UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors to donors

Re:UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors t... by klyrs on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @12:20AM (#24562940)

Throughout my academic career, I've met quite a few brilliant mathematicians with no interest in such competitions. And quite a few "goes to competitions" folks with little interest in higher pursuits. Placing too much faith in any measure is fraught

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Re:UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors t... by saagarjha on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @03:26AM (#24564030)

I’m not saying it’s the only measure we should have. But in the context of the chain this was in I was feeling a sort of “does it really matter if we can separate these people” and I just wanted to illustrate that in actual competitions that discriminate to this level you get a meaningful difference out of it. Now, whether that is an effective indicator of success…I’m not completely sure. A lot of the math competition winners I know are doing startups and HFT, so there’s that.

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Re:UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors t... by klyrs on Wednesday September 23, 2020 @10:44AM (#24567692)

> A lot of the math competition winners I know are doing startups and HFT, so there’s that.

That's in line with my experience, too. Selecting olympiads is a preference for highly competitive people. In math, at least, collaboration is much more important.

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Re:UC Berkeley inappropriately admitted students as favors t... by MagnumOpus on Friday September 25, 2020 @12:49PM (#24591700)

Most of 21st century Fields medal winners are IMO medalists, so that seems to contradict your hypothesis. Terence Tao, Venkatesh, Miryam were all famously young and/or good contestants.

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