Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset,
A/K/A P01135809, A/K/A Dementia Donnie

Tuesday, July 25, 2023

America's Self-Perpetuating Oligarchy

Elite colleges have long been filled with the children of the richest families: At Ivy League schools, one in six students has parents in the top 1 percent.

A large new study, released Monday, shows that it has not been because these children had more impressive grades on average or took harder classes. They tended to have higher SAT scores and finely honed résumés, and applied at a higher rate — but they were overrepresented even after accounting for those things. For applicants with the same SAT or ACT score, children from families in the top 1 percent were 34 percent more likely to be admitted than the average applicant, and those from the top 0.1 percent were more than twice as likely to get in
.

It is nothing short of affirmative action for rich people. The inescapable conclusion is that the elite schools don't want to sully their hallowed halls with lower-income people.

The schools tilt things by taking into account recommendations from guidance conselors, which pretty much are available only to kids from private schools. They accept atheletes from sports played mostly by rich kids. They give credit for volunteering; kids from lower-income familes aren't volunteering, they're working to help their families out.

And this, mind you, doesn't even bring into play the legacy admissions or those kids who got admitted because their relatives made huge donations to buy their way in.

All this is coming to the fore because the Supreme Grifters don't like affirmative action based on race or ethnicity. So now people are looking at where affirmative action is in operation for rich people. And, surprise, surprise, surprise, at the Ivies, they're finding just that.

5 comments:

Ten Bears said...

They're graduating the likes of Cruz, DeSantis.

Could fly off in a rage. I worked my ass for it, from Deer Lodge to Missoula, and it still isn't paid for. And it didn't do me a damned bit of good, I should have stayed in the woods. I don't see what's so elite about those schools, graduating the trash they do. Could be angry about it, but there's no point in that. It's my measure that counts.

Self-perpetuating reminds me of the myth of the perpetual motion machine, bound by all the laws of Man and Nature to consume itself from the inside out and implode ...

Paul W said...

The solution is simple.
STOP HIRING WHITE GUYS FROM IVY SCHOOLS.

We need more world-view diversity from the kids coming out of state universities from Colorado and Illinois anywho. GO GATORS. UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA, REPRESENT!!!

Comrade Misfit said...

By the time DeSantis finishes with it, U-FL will be on a par with Trump U.

Paul said...

Ugh, tell me about it. Putting a political hack from out-of-state like Ben Sasse in charge of Gainesville is a disaster-in-making. What DeSantis is doing to New College - turning that into Ground Zero for a Far Right dogmatic takedown of higher education - has already wreaked havoc with our state's national standing as a decent place for higher ed. At this rate, Florida's public universities are gonna rank lower than Middle Tennessee Votech by 2024.

Stewart Dean said...

...and too many of those wunderkind have the humanity, common sense and empathy of a tosster oven. As MBAs they have all the finesse of Sherman's March to the Sea.