Would you want to have only the top 2000 nation wide sat scorers work for you? They feel as though it's random because they don't have a clue of what any admission officer is looking for. Bottom line is it's tough even for the ballpark candidates, and people should not feel compelled to hang their hat at a particular school. After all, we ARE talking about academics.
If I were trying to hire 2000 people for a job which required reading comprehension and math skills... I do not know of a more efficient way to do it. If I were hiring 2000 people to be real estate agents who would not get me sued, probably. You only need a few really good ones and we know that group is probably very hard working. If I were hiring 2000 real estate agents to be on reality shows... no. If I were not married I would hire 2000 pretty women. If I were hiring floor traders in the old days I would pick successful athletes in individual sports. If I were hiring option traders and I was going to train them... probably. If I were a College... I would pick the top 2000 and then I would pick a few hundred who had something else going for them.
I actually had the honor to have 3 instructors from Harvard throughout the course of my MBA. I asked all 3 how different our university could be from Harvard. Basically all 3 said that educational material is not Harvard's strong asset; in fact, they found most courses at our university to be more demanding that Harvardâs. These universities make a killing because of their connections. Its like a mafia group or a religious faction ( I DONT BLAME THEM FOR IT). To get in you have already to be a shinning star or be sponsored by some powerful people; little Bush got in cuz of his daddy. Then once you graduate you have a head start over everyone else. These guys protect themselves and will make it harder to anyone from a non top university pool to make it to the top. For those MBA graduates from a non elite university (like me) we find it almost impossible to climb all the way up. IT IS A TREATH TO THE SYSTEM IN PLACE.
Uhhh, did you really expect they'd say "this place is a dump"? Of course they'll flatter their current employer. http://bit.ly/IRl5En
No, but I've heard the same thing--that the Ivy League schools are often less demanding than good academic schools that are less prestigious. There was a paper circulating a few years ago by a history professor that made this point (among many others). I can't recall the name of the prof or paper, though.
He is, however, one of the few to graduate from Yale with a seemingly ninth grade education. In general those whose undergraduate degree is from any educational institution with a highly selective admissions policy is intellectually more capable then those who graduate from institutions with more less open enrollment. That is not to say that the very best students graduating from any major Public institution are not every bit as capable. It is simple a matter of odds. I detect a strong anti-intellectual bent among ET traders. Is this a general characteristic of gamblers, perhaps?
What about Obama's SAT scores and/or college grades? Have they ever been released? When not working with ghost writers/editors, speech writers, teleprompters, etc., he's never shown any signs of brilliance in my book. Not at all.
Math/science? Maybe. Humanities? Not so much. Especially since liberal arts have been taken over by uber-PC, anti-Western Civ, postmodern bias. I know non-Ivy League kids who are much more well-read in the classics, fluent in more languages, etc. than a typical Harvard clown.
Of course there are well-read people who didn't go to this-or-that-school, but there are lots of Harvard kids with very high verbal IQs, which is why, for instance ~half the writers on "The Simpsons" (including Conan OâBrien at one point) have been Harvard grads...