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Comment by NumberSix | Hacker News Reader

The article ends with:

It’s a system that polishes privilege, its byproduct a contempt for earned authority. Many of the people who started with this attitude had it ratified and encouraged by perhaps the most prestigious university in the world — and now they’re running the whole show.

Emphasis on now added.

Who in their right mind thinks people who attend Harvard and a handful of other elite universities and prep schools haven't been running the whole show since before the American Revolution?

See for example:

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2008/11/obama-joins-l...

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The modern US has centralised more power in the hands of institutions which those Ivy League graduates dominate (i.e. the federal government and the large banks). Also other big capitalist enterprises in the past cared less about degrees than now.

So I'd say that America always had class distinctions, and the Ivy League always was a ticket to the highest class. But it dominates that class more than it used to.

Is Harvard really considered more prestigious than Oxford or Cambridge? That doesn't follow my perception.

Quantifying prestige and definitively ranking the three is beyond me, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Harvard was considered more prestigious, in large part because it balances (reputationally speaking) "new-world dynamism" and "old-world prestige" better than Oxbridge does. The latter without the former has connotations of sclerotic inefficiency.

I think this "new-world dynamism" but might actually count against US schools if it makes them seem non-rigorous. Oxbridge teachers I've met are rigorous (in terms of their expections of students, not their own methods).

Regarding the US, I can only offer how I came by my own priors in family that in traditional subcontinental style is always on the lookout for prestegious schools. I learned at my father's knee that US postgrad schools were the best in the world, but that undergrad education was soft and "mickey mouse".

I'd need data rather than annecdotes to say if this is really the international preception of US education, rather than just my family's the lore. But so much that I see out of America confirms that lore, that I guess other people have come to the same conclusion.

Also note the "perhaps."

In the US, yes, it is.

people from the ivy league run the US, so it's prestigious in the US. people from oxford and cambridge run the UK, so it's prestigious in the commonwealth. it's really not any more complicated than that.

100% this, I'd guess if you asked everyone in the U.S, it'd probably go 9:1 against Oxford and Cambridge

I imagine a good percentage would response, "Isn't Harvard IN Cambridge?"

Well, I'm the OP and I live in America and I would put Oxford and Cambridge ahead of Harvard.

In academic circles, yes. Socially, not so much.

A huge portion of the middle class in the UK went to Oxford or Cambridge. Something like 25% of Etonians get into Oxford or Cambridge. For the Westminster school that number is something like 45%.

Harvard does not have that same grip on the corresponding class stratum in the US, but Harvard also has far fewer undergraduates than Oxford or Cambridge and the US is a much larger country.

Eton and Westminster schools are not open to the 'middle class'. Of course, they'll accept the upper class, because that's traditional, but what they really want is the ruling class, which is no longer the same thing. But mere middle class?

It is interesting to see the demographics of these schools change. 20/30 years ago it was as has been for hundreds of years, the British aristocracy. Some parents/teachers express their frustration that a large segment of students are now Russian oligarch heirs, Middle Eastern princes etc.

Of course these are the future power players whether we like it or not. "Old Money" feels inadequate.

"Middle class" in the UK is what you would consider "upper class".

I am British, so what I would consider upper class is... upper class. "Middle class" in the UK means the same as it does anywhere else - educated, property-owning, suburban, high discretionary spend budget... middle class.

Sure, there's plenty of people who will try to redefine it to mean people with substantial investment/property income who send their kids to private schools and own second homes abroad... in general to justify claiming that cuts to capital gains and inheritance tax are 'to help the middle class'. But that stockbroker-belt lifestyle is more specific to what you'd call the 'upper middle class'. And even stockbrokers aren't sending their kids to Eton...

Be that as it may, I don't want to argue semantics, but the grand-parent is obviously not using your definition of middle class. At least that's how I read it.

>>> A huge portion of the middle class in the UK went to Oxford or Cambridge.

Confusing, I know.

A huge portion of the UK's middle class cannot have gone to Oxbridge, simply because they're too small. They take 3000 people each or together 0.01% of the UK's population each year.

But what portion of the 17-19 year olds of the UK do they admit every year? I think it's around 3%. That means Oxbridge is guaranteed to have educated a greater portion of the UK's middle class than went to the US's HYP, also ran Ivy League schools, MIT, Stanford and CalTech. One thirtieth of the US population does not attend a super elite school.

~6000 undergrad oxbridge places/year, divided by ~1 million 18 year olds[1] == around 0.6%, so 1 in 166

[1]: http://www.indexmundi.com/graphs/population-pyramids/united-...

Oxbridge have an average acceptance rate of 18% for undergrads. Harvard is 6%. Assuming similar applicant pools, many who got rejected by Harvard would have been accepted at Oxbridge.

Obviously that's only one measure of prestige.

Assuming the majority of applications come from natives UK 65 million US 323 million

Of course however these universities are very popular internationally.

That's a major assumption. Another major assumption overlooked is that those capable of admission don't want to attend these schools.

Low hanging fruit would be diehard applicants to MIT, Caltech, or the Service Academies

Well, Oxford and Cambridge are older.

And an institution with thousands of dead people behind it is obviously going to be more prestigious than one with mere hundreds. Huge, weighty anchors biting into the benthic depths of our past - that's how you get to be a Prestigious Institution of global Renown.

I disagree. There are tons of old universities in europe. University of Bologna is older than oxford, but I doubt anyone would say it is more prestigious.

Prestige is determined by money and power. Oxford doesn't really measure up to harvard or yale in this regard.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2016/05/05/harvard-mit-ran...

The most important and wealthiest universities in the most important country is going to be more prestigious.

It's why chinese parents choose american universities for their children.

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-32969291

More importantly, it's why top chinese leaders send their children to american universities.

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2...

Sorry, I was sort of making a facetious joke. Sometimes it's surprising how fervently people revere tradition, and you do see it a bit more often in the UK, imo. Not that I'd be a great judge, having spent less than a month or so there in total.

> Sorry, I was sort of making a facetious joke.

Oh. I see. The joke went completely over my head.

It probably just wasn't any good.

The UK educates more world leaders than the US, which is impressive considering the difference in size. Although this of course could simply be down to prestige rather than quality of education. This sort of challenging of grades would almost never be accept in the UK however!

http://www.hepi.ac.uk/2017/08/05/uk-just-number-1-educating-...

As an american, yes. I'd say Harvard and Yale are much more prestigious than oxford or cambridge. Most americans don't even know what oxford or cambridge is.

It's also been my experience that most chinese/asians prefer harvard/yale/ivy league and of course our top engineering schools ( MIT/Cal Tech/etc ). Stanford and Carnegie Mellon also seem to be very desired by chinese/asian students as well due to prominence of technology.

Are you european? If so what's the reputation of harvard/yale in europe vis a vis oxford/cambridge and other european colleges?

No, I'm American. I've always thought that Oxford and Cambridge were much more prestigious than Harvard. If I had 2 resumes come across my desk, one from Harvard and then other from Oxford, I'd be more impressed by the Oxford one. I don't know if that is because of the fascination that I have for many things British (which is strange since my ancestors started leaving from there to the Americas in the early 1600s - I assume if they liked it there they wouldn't have left) or it may be that I've read too many books that take place in England (for some reason Oxford pops up a lot in many different novels).

for one there's no legacy admissions at Oxford or Cambridge...

This reminds me of the fact that in the early republic, the majority of American presidents and powerful statesmen were Freemasons. There was even a anti-elitist party, called the Antimasonic party, formed to counter the Masons' influence in politics.

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