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"Proverbial Stanford" coincides a great deal with "Proverbial Harvard" - both are wealthy private schools that admit the very best students and have society's b
by aothman 15y ago
"Proverbial Stanford" coincides a great deal with "Proverbial Harvard" - both are wealthy private schools that admit the very best students and have society's bias towards the well-to-do sons of well-to-do fathers. If you're looking for a school to contrast with Harvard, Stanford is a poor choice.
Furthermore, actual Stanford isn't doing any damage to actual Harvard. The data I've found suggest that 70+ or 80+% of undergrads admitted to both Harvard and Stanford pick Harvard.
Sources:
http://college.mychances.net/college/tools/college-cross-admit-comparison.php?compare=Harvard+University&with=Stanford http://college.mychances.net/college/tools/college-cross-adm...
http://mathacle.blogspot.com/2008/06/harvard-yale-princeton-and-stanford.html http://mathacle.blogspot.com/2008/06/harvard-yale-princeton-...
- jonnathanson 15y agoAll analogies are imperfect, but I chose Stanford for the specific reason that it's been at the forefront of perhaps the greatest semi-meritocratic* drive in modern American history: the high-tech industry. I very much meant the "proverbial" Stanford when I used Stanford in this example. I meant the Stanford of the movement Stanford has helped to shepherd -- the Stanford that exists in popular consciousness, regardless of how removed that perception may be from the reality of the school. *I must use the "semi-" qualifier here because, as we all seem to agree, there's no such thing as a true meritocracy. The wealthy have advantages throughout life that maximize the chances of generating a meritorious CV.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]