I assess that the following statements are true, please correct me if I am wrong:
-Based on your writing samples, you personally are probably capable of handling the academic workload at a high prestige college.
-You are typical in terms of ability in comparison to your peer group
-Race and geographic location may be working against you and your peers in your admissions process
-You and your peers will find yourselves scattered to the four winds attending less prestigious universities that you’re not particularly happy with.
In light of the above, I suggest that you should look into founding (or taking over, I don’t know what the community college landscape looks like where you are) a community college explicitly to serve the interests of members of your community affected by the above truths.
You have the most important ingredient for a successful college, which is to say, you have a cohort of motivated learners. From a business and legal standpoint, founding such an institution is an attainable objective. You are right next door to a lot of companies that need talented people, these companies could be persuaded to invest in infrastructure for churning out a future talent pool. You have enough money in Fremont (pass the hat, do a lottery, it’s there) to rent property, hire instructors, pay for subscriptions to professional journals, and probably build a lab or two.
If you’re not going to get the ‘big name’, stay local, work within your own community, and build something better.
It’s not clear how founding a new college would solve the underlying issue here, which is a demand for educational prestige. There’s plenty of community colleges in the US anyway and most of them are not that bad, the issue is that they’re not perceived as ‘prestigious’ compared to e.g. the Ivy League.
The prestige the ivies have in the eyes of the families of Irvington is misplaced. Anything to promote that community’s pride in itself, rather than investment in a declining institution, is probably a win.
Winning within the rules is obviously taking a toll, the prize isn’t really worth it, so exit is an option, and in my opinion, it isn’t a bad one.
-You are typical in terms of ability in comparison to your peer group
…
which is to say, you have a cohort of motivated learners.
I would actually put myself in the top 95 percentile of people at my school in terms of cognitive ability and general awareness. This may impact your analysis. I would say that the sort of “staring at the system and trying to optimize” attitude I have is fairly uncommon, and it’s often hard to get my peers to do the same.
(Hence part of the motivation for writing this essay that tries to be appealing to the high school demographic.)
Also, there have been efforts locally to try and stir up the college scene. I’m also a little skeptical of the whole plan, as this sounds good in theory, and I’d expect that many things can go wrong. (There seems to be lots of things in the whole causal chain that need to go right). I’d also not trust myself at this point to run anything of the sort. (Having the relevant experience seems very useful for such an endeavor.)
Edit: By which I mean bogus’s comment, which does nothing beyond insulting lifelonglearner. Also, I’d guess quite a few commenters on this website are in the 95th percentile of (say) IQ at their school.
Strongly agree: bogus’s comment was stupid and well out of order. Yes, Dunning & Kruger found that some incompetent people think they’re good. That doesn’t mean that everyone who thinks they’re good is incompetent. I bet lifelonglearner is absolutely right about being in the top 5% in his school.
(Perhaps bogus is just saying “hahahaha, he said “top 5 percentile” where he should have said “95th percentile” but sorry, that too is stupid; lifelonglearner’s words were perfectly clear as they were.)
Ignore that comment. If you want, post whatever evidence you have of your ranking in your school, but don’t feel pressured to do so. Internally, to yourself, I’d recommend an outside view of this number—your ranking on various dimensions (intelligence, scholastic achievements, etc.) and what evidence you have to support or disconfirm those beliefs.
Top 5 percent is incredibly easy to believe on this site. But you should double-check often. You should also be aware that top few percent on one of these dimensions doesn’t make you particularly special by itself. There are roughly 15 million high-school students in the US alone, so 750,000 5-percenters.
Thank you for the reply. I’ll rephrase.
I assess that the following statements are true, please correct me if I am wrong:
-Based on your writing samples, you personally are probably capable of handling the academic workload at a high prestige college.
-You are typical in terms of ability in comparison to your peer group
-Race and geographic location may be working against you and your peers in your admissions process
-You and your peers will find yourselves scattered to the four winds attending less prestigious universities that you’re not particularly happy with.
In light of the above, I suggest that you should look into founding (or taking over, I don’t know what the community college landscape looks like where you are) a community college explicitly to serve the interests of members of your community affected by the above truths.
You have the most important ingredient for a successful college, which is to say, you have a cohort of motivated learners. From a business and legal standpoint, founding such an institution is an attainable objective. You are right next door to a lot of companies that need talented people, these companies could be persuaded to invest in infrastructure for churning out a future talent pool. You have enough money in Fremont (pass the hat, do a lottery, it’s there) to rent property, hire instructors, pay for subscriptions to professional journals, and probably build a lab or two.
If you’re not going to get the ‘big name’, stay local, work within your own community, and build something better.
It’s not clear how founding a new college would solve the underlying issue here, which is a demand for educational prestige. There’s plenty of community colleges in the US anyway and most of them are not that bad, the issue is that they’re not perceived as ‘prestigious’ compared to e.g. the Ivy League.
The prestige the ivies have in the eyes of the families of Irvington is misplaced. Anything to promote that community’s pride in itself, rather than investment in a declining institution, is probably a win.
Winning within the rules is obviously taking a toll, the prize isn’t really worth it, so exit is an option, and in my opinion, it isn’t a bad one.
I would actually put myself in the top 95 percentile of people at my school in terms of cognitive ability and general awareness. This may impact your analysis. I would say that the sort of “staring at the system and trying to optimize” attitude I have is fairly uncommon, and it’s often hard to get my peers to do the same.
(Hence part of the motivation for writing this essay that tries to be appealing to the high school demographic.)
Also, there have been efforts locally to try and stir up the college scene. I’m also a little skeptical of the whole plan, as this sounds good in theory, and I’d expect that many things can go wrong. (There seems to be lots of things in the whole causal chain that need to go right). I’d also not trust myself at this point to run anything of the sort. (Having the relevant experience seems very useful for such an endeavor.)
That’s beautiful. We need a “Dunning–Kruger quote of the month” thread for this sort of stuff!
We need downvotes for this sort of stuff. ^
Edit: By which I mean bogus’s comment, which does nothing beyond insulting lifelonglearner. Also, I’d guess quite a few commenters on this website are in the 95th percentile of (say) IQ at their school.
Strongly agree: bogus’s comment was stupid and well out of order. Yes, Dunning & Kruger found that some incompetent people think they’re good. That doesn’t mean that everyone who thinks they’re good is incompetent. I bet lifelonglearner is absolutely right about being in the top 5% in his school.
(Perhaps bogus is just saying “hahahaha, he said “top 5 percentile” where he should have said “95th percentile” but sorry, that too is stupid; lifelonglearner’s words were perfectly clear as they were.)
Yikes! Edited the above comment to more properly reflect things.
Ignore that comment. If you want, post whatever evidence you have of your ranking in your school, but don’t feel pressured to do so. Internally, to yourself, I’d recommend an outside view of this number—your ranking on various dimensions (intelligence, scholastic achievements, etc.) and what evidence you have to support or disconfirm those beliefs.
Top 5 percent is incredibly easy to believe on this site. But you should double-check often. You should also be aware that top few percent on one of these dimensions doesn’t make you particularly special by itself. There are roughly 15 million high-school students in the US alone, so 750,000 5-percenters.
Seems good. I don’t really feel like add’l validation would be useful here, so I’m fine leaving the claim as-is.
Thanks for the general note about epistemic hygiene.