ARE IVY DEGREES WORTH THE SACRIFICES

ending their kids to ivy league universities is the dream of every Asian American parent. Or so it seems. And there is no shortage of young AA willing to oblige. As of 2000, Asian Americans made up 12-19% of the undergrad enrollments of the top-20 ivies.
     No one questions the prestige associated with ivy degrees. In fact, sneer critics, that's the only thing bought with the extra money. And even that, they add, is wearing thin in a nation in which he cultural center of gravity has shifted to California.
     It's true that investments in high ivy tuitions often don't show up in career earnings when compared with graduates of public universities of comparable student body profiles. But the criticisms run deeper than return on investment. Some Asian Americans who have attended ivy league colleges have come away regretting their decisions for other reasons.
     Foremost is the sense that the ivies are structured for the benefit of legatees, the progeny of blueblooded alumni. Comprising upwards of 40% of some ivies, the legatees are often exempted from stringent admissions standards. The result is that AA students with excellent credentials are the workhorses preserving the institutions' high academic reputations, thereby giving a free ride to undeserving legatees.
     Another common complaint is that the deck is stacked socially against Asian males in a system designed to preserve the princely status quo of the scions of WASP families. A disproportionate number of attractive AA females are admitted by the ivies, some have observed, while far fewer attractive AA males are admitted. This subtle bias, suspect critics, is implemented in the screening interviews used by most ivies.
     Then there's the Eurocentric worldview imposed by the courses. Not to mention the lousy weather, bland food and having to put up with locals hostile toward Asians. Contrast all this against the majority-ease lifestyles enjoyed by the AA in, say, the UC campuses.
     The bragging rights an ivy education affords parents, conclude critics, are far outweighed by the psychic and emotional sacrifices exacted from their kids.
     Does an ivy education provide rewards commensurate with the sacrifices? Or is it a trap for AA with overzealous parents with old-world views?

(Updated )

Yellow Panther and ka

I did learn my statistics in high school and college The data I presented are actual data from from the firms themeselves

You can check this data in the Internet yourselves I am perfectly aware that you get hired as an associate in a law firm for all kinds of reasons

You might have an interviewing partner who hires you because you got out of the same alma mater I do know the who you know thing happens a good deal in law firm hiring

The irrelevance of where you got your undergraduate degree from probably makes much more sense in medical school admissions as evidenced by data that I had seen in UC medical school admissions


There is probably a great deal of truth in favoring Ivy school grads by partners in a white shoe or blue blood firm like Cravath , Swaine and Moore, irregardless of whehther they are competent or not as evidenced by the fact that there were about 10 or 12 associates who got their undergrad degree from Yale

But below the top undergrad schools of Harvard or Yale, the representation of other Ivy schools as source of undergrad degrees among current associates in the New York office of Cravath , Swaine and Moore becomes significantly thinner

C'mon Panther the alphabethic ordering of deceased partners who had received their due reward in legal hell or heaven is trivial

BTW, the chief defense attorney of Microsoft defending the firm in the current legal bout with the government got his undergraduate from Western Illinois University and his law degree from Loyola Law School in Chicago


I guess the fact above shows you that your work record is what counts ultimately and not where you got your degree in the long run

biaknabato
   Sunday, March 31, 2002 at 20:04:44 (PST)
"Does this mean Enron-type businesses will now begin to hire AAs at the top levels since all their top brass got sued?"

People who sue have to win. I do not see this happening with Enron.

"Your logic is that if a company doesn't have to worry about getting sued, more Whites would get hired because Whites do a sloppier job than Asians."

Yes. That is why corporations such as Microsoft send whites abroad to work on projects...countries without product liability law.

"More Asians are hired in engineering fields because more of them got trained in the field. Go to any school of Engineering at any university and you will see more Asians."

It happened after 1973. Until the 1973 law, you did not have to be an engineer to work as an engineer in boeing. Retired white airline pilots did the job.

"I would place a safe bet with you that if the product liability law was repealed, you'd still see plenty of Asians still hired to do the work simply because there's more of them out there and it would cost more in time and effort just to try to make an all White adjustment in the hiring practice."

The adjustment would take time...it would happen within twenty years.

Asian American Male
   Thursday, March 28, 2002 at 09:58:38 (PST)
to Asian American Male:
Does this mean Enron-type businesses will now begin to hire AAs at the top levels since all their top brass got sued? Your logic is that if a company doesn't have to worry about getting sued, more Whites would get hired because Whites do a sloppier job than Asians. Well, I have a different view.
More Asians are hired in engineering fields because more of them got trained in the field. Go to any school of Engineering at any university and you will see more Asians. I would place a safe bet with you that if the product liability law was repealed, you'd still see plenty of Asians still hired to do the work simply because there's more of them out there and it would cost more in time and effort just to try to make an all White adjustment in the hiring practice.
MLK
   Wednesday, March 27, 2002 at 13:26:44 (PST)

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