Astral Codex Ten

Ivy

3 min read

Ivy

Article

Ivy is a recurring concept in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between December 09, 2022 and July 11, 2023. The archive places it in contexts such as “attended an Ivy”; “all the Ivies started accepting the worst students instead”. It most often appears alongside Harvard, 417th Marquess of Cornwallshireshire, ACX.

Metadata

  • Category: Concepts
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: December 09, 2022
  • Last seen: July 11, 2023

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Highlights From The Comments On Bobos In Paradise
December 09, 2022 · Original source
1. Comments Doubting The Book’s Thesis 2. Comments From People Who Seem To Know A Lot About Ivy League Admissions 3. Comments About Whether A Hereditary Aristocracy Might In Fact Be Good 4. Other Interesting Comments 5. Tangents That I Find Tedious, But Other People Apparently Really Want To Debate
Inline links: Comments Doubting The Book’s Thesis, Comments From People Who Seem To Know A Lot About Ivy League Admissions, Comments About Whether A Hereditary Aristocracy Might In Fact Be Good, Other Interesting Comments, Tangents That I Find Tedious, But Other People Apparently Really Want To Debate
SuperbOwl has an even more extensive gripe about the “monocausal explanation” aspect. 2. Comments From People Who Seem To Know A Lot About Ivy League Admissions Erusian writes:
Inline links: an even more extensive gripe about the “monocausal explanation” aspect, writes
Legacy admissions are roughly a third of Harvard students. Any story that starts with meritocratic dominance in the 1950-60s has to grapple with the fact that legacies remained a huge presence in the Ivy League. This is nearly fatal to this entire section's thesis.
Why Match School And Student Rank?
July 11, 2023 · Original source
We could think of “the best college” as a self-fulfilling prophecy; for whatever reason, one college has gotten a reputation as the one whose signal is most valuable. Everyone naturally tries to get in there; if they fail, they go to the college with the next-best reputation, and so on. The system is stable; the “best” college will keep its reputation (since it gets the best students) and the best students will always want to go to the best college. If, as Matt’s son suggests, all the Ivies started accepting the worst students instead, an Ivy degree would soon become a signal that you’re bad, and employers would stop respecting it.