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Notes -
Fair point, perhaps my counter-signalling should instead be that I never had any tutoring before beginning my university education and then afterwards I only got what everyone else with me also got, I didn't have to do any "special" guided learning that me or my parents paid for to give me an edge.
Supervisions though are genuinely one of the things that make the experience unique and yes, I'll admit I wouldn't be as comfortable with my academic learning if I'd instead gotten the UK's bog standard university experience where classes have 15+ people on average instead of supos.
Absolutely agree on this. I've had the (mis)fortune to meet more than my fair share of US elite graduates through my job and otherwise and apart from the MIT grads none struck me as particularly impressive on average (this includes Harvard, Yale and perhaps surprisingly Stanford, but my Stanford sample size is low). All I'll say is I'd wager 60% of elite US students who major in what I studied would have likely failed our end of year exams and been thrown out (fun fact: effectively no resits, you get one shot; if you fail, you are out), this is not an exaggeration and the rest would mostly have gotten thirds or lower second class honours. I refer back to my post here on why I think the US higher education system for undergrad is fundamentally broken.
Didn't go to Eton but I can believe this, my Etonian friends (who made it to Oxbridge, so not an unbiased sample) were not merely more polished than the average in terms of social interactions but also tended to do better. Same for Westminster, Oundle and the Leys.
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