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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 11, 2026

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Bluntly: the schools you attend before college did not really matter

The Indian system is more legible and crueler about it; the American system is less legible and crueler about hiding it.

I don't think you've made a good case that what college you go to really matters, at least in th US. The US isn't hiding the correlation between what school you go to and your success....it just isn't a very strong correlation. I can't speak for other countries, but look at congress and you'll see state schools galore. There's a correlation, but non-Americans don't seem to realize that in America the schools aren't the selection process in America. Koreans spend a gajillion hours and bajillion dollars on studying because if you don't pass the test to get into a chaebol you're shit out of luck. But if you pass you can get a job and not produce anything as long as you work 60 hours a week and look like you work. Try that in America and see how it goes. Part of this is culture--confucian culture has instilled that testing is the best way to determine ability for more than a millennium--but part of it is labor law. If it's hard to fire someone it's almost impossible to make a meritocratic labor market. Instead you try really hard to weed out anyone who isn't willing to waste years of their lives studying for something very arbitrary. Does it work? No. Do you have another choice? Also no.

Honestly, I would guess that what grade school you go to does a much better job building up your intuition for class markers and job opportunities than university. Yeah, the diversity hire at Harvard is getting a good chance, but they'll have a lot harder time fitting in at Anthropic or a fintech firm than the guy who was raised in that culture. Harvard is a better selection marker, but that's not the same as doing a better job at forming someone into the type of person who is successful. Instead, it's weeding out the people who can't succeed.

I don't think you've made a good case that what college you go to really matters, at least in th US.

I don't think I've said much, if anything, on that topic? That simply isn't an argument I've made. As far as I can tell, it's not even one I've made by implication.

All I have said is that the college you go to matters a great deal more in India, which really is true. That's the real reason everyone goes crazy trying to put their children into the better ones.