speaking as a brown alum, this foots.
you could feel that place going bad in the early 90's. back then we called it "political correctness" and we sort of sniggered about it, but it ate the whole school. i stopped going to reunions over a decade ago. it's just too painful to listen to any of the folks there speak.
it has become an ideological echo chamber of recursive bias generation. they have no idea how far they have drifted. they assume it's everyone else who "went far right" and have no concept of the degree of their own radicalization because they shout down, censor, and shun anyone with views divergent from their own.
once, the ivies were a sort of selector, a sorting hat. if you could get in and graduate, you were a certain sort of person.
now, they discriminate against legacies and admit for intersectional reasons that have nothing to do with merit, ability, or character and often indicate the opposite.
the schools themselves have dumbed down horribly. they had to. their caliber of student has plummeted. the administrations and endowments are now driven so heavily by a few huge donors that they do not really care about 98% of the alumni. they mine wealthy foreign families for huge donations to take their kids and get them US visas.
the admissions departments have zero diversity. they are captured satrapies of DEI.
as a result, these are no longer elite educational institutes, they're smug descents into mediocrity and ideological forcing.
obviously, it's not all the students. there are still some great kids there. but the "ivy league dimploma" no longer signifies excellence. you might be excellent, but you might also be a calamity. the discernment is gone.
paxton is an embarrassment, and the staff and culture she has allowed is worse. the rot is marrow deep. i doubt it can be fixed.
i’m watching my friends’ kids apply to colleges. for those who are not top athletes, the process has become horrific to the point where i cannot even imagine participating in it. i wrote my college essays in single drafts (sometimes in ink, brown required it then) and went back to my life. these kids are already waging admissions campaigns as freshman. they have consultants, advisors, planners.
and it still doesn't work because the discrimination against merit in favor of whatever flavor is passing for "diversity" just now. is just too strong.
the whole “elite” admissions process has become insane, counter-productive, and increasingly looks like baroque kabuki dance signifying nothing so much as ability to comply with the overtly absurd.
there’s no way i could have managed it even if i could have tolerated it and there’s zero percent chance of that.
i’d have thrown my hands up in disgust and gone to state.
and i suspect many of them should as well.
the whole thing looks like hazing for sad circus bears selected for their uncomplaining endurance at riding in pointless circles.
you could feel that place going bad in the early 90's. back then we called it "political correctness" and we sort of sniggered about it, but it ate the whole school. i stopped going to reunions over a decade ago. it's just too painful to listen to any of the folks there speak.
it has become an ideological echo chamber of recursive bias generation. they have no idea how far they have drifted. they assume it's everyone else who "went far right" and have no concept of the degree of their own radicalization because they shout down, censor, and shun anyone with views divergent from their own.
once, the ivies were a sort of selector, a sorting hat. if you could get in and graduate, you were a certain sort of person.
now, they discriminate against legacies and admit for intersectional reasons that have nothing to do with merit, ability, or character and often indicate the opposite.
the schools themselves have dumbed down horribly. they had to. their caliber of student has plummeted. the administrations and endowments are now driven so heavily by a few huge donors that they do not really care about 98% of the alumni. they mine wealthy foreign families for huge donations to take their kids and get them US visas.
the admissions departments have zero diversity. they are captured satrapies of DEI.
as a result, these are no longer elite educational institutes, they're smug descents into mediocrity and ideological forcing.
obviously, it's not all the students. there are still some great kids there. but the "ivy league dimploma" no longer signifies excellence. you might be excellent, but you might also be a calamity. the discernment is gone.
paxton is an embarrassment, and the staff and culture she has allowed is worse. the rot is marrow deep. i doubt it can be fixed.
i’m watching my friends’ kids apply to colleges. for those who are not top athletes, the process has become horrific to the point where i cannot even imagine participating in it. i wrote my college essays in single drafts (sometimes in ink, brown required it then) and went back to my life. these kids are already waging admissions campaigns as freshman. they have consultants, advisors, planners.
and it still doesn't work because the discrimination against merit in favor of whatever flavor is passing for "diversity" just now. is just too strong.
the whole “elite” admissions process has become insane, counter-productive, and increasingly looks like baroque kabuki dance signifying nothing so much as ability to comply with the overtly absurd.
there’s no way i could have managed it even if i could have tolerated it and there’s zero percent chance of that.
i’d have thrown my hands up in disgust and gone to state.
and i suspect many of them should as well.
the whole thing looks like hazing for sad circus bears selected for their uncomplaining endurance at riding in pointless circles.
https://x.com/boriquagato/status/2001107948312133776
i wrote a stack about this back in april.
elite universities are over.
they have squandered perhaps the best reputation ever to exist in education and their student selection has become explicitly anti-meritocratic.
they no longer serve as a first pass screen for excellence.
because that's not how they pick their students.
and any institution that is not explicitly and deliberately a meritocracy becomes an anti-meritocracy.
if griggs v duke gets overturned and companies can start testing for IQ and character/personality again, this places will be over faster than you can say "will the last kid out of the sci-li please turn out the lights..."
boriquagato.substack.com/p/elite-univer…
elite universities are over.
they have squandered perhaps the best reputation ever to exist in education and their student selection has become explicitly anti-meritocratic.
they no longer serve as a first pass screen for excellence.
because that's not how they pick their students.
and any institution that is not explicitly and deliberately a meritocracy becomes an anti-meritocracy.
if griggs v duke gets overturned and companies can start testing for IQ and character/personality again, this places will be over faster than you can say "will the last kid out of the sci-li please turn out the lights..."
boriquagato.substack.com/p/elite-univer…
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