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Comment by foobarbecue | Hacker News Reader

Cambridge alum here. Agree; admissions is a crapshoot. Job interviews are a crapshoot. C'est la vie.

I went to a similar school. It depended on major. If it was a major that the school was known for, say the top ranked CS school...then it was 100% that a grad was someone who was noticeably much, much smarter than most people. If they were at the same school but in a much less well recognized major (at my school...let's say history), then they were much closer to the average. If you are seeing students at Cambridge who are in prestige majors but without obvious skills...something else is happening and it isn't good. Otherwise, you are probably just seeing the differences between different majors.

  > say the top ranked CS school

I've worked with and written papers with enough people from top ranked CS schools (multiple from top 5 on csrankings) while I was at a top 100 and it is a very mixed bag. There were plenty of idiots in the top 5 and plenty of geniuses in the top 100s.

I'd agree that average shows a difference but I don't think it is nearly as big as people act. Even the intra-university variance isn't what people would think (top universities have a very narrow distribution while lower ranks have wider). The trend follows, but the variance of the variances is not that large.

Cambridge is top ranked for everything they offer.

But there's going to be a difference between the students who finished with the highest grades, and those who scraped through.

"Cambridge is top ranked for everything they offer."

You know that there are places outside of England right?

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