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Comment by Hydraulix989 | Hacker News Reader

If Harvard went away, I would be VERY happy. Schools like Tsinghua, IIT, and C9 are much more meritocratic. Oxford / Cambridge are also very "exclusive" in the worst way possible, and given the history of the early US, it's not surprising that this insular Victorian / London culture of poshness also permeated into 17th / 18th century Ivy League schools in the Puritanical US. I'm amazed at what abject conditions Eastern Europeans overcome to earn top international ranks in IOI competitive programming, for example.

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> Oxford / Cambridge are also very "exclusive" in the worst way possible

I went there, and I didn't see anything but ordinary people. Something like Classics will naturally skew towards secondary schools that have a Latin class, but apart from that admissions are close to a dice roll among qualified kids. Certainly the impression I got was that dons were jealously guarding their right to decide, on their own, who would get in.

The place was non-elite enough that I never even realized the Bullingdon Club was a thing until after I left.

As you might expect though, a fairly large proportion of kids came from wealthy backgrounds. Private schools that cost way more than university tuition, that kind of thing.

Your first point seems paradoxical but I might be misunderstanding. When you said 'dons were jealously guarding their right to decide, on their own, who would get in', are you inferring that although the right to decide is owned by the dons, they are 'ordinary' so there is less selection pressure for people from powerful backgrounds?

Basically I got the impression that the Dons/profs would not like if the college master tapped them on the shoulder and said "Little Johnny's dad gave us some money, please let him into your tutorial group".

If you look at how admissions work, it seems reasonably fair: most courses have some sort of entrance test, and then a grilling by the don. There's not a lot of soft questions in those interviews: what's e, let's take the log of a negative number, what's magnetism. Not a lot of cultural fit or motivation questions.

There's also the fact that the dons seem to just have their own set of applicants to look at. My understanding of the US system is you have a whole pile of applicants from which to shape the class as a whole. At Oxford it seemed like your don has 10 applicants and chooses 2 or 3, and that's his class. The rest of the uni does the same and the incoming few thousand kids are just whatever the sum of those little decisions is.

Ah I get it, the dons are the gatekeepers and they aren't incentivized by donations so meritocracy prevails. Thanks for the detailed reply.

Can confirm. Just went to open days at Oxford and Cambridge with my son. We are Americans. Both my wife and I are double ivy grads.

Totally different than the US and much more meritocratic. Steps are:

1. Be qualified to apply. In UK this means at least AAA if not more. Varies by course. US equivalent is have at least three 5s on AP and above 1450 on SAT. This is roughly equivalent to top 10% of uk graduates.

2. Take the entrance exam. Huge weed out. This really separates the grinders vs the smart kids as the tests are based on what you intend to study, but most are more intelligence based and cannot necessarily be prepped for.

3. Assuming you make it past that, you get two sets of interviews. They are testing for the ability to go toe to toe in an intellectual conversation on your subject. This is obviously biased toward a certain "type", but given the small group tutorial teaching, it is really a responsibility of the student to engage this way to provide a good experience for all. No sitting in the back of the room taking notes!

4. There are some additional crazy things like applying to specific colleges, and wildly different admit rates based on the course you choose. But the overall impression I got was that for a well prepared and smart kid, it is much more straightforward than the so called elite US schools.

> But the overall impression I got was that for a well prepared and smart kid, it is much more straightforward than the so called elite US schools.

Yes, plus you can skip applying to all the US schools if you get accepted, because you get the acceptance letter in December.

I went to a high school that sent kids to both US and UK universities, and the US ones are incredibly onerous, not to mention expensive to even apply for. Multiple teacher references, essays that are supposed to be some sort of work of art, requirements to do extracurricular stuff. I did the SATs, got the Oxford acceptance, and just dropped all the US stuff entirely.

Damn I wish that were still true. They say they issue decisions in January now, which is after application deadlines for everyone else (Jan 1.)

>This really separates the grinders vs the smart kids as the tests are based on what you intend to study, but most are more intelligence based and cannot necessarily be prepped for.

Can you expand on that? I would be amazed to find tests that truly measure intelligence and where your score doesn't improve with practice.

Not sure I agree with it. I think you get a lot of Asian kids passing because they teach a lot of advanced things in their education system that are just beyond the curriculum in the West. Thus when it comes time to ask the clever questions, some kids already know the answer.

I think in general people who know the answer to something misjudge how hard it is to figure out from first principles.

The grinds that can ace the test but can't speak are weeded out by the interview part.

Just look on oxfords website for the admissions test. The TSA test for example is required on top of the math test.

Of course you can train yourself to do these better, but because they are so specific to each major, there is not a test prep industry behind them. So it is a more natural test.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-ox...

There's no separate test prep industry, but private secondary schools will have extra classes for people based on what they intend to apply for. They also prep the kids for the interviews, for instance with mock sessions. That kind of thing is not available to ordinary kids. There's a wealth of Oxbridge application experience that is basically what such schools sell. I'm currently looking at them as a parent.

Isn't this what was depicted in The History Boys? The extra class for kids who wanted to get into Oxford? Can't quite remember.

I don't know if you are from US or not, but the stuff over there cannot hold a candle to what happens in the US. I'm not saying it's totally meritocratic, but compared to US system, it is WILDLY more so for high performers.

I agree on that. There's no back door in the UK system, whereas the US system seems to be a front door with 1% acceptance plus a back door with maybe 40%. Choose your door with money.

In the UK system, even if you do have privilege, you still have to do the same exercises and the same work, and impress the same person to get in.

Sorry posted to the child comment below. It can certainly improve with practice but since these are so specific to each major, there is not a test prep industry geared up behind them. (you can do it on your own though, as they post the tests and most answer keys for prior years.)

https://www.ox.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/applying-to-ox...

What does the entrance process for Tsinghua, IIT, and C9 look like? I'm just wondering how they are more meritocratic, do they just have less side-door admissions?

IIT is pseudo-meritocratic. It's a very rigorous exam and the person who can spend their whole high school time studying phy, Chem and maths and who can spend the most money joining the best coaching institutions and best mentors bacially get the admission. Doesn't matter if someone has an IQ of 200 or India's best football player or coding genius unless they get the highest marks in physics chemistry in maths they aren't allowed. It's technically meritocratic but it is a really flawed system that rewards rigorous practice over skill, interest and other aspects of a student.

There's nothing "flawed" about rewarding rigorous practice over irrelevant "skills" like being a good football player or scoring well on an I.Q. test. Sure it might be nice to pick up other meaningful predictors of achievement including e.g. deep interests, but that's very hard to do reliably in any sort of high-stakes situation, and school admissions are no exception.

I think I was biased due to getting my IIT entrance test results today where I did real bad. Now that I read it, it looks like a rant/vent :(

lol .... by this definition all college entrance exams are pseudo meritocratic.

There are no side door admissions basically. You have to write a National level entrance exam and get the best rankings to get into the best universities and departments.

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