France also had a pretty strong influence on the founding fathers apparently. From what I've heard English are much nicer than we are
In France, for example, you're far more likely to get into a top university if you have a parent that's a teacher. I postulate here: the interdisciplinary learning system, vs. the Anglo subject focused system, that looks good on paper works out quite hard to find success in without knowing success in navigating it and putting the pieces together.
In Germany, good luck becomming the CEO of a large company without the right breeding. It happens, but not a lot. There's turtles all the way down, from managing relationships with other stakeholders (i.e., knowing who runs them) to bank funding (funding from stock is less prevalent than Anglo, it's mainly debt funding, importance of Landesbanks). Screw the well qualified engineers, middle management will squash them sucking up the class divide at the top.
Sweden, prized for community. "So fucking claustrophobic I had to leave", "curtains twitch, everyone watches each other", "if you don't conform to the system, you need to be strong" "a nice place to retire, possibly" not only one Swede has said to me on their experiences on getting out [emigrating], interestingly all from smaller southern towns. [Interestingly, 'Collectivism' being the flip-side of 'Individualism' can mean those on the 'outside' of the collective have a much harder time than when there's no, or a weak, collective. See [1] Geert-Hofstede 'Model of national culture'].
Europe's very class based, it's less transparent, more insidious.
[1] https://geerthofstede.com/culture-geert-hofstede-gert-jan-ho...
But this obsession is not without its merits either - some leadership positions are exclusively carved out of the ivy league bunch
Things like Hedge fund CEOs and/or Presidents, Supreme Court Justices[1], Presidents and such.
Europeans are not entirely devoid of some form of elitism either in picking their leaders.[2]
[1] The Road to a Supreme Court Clerkship Starts at Three Ivy League Colleges
The chances of obtaining a coveted clerkship, a new study found, increase sharply with undergraduate degrees from Harvard, Yale or Princeton.
The justices themselves are products of elite educations. Eight of them attended law school at Harvard or Yale, and six of them have undergraduate degrees from Harvard, Yale or Princeton. And six of them had themselves served as law clerks at the Supreme Court.
[2] Don’t Call Me Doktor
German politicians are obsessed with earning Ph.D.s—but plagiarism scandals tend to catch up to them and derail careers.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2021/02/04/germany-politics-higher...
Nobody? I think what you mean is "nobody in the middle class cares". Clearly they are very prestigious universities in Europe (Sorbonne) that open doors other universities don't.
What I've noticed in the US is that the middle class (and even lower) aspire to the top colleges. In Canada? Not as much.
After that you might have heard people mention Canadian options like McGill and Waterloo, and then MAYBE a handful of European options in Germany and Switzerland.
But the Sorbonne was distinctly understood by a majority of peers for its status.
In France, La Sorbonne isn't considered particularly prestigious. Grandes Ecoles (ENS for research across various topics but especially science; Polytechnique for engineering; HEC for business; ENA/Science Po for politics) are considered much more prestigious and elite (getting there is harder than for La Sorbonne, you have to undergo 2 years of prep schools and then take an exam, where only the top scorers get into these Ecoles), and will get you the higher paying jobs.
Outside France, seems that these Grandes Ecoles don't hold much prestige against La Sorbonne which seems to be considered more elite.
Harvard, on the other hand, lets in a few thousand students a year and I am pretty sure that has barely changed for decades. This changes a ivy degree from not just a good degree to a good degree with a high elitism and increasing scarcity associated with it.
Like a lot of things in Canada the bell curve is flatter -- but it doesn't mean there isn't a bell curve.
But the difference is that in the US, it's pretty common for families or students to aspire to the "best". That's true even in middle and low-middle class families. That's something I never saw in Canada.
That kind of thinking in Canada is limited to the upper class and old money in Canada.
These less prestigious schools, lower than state universities, which are often quite prestigious, have drastically lower entry standards. You quickly go from "needs a solid resume, with good academics, and participation in extracurriculars", to "accepts anyone".
Just because a University accepts everyone, doesn't mean it's "bad". I went to a good university with loose entry; they'd let anyone flunk out after the first year. That said, we look heavily at "pedigree" in the US. You need top academics to get into university, and usually have to be somewhat talented to meritfully advance (and we know who succeeded by merits). With pedigree you look at someone's full lineage and accomplishments. In theory you should look at what someone did in university and all these impressive sounding companies, but too often they just look at the letterhead!
I'm astonished by how reliably the "elite" are able to hold their position. In some cases, it doesn't even seem to make sense. For example there was this really insecure, power hungry kid for a Uni group, that wound up getting a pretty high position, quickly. He really clearly succeeded because of these insecurities, only to find that he was very wealthy.
I've become increasingly aware how people at higher levels in software have money, and seem to rise to the level of their wealth. Even I do pretty well, and I'm the grandson of an accomplished chemical engineer. Yet so, many of my managers are just a couple rungs above me, proportional to their wealth.
I've digressed, but I'd argue that in a country like the US, selecting based on pedigree, is not necessarily a bad decision. It's just shitty, discriminatory, even racist perhaps. Still, hiring the "elite" from society probably "works".
If you don't believe me just look at where members of your government went to school.
In CS in Germany this is not the case. There are better or worser schools but it is not a big thing. More important, github profiles, experience etc.
For the Politicians I dont see a common pattern. There are diversity issues (rather male, mostly Lawyers or Political Scientist) but German politicians are quiet diverse by background. Example by chancellors Scholz: Rather worser law university Merkel: Good, but not best Eastern Germany University in physics. Schröder: From a very poor family, but rather good law university.
Except Bucerius law school I am not aware of any university with lots of politicians aspirants. (And Bucerius is not that big)
You see I was very bored for doing research.