As a late stage non academic octogenarian I found this talk very interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly because it attracted so few viewers from among the vast number of academics and educators who might be expected to have an interest in the subject. And secondly because it seems to confirm the American general disdain for academic excellence bot at a political and everyday level. This seems to be counter to the need for all the high tech talent that it needs to counter the rapidly advancing eastern competition in this area. It is also a weird way to back up the USA's attempts to hold back the technical advance of China. Which is a demonstrable pointless task anyway. If all the eastern academics and researchers were to leave their positions in universities and companies, the USA would be in dia straights. As to meritocracy, I would suggest it is not even a thing in America, compared to the highly competitive education system in China. I would go as far as to say most politicians especially of the far right are now anti academia. And treat the highly educated in whatever field with the utmost distrust.

i hope this "alumni not giving money" thing continues 👍

Good news - as of a couple weeks ago Caltech reintroduced the SAT.

The odds ratios at the 9 minute mark really add a layer to the story as the odds ratio for any doctorate is just over 2, but the odds ratio for STEM doctorate is just over 18. Easy to miss with the y axis values dominating the visualization.

And now the California State Universities aren’t requiring SAT scores. Lamentable.

Solid Steve.

Good talk but I think you overstate the extent to which Harvard and other Ivies have historically selected on academic merit. At my father's high school (for rich kids not necessarily smart kids, although they had a few scholarships) Princeton used to tell the school which kids it DIDN'T want. Harvard at least also used to select for things like height, attractiveness, manliness etc. Maybe it was different for MIT/Caltech, but I'm skeptical it was ever the case you could determine someone was brilliant just because they went to Harvard.

For decades companies trusted Ivy+ to do the filter for them. Companies knew when they hire from the Ivy+, they can expect high quality, smart and self motivated talents. Not 100% but a very high percentage will be true. But after a couple decades of diversity driven admissions, the consistency of quality will no longer be there. In fact, they are doing a disservice to minority groups because if many of them got in based on diversity but couldn't perform up to par, hiring companies might be biased against hiring them in the future. That will unfairly exclude those in the minority groups who genuinely are capable. Who knows, maybe in 10 or 20 years later, MIT, Harvard, Princeton might lose their elite status and other such as the likes of Tsing Hua and other universities who do keep their bar high might do a better job in providing the quality assurance.

Meh, I guess it depends. My sister and I have Co-Authored 30+ books together. When my sister applied to Princeton, it was 18 and she got accepted; I got rejected. I eventually applied to Georgetown and got accepted at 26 books. Neither one of us submitted SAT/ACT scores and had 3.7 and 3.8 GPA's. So I guess we both fell into the "interesting" category. It really just depends on the people in the admissions department. You never know who you're competing against when it comes to getting into these schools.

yes, usa needs its own form of gaokao

As a Chinese national, I am glad that America is going down this path. It almost reach the point of no return. Hopefully, the death of meritocracy and rise of diversity in US will do what hundreds of battalions cannot do. The discrimination against Asians will provides the push for ethnic Chinese talents to return to their homeland and contribute.

33:11 pretty weird that it's not more well-known though. 35:10 that's consistent with the consensus on transfer of learning, which is basically generalizability. A few students can do it though (10% at a given school), but 90% can't generalize/transfer what they learn sadly.

The gatekeepers are zealously guarding their gates without realizing that the walls have been torn down. It's much easier now to start your own business than to work your way up in someone else's. Access to capital is much easier. Crowd funding as well as publicly traded business development corporations make it much easier to raise cash by an entrepreneur. Having a good idea is more important than having good connections.

Is the prediction of top 1% earnings 1% overall or for people that age, 25