Discriminations, the Ivy league way
Amid all the furore about the proposed reservation, i was reading this piece with interest. It’s interesting to know the ideas of the so-called Ivy league in the US with regard to their admissions…
I really enjoyed this piece
Élite schools, like any luxury brand, are an aesthetic experience—an exquisitely constructed fantasy of what it means to belong to an élite —and they have always been mindful of what must be done to maintain that experience.
In the nineteen-eighties, when Harvard was accused of enforcing a secret quota on Asian admissions, its defense was that once you adjusted for the preferences given to the children of alumni and for the preferences given to athletes, Asians really weren’t being discriminated against. But you could sense Harvard’s exasperation that the issue was being raised at all. If Harvard had too many Asians, it wouldn’t be Harvard, just as Harvard wouldn’t be Harvard with too many Jews or pansies or parlor pinks or shy types or short people with big ears.
May 26th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Yeah…nice find that.
I am not surprised at its content though. A lot of these schools try to keep the “white” culture in the school intact. But they also make sure (these days) that they have enough of other races/nationalities to make sure they are not accused of racism later on. It was in the earlier years, that reservation/discrimination was rampant in the US. Now only the remains of it are seen.
Did you get my e-mail about Nehru’s letter?
May 26th, 2006 at 8:18 pm
Revealing Stats from IBM’s Employment Data
Oh BTW, why are people so silent about recruitment policies in the US? Nearly half of all recruitment takes place through word-of-mouth and employer referral.
What about our own software industries? What the hell does a Metallurgy Engineer or Civil Engineer know about programming? Why are lakhs of them employed in the industry and nobody raises a crib?
May 26th, 2006 at 11:14 pm
haahaaa.. sooperb dhaan ponga!!
May 26th, 2006 at 11:28 pm
ttm:
What is wrong with metallurgy/civil engineering guys ? Some of the best programmers I know, particularly in the US are not even graduates or have arts/science degrees. Some of the confusion is due to the fact the run of the mill software job is not a ‘computer science’ job - it’s a regular drone job. The problem with a lot of computer science graduates I have worked with is that they don’t realize that a lot of what they regard as specialised knowledge has actually become commoditised. We are living in the age of the ‘google’ programmer -any moderately intelligent person can google around and find a solution to most problems. Of course this approach has it’s consequences, but smart folks usually figure a way out.
Computer science graduates could be less frustrated if they confined themselves to research of really niche areas. I made a slightly related post long back:
http://cycle-gap.blogspot.com/2005_01_01_cycle-gap_archive.html
May 27th, 2006 at 2:27 am
I read through the entire article on Yale and Harvard admissions, totally enjoyed reading it - thanks!
May 27th, 2006 at 7:41 am
Informative…and a different perspective…good one
May 27th, 2006 at 10:43 pm
dinesh,
danks:)
mail kedachudhu.. sorry for the late reply..
TTM,
i guess that sitn will come when software jobs get scarce in due course…
priya,
danks:)
rams,
unga post padikaren…
RS,
danks:)
krk,
dank u:)