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Posted
1 minute ago, wildcat09 said:

Jesus Ana, what have I ever posted here that would make you think I have any serious respect for the legal profession? I thought you knew me better than that. In my approval rankings, my profession is just barely ahead of you and cancer and about even with aggy.

If you are not a lawyer, and a particularly scum sucking one, I apologize profusely. I totally misread some of our prior exchanges. You are even dumber than I thought. 

Posted
2 minutes ago, wildcat09 said:

I gotta say, seeing someone who supports Palestinians so consistently stan for Bari Weiss, who has spent her entire adult life trying to oppress Palestinians, just to disagree with me is fucking depressing. They deserve better.

I knew that you would love the BW tie in. 

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Posted
8 hours ago, Anastasis said:

That's a pretty low brow reaction.

Do you have any kids applying for college in the next couple years and see the apps they are trying to build for schools like UT?

This shit is crazy. 

Maybe you do maybe you don't. But your response doesn't particularly suggest to me that you see the current college application system with any contrast to what most of us went through in our own experiences (certainly assumptions baked in here). 

I don't think that reduction to standardized testing is the answer. 

But the system is very broken man. 

 

The UT application process wasn’t shit compared to West Point’s. It’s ok, your kid can probably get into Tech. 

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Posted
7 hours ago, Anastasis said:

If you are not a lawyer, and a particularly scum sucking one, I apologize profusely. I totally misread some of our prior exchanges. You are even dumber than I thought. 

…you’re certainly misreading something.

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Posted

As a general rule, small school is probably better than big school for liberal arts when it comes to engaging students in the way they should be engaged properly in the course of obtaining a liberal arts education. That’s based on the idea that a small school will have smaller classes and more discussion based classes, and more focus on ensuring any one student isn’t just ticking boxes to fulfill requirements at achieving a degree. Mileage will vary and 20 years ago UT did some reasonably good things to ensure that liberal arts students had to do some engaging liberal arts work in the course of completing their degree.

 

I like liberal arts, I think it is valuable and I have specifically leveraged my liberal arts education to have a (by most standards) successful career so far. 15-20 years out from getting my actual degree I suspect that there’s a bit more value having “Texas” on the bottom of the CV than say Southwestern. But also that line probably doesn’t mean all that much anyways.

Liberal arts is ultimately about critical thought, though, and it seems unlikely that you would see that practiced effectively at UATX.

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Posted
13 minutes ago, Celery Man said:

small school is probably better than big school for liberal arts when it comes to engaging students in the way they should be engaged properly in the course of obtaining a liberal arts education.

UT emulates this somewhat with "Plan II" from what I recall. If it's even still a thing

Posted

Funny thing, their admission criteria looks a lot like UTs did 40 years ago, except it goes "more holistic" after the automatic admission criteria.

Yes, standardized tests correlate pretty strongly to academic success, or at least potential, but they're also culturally/economically biased.  And so, troublesome as a sole admission criteria.  And part of the bias is the ability for the economically advantaged to "game" it through preparation and repeat test-taking.

But I think it was the "SAT only" admission criteria that led the admissions counselor to remark that UT was full of "scary smart" kids:  those unchallenged by high school who compiled an above-average, but mediocre record, but were ready to tear it up in the university setting.  But some of those same kids also continued to underachieve, despite their ability.

Which leads to the other criticism.  All admissions is "pattern matching."  It's absurd for this place to criticize what has become the normal "group" of criteria, while applauding their own pattern of fewer factors.

It's not superior.  It's just different, and something they are able to do because they don't really have to be selective.

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Posted
44 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Funny thing, their admission criteria looks a lot like UTs did 40 years ago, except it goes "more holistic" after the automatic admission criteria.

Yes, standardized tests correlate pretty strongly to academic success, or at least potential, but they're also culturally/economically biased.  And so, troublesome as a sole admission criteria.  And part of the bias is the ability for the economically advantaged to "game" it through preparation and repeat test-taking.

But I think it was the "SAT only" admission criteria that led the admissions counselor to remark that UT was full of "scary smart" kids:  those unchallenged by high school who compiled an above-average, but mediocre record, but were ready to tear it up in the university setting.  But some of those same kids also continued to underachieve, despite their ability.

Which leads to the other criticism.  All admissions is "pattern matching."  It's absurd for this place to criticize what has become the normal "group" of criteria, while applauding their own pattern of fewer factors.

It's not superior.  It's just different, and something they are able to do because they don't really have to be selective.

In a perfect world, there is no such thing as "my" spot in an admissions class. The concepts of property and entitlement should have little to no place here.

Posted
10 hours ago, Anastasis said:

That's a pretty low brow reaction.

Do you have any kids applying for college in the next couple years and see the apps they are trying to build for schools like UT?

This shit is crazy. 

Maybe you do maybe you don't. But your response doesn't particularly suggest to me that you see the current college application system with any contrast to what most of us went through in our own experiences (certainly assumptions baked in here). 

I don't think that reduction to standardized testing is the answer. 

But the system is very broken man. 

 

I really don't know anything about the college application process in Russia, but I imagine it is a very broken system.

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Posted
9 hours ago, Anastasis said:

That's a pretty basic take.

If you are seeking STEM you certainly need to go through one of the name schools. Just basic credentialing dictates. 

If we are talking liberal arts, I think thats a totally different ball game. 

This is just bullshit. An engineering degree is valuable specifically because of the high and uniform bar to be a professional engineer. And in tech, you REALLY don't need a degree unless you're going BigTech™. And even then, I've met senior folks with only an associates degree

Posted
28 minutes ago, Longhornfan1024 said:

I really don't know anything about the college application process in Russia, but I imagine it is a very broken system.

I ain't up in here tryin' to defend Russia, but it honestly sounds broadly, like a more focused path than higher education in the US. Granted, its changed a lot since the war with Ukraine started. The main point I will not is the vocational aspects which every 1st world country outside the US addresses. 

Russian Educational Track to University
 

Spoiler

Vocational education in Russia plays a vital role in the country's economy by providing a skilled workforce ready to meet the demands of various industries. It offers an alternative to the traditional academic path, giving students the opportunity to pursue rewarding careers in a shorter time frame.

Curriculum Development: The federal government designs and approves the curriculum for all levels of education, ensuring that it meets national standards and objectives. Recent updates have placed a stronger emphasis on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) subjects, as well as digital literacy, to align with global trends and the demands of the 21st-century economy.

Conclusion: The Future of Education in Russia

The Russian education system is known for its structured and disciplined approach, particularly in the early years, contrasting with the more relaxed styles often seen in Western countries. This strict environment helps students build a strong foundation in key subjects like literacy and numeracy.

 

 

Changes to Russian Higher Education post Ukraine Invasion

Posted
28 minutes ago, Captainant said:

This is just bullshit. An engineering degree is valuable specifically because of the high and uniform bar to be a professional engineer.

And that bar is typically professional licensure and credentialing. Which generally requires a degree from an accredited institution. The name is important, sometimes by statute. 

Or I guess like good luck with that PhD in plane making from the College of the Tropics and your aerospace industry career.

 

Kinda wild watching some of the knee jerking to criticism of the college admissions and academic process. In past few years I have watched 4 nieces and nephews go through the process. Two of those admitted to UT. Engineering, Business, Law, and Medicine. This shit is fn wild. Just a bunch of ridiculous hoops to performatively jump through.   

Posted

Getting into UT 40 years ago and prior was easier than falling off a log, especially if you checked a handful of the right social boxes. When the top 10%, now 6% or whatever, rule kicked in sometime in the 90s it got even easier for a stretch.   I'm not sure when the turn to exclusivity began, but there aren't many posters here who experience it firsthand, although there are certainly some who have seen their kids go through it.  This is the case for most schools perceived as prestigious, frankly.  Getting into an Ivy League was not exactly a monumental feat back in 1985.  Starting from its early days, Harvard Law would auto-admit any applicant from a state without an accredited law school, which is why you will find assloads of Harvard lawyers over the age of fifty in places like New Mexico, Montana, etc.  Obtaining a higher education at a top-tier school used to be more a matter of want-to than anything else.  Now it's a fucking death match that parents engage in with other parents on behalf of their kids, and taking state schools like UT and turning them into exclusive ivy-league-esque institutions is hurting way more than it's helping.

The State of Texas has limited opportunities for students to receive a quality education at a state university, which is a shame for all of us.   Most of this stems from our fractured system, the hoarding of resources in two (but mostly one) of those systems, and a general brain drain in leadership in this state.   The current state of politics, combined with the lack of educational opportunities, will drive this place further and further into the mud.  Young, intelligent women, in particular, are leaving in droves.  This fake bullshit tech-bro school isn't going to change that.  The tech industry, and the financial industry that props it up, are the number one enemy of the future of this country, and Texas is hell-bent on being the tip of the downward spiraling spear. 

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Posted

Publicly re-announcing your auto acceptance criteria reeks of marketing and desperation. Especially when cloaked in some virtue signaling statement how damaged the current system is.

i imaging that the vast majority of colleges and universities auto accept someone with a 1460. Maybe there is a paperwork delay but the acceptance is guaranteed.

im ancient but as soon as I received my SAT score in the late 80s, I knew that I was accepted into UT. I hadn’t even spoken or communicated with UT yet. The paperwork would only be a formality. So I don’t have an issue with what Univ of Austin is doing, except my general laughter at them.

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Posted

If there's any blonde-haired incels with a 1450 SAT applying to colleges this year that don't want to go aggy or private, they can apply to the new School of Civic Leadership at UT. Why would anyone who has proven a small amount of intelligence apply to an uncredentialed school? 

Reading the course descriptions under the Civics school is pretty funny.  Teaching about exceptionalism, the constitution, Government..... Just send them online with the rest of the incels and let them learn from Stephen Miller. The government and constitution will be whatever the fuck Trump says it will be soon. 

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Posted

lol, I’m sure the non-accredited bullshit tech-bro scam is happy to accept students who would be competitive anywhere.

Texas has about twice as many people as it did in 1990, but the student body at UT has barely grown.  There are persuasive reasons not to double the size of the school but instead to invest in making other Texas schools outposts of similarly excellent education. California did this, we should take a look at that.  UT-D is on its way. 
 

It will never fly in the lege but we really need to break a lot of crockery and reorg all state schools into the UT (University of) and A&M (“state U”) systems.  

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Posted
21 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

lol, I’m sure the non-accredited bullshit tech-bro scam is happy to accept students who would be competitive anywhere.

Texas has about twice as many people as it did in 1990, but the student body at UT has barely grown.  There are persuasive reasons not to double the size of the school but instead to invest in making other Texas schools outposts of similarly excellent education. California did this, we should take a look at that.  UT-D is on its way. 
 

It will never fly in the lege but we really need to break a lot of crockery and reorg all state schools into the UT (University of) and A&M (“state U”) systems.  

It will take a while for UTEP, UTSA, UTPB, and UTRGV to get there.

Posted
14 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Posted without much comment, other than interesting to cross reference with the "my kids can't get into UT thread".  With a high achieving sophomore in high school and a couple other behind, this resonates to a certain extent. 

 

image.thumb.png.830226083008a6e33b2cabc96dfeaba1.png

i haven't read much of the thread after this as i suspect it likely devolved into another shitshow. i'm also certain that a number of posters probably offered a lot of criticism of the university of austin ethos and its mission statement and founders (deserved imo).

i would just say while that meritocratic message may be something that superficially resonates for you since it seems you've apparently found some frustrations in the conventional university application process (though i think the characterization of said process in the tweet betrays the ideological bias driving the tweet)...as someone who prides themselves on seeing both the bigger picture of things as well as unmasking propaganda messaging as you do, i'd caution you to view this as anything more than just marketing material and ideological red meat to disenfranchised kids and parents who wonder if they will get a fair shake (dei/affirmative action dog whistle) and further integrate them into said mentality. it's also just pure marketing for an organization trying to get off the ground and get some momentum to reach critical mass in order to be taken seriously and transition from "pre-revenue" to "post-revenue." i don't find it particularly resonant. moreover, if your kid makes a 1460 on the sat, they will not struggle to gain admission into a number of traditional, prestigious schools so it's not like they are offering some sort of lifeline to the otherwise discarded.

"courage to join the first ranks of our truth-oriented university" pretty much gives away the game.

but perhaps it will be a good landing place for your kids. who knows? give it a shot and follow up. 

in the last three years, i have hired graduates of upenn, umich, ufla, utexas, and tamu...and shockingly, other than the agro, i'm surprised any of them can get themselves out of bed in the morning and tie their own shoes.

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Posted

I mean, if you're a terrible student with average grades and a 1460 you won't get accepted into Texas, Michigan, Cal, UCLA, the ivies, etc., but you'll get in just about anywhere else.

Don't ask me how I know that.

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Posted
2 hours ago, 956 Worldwide said:

lol, I’m sure the non-accredited bullshit tech-bro scam is happy to accept students who would be competitive anywhere.

Texas has about twice as many people as it did in 1990, but the student body at UT has barely grown.  There are persuasive reasons not to double the size of the school but instead to invest in making other Texas schools outposts of similarly excellent education. California did this, we should take a look at that.  UT-D is on its way. 
 

It will never fly in the lege but we really need to break a lot of crockery and reorg all state schools into the UT (University of) and A&M (“state U”) systems.  

Agreed, except Aggy should be folded back into the UT system from whence it came.  They both serve the same markets.   If there were to be a second system (and really, it should all be under one, IMO) it should probably be Tech to serve the western part of the state.  Plus, fuck aggy.

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Posted
1 hour ago, sidis said:

but perhaps it will be a good landing place for your kids. who knows? give it a shot and follow up. 

I don't think that path makes sense for mine, and I don't see that happening. But I could certainly appreciate that it might be a good fit for others. And of course it's marketing. Just like the 6" high stack of .edu mailers my daughter has sitting on the kitchen counter.

Would be interesting to cut through all the noise and hear directly from a few of the students though. I do agree with that. 

Posted

You think all 3 of your kids fit the same educational mold?  Both of mine are at UT, but one is a far better fit than the other.  I just couldn't squash the dream for that one when it became available.

Posted
3 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

I don't think that path makes sense for mine, and I don't see that happening. But I could certainly appreciate that it might be a good fit for others. And of course it's marketing. Just like the 6" high stack of .edu mailers my daughter has sitting on the kitchen counter.

Would be interesting to cut through all the noise and hear directly from a few of the students though. I do agree with that. 

it's currently hard to get at that. i do recall a 60 minutes segment in which they interviewed some students. the problem with that right now is that is such an ideology associated environment and anyone that is willing to be a part of it at this level of infancy (and with no accreditation) is going to have a natural predilection towards believing it's superior. the inherent sampling bias will distort any ability to evaluate it for the larger population given that is has not even hit 100 students yet and, as i said, the ~90 or so people who have participated were like "sure, i believe in what joe lonsdale and bari weiss are all about and i want to spend my time matriculating here."

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Posted
7 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Interdasting. 

Do you disagree?  It's a tiny, minimally accredited college basically in a strip mall that costs upward of $40k annually all-in. Although currently tuition seems to be covered by a scholarship gained by admission. The only appeal it would have is to people with some sort of ideological axe to grind with traditional academia.

Posted
1 minute ago, Anastasis said:

No I agree completely. Academia is a very ideologically associated environment. 

You can always just send your kids to aggy if you're worried UT is too liberal. 

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Posted
6 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

Interdasting. 

i am not going to do all the work in this conversation. but in trying to interpret this, my natural assumption is that you are sarcastically implying a certain hypocrisy in my skepticism about students' unbiased experiences at u of austin because i frame it as an environment with an overwhelming undercurrent of ideology in its mission...and that the reason for the appeal of an institution like this to a certain segment of people is the perception held by many of those same people that traditional universities themselves are ideology associated environments?

if not, then i don't know what you are trying to say.

if so, drawing a parallel between a tiny incubation of peter thiel's wet dream society with 90 students and universities with tens of thousands of students with an extremely diverse perspective on pretty much everything is disingenuous and absurd. i think universities have become punching bags for allowing some more progressive ideologies to be explored - which i certainly view as natural given the nature of 18-26 year olds in general, as well as university's historical role of being on the vanguard of social progressive movements that can sometimes be extreme. but to say that the university of texas or any other major university is not welcoming to students of all ideologies (including traditionally conservative ones) is just absolute horseshit stemming from right wing propaganda nonsense. it's 50k people from entirely diverse backgrounds that all hate each other and all want to fuck each other. it's a confusing time.

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Posted
4 hours ago, Anastasis said:

And that bar is typically professional licensure and credentialing. Which generally requires a degree from an accredited institution. 

Which this "institution" is not.

4 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Or I guess like good luck with that PhD in plane making from the College of the Tropics and your aerospace industry career.

Are you seriously going to argue that engineers from aggy, Tech, etc. are not getting hired?

Posted (edited)
12 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

No I agree completely. Academia is a very ideologically associated environment. 

Granted, I was an engineer, but UT was way too liberal for me back in the day.  But I was astute enough to realize even then, that it wasn't the institution, it was its inhabitants that trended liberal, some students, a lot of professors.  But also that that is the nature of high-level learning:  many of its devotees are going to be proponents of the "latest, greatest ideas" circulating out there, and, while many of those ideas may not stand the test of time, they are the seeds of progress.

So, yeah, UT can be identified as "liberal" as can most institutions of higher learning, it's their nature.  But I wouldn't say it attracts liberals any more than any other school.  The only people that make university choices based on personal ideology at this point are conservatards.

Even conservatives should be fans of progress, just perhaps more measured and incremental than more left-leaning types.  This intellectual revanchism disgusts me.

Edited by TwiceHorn
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Posted

and don't forget, a lot of the foundation as to why universities are so strongly associated with socially progressive ideology is because they were so visibly and strongly part of the anti-war movements of the second half of the 20th century and early 21st century...as well as other social issues at the same time such as integration.

while the hippies smelled bad, reeked of privileged superiority, and had terrible taste in fashion, they were 100% correct about vietnam. while fox news was absolutely maligning and villainizing my friends and me in 2002 and 2003 for protesting the invasion of iraq in a disruptive way, we were absolutely right. (ironically, something of a virtue amongst perverted republicans now despite them calling us traitors that should be executed at the time)

and i would think someone with an anti-adventurism slant as you do would have more appreciation for the water carried by progressives on college campuses for the last 100 years. you have repeatedly posted about the ills of israel's handling of palestinians, bibi being a war criminal, and the u.s. having a pox on its house because of its support. columbia is being defunded by the president of the united states for allowing its students to express the same sentiments and that whole negative association of ideological environments that people that would go to the university of austin would point to would be rooted in said expression. that would seem problematic to me on your behalf.

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Posted
2 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

I mean, if you're a terrible student with average grades and a 1460 you won't get accepted into Texas, Michigan, Cal, UCLA, the ivies, etc., but you'll get in just about anywhere else.

Don't ask me how I know that.

i mean, you wildcats will always have arizona state to look down upon and make yourself feel better. but my god, the titties. the wonderful titties.

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Posted

And for Ana, the national average SAT score is 1022.  A 1460 and a decent high school track record will get your snowflake into a helluva lot of places.  Now if that's an 800 English and 660 math, it may mean your kid is not going to get into the engineering school they want (but there's still schools that will accept them).

You aren't even addressing who is behind it, or how they are trying to piggyback off of the name of a school their side all claim to hate.

I don't know why we are even arguing this though - we are in a state with tens of millions of people, it would only make sense that one of the flagship schools is harder to get into than it was when the population was half that. We don't need to pull an aggy and try and add tens of thousands of students to UT Austin.

Ana and others, if they are upset about UT Austin and feel like their snowflakes should be able to get into a good school, should be focused on pressuring the legislature on improving the rest of the UT branches (and aggy) (insert Lobo-esque manifesto here).

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Posted (edited)
12 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

And for Ana, the national average SAT score is 1022.  A 1460 and a decent high school track record will get your snowflake into a helluva lot of places.  Now if that's an 800 English and 660 math, it may mean your kid is not going to get into the engineering school they want (but there's still schools that will accept them).

You aren't even addressing who is behind it, or how they are trying to piggyback off of the name of a school their side all claim to hate.

I don't know why we are even arguing this though - we are in a state with tens of millions of people, it would only make sense that one of the flagship schools is harder to get into than it was when the population was half that. We don't need to pull an aggy and try and add tens of thousands of students to UT Austin.

Ana and others, if they are upset about UT Austin and feel like their snowflakes should be able to get into a good school, should be focused on pressuring the legislature on improving the rest of the UT branches (and aggy) (insert Lobo-esque manifesto here).

the objection amongst the frustrated people (that the university of austin tweet that ana posted was targeting) isn't that ut is the flagship and it should be hard to get admitted...it's a belief that there is an ideological adherence to making it not as hard to get admitted if you are from an underrepresented group as opposed to the white male. the implication being that a white student that does everything correctly, has above average scores, and finished with a good high school career has less of a chance than a immigrant student who overcame [insert sob story] or a black woman whose mom was a crackhead and had to be raised by her grandparents with inferior academic credentials - a slap to the face of merit-based achievement that those of us with the privilege to value indeed value. while there have been state law efforts to raise opportunity (especially for rurals) by 10%, 7%, 6% rules, i have actually not seen much real evidence of this. a lot of it is driven by main character bias from which we all suffer. while the diversity of most institutions has increased, that has been the result of demographics and previously unavailable opportunity.

Edited by sidis
Posted
Just now, Sawbonz said:

The fuck is going on around here?

i've spent the last ten minutes daydreaming about 21 year old hot, tan girls with nice tits at arizona state.

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Posted (edited)
18 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Posted without much comment, other than interesting to cross reference with the "my kids can't get into UT thread".  With a high achieving sophomore in high school and a couple other behind, this resonates to a certain extent. 

 

image.thumb.png.830226083008a6e33b2cabc96dfeaba1.png

 

35 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

The fuck is going on around here?

Looks like Ana being Ana, in this case pretending that UATX is not a right wing grift for people whose entire personality is based on phrases like "anti-woke." 

And LOL at the tweet. "We're totally merit based, objective numbers only!" with the imediate qualification "pending basic eligibility and integrity check." You know goddamned well that phrase is doing some heavy fucking lifting. "Lack of integrity" can mean literally anything especially in todays environment. Social media post supporting trans rights? Participation in a "Free Palestine" rally? Photo holding a Black Lives Matter sign? Criticized Lord Elon? "Woke and therefore lacks integrity." They speak about gay people in terms of morality, i.e., integrity, so being openly gay would be "lack of intergrity" to these shitheads. 

Not that people like that would apply to this fake maga college, but for Ana to ignore the entire publicised premise of this "institution" is completely on brand.

Edited by 'stache
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Posted
57 minutes ago, sidis said:

i am not going to do all the work in this conversation.

If you are doing all the work, it is only because you are trying to bootstrap an argument unrelated to my post you initially responded to, or any others that followed from me.

Watching kids navigate the current college admissions process is mind blowing to me. I am not automatically offended by the mere existence of UATX. I am not automatically offended at a marketing post calling out the absurdity of the admissions process. Frankly, not sure why some of you appear to feel so threatened. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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