"scarce" resources, college and sexism

[rm]

And then there's this:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/opinion/23britz.html

It's the sort of thing that makes it hard for me to imagine any world in which women, at least as a group, don't always lose.

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Comments

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

There's more than five that matter if you want to continue with grad school.

Which ones they are, of course, depends on your field. Which many people don't know going in, even if they think they do. *sigh*

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Well, sorta. I mean, people say that, but in my experience it's less true than people want you to think. I see grad programs taking people from all over, because most undergraduate programs in most subjects are bad, because nobody cares about undergraduate education. And who knows what they want to go to grad school in when they start?

Of course, grad school admission is a whole other thing, and is wildly different from field to field and even department to department. It's both hideously and arbitrarily competitive. I have no idea why I got in some places and not others, and there's no way to reconstruct the decision. For all anyone knows it was my star sign.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

Mm. Having talked to people involved in grad school admissions, college affects (though doesn't determine) how my department looks at applicants. This might differ from program to program, though.

It's also really not arbitrary, but I think it is a lot more subjective than undergrad admissions, because "fit" becomes extremely important. There's this thing about who in the department likes you...

[springheel-jack.livejournal.com]

Perhaps arbitrary isn't the right word - but 'fit' is at least as much about them as about you. It's idiosyncratic at best.

[shweta-narayan.livejournal.com]

Oh, absolutely.
And it can be how much you figure out about what they want to hear, too.