I would be happy to point and laugh at watching these left coast institutions disintegrate, unfortunately, they are allowed to leave what they created and infect other places. This is why we need strong internal borders!

The Lowell thing is akin to arguing that the University of California system is too restrictive in its admissions, so we'll level it by turning all UCs and CSUs to community colleges, for fairness.

and if the kids didn't score high enough this well reasoned entrepreneur would shame them and guilt them for making the family stay in shitty SF and not getting into Lowell? Consider me unmoved by their implicit superiority.

All modern center left politics is the elites using the poor to eliminate their competitors.

Since when do we - meaning Rs - care about these elitist schools?

General belief in/ approval of meritocracy? It offends a sense of fairness.

Hahaha you thought the ivy league was about merit hahaha

They've undermined testing based admissions for a while due to their Legacy admissions/ bizzare focus on upper class white sports scholarships.

We've also been discussing elite public high schools, so I might have misattributed ellis's question as pertaining to both.

In either case, eliminating testing requirements helps the failchildren of white elites more than any other demographic

Yes, you might even say that this is the point of the institution, one that all of its policies are ultimately going to support even if they nominally appear counter to that goal.

I think I saw something like 50% or less of Yale? Harvard? Phds end up in tenure track careers, so congrats on making it Mickey. Clearly you've figured out at least that portion of the education game.

Unless a Yale or Harvard Phd is just a social status marker for a good number of their recipients.

Specifically the complaints about the test based admission public highschools doing away with their tests is targeted to this. Just like the Ivys took measures back in the 20s to make sure the schools didn't become "too Jewish", the elite public highschools are apparently allergic to becoming "too Asian". Some POC kids will probably benefit, but its pretty clear that whitey will reap most of the reward.

Wouldn't you know it, the rich failsons make it into the graduate programs too but don't want to pursue a job at Suckmeoff State University

What suckmeoff state U is still hiring tenure track? Living on a mere lecturer's salary and their trustfund is beneath the failsons of America.

But why a PHD for the failsons? Why not just an MBA or other graduate program that sets you up for a stint at whatever company a friend of mom or dad owns?

A soft landing at a thinktank or other NGO?

For yucks.

I mean I agree that if you're a failson and you want to do a graduate degree you could just choose something easier like business or law.

I've heard that at least for less prestigious programs, once you get accepted, they are incentivized to push you through to completion for... reasons that are not clear to me. Any truth to that?

Also, failsons going into law just makes sense. How many terrible lawyers do we have in our various layers of government?

Basically all PhD programs are incentivized to push students through to completion because it affects the aptly named completion rate and/or time to degree, metrics which can be used to compare departments (either within a university or across different schools, competing for funding or students, respectively). Of course the stick they wield is funding, so it just shakes out that because there are more rich kids at Princeton etc., there are more people immune to discipline, but I don't know if this translates to more 8th/9th/10th years in the Ivys or not.

Your last statement isn't true, but my comment was solely about the schools that @mattyglesias listed. Those schools depend on name brand to drive up apps to drive down acceptance rate to maintain the allure of selectivity (eliteness) to get the wealthy to pay full price so that they can throw a full-ride-bone to randos to maintain the idea that it's about merit. They game has worked well for them so they won't change it and won't let others into the club willingly.

"In either case, eliminating testing requirements helps the failchildren of white elites more than any other demographic."

My statement that this is not true is based on the fact that it's all a ruse. And there isn't anyway around it.

Standardized tests will always give advantage to those of higher socioeconomic position. If you/your family/your school district can afford to prep, take it multiple times, and/or seek out psych. evaluations that could grant you accommodations you're already ahead of others of lesser position.

The demographic you've identified have advantage with or without tests. Eliminating the requirement will only cause more people to apply to the elite schools and drive the acceptance rates down further, but it's not indicative of a NEW advantage, it's the same one that was always there just without the myth of test scores.