Why private school?

@nada - do you know for sure that she flamed out? Is it possible she decided it was not for her and maybe went the founder route herself? I know one former PE (principal at a top tier fund) who caught the entrepreneur bug himself after being an investor through the ivy-ivy finance pipeline. What is she doing now? I can think of another individual who is now a household name who some thought at the time she left McKinsey that she had flamed out there.

I don’t know 100% for sure, but that’s the picture well-placed sources painted. While being acerbic can be great for certain professions (bulldog litigator?), not the right fit for VC, I don’t imagine. She went onto two short stints, first a post-IPO corporate job then at a small startup, before dropping off the face of online traces. I’m not sure what she’s up to now.

>While being acerbic can be great for certain professions (bulldog litigator?), not the right fit for VC, I don’t imagine.

In VC one definitely needs to be a charmer.
What other professions are good for being acerbic? Hedge funds? Government? Engineering?

>I’m not sure what she’s up to now.

Stay at home mom? Entirely possible, I remember talking to a gray-haired HBS grad who lamented all his female classmates did not do more constructive things with their degrees...

" but that’s the picture well-placed sources painted." -- Knowing the inside story of a few unexpected departures from coveted positions, I am always wary of sources connected to the institution that was left.

"Stay at home mom? Entirely possible, I remember talking to a gray-haired HBS grad who lamented all his female classmates did not do more constructive things with their degrees..." -- I am pretty sure I have previously posted on this topic on other threads on SE, but this was the angst of my generation. I saw many a friend choose to leave their high-powered jobs to care for their children, and also have more than one friend who lamented her inability to do that because her family needed the income. Woes to the person who suggests that a woman (or man) who chooses to step off the CEO/GC/MP/BigLaw track to raise their children is not making the most constructive use of their degree.

>> Knowing the inside story of a few unexpected departures from coveted positions, I am always wary of sources connected to the institution that was left.

Sources were not connected to the institution.

Something to the effect of acerbic language directed at her boss/mentor in a public setting so eyebrow-raising that I heard about it from two separate outsiders independently. Typical acerbic behavior on her part, only extra even for her. She left shortly thereafter.

I don’t think the boss/mentor bore any ill will towards her, given that he’s a mensch IMO, and that she landed in a job at one of his portfolio companies. She just couldn’t help herself. But in VC, you can’t be calling everyone in the room idiots all the time and operate successfully. Networks & relationships are critical.

That sounds entirely plausible! The one time I was involved in hiring for a coveted position, I was surprised that the head of the committee quashed someone I wanted to bring in because her resume screamed "too smart to function in a collegial environment." It was eye-opening. He said "what we are doing is not rocket science; we need people who other people want to be around."

>Woes to the person who suggests that a woman (or man) who chooses to step off the CEO/GC/MP/BigLaw track to raise their children is not making the most constructive use of their degree.

At an individual level, people opting out of a high-powered career are making the right choice for themselves.

On a population/society level this is a different story. If you have a limited number of spots for, say, doctors, in med schools, it is important to know how many people will drop out to predict supply of professionals. Or else we have our current situation, where 30% of women doctors work part time (and who knows how many have dropped out), creating a doctor shortage. With HBS grad I referenced, the conversation was around too few women in leadership roles, fewer than X% representation in his class, but based on his reunion conversations, many of the women dropped out and were simply no longer part of leadership pipelines in their industries.

The HBS and medical school women (and men) that later dropped out took a coveted spot and subsidies (scholarships and endowments are subsidies) for themselves and away from other applicants without delivering an appropriate return to society. Educating every single person to the highest level without consideration of payback is very, very expensive and at some point unaffordable to society.

The origin of the issue is of course that society made it hard for people of that generation (and still now to a lesser degree) with kids to hold certain kinds of jobs without a stay at home partner, and sexism ensured the stay at home partners were disproportionally women. Women could also be making a rational choice in response to discrimination at work (the "mommy track"): it makes sense for the couple that the partner not discriminated against keeps working, while the partner discriminated against stays at home.

BTW, VC funds hire from a mix of backgrounds, including Ivy leagues, but they also sometimes hire an exited founder and people from few other random backgrounds. On the other hand, PE funds (buyout, growth equity) are the ones that typically stick to the one way to hire and operate like an exclusive club. I think the WSJ article was referencing PE firms and their structured recruiting methods.

LOL. I am guessing “too smart” would have messed with the dynamic rather than anything that could be gleaned about personality from the resume.

Re: "too smart"
There's flavors of that in recruiting everywhere.
As a hiring manager of interns/college grads at a big dumb bank, I ran a team in the sales&trading department but not a trading desk.

We would often get kids come through that obviously wanted to be on the trading desk, and that's fine.. but then they probably should have done better with the trading desk recruiting track and not ended up in my pool. We were hiring for a more technical skill set, competing for the same talent as FAANG.

The most annoying thing was hiring a kid who from day 1 was so focussed on getting the other job, they were genuinely bad at their actual job. I don't know if its a generational thing or what right now, but I've seen a lot of zoomed hiring like this where the kid doesn't even want the job they are interviewing for and is very explicitly trying to ladder to something else.

Personally the most successful people I've seen were good at each job they pursued along the way, and didn't try to act like a job they were hired for was below them.

Re: men/women and careers
I think we're in a difficult spot for both genders the last generation or so.
It's genuinely hard to fund a comfortable HCOL appropriate lifestyle on 1 income.

Women are told they can do it all, but are judged either way (taking the mommy track OR being a career woman). There's not a lot of good role models in most orgs because women are either discriminated against or "mommy track" and cap out at lower levels permanently. Probably 10% of couples we know, the woman is the bigger earner. In almost all cases it's for negative reasons (husband took the academic/artist track) rather than positive reasons. So there's a sort of wistful "if only he was a big earner too" vibe to things sometimes.

Men are expected to be egalitarian re: spousal employment, but also secretly unsaid is that EVERYONE still expects the man to make more, and is judgmental of him if he can't fund a certain lifestyle. One of the guys we know that is the lower earner has huge mental health issues and shame around this fact. The few men we know who married into some money got the full Tom Wambsgans treatment for sure.

We know a lot of couples where both spouses sort of start in high powered gigs and then as the husband gets promoted enough, the woman has optionality to work/mom/pursue more part time employment/pursue their hobbyist job dream in various mixes by their 40s.
Meanwhile the man is basically still expected by society to work til he's laid off in his 50s or muddle through to 65.

>> The most annoying thing was hiring a kid who from day 1 was so focussed on getting the other job, they were genuinely bad at their actual job.

LOL. Did they get the other job or just get fired? No way I’d hire this person into the other job knowing that.

>> I don't know if its a generational thing or what right now, but I've seen a lot of zoomed hiring like this where the kid doesn't even want the job they are interviewing for and is very explicitly trying to ladder to something else.

I think it is yet another sign of a tight labor market. We don’t see what you describe in my world, but we see other weirdness. For example, in the past year we had a situation where junior employee X asked if they could do consulting on the side, given that junior employee Y was doing it. WTF: outside work has to be cleared by the company, but Y had never sought permission. Moreover, our job is not one where anyone had previously contemplated a side hustle. Our gig is a tough one, and Y had not really yet found their footing, which is not atypical. Faced with that, most people double down to try and figure it out. You need your head in the game 100%, and even then, you’ll likely be humbled. With Y, I don’t think they really understood it in those terms.

Wow! Side hustle at your shop!!! I thought you guys paid above market if someone can make the cut to get hired.

Re "LOL. I am guessing “too smart” would have messed with the dynamic rather than anything that could be gleaned about personality from the resume" -- Prior to this incident, it had never occurred to me that there was discrimination against really smart people! The candidate in question was a personal friend of mine and I vouched for her personality, but the chair of the committee quashed it on the notion that she would never be satisfied with our relatively run-of-the-mill legal work and that she should stay in her lane and go to one of the Supreme Court Clerk firms, which she ultimately did. He may have been on to something in general, however, as she dropped out of the workforce and off the radar entirely fairly early. I thought of her recently when I re-watched Broadcast News and the head of the network says to the Holly Hunter character "It must be nice to always be the smartest person in the room," to which she responds, "No, it's AWFUL."

An +1 on everything @Steve123 said.
And to @krolik - I am well aware of the broader conversation. I was an econ major and wrote my senior thesis on the phenomenon, working in the wage elasticity of the labor supply curve of married women and the logical wage differentials/discrimination. I thought we would be further along than we are now, but here we are. I wish your generation the best of luck!
As a post-script, I would love for you to update us after your child arrives because one of the most fascinating things that I witnessed on a personal level was the transformation of my sister after her first child arrived. She was the valedictorian/captain-of-the-team type and on the GC track for a household name company. She actually cried when she found out she was pregnant, but after this little creature arrived, she completely changed and wanted to spend all of her time with it. She loved it so much that she had two more over the next three years, and I've not seen that ambitious creature that was my pre-child sister since.

I have seen a smart person with impressive credentials turned away as well. People assumed she wasn't going to stick around long term and did not want to be looking for a replacement soon. They were just being realistic about the level of pay offered.

At my workplace, half the kids start recruiting for the next gig the moment they arrive. It is all kinds of bad theoretically. In practice, minority of these kinds get an offer to join their next firm in a 1-2 years (its basically a deferred offer) and slack off afterwards, but because we hire extremely high performers (top of class primarily from Ivies, and sadly invoking Ivies is the best way to convey this point), they are very conscientious and work super hard regardless of the fact that they have the next job lined up already. Remaining half the kids that are not recruiting day one often stick around and some get promoted. Its a weird system that has been taken to its logical conclusion and created all sorts of weird dynamics in the work place, but we don't have a way to change the current equilibrium (without a major disruption to the business).

>As a post-script, I would love for you to update us after your child arrives because one of the most fascinating things that I witnessed on a personal level was the transformation of my sister after her first child arrived.

I can see myself getting into competitive mommy-ing. LOL

Actually an agreement with my partner was that I definitely would keep working. He does not want to be sole breadwinner. Also, I don't think a large family can be all set in Manhattan on his income alone.

>For example, in the past year we had a situation where junior employee X asked if they could do consulting on the side, given that junior employee Y was doing it.

A friend's direct report with only 1 year experience at a large hedge fund recently asked for a sabbatical for the summer so he could take a writing class somewhere. Kids these days don't know sacrifice :-)

>Men are expected to be egalitarian re: spousal employment, but also secretly unsaid is that EVERYONE still expects the man to make more, and is judgmental of him if he can't fund a certain lifestyle. One of the guys we know that is the lower earner has huge mental health issues and shame around this fact.

My partner says he would quite enjoy a situation where I make more than him. Would give him breathing room and optionality to pursue a startup idea...

Feel like I need to clarify: partner made more than me for the majority of the last 10 years (as I switched 3 careers, and had to pay back 6-figure student loans), while he has been in the same career the whole time, and therefore had seniority. More recently, in the last couple of years, we made about the same amount, and he has been very happy about that.

>> Wow! Side hustle at your shop!!! I thought you guys paid above market if someone can make the cut to get hired.

Yeah, the company pays well. I don’t know if I’d describe it as “above market” necessarily because the job requires that people be a couple of cuts above what the broad industry needs. So while we pay (say) double what apparently-equivalent entry-level positions elsewhere pay, we’re only able to hire / make use of the (say) top few percent of those hired by the industry. So is that really above-market? I dunno…

The disconnect is more from a career perspective, and whether one can make a meaningful contribution (with corresponding pay) by calling it in. We’re not exactly hourly workers whose contributions, while varying, are in a narrow band proportional to the number of hours we show up at work.

People have multiple interests they want to explore, and there are more freelance opportunities readily available now than in years past. Young (and not young) people often do not grasp that in some cases the best thing they can do is focus on the opportunity in front of them with no distractions, given this opportunity is generally a lot more lucrative than most side hassles.

My current workplace is strict on this and prohibits most extracurriculars including rental properties. I would even need an approval for some volunteer activities.

>> Young (and not young) people often do not grasp that in some cases the best thing they can do is focus on the opportunity in front of them with no distractions, given this opportunity is generally a lot more lucrative than most side hassles.

Well-said. I don’t know if “hassle” was a pun or typo on “hustle” but arguably apropos regardless.

>> but we don't have a way to change the current equilibrium

Fire one of the slackers. Preferably one who slacks off obviously while having whispered about an apparently lucrative outside offer in the eyes of the peers. Watch the rest scurry and work. If anyone asks, standard “No comment” line or whatever HR tells you.

Don’t they teach anything anymore? Watch some for Glengarry Glen Ross for pointers on delivery.

FTR, this is not something I deal with in my professional life, so mileage may vary ;).

>> Feel like I need to clarify: partner made more than me for the majority of the last 10 years

Why do you feel the need to clarify? It’s just that type of feeling that promulgates the hegemony! ;)

I recall a situation relayed to me years ago in which employee was arguing for higher comp. Management diligently asks “Why do you think it should be higher?” As in contributions, outside offers, etc. Employee couldn’t provide good reasons and, thinking it’d land on sympathetic ears, eventually turned to “Well, you see, my wife is paid more than me. And in my culture, that is not good.” Management reply was a polite form of “Maybe your wife is just better, perhaps we should hire her.”

Ha. Love that line of justification at an already well-paying firm. Reply was even better.

“Well, you see, my wife is paid more than me. And in my culture, that is not good.”

>Why do you feel the need to clarify? It’s just that type of feeling that promulgates the hegemony! ;)

I know! but I read what steve wrote and figured you'd all be judging him. And I can't have that. I have to live in the world that exists, not the world that I wish existed.

>Fire one of the slackers.

We can't. HR wouldn't let us, especially as far as junior or very senior employees are concerned (HR seems to be fine cutting people in the middle). It is really strange. We were looking to get rid of a couple of entry-level slackers for about a year, and we had to wait that long until they found a different position outside or within the firm that was a better fit.

And this is not a situation exclusive to this firm. At my prior firm, which was much smaller, we had this one entry level person from Harvard (out of about 10 total people hired that year) that was really not good at the job. Made lots of errors, did not check own work, did not put in the time. When feedback was given, this person turned it around on us: firm did not provide good projects, environment was less welcoming than they thought it should be, they are thinking of quitting (no offer lined up). This was escalated to the company founder, who instead of firing the person, took them to lunch, and sold them on staying with the firm. The person continued to suck, but now was emboldened to say things like "I cannot join this call with higher ups as I have an interview scheduled at that time", or "I won't have time to do this today, I need to study cases to prepare for an interview", and "I got a scholarship to attend this industry conference as part of *rising stars* program, so I will need to take time off" (of course they got a scholarship: they were from Harvard and worked at an elite firm. On paper they are a genius).
So apparently the reason they were persuaded to stay instead of shown the door was because they went to Harvard. The founder figured, it would be a bad look on campus the following year if our only hire from Harvard from prior year wasn't there to praise the firm to the new class. Paying them for over a year to do nothing was worth it to "preserve the relationship" with Harvard.

In contrast, when I was leaving (outside offer), there was no such effort made by founder to convince me to stay, but I did not go to Harvard...

Fun non-sequitur - Two young people who are Harvard legacies in the news in the past few days: One got the President of Stanford to resign; the other got a Harvard prof to eliminate take-home essays based on AI's getting an "A" on the assignment. One legacy opted for Stanford, while the other is at Harvard. These kids are awesome and would have gotten into their respective schools with anonymity. I don't understand why these elite schools invite controversy by giving preference to legacies in modern times. Hopefully they will dispense with it and eliminate that check box on the app.

@nada - I'd question continuing to employ someone who's ask for a raise was simply "my spouse makes more than me", extremely lame and makes me question their overall judgement.

I'd be happy for my wife to earn more than me, I know the current arrangement bothers her sometimes.

The overall point of my above post was that we've moved from a rigid sexist model of fixed expectations ~2 generations ago..to a shifting, ambiguous model where no one knows what to expect / is expected of them.

Hopefully people figure out how to deal with it psychologically in another generation or two.

NYC exacerbates the problem in my opinion because even if the husband makes 3x, living in NYC is so expensive that the wife still works anyway, which creates its own weird stresses.

>> I don't understand why these elite schools invite controversy by giving preference to legacies in modern times.

Like all things, follow the money.

If you study the paper Krolik posted, you’ll see the advantage given to legacies is kinda on the margins. Measurable, shouldn’t be there IMO, but very small compared to (say) race. Nevertheless, the existence makes alumni donate, so as to advantage their kids. E.g., a belief that a persistent & increasing donation history will eventually help their child with admissions. There is no specific quid pro quo arrangement, and before this study I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a quantitative take on the degree of advantage given. The lack of specificity probably further feeds the insecurities of alumni who buy into the notions, thereby increasing donations.

I’m guessing the schools & admissions officers think it’s for the greater good, as the donations serve to pay for (say) underprivileged minorities who otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford it.

Steve123>> I'd question continuing to employ someone…

I understand the sentiment. I’m not privy to the details here, so I don’t have the full context. Not sure about the person was, the outcome, etc. Relayed to me more in the context of “I just had to deal with some weird shit today.” I am sure the guy did himself no favors with that one. I am always curiously perplexed by people shooting themselves in the foot career-wise with stupidity. “Hi, firm that runs everything above-board. Could you please break the law, never mind the ethics, so you can pay me more?”

An improper response, I suppose, would have been “Maybe your wife should request a pay decrease…”

>“Well, you see, my wife is paid more than me. And in my culture, that is not good.”

My mom told me a story (from late 80s). She had one peer in her department at work of the same rank, but nowhere as good as her. Around promotion time, her boss called her into his office and said he wanted to talk to her before promotion decisions were made public. He explained that he had budget to only promote one person, and it would be her male peer, even though he thought my mom was better, "because he is a man, he needs to support a family".
When that boss later started own firm, he asked my mom to join him (not that the other person).

The world has changed a bit since then, but not as much as some people think.

>Well-said. I don’t know if “hassle” was a pun or typo on “hustle” but arguably apropos regardless

LOL indeed both of these work :)

Krolik, how strong is the bid for labor in your respective fields these days? Steve123?

In my world, it sorta feels like it’s finally moved away from heavily overbid to mere overbid. For example, I heard through the grapevine that one company has put a hold on senior hires, after going on a spree for the past couple of years and making offers that seemed like overpaying. They holding off on anymore such offers until they see how the current batch works out. I don’t know any details beyond that, but sounds like there’s a bit of indigestion.

@nada - I think "heavily overbid to mere overbid" is in the ballpark.
For my area I'd say "more selectively heavily overbid".
2021-2022, every fund was growing 30/50/100%, and overbid on talent in all departments/seniorities.
Now we have some funds cutting, hiring frozen or cooled. Some are still growing but selectively.

Everyone is still super happy to overbid, selectively where they need to though.

Similar to steve123's answer above.

Technically we are not in an expansion mode, and are trying to actually reduce headcount very slightly (about 1-2%) via natural attrition and very selective layoffs (no mass layoffs at my firm).

However, as an example, in my small area of about 40-50 people, just in the last two months we had one senior and two very, very senior people poached by competitors. Believe we tried to counter at least one of them, but the other firm was more aggressive. These departures are actually a bit problematic, and we are looking to make at least one very senior hire. We made an offer to a candidate, but candidate's current firm countered, so our attempt was unsuccessful. Clearly, we did not bid high enough (my firm is not known for being aggressive on comp). I believe we are looking around for more candidates.

The logic of competitors poaching our senior people is that this year is slower than the prior few years, and expected to be lower on comp, so hiring this year, firms might be able to get good people and build out capabilities without having to spend as much as in the last few years. The logic of people leaving is that they might as well use the slower time to change firms (with a pay bump) and get settled at a new place.

Also, we had one mid-level person quit (personal reasons, not poached), and we are interviewing to replace this person. If business picks up, we would be short-staffed at that level.

A number of junior or very junior people quit or moved on to next jobs (as planned), but we are not replacing them with lateral hires as we have some fresh grads coming in soon, so we will be okay at that level.

At entry-level, I think we are overpaying, because clearly there is a ridiculous demand for those seats as I wrote above, and also we are experiencing a lot less attrition at that level than in past years. I think this indicates that the pay is so high, employees cannot find any equally or more attractive jobs. But it is that weird situation where we just don't want to be known to pay less than competitors (as that might result in unwanted self-selection), so we are stuck overpaying.

The overbidding phenomenon is interesting. In the past for my world, the outcomes have skewed heavily towards unfavorable. The targeted parties that convert are solid, but they are somewhere between rarely (for less senior folks) to never (for more senior folks) best-in-class. The overbid puts them at a level of capability / productivity they have not demonstrated previously, which becomes all the more difficult to achieve in a work environment that operates very differently.

Discuss:

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/24/upshot/ivy-league-elite-college-admissions.html

@nada - yeah saw the charts, pretty obvious what's going on at the Ivys lol
But then again, what do you expect with relatively fixed seats vs vastly higher demand (more population / more going to college / more foreign students).

It does also, if I read it right, fly in the face of the concept that poor kids are getting brought in on sports scholarships, when its in fact the rich (possibly on more esoteric rich kids sports ...).

Another aspect I forgot about, purely on the "acceptance rate stats" having recently talked to parents of teens: the "common app" allows kids to apply to far more schools than you & I did. My GenX/old Millennial friends all talk about having applied to 2..3.. maybe 5ish schools. Apparently 10+ is pretty normal now for HCOL overachiever coastal elites. I do suspect however that Ivy acceptances are "stickier" unless someone were to get into several...

For example, Yale:
https://toptieradmissions.com/resources/college-acceptance-rates/yale-acceptance-rates/
In 15 years their applications went from 23k to 52k, while acceptances went from 1.9k to 2.3k, effectively halving their acceptance rate.

Harvard seems to be worse:
https://toptieradmissions.com/resources/college-acceptance-rates/harvard-university-acceptance-rates/
27k -> 57k apps with 2.2k -> 1.9k accepted? So admit rate down almost 60%.

>> Another aspect I forgot about, purely on the "acceptance rate stats" having recently talked to parents of teens: the "common app" allows kids to apply to far more schools than you & I did.

Yeah, I mentioned that up towards the top of the thread. I internally roll my eyes every time someone says how hard it has become now, compared to the old days when they were handing out seats. If you didn’t have a shot, you’d apply to one such place just in case. Not 10.

College-age population is unchanged, so the same fraction are admitted. It’s just as difficult to gain admissions as it’s ever been. Being born rich, white, and into privilege while working connections used to be huge component 100 years ago. If you won that birth lottery and applied appropriate effort, your chance of admissions was exponentially higher. If not, too bad. Now, being born smart and motivated while working hard is the huge component. If you win that birth lottery and apply appropriate effort, your chance of admissions is exponentially higher. If not, too bad. I like the new system better. Vestiges of the old system remain, and I am hopeful the current focus & pressure gets rid of the last of them.

I was surprised by the number of my anecdotal pet theories the study confirm, particularly given that my experience on the topic is from long ago (when I went & applied to schools) and this thread.

>> Consistent with previous research, they found that attending an Ivy instead of one of the top nine public flagships did not meaningfully increase graduates’ income, on average. However, it did increase a student’s predicted chance of earning in the top 1 percent to 19 percent, from 12 percent.

Yeah, in the end the school doesn’t matter tremendously. The fact that average income ends up the same but top 1% income is skewed is half the picture. The other half is that the elite schools also produce outsized number of people who earn less than the top-public counterparts. These stats have presumably adjusted for the effect of wealthy parents, so what are we left to conclude? I’ll guess that the extra-talented are pulling up the stats for elite schools while the under-talented who game the admissions (via parents in various ways, of course) pull down the stats.

Good article. It does answer the question whether private high schools are better at getting kids into colleges, or if they are taking credit for parents' connections (it is the former). Seems like they studied private school effect as a separate variable, and found that teachers and counselors at private schools provide stronger recommendations, resulting in higher subjective personality scores and higher rate of admission for private students (with academics held constant). The schools probably also offer niche, rich kid sports, to help secure advantage via a student athlete qualification.

>I internally roll my eyes every time someone says how hard it has become now, compared to the old days when they were handing out seats.

You could have the same number of people applying, but required effort moving higher for everyone over time, hence the rise in teen suicides at private schools.

>> The largest advantage for the 1 percent was the preference for legacies. The study showed — for the first time at this scale — that legacies were more qualified overall than the average applicant. But even when comparing applicants who were similar in every other way, legacies still had an advantage.

How convenient that schools skew their legacy favoritism towards alumni who have presumably given, and can give, the most money. My cynical take: as long as you’re selling your soul, you may as well sell it to the highest bidder.

>> Overall, the study suggests, if elite colleges had done away with the preferences for legacies, athletes and private school students, the children of the top 1 percent would have made up 10 percent of a class, down from 16 percent in the years of the study.

Good riddance to that 6%. But it’ll only increase the slots for the rest by 7%. That 1.07x increase in admission rate based on better standards of merit is great, but it’ll barely budge the admissions criteria for the rest. You’re still probably not gonna get in.

>> Legacy students, athletes and private school students do no better after college, in terms of earnings or reaching a top graduate school or firm, it found. In fact, they generally do somewhat worse.

What a surprise…

>> M.I.T., which stands out among elite private schools as displaying almost no preference for rich students, has long had a practice of not giving a preference to legacy applicants, said its dean of admissions, Stuart Schmill. It does recruit athletes, but they do not receive any preference or go through a separate admissions process (as much as it may frustrate coaches, he said).

Proof that it can be done by elite schools, if there’s a will, despite claims about the difficulty of the solution.

>> The dean of admissions who spoke anonymously said change was easier said than done: “I would say there’s much more commitment to this than may be obvious. It’s just the solution is really complicated, and if we could have done it, we would have.”

I dunno, maybe start by replicating whatever MIT does and go from there?

Krolik>> It does answer the question whether private high schools are better at getting kids into colleges

Yeah, that certainly coincides with my (dated) experience. As I said, the private school kids were on average a notch less smart. I hope this was a reflection of them gaming the system rather than providing worse education to otherwise-talented kids.

Regardless, I always look to where the puck is going, not where it’s been. So as far as your unborn offspring is concerned, if you send him/her/them to private school, you should do so for the education, not the gaming. The days of privilege in admissions are in their waning years after a ~century-long trajectory, thankfully, and I don’t see the vestiges lasting another 20 years.

Krolik>> You could have the same number of people applying, but required effort moving higher for everyone over time, hence the rise in teen suicides at private schools.

That’s an interesting point I hadn’t thought about. It’s hard to for me to have perspective on this because so many of my high school peers were already expending maximal effort. And the equivalent set does the same today. So much of it is a waste of time. Hopefully, it should lead to better capabilities. But I fear it so often jumps the shark and leads to kids who are unable to actually think, because they spend all their mental cycles on being “enriched” and “exposed” to cruft they have no passion for. Zero time to waste, which eventually leads them to sit and contemplate and think about whatever they actually care about. Worse, if it leads to suicide, WTF…

>so many of my high school peers were already expending maximal effort.

Rising suicide rates probably mean that now maximal effort is even more often just not good enough...

If you look at how most sport disciplines have progressed, this is very clear that many fields are pushing past anything "reasonable". For example, in women's skating, in the 90s and early 2000s, a quadruple jump was considered impossible (the proportion of weight to strength to hips width in women's post-puberty bodies makes it impossible to jump up high enough to have time to complete 4 turns). But now, most world/Olympic contenders do it. The trick is, start with a number of very talented junior girls (that were already winning juvenile and junior competitions), train them so hard that puberty is delayed to 16, and by Olympics, end up with a few 15 and 16 year old girls that are still uninjured. Girls would typically retire right after the big event because 1) onset of puberty 2) injuries. So overall, it looks like sport is stronger than ever with women doing things previously considered impossible, but in reality this is at the expense of many (already preselected and talented) girls that give it their all and end up with no win and life-long traumas (broken backs, hips) and missed secondary education, or girls that have to quit career at 17, before they fully developed as a skater/artist as they become not competitive.

Let's see if in 20 years, something like pickleball will become an extreme sport vs lifestyle activity for seniors.

>> Rising suicide rates probably mean that now maximal effort is even more often just not good enough...

Maximal effort was never good enough. You largely used to also need to win the birth lottery with wealthy parents, and now you largely need to win the birth lottery with intelligence.

On suicide rates, I’m not sure when the dust settles it’ll be attributed to this issue. Look at the decades-long trends:

https://www.childtrends.org/publications/teen-suicide-databank-indicator

https://www.charliehealth.com/research/the-us-teen-suicide-rate-is-on-the-rise

While rising over the past decade, that was after a decade-long drop from the levels in the prior decade similar to where we are now. If we take increases in school application rates and consequent decreases in admissions rates as a proxy for whatever effect you are theorizing about, that’s been happening across all these decades quite evenly.

Life is better today than 20 years ago, and it makes sense that teen suicides aren't actually increasing too much overall, but they could be increasing among the Ivy-bound population.

As an example, I definitely see changes in performance in many sports: top performance today is often much stronger than what used to be top performance 10-15 years ago. And 10-15 ago many people were putting in their maximal effort, myself included! Some of it has to do with better coaching available now, some of it has to do with better equipment (massage guns, recovery boots, cryochambers, better doping, lol), but some is due to just training harder in one thing (at the expense of other things) which often results in ACL or overuse injuries, which are on the rise in young athletes.

The resumes that come across my desk are also quite ridiculous, and while some of the "increased qualifications" have to do simply with grade inflation, I just cannot believe that some kids started internships to gain "relevant experience" ... in high school. Sure, it was at daddy's company, but kids still had to put in the time, instead of resting in the countryside somewhere or relaxing on a couch with a book.

From today's NYT article on elite colleges (Ivies plus a few)

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full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/07/24/upshot/ivy-league-elite-college-admissions.html

So I just found out that many large employers in NYC run diversity recruiting programs to get more black and hispanics in the door. The crazy thing is, they don’t distinguish between domestic URMs and international students from LatAm and Africa!!! Socioeconomic status of recruits is not something that is being tracked and therefore is irrelevant - you get what you measure. To me this is crazy, why would internationals (who are mostly from wealthy backgrounds) from LatAm get any advantage over those from Vietnam or war-torn Ukraine, or domestic applicants? At least one large employer recruits at a Mexican university (for NYC-based positions), to get more “diversity” (although in their defense, they also recruit in Canada).

Well yeah, this has been going on for easily 20 years. For example, a large % of the those of African descent that I worked with in tech at big banks back then were Nigerian nationals on visas. Basically the 1% of their respective countries.

The response I am given is that if these people stay here, they eventually will become a US URM. So might as well hire them now so we make our stats on latinos and blacks look better. Immigration status is not something considered by these programs, and in terms of race, they just ask students to self-identify. The Brazilians and Argentinians I interviewed this week all look white. The 1% in those countries consists of european families that did NOT mix with the local natives or slave descendants. The rich and the poor populations just visually look very different. The short statue, straight hair, native-looking Mexicans aren’t in our pipeline.

I wondering if my grad school had so many latam internationals for the same reason. Like, there were almost the same number people from Mexico as from China, even though Chinese applicants had higher test scores and it is a much larger country. The school had a minuscule number of US latinos.

>> For example, a large % of the those of African descent that I worked with in tech at big banks back then were Nigerian nationals on visas. Basically the 1% of their respective countries.

I knew that a lot of blacks and latinos at banks were foreigners. Assumed it was because those that immigrate are typically the most smart and ambitious. What I did not know is that we also gave those internationals priority in recruiting….

Just to kick the hornets nest on that school in Cambridge, and how it uses its hedge fund/endowment returns, lol

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/harvard-university-encourages-students-food-171022208.html

Harvard University recently organized an event to support graduate students enrolling in government food assistance programs.

The Health Services office sent a flier to graduate students, encouraging them to participate in the SNAP Benefits Sign-Up event in April. The flier read, "Fuel your body & stock your pantry. Did you know that grad students may qualify for assistance paying for food & groceries?"

@Steve123 - no words. FWIW, Mr MCR and his cronies are on the NOPE (not one penny ever) camp for Harvard's endowment for reasons I have never dug into but I believe it has something to do with not supporting how the endowment is deployed. Also FWIW, the kids of the cronies that don't donate who have applied to Harvard to date have all gotten in. Four are currently in attendance.

>> According to HGSU's proposal, all graduate student workers should receive a minimum annual salary of $60,000, a significant increase from the current minimum salary of $40,000.

>> The HGSU's call for higher minimum salaries resonates with the broader context of financial hardship experienced by graduate students across the country.

Encouraging people to make use of their govt benefits is one thing. You may agree with SNAP policies, you may disagree with them, but shaming people or institutions for encouraging people to make use of them seems counterproductive. Should we be shaming McDonalds and their employees making use of SNAP next, because of how much money it has/makes serving *food* of all things!

I am more bothered by HGSU’s idiocy. $40k/yr is nominally $20/hr. But most of the “work” grad students do is conduct research for their PhDs. You’re getting paid for your studies, basically. Even when you’re TA-ing, it’s not a 40 hr/wk engagement. Maybe 20 hr/wk. Even then, you’re being educated on how to teach more or less. Again, being paid to learn. To top it all off, HGSU conveniently fails to highlight the fact that tuition gets covered too.

“Financial hardship”, what a crock. $3300/mo, no FICA on that either, plus tuition, paid to you while you learn your profession. I lived that life for several years, and I thought the setup generous and a privilege.

>> FWIW, Mr MCR and his cronies are on the NOPE (not one penny ever) camp for Harvard's endowment

I am a NOPE-er too, but if schools end legacy preferences (a.k.a. donation-baiting) and opportunity-adjust their admissions better, I might change my tune. The way the winds are blowing given the Supreme Court ruling, they might finally be forced to change their tune.

>> Mr MCR and his cronies are on the NOPE (not one penny ever) camp for Harvard's endowment for reasons I have never dug into but I believe it has something to do with not supporting how the endowment is deployed.

I donate a nominal amount of $10 per year to the fancy grad school I attended, just to be counted as “engaged alumni”. I paid them full sticker price when I attended, funded through loans, and they have a huge endowment, so I don’t see any need for more money beyond what I have paid them already (by the way two of my friends who were legacies at the school both got scholarships, despite coming from money….) However, I am happy to see that they are expanding enrollment, which is what I want them to do so that more people get opportunity to learn from the best.

I am a huge believer that money is needed at 1) state universities where each marginal dollar should go further and 2) earlier on (early childhood, primary, secondary schools, especially in some areas.

I don’t donate to state schools because I don’t agree with their athletic programs, and at the moment they seem to channel a lot of money to that.

So few months in, I am pleasantly surprised with everything that midtown east has to offer to its youngest residents. Classes and activities, mommy groups, daycares galore. Wish there was more in terms of parks. But no complaints otherwise, for now.

How much money does one need to donate to end up on one of those "dean's interest" lists at an Ivy? Asking for a friend lol

$2.5 million in the late 90's; not sure what the intervening 25 years have done to the price of admission

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/03/jared-kusher-college-admissions-story-shady-but-legal.html

Too bad Chuck couldn’t buy his way out of prison though.

thanks for answering, MCR

I was beginning to worry that no one on here is rich enough to know these things. :-)

So it turns out that private schools in NYC are also for "red shirting"

I have a fall 2023 baby, and believe it or not, it will be our turn to apply to 3Ks in a few months in the fall of 2025. So I have been watching 3K placements in my neighborhood (Murray Hill) and in my school district (District 2). And I am starting to realize why so many families end up in private (admittedly 300mercer and other posters in the thread above did warn me...).

Based on reports from my mom friends as well as in reddit and facebook groups, many ,many Murray Hill families were placed in Chinatown or Bushwick, Brooklyn for 3K. Many UES and UWS families were placed in the Bronx. This is 1.5hrs each way. These were not schools they listed on their applications, and this is obviously not doable for most, so people are now scrambling. Some of these families shared they are number above 100 on a waitlist for a public 3K center on their block! Technically the city will claim that everyone got a spot.

On principle, I am for public and against private schools. But we most likely will apply to few private schools for 3K because public 3K is such a crapshoot. And you have to commit and pre-pay a year of tuition at a private before your find out the public placement, so if we get into a decent private, that's where we will have to go. I could frankly only possibly afford this for one kid. We have one for now, so it might work, but this is far from the dream of a free 3K that is being sold to New Yorkers.

We are paying SO MUCH TAXES, between income and property, and we can't even count on one of neighborhood schools to take our kid. There is a DOE 3K center two blocks from my apartment, but potentially unattainable. We just end up subsidizing the poor (as those in free lunch programs and shelters get placement priority - ok), and the lucky (those with a good lottery number - WTF?!?!) and in all likelihood we have to still pay for 3K out of pocket? Why not have the 3K spots in the areas children actually live, like District 2?

Krolik,

By design, city provided 3k seats in poorer areas "first" which seem to be unused by the students close to the school. Screw the high income / real estate tax payers who will be forced into private schools and then the city politicians and DOE can claim every one who wants a seat gets a seat. It is typical mindset of the city council and govt.

How about organizing a Manhattan parents protest in front of City Hall?

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We just end up subsidizing the poor (as those in free lunch programs and shelters get placement priority - ok), and the lucky (those with a good lottery number - WTF?!?!) and in all likelihood we have to still pay for 3K out of pocket? Why not have the 3K spots in the areas children actually live, like District 2?

Let's do it.

Also I just dropped an email to the city council rep for my area. At the very least everyone could do that and let them know what is happening on the ground.

How do I found out how many spots are there in district 2 vs number of applicants? I want to see the data. Anecdotally, far, far less than half of a applicants in school District 2 get a 3k spot in a doable location.

Looks like there was a protest last year already:
https://www.thecity.nyc/2024/06/06/preschool-availability-seats-early-childhood-education/

Krolik, District 2 is very large. Every young kid should get a spot max within a mile of where they live till middle school and if there no elementry school, there should be one given the real estate taxes paid in this area. But the city govt's and council's focus is serving the poor and illegal immigrants.

Agree - school seats need to be based on population. And even though district 2 is huge, lots of families got offers outside the district entirely and even outside the borough!

Around me is a bit of a school desert, density of schools is lower than in other neighborhoods. Furthermore, I understand that since PK and 3K were added recently, many elementary schools did not have enough rooms to add one or two more years of schooling. Gov't made some progress adding a standalone 3K/PK center 2 blocks from my house. Problem is, another family in my building is currently number 108 on the waitlist for that program, and I am afraid that is what awaits us next year.

They should stick like 4-5 more such centers in Murray hill to accommodate the demand. There are plenty of empty commercial spaces available to be converted into such centers.

When you chose the apartment that you wound up purchasing, were you counting on getting into the school right off the block from you? Was that a big part of your decision process?

As somebody w/o kids, and who didn't go to public school in NYC, I'm ignorant on this: Are PK and 3K programs mandatory (like I assume grade school and high school are), or are they voluntary and opional?

Guess you could try home schooling (kidding)

Seriously: I sympathize. Kids should be able to walk to school.

@Keith I know this is how my brother and sister-in-law decided where to by. It was entirely dictated by the school district so they paid a small fortune to move one town over.

My impression was always that Catholic schools attracted closer to median income families and didn't try to indoctrinate kids and the education they received was decent. It might be case by case but it's worth considering.

Pk3 Is designed for 3-year-olds, the city promises full day free education for them. It's basically free child care.

>>When you chose the apartment that you wound up purchasing, were you counting on getting into the school right off the block from you? Was that a big part of your decision process?

Yes, an elementary school was part of my diligence (and one of the reasons I did not purchase a larger apartment in East Harlem). Nearby school is rated A on various websites.

I didn't have kids then and I did not know specifics of how school placement worked, but the listing for my apartment said it was zoned to a specific elementary school, so yes, I assumed that meant we would be able to go there. The next closest school is 20 blocks away, so not getting into the zoned school would mean a very long commute for a 4 or 5 year old preK/K kid.

I am still hoping that we have decent (like, 90%+) chances of getting into that elementary school for PreK and up, though it is not a guarantee at all.

The 3K issue is a bit separate. Since the elementary school was built before a 3K was invented by the city, it does not have classrooms to accommodate another year of schooling, which is a problem with most elementary schools in Manhattan. The city added a standalone Department of Education dedicated 3K center nearby that has several 3K classrooms, but there are not enough seats for neighborhood kids. So a lot of people in the neighborhood instead got offered spots in another borough with a 1.5-hour commute.

Apparently a lot of 3K seats were added in schools where enrollment recently shrunk and there were empty classrooms. Sometimes enrollment shrunk because there are not as many kids in the neighborhood anymore, or because a school was failing. While it sort of makes sense to utilize those empty classrooms, it does not make sense to create excess 3K spots in neighborhoods with no kids and suggest that kids from other boroughs have a 3-hour daily commute.

>>>Pk3 Is designed for 3-year-olds, the city promises full day free education for them. It's basically free child care.

It is until 1:30pm pm or so, so half day of free childcare from the city, but yes.

My kid is learning a lot in the little nursery school he is going to for 3 hours per day, so I think these programs provide more value than just keeping your child alive for a set number of hours. A lot of respect for daycare and preschool workers.

>>As somebody w/o kids, and who didn't go to public school in NYC, I'm ignorant on this: Are PK and 3K programs mandatory (like I assume grade school and high school are), or are they voluntary and opional?

They are optional. I think mandatory starts with Kindergarten. They are really nice and valuable programs though. And the city promised a spot for all, but placed a lot of those spots not in the neighborhoods where kids live, which I think is mismanagement.

Krolik,

So how did NYC find money to rent hotels for illegal immigrants and not for a class C empty office space to set up pre-K? Basically much more of a disregard than mis-management for real estate tax-payers and young children's well-being.

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The city added a standalone Department of Education dedicated 3K center nearby that has several 3K classrooms, but there are not enough seats for neighborhood kids. So a lot of people in the neighborhood instead got offered spots in another borough with a 1.5-hour commute.

I am guessing the talk in the head of the politicians who decided these things goes - They can afford to live in Manhattan!! Let those rich people figure out private pre-K for their 3 year old brats. Real estate taxes paid by location doesn't enter their thinking. That is just more money for them to spend where in their opinion it is needed the most.

Free 3k is a great idea but it sounds like the devil is in the details.

> And the city promised a spot for all, but placed a lot of those spots not in the neighborhoods where kids live, which I think is mismanagement.

I don't think it's a mismanagement, it's probably about the space availability. There are just not enough spots available in the neighborhoods where kids live.

The promise "a spot for all" in only applied to the Pre-K (4 years old). The Pre-K page, https://www.schools.nyc.gov/enrollment/enroll-grade-by-grade/pre-k mentioned " There is a Pre-K seat for every four-year-old in New York City. Children who attend free, full-day, high-quality Pre-K learn through play, build skills, and work together"

However, there is No "a spot for all" promise for 3K (three years old), https://www.schools.nyc.gov/enrollment/enroll-grade-by-grade/3k mentioned, "Every school district has 3-K programs, and we make every effort to place students based on seat availability close to their home."

My two children spent pre-school mostly in private nursery school starting at 2 years old to solve the child care problems for the parents. Yes, it's a lot of money for paying the nursery school fees. Neither of our children attended public 3K, as no spots were available. My younger child was fortunately enough to attend a public Pre-K about 4-5 subway stops away from my home.

>>I don't think it's a mismanagement, it's probably about the space availability. There are just not enough spots available in the neighborhoods where kids live.

There are a lot of empty spaces around me that could work. For example, they opened that 38th street 3K center in the fall of 2024 in a commercial space nearby.

Right now they say they have more 3k spots than interested children, but those spots are in the wrong places and will go unfulfilled, which will end up being waste and mismanagement.

>>>My younger child was fortunately enough to attend a public Pre-K about 4-5 subway stops away from my home.

That's a long commute for a little kid. It does not make sense that 3K/PreK is further away from home than K and 1st grade.

Anyway, there is a 3K near me, and it has 90 seats, and over 90 people on the waitlist. I'd love it if my child could go there, but it is a 50/50 chance at best, based on lottery, with 50% chance of me ending up with a spot in Brooklyn (which would be equivalent to no spot at all). I don't think public goods like school should be awarded via lottery. My area pays a lot of taxes into the system, and my expectation is the system should provide things like schools and roads to everyone, and not every other person.

A neighbor family just got into the 3K center in the neighborhood off a waitlist. They were originally placed in Brooklyn and were number 15 on the waitlist. So maybe the system is working...