it isn't hard to succeed academically at these schools. They are, after all, generally regarded as the pinnacle of grade inflation. (As those who read me regularly know, I'm skeptical about the importance of grade inflation, for various reasons.) In his book Privilege, Ross Douthat goes on at some length about the fact that getting into these institutions, and advancing in important extracurricular activities in them, is much harder than getting good grades in them.

Incidentally, to their credit, most of the Ivy league graduates I know say that, while there are many brilliant students at Ivy schools, and the general caliber of student is quite high, there are also a fair number of dumbasses. This is perhaps largely explained by legacy admissions, which generally provide the biggest boost to admission chances and apply to a far higher number of students than most people assume. But it's also a matter of understanding that there's a great difference between intelligence and the capacity to get good grades in high school. I'm always a bit mystified by those who assumed that anyone who earned a certain class rank must be smart. Is there anyone out there who would report that class rank, at their high school, correlated perfectly with their perceptions of who was smart? Anybody at all?

Another emailer acts in some way as a corrective of the first emailer, but he or she gets it a little wrong too, I think.

I've discussed this with a friend who actually went to Harvard, and we decided the biggest difference in difficulty between his school and mine was the difficulty in getting in. We studied virtually the same things. Granted, my alma mater is considered a "public ivy" (University of Washington). But the real difference, and the difference that results from a very real form of scarcity, is that when I studied International Relations it was taught by a bright individual no one knows about. He was taught by Stephen Walt, a man on the cutting edge of IR theory. My professor was certainly capable, but his professor is a regularly published academic at the forefront of his field. You can't do 100 Harvards, and it's not because the "established elite" is trying to keep you down through manufactured "scarcity"

First, I don't think there's any use in designations like "public Ivy" or "little Ivy" or whatever else. The Ivy League is a sports league. As much as we all know what we're talking about when we use the term as a synonym for the elite, it perpetuates an unfortunate lack of clarity about what we're measuring when we measure a school's "value"-- and you can read many other explorations of the strange intersections of exclusivity, quality, resources, opportunity, etc., that are bound up in that idea. It's worth saying that any given U's graduate programs often play a disproportionate role in their perceived quality.

Anyway, yes, the various incentives for promotion and success in the academy by scholars play a big role in perceptions of quality. I don't know, though, whether it's helpful to think in terms of students getting lucky with bright and dedicated faculty. The fundamental thing about college for me-- and, yes, this certainly suggests that prices should come down-- is that any decently motivated student can find smart and dedicated faculty pretty much anywhere they go, challenge themselves, and get a great education. The same dynamic means that students can smoke weed for four years and float through with a C+ average. Part of the reason I blanch at simplistic discussions of school quality is that educational outputs are so contingent on student inputs. I am currently at a large research university which isn't particularly competitive. But any student who wants to absolutely can challenge him or herself and go through a challenging and inspiring curriculum.

If you were ever to go through the hiring process at a university, you'd see why. At any tenure-granting institution, jobs have applicants with CVs and qualifications that are crazy impressive. There's just that many applicants for so few spots. Wherever you go, you'll find brilliant faculty. The question is whether you seek them out and show the personal initiative to get the most out of your education. This is why it's so unhelpful to use diplomas as a crude proxy for student ability or achievement. I promise, there are students at any large state university who could go to an Ivy league school and succeed brilliantly. That's no knock on the Ivy league-- I'd be thrilled to teach at Harvard, completely independent of any professional or personal considerations beyond the joy of teaching-- it's just yet another reason to lament our inability to understand people holistically when they apply for employment or graduate education.