/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.15422378]

Have you ever met a dumb person who attends an Ivy League school or top school?

[Anonymous No.15422405]

I knew a guy who graduated summa cum laude from Penn with a degree in Economics but I had to practically draw him a map explaining how to get out of our office parking lot and back to the main highway.
He was very good at his work but I wouldn’t trust him to put a letter in a mailbox.

[Anonymous No.15422409]

>>15422405
people suck at giving directions, maybe you do to. 'Ah just go left and then there and left there and right bro'

[Anonymous No.15422424]

>>15422409
He couldn’t find his way out of the parking lot he had driven into and parked

[Anonymous No.15422426]

Yes. I was an exchange student in Boston and met minorities who studied at Harvard. I've never seen uni students who were complete retards and I am from Mexico

[Anonymous No.15422433]

>>15422405
>I knew a guy who graduated summa cum laude

[Anonymous No.15422454]

Met personally? No.
But I didn’t vote in the last presidential election because the choice was between him and a woman.

[Anonymous No.15422460]

>>15422426
Shouldn't they at least have an IQ of 110?

[Anonymous No.15422467]

>>15422460
Unfortunately a high IQ doesn't always prevent a person still being a mouthbreather with zero awareness.

[Anonymous No.15422469]

Not dumb per se, but the optimism of people who have attended top schools all their lives can be offputting. I think one of the causes of ethnic self-effacement in my country us partly due to positions of power being held by a new generation of people who feel somewhat guilty of their "privileged" (their term) background and think the best way to overcome that guilt is to denounce their ethnicity as a whole, having no real first-hand experience of, say, being a white working class male. Their enthusiastic encouragement of non-whites is both hollow (due to these people living and socialising pretty much only with people of their socio-economic class) and unnecessary. I've seen people earn awards only to state that although they are grateful, they would also like to question why white people like themselves are winning at the perceived expense of non-whites.

[Anonymous No.15422541]

Most of the people I met from Ivy League schools were dumb.

[Anonymous No.15422675]

>>15422424
adhd people can be extremely intellegent

[Anonymous No.15422680]

>>15422675
We can?

[Anonymous No.15422696]

>>15422378
Yeah. One of the most idiotic, normiecore crossed with /mu/core kids ive ever met attended Cornell, where he most certainly got in because he was brown and his father had done work as in international crisis relief (makes for great stories that, yknow, have nothing to do with his own merit). It really does come down to quirkiness, which makes elite schools obnoxious for reasons people wouldn’t tend to expect.

[Anonymous No.15422771]

>>15422378
I went to Harvard. Athletes. Not all of them, but some of them. I knew a female lacrosse player who was voted "to dumb to fuck" but one of the final clubs. I knew a football player who was kicked off the team for not being able to make required grades. He was dumb like a horse or a dog, but one of the most genuinely nice people I've ever met.

They both out earn me now.

[Anonymous No.15422780]

>>15422680
Sure, you can have a very high IQ and still be functionally retarded

[Anonymous No.15422782]

>>15422378
I attend a top 5 school in the world and I'm pretty dumb.

[Anonymous No.15422789]

Yes, I know plenty. Not dumb absolutely—they’re smarter than the McDonald’s cashier—but nothing remotely special. That being said, the smartest kids I grew up with went to Yale.

[Anonymous No.15422945]

>>15422378
The other day I was listening to NPR and there was a woman who had a phd from harvard who was an illegal immigrant, and was basically talking about her experience as an illegal immigrant and basically, I was shocked at how dumb she was. She was an absolute life-denier. Maybe someone else who listens to NPR heard it to?

[Anonymous No.15422946]

>>15422378
Me

>>15422771
Kek, what do you do now and what do they do? I’m afraid this is my fate

[Anonymous No.15424294]

>>15422945
Harvard accepted that one dude from Parkland who had like a 3.1 gpa and a 1260 sat so yeah checks out.

[Anonymous No.15424438]

>>15422946
I made the mistake of going for a PhD and ruined my life/earning potential thereby. They went straight into management consulting or finance. Who was really smarter?

[Anonymous No.15424508]

Went to Carnegie Mellon before I dropped out. The CS kids are the most unaware kids I have ever met. They might make ok code monkeys, but there's a reason why most successful companies don't get started by CMU kids. They're just good at plugging and chugging, no imagination whatsoever.

[Anonymous No.15424531]

>>15422378
I'd guess the ones in the humanities are. Bloom said that he was shocked how badly read the majority of his students were.

[Anonymous No.15424747]

>>15424508
Oh, fuck CMU. From Pittsburgh and some of the kids who go there are the most pretentious and unaware human beings i've ever met. Not all, but like the CS kids, definitely some.

[Anonymous No.15424993]

>>15422771
too bad he died at the end Of Mice and Men, sorry for your loss anon

[Anonymous No.15425018]

>>15422945
select phd and certain masters degrees at prestigious institutions have non-competitive admissions but cost a metric ton of money for this very reason...one minute you're a rich nobody and a few weeks later you have a graduate degree from a brand name school and can opine on shit where poor nobodies take you seriously. Note: not all grad degrees are like this (mba/jd/md) but more of the esoteric ones like education

[Anonymous No.15425033]

Don't know if UT Austin counts (Public Ivy) but I'd gander 80% of the students here are massive brainlets, maybe like 3% of students are actually smart

Also grades ! = intelligence, I just graduated with a 3.93 and I'm a brainlet pseud

[Anonymous No.15425211]

>>15424438
Lol in management consulting and have carpal tunnel at 23, you didn't miss out on anything.

[Anonymous No.15425226]

>>15422378
At Cornell ILR right now. It really ranges. I've met some really bright people with great taste and I've met some bottom of the barrel Long Island bimbos and guys who got in for lax.

The dumbest person I know goes to Dartmouth for lax.

[Anonymous No.15425289]

i teach at one

the undergrads are stupid as fuck, absolutely no difference from a state school. actually worse because they're smug and assume they are special despite being mediocre. it's also gotten worse in the last ten years. oddly while elite unis are becoming much more exclusive with acceptance rates, it's a running joke that the students are getting dumber and shallower.

[Anonymous No.15425339]

No, but I hope I do so I don’t feel so bad about going to a state school

[Anonymous No.15425427]

>>15425289
hey rapture

[Anonymous No.15425550]

>>15422378
60% of ivy league students are just bougies with a killer work ethic. Nothing special intellectually, but some of the most entitled people on the face of the earth.
30% are intelligent over achievers. Very intelligent, but not always the smartest person in the room growing up. Extremely well put together. Generally fucking vampires though, wouldn't socialize with them for love nor money. Also often poor and otherwise demographically disadvantaged.
10% are actual intellectuals. These are the ones who are with talking to, when they haven't had their heads snake-charmed up their own asses by the other 90%.
No one at an ivy league school is entirely dumb or as dumb as your average person. But very few of them are as intelligent as they think they are, and their social environment and institutional incentives reward hard work, not genius. Almost all of them are cutthroat bastards, besides. Boston in particular is hell on earth when it comes to soulless scum.

[Anonymous No.15425659]

>>15425018
The thing is I wasn't tuned in long enough to hear what her thesis was about or even her field, but the whole thing was basically a stream of consciousness rant about how unfairly the US government treated her and her undocumented family, how this caused her emotional trauma, and basically how unfair life is and how she constantly struggled with wanting to kill herself, despite the fact that she (presumably on her own merit) completed a doctorate at Harvard and had just scored some book deal writing about said sorry state of affairs. Perhaps I'm naive but it really wasn't how I expected a Harvard graduate to sound. Nothing she said was insightful or inspiring; it was even pathetic.

[Anonymous No.15425669]

>>15422378

[Anonymous No.15425742]

>>15425659
even harvard makes mistakes, kissenger taught there

[Anonymous No.15425881]

nobody has mentioned that George "Dubya" Bush is a Yale graduate. He can't string a sentence together, but he was rich and a legacy.

that said, the smartest and highest-achieving guy I ever knew got an almost full ride to Yale. he was just a public-schooled kid that lived in my neighborhood but brilliant. he took AP classes at a magnet school and graduated above 4.0. but his extracurriculars were insane. like best in the state and I'm talking an academic extracurricular. but he was from a super humble family and he was hilarious and super fun to be around. sounds unlike most of what people are posting about ivies. he could've gotten a full ride anywhere else but he took a few small loans because he specifically wanted to go to Yale.

[Anonymous No.15425961]

>>15425881
I had a friend from my rural Wisconsin town get into Harvard, great guy and it was a big deal; he went for one year and then quit and came back. His reason? "Everyone there was a pretentious asshole."

[Anonymous No.15425995]

I knew some tards at UF. Part of me wishes I transferred to Dartmouth or Cornell for rugby when I had the chance.

[Anonymous No.15426082]

>>15425995
Why did you decline?
How do sports stuff work in American colleges? Not familiar with the system. Do you sign up for courses in for example "political science", but focus primarily on rugby training?

[Anonymous No.15426089]

>>15425961
Why couldn't he handle that? Just keep to yourself.

[Anonymous No.15426102]

>>15425961
Sounds like he might be able to write a cool novel.

[Anonymous No.15426130]

>>15422378
Yeah, I've known lots of dumb people who went to Cornell, and one who went to Harvard.

[Anonymous No.15426156]

>>15426089
The entire point of going to such a place is to make connections, or "network" as the sois say, to not keep to oneself. Have you even been to college anon? People aren't paying tens of thousands just to read power point slides

[Anonymous No.15426158]

You'll have the same luck finding 135IQ+ on the street as in Ivy league, It's supported by many researches, most ivy league students are 120-125IQ midwits and the SD is small.

[Anonymous No.15426247]

I went to a preparatory high school with at least two dozen Ivy-bound students in my graduating class. All of them were smart, to some extent. A couple of them were legitimately brilliant and were fortunate enough to mature quickly enough to get the stellar marks they were capable of. Most of the others got in based on hard work and overachievement, and were closer to submissive bullshitters than original thinkers. A third category would be legacies and athletes who obviously did not deserve to get in on academic merit.

Attending an Ivy League institution says very little about you as a person. You don't have to attend one to become a mover and shaker. Moreover, being a mini-adult at age 15 is not necessarily a predictor of success.

[Anonymous No.15426252]

Most lawyers I’ve met drop top schools are good at their job and think of nothing but money. They are fucking retarded when it comes to anything outside of work.

[Anonymous No.15426282]

>>15422771
>"to dumb to fuck"
[sic]?

[Anonymous No.15426287]

I went to a preparatory high school with at least two dozen students bound for top schools in my graduating class. All of them were smart, to some extent. A couple of them were legitimately brilliant and were fortunate enough to mature quickly enough to get the stellar marks they were capable of. Most of the others got in based on hard work and overachievement, and were closer to submissive bullshitters than original thinkers. A third category would be legacies and athletes who obviously did not deserve to get in on academic merit.

Attending an Ivy or a ssimilarly ranked institution says very little about you as a person. You don't have to attend one to become a mover and shaker. Moreover, being a mini-adult at age 15 is not necessarily a predictor of success.

[Anonymous No.15426336]

My own experience at Oxford was that a handful were genuinely not very bright, most were intelligent enough but relied more on hard work/memorisation and writing the sorts of things examiners like to read than actual intelligence and talent, and a scarce few were brilliant.

Not that it means much to say it, but I never felt in my time there that I had encountered someone who was my intellectual equal. More experienced, more knowledgeable, better at their own speciality, or more interested, maybe - but I arrived there thinking I'd finally meet my match and in the end I left a little disappointed.

[Anonymous No.15426356]

My ex is pursuing a PhD at penn. Not dumb but your quintessential liberal

[Anonymous No.15426361]

>>15426156
>People aren't paying tens of thousands just to read power point slides
W-what

[Anonymous No.15426388]

>>15422378
In my experience there aren't really any dumb people at elite schools but most of them aren't very intelligent either. Most of them are about average to above-average when it comes to intelligence it's just that they have a very high work ethic.
With that being said many of them are highly specialized and are experts in their field but are complete idiots when it comes to anything outside of their field.

[Anonymous No.15426404]

>>15422378
I attend a top grad school in the healthcare field. Most of my classmates are passive-aggressive autists who have no clue what life is like outside their circles. I would take a reliable worker from a state school over these devious cunts any day.

[Anonymous No.15426414]

>>15426361
It's okay anon, I made the same mistake.
Going to university is mostly about networking with your peers and potential employers. If you just went to class, studied, and got your degree then you missed the most valuable part of going to college. If it makes you feel better the same thing happened to me and there are many other people who have made the same mistake.

[Anonymous No.15426424]

>>15425550
Good breakdown and analysis, thoughtful post, sociologyanon

[Anonymous No.15426472]

i'm a cambridge student and i'm retarded

[Anonymous No.15426480]

>>15422378
I go to the top public school in the United States, so not exactly ivy, and there are tons of idiots. I like it though

[Anonymous No.15426773]

>>15426082
I got injured and depressed, so I stopped playing.

Typically you major in something like history or Econ while playing, and you get premium access to, “tutors.” Rugby is different though, at most schools it’s a club, but the coaches said my ACT score, GPA, and extracurriculars were strong enough to get me in with their push(31 and a 35 on the English section, 4.45, 1000 service hours, president of a club).

[Anonymous No.15426843]

>>15424508
I did CS and MechE and a top 10 school. The STEM kids were so unaware of anything outside of their major.

[Anonymous No.15426889]

>>15426480
Are public universities in the US good? I thought only private schools were good over there.

[Anonymous No.15426913]

>>15426414
I graduated this past december and realised I made this same mistake too. I didn't network, made no new friends, and had no success with women. I have a degree now bit I've definitely regressed socially

[Anonymous No.15426938]

>>15424294
dude seriously? even my shit high school grades were higher than that.

mad now

[Anonymous No.15426944]

I go to Northwestern, you would be astonished how many retards go to this school. I'm enrolled in a lot of humanities courses, and it's obvious how little people actually do the readings for class and bullshit their way through by talking about 'comparisons to today' and shit like that. Usually the retards are either obvious cases of affirmative action to get race/socioeconomic thresholds up, or just rich pricks who got daddy's alumni money to buy their way in. I know people that fail basic writing, have never taken an advanced math class before, etc. don't assume that someone is smart because they went to a good school, there's a solid chance they are not.

[Anonymous No.15426967]

>>15425033
>public ivy

i fucking hate this term. it's so counterfeit-sounding

"bro, i drive a civic. it's been called a working-class mercedes so it's like i actually own a mercedes haha"

there's a certain school in my own school system that loves to use the term in their marketing effort

[Anonymous No.15426977]

>>15422378
Well not dumb necessarily, but I know a guy who goes to Penn who's a peak midwit, but he's got an insanely good work ethic and he's from a very affluent family. He posts his shitty poetry on instagram sometimes.

[Anonymous No.15426985]

>>15422424
Kek this sounds like something I'd do.

[Anonymous No.15426987]

>>15425881
What are you talking about Bush was sharp.

[Anonymous No.15426999]

>>15425742
Kissinger was based though, got into Harvard on the GI bill when he was in his mid-twenties and basically boot-strapped his way into the Nixon administration at a time when Jews were neither liked nor influential. He also wrote one of the greatest books on the Napoleonic era ever written.

People like >>15425659 are rewarded for their superficial bitching by the rich white guilt types that make up the majority of ivy league admissions. Having pity party minorities around helps them maintain a virtues image where "anyone can get into Harvard if they're smart and hard working, just look at this absurdly disadvantaged token illegal immigrant we've got".

[Anonymous No.15427018]

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/07/columbia-costs-mfa/593215/

Excerpt from this artcle:

"The bad news came later: The school would provide no financial aid—at least this was the news at first. I was devastated, but told myself, Anena, this is Columbia, you can’t let it go. I put up a GoFundMe where I am presently begging the world to contribute to my approximately $100,000 costs of attendance for just the first year of a two-year program ($62,912 of that is tuition, the rest is “living expenses” and other fees). By mid July, I had slightly more than $1,500 in donations."

[Anonymous No.15427023]

>>15426889
The best are Berkeley, UCLA, UVA, UNC Chapel Hill, Georgia Tech, Michigan, and William & Mary. UT-Austin, UF, UIUC, Washington, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio State, and Wisconsin are all solid as well.

[Anonymous No.15427044]

>>15422378
I just graduated from an Ivy. These people are imbeciles and I find the actual, serious discussion here better than any I’ve had at my school. I legitimately believe if anons here got their shit together, they could easily beat all these Ivy League cocksuckers and see the world they wish to see. Sadly, many have crippling self-discipline issues but they’re at least much more sentiment than all the faggots blaming the professor’s “unfairness” for why their mediocre existences.

[Anonymous No.15427072]

>>15427044
Fuck phone posting

[Anonymous No.15427075]

>>15426938
Jazz Jennings got in and im pretty sure she's not all mentally there

UVA here, but used to go to Virginia Tech (RIP). How the fuck are people barely passing a "foundations of business" class?

[Anonymous No.15427081]

>>15425033
Especially in McCombs. You'd think one of the "best" business schools in the country would be predominated by smart people.

[Anonymous No.15427085]

>>15425289
It’s because the only people still willing to pay >$100k undergrad tuition for an ivy league are hopelessly naive, delusional, and finally, retarded.

[Anonymous No.15427092]

>>15427075
Harvard is playing into the celebrity clout bullshit, which is very common among South Florida Jews.
>>15427081
Business majors are almost universally tards, no matter the school.

[Anonymous No.15427104]

>>15427081
no, people just want money. if you wanted stupid, just see what people majoring in "management" or marketing are like

this girl in my high school had a 3.1 and finished high school in 3 years but went to UNC-CH because gymnastics

[Anonymous No.15427105]

>>15427044
I would attend/teach the fuck out of /lit/U. The canonical shit is obviously based but even the obscure stuff reccomended here is leagues better than most of the shit assigned to undergrads.

[Anonymous No.15427195]

>>15422378
Tons of them. Some are smart but common sense wise retarded, some are just fucking stupid. But I also know lots of very smart people who went to Ivies. Yale kids are peak book smart but can't function as normal human beings.

[Anonymous No.15427202]

>>15427075
Forgot to mention, but there's a decent amount of people at UVA who "work" in that CutCo pyramid scheme shit

[Anonymous No.15427246]

>>15422378
>at work event
>man, ~55 years old, looks like he has autism or something, head bobbling and really wide eyes and mouth weirdly open just staring whatever direction his head happens to be bobbling
>I address him to introduce myself and he doesn’t react so I assume he doesn’t hear me. I genuinely think this man is mentally challenged so my I’m-talking-to-literal-actual-retard-so-be-nice mode is on
>he randomly replies “I’m Anon, I went to MIT...” with a long pause
>I say cool, ask what he does
>vague response “computer stuff”
>end up doing a presentation for him directly for my company a few days later, to which he had no complaints when I asked, and said he loved it, can’t wait to start
>1 hour later emails my boss saying I was terrible, rude, dismissive, basically everything bad
>boss sees my zoom call recording and has no clue what he’s talking about
>boss calls him
>immediately after boss hangs up boss messages me “he’s retarded” and “the first thing he fucking says to me is ‘I went to MIT’ as if to impress me”

[rapture1 No.15427272]

>>15425427
He’s not rapture
Rapture liked his students, rapture liked teaching, rapture liked the university system.
Don’t know why you think anyone who teaches at an ivy is rapture.

Love,
Rapture

[Anonymous No.15427363]

>>15426987
bush sr. had a mind like a steel trap. his son was obviously retarded every time he opened his mouth

[Anonymous No.15427387]

>>15425742
>even harvard makes mistakes, kissenger taught there
I consider him a loathesome individual but he's fucking smart as hell.

[Anonymous No.15427802]

>>15422378
all of them?

[Anonymous No.15428027]

>>15427272
I assume you taught at cornell when you pursued a graduate degree there? idk how TA stuff works at that level.