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I can only speak to my experience, and experienced just about every major kind of environment (private elite small, public large, community college, regional state schools, elite universities). I’ve met great people everywhere, but in heavily uneven distribution. And in the less great environments, having a culture of either apathy, non-excellence, or simply not having so many great peers does little to motivate oneself, where as having the opposite is like a rocket ship. Videos on the internet are not a replacement for who is around you everyday. Your peers are a well establish major factor in determining your trajectory in life.

The uneven distribution will mean that MIT will put out a lot of great candidates, where as a state school will put out few great candidates. The people who went to MIT were in a culture that pushed them the entire time, so they’ll have maximized their talent, where as the state school lacking this culture will reward the same potential talent for less accomplishment. Thus you see this 80/20 rule manifest.

Btw the study was about American universities. I’m not sure why you’re being so defensive about Europe. It’s irrelevant to the point at hand. You could do the same study in France or China and I’m sure you’ll see a similar domestic result.

First: "So why wouldn’t the best and brightest and most motivated and best networked beat everyone else out?"

Second: "Your peers are a well establish major factor in determining your trajectory in life."

Ok, so can we ditch "best and brightest and most motivated" and just go with "best networked"?

> I don’t know why this is a problem

The problem is the best networked part.

I think you are way overblowing this whole idea.

Sure, peers matter, and yes, probably competitive people may tend to aggregate in some places but that does not lead to the implications and numbers you drive. It's mostly about bias and network.

> people who went to MIT were in a culture that pushed them the entire time, so they’ll have maximized their talent

It's funny you mention a university which publishes their own tests. I'd like to see a comparison with similar tests from less prestigious university. Calculus/analysis tests seem quite standard, where's the unusual push?

You seem to regurgitate university ads.

It's also funny how the article points how prestige...is much less of a factor for STEM than economics or law...maybe because stem needs results besides prestige?

> Calculus/analysis tests seem quite standard, where's the unusual push?

The tests in standard courses aren't really what's at play. It's about people and the ability to "run into" and work with those people gets people into research networks.

Not all MIT students do that, of course, and it's not an absolute; many people come from less-prestigious schools, but the networking effects stack things against them coming from undergrad and afford them fewer opportunities to "walk into" those circles, depending on the resources their UGs have.

In many EU countries there is a large group of public universities with roughly the same "prestige" and entry is not too competitive. Some might be incredibly hard once you are in, though.

Yes, but let's also not conflate the idea of "brightness" and the qualities of a productive university professor.After all, it's much harder to get into Stanford as an undergrad than it is to get in as a post-doc. What makes someone excel in academia is a genuine passion for knew knowledge, creative problem solving / experimental design, and (yes) the ability to drum up finding to make those discoveries. Rarely is the "smartest" person in the room most capable of being a great researcher. Curiosity, familiarity with the state-of-the-art, and the ability to forge genuine collaborations are far more important than one's ability to do the actual work, I'm afraid (that is, after all, what graduate students are for :)

Being a good researcher does not imply being a good professor.

As for science it is more about hard work, and long unpaid overwork than being smart.

My previous lab has more than half the staff from asia e.g. https://www.epfl.ch/labs/lpi/people/

Academia is a tough pyramid and at the end of the day the only thing that matters for a faculty position is politics and money not even your publications or ability to teach. Those are valued at much less prestigious places (that still produce amazing people)

Why then have harvard and cambridge graduated such a incredibly large fraction of the worlds most productive and famous scientists and mathematicians? Can you please name the italian universities that have produce at the level of cambridge?

I think their point is that the best and brightest have a normal distribution across the world. Irrespective of how bright you are it is an incredibly unlikely event that _all_ these people will be able to have access or funds to start their university at 'elite' universities. Information and monetary assymetry is a thing.

To your point at least in the UK there is a sea of Italian academics from Bologna/Milan/Padua/Torino pursuing further studies or research positions in Oxbridge and other 'Golden Triangle' universities.

Having experienced average universities in my undergrad studies and 'elite' universities as a postgrad I have to seriously agree with GP:

> most great professors in important universities excel at funding, not teaching

The differentiating factor is that elite universities have a halo effect that makes it far more likely to secure funding. This allows for more ambitious projects and equally enables them to attract top talent.

> Why then have harvard and cambridge graduated such a incredibly large fraction of the worlds most productive and famous scientists and mathematicians?

They didn't graduated most of them, they employed them, (e.g. the most recent Nobel recipient Penrose).

Out of 121 Nobel recipients from Cambridge most came from universities you never heard of.

Also: funding.

Academia works like that: the more you publish the more money you get => the more you can research and publish => the more money you get and so on.

Thus hubs that historically did well, will keep attracting more funds and outscore other universities.