₦airaland Forum

By the way, I would be making a thread on this in the racism section, so that we can free up space to allow people here focus on asking about GRE and Graduate school stuff.

https://www.nairaland.com/nigeria/topic-401373.0.html#msg5550198

biina:
No mind me jare. My abuse of Ivy seem to have stemmed from continuous discourse with Nigerians who assume stanford and MIT are ivy league schools. Also I always have issue with saying 'top schools' without specifying a number e.g top 5 schools.

The true ivy league schools are Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Darthmouth, Harvard, Princeton, Upenn and  Yale. I really dont like any of them (have a baseless feeling that they try to entrench a caste system  ).
I too doubt that Asians are as popular in these schools when compared with the caltechs and Berkeley.

yeah its not just you though. In the UK people always think Stanford is an Ivy. The problem with using the word top school is that rankings rarely come into play as much as perception. Trust me an engineering degree from Dartmouth would have a leg up in the most prestigious jobs than an engineering Georgia tech. So top school in my own opinion is relative. I do consider certain schools excellent and its a long list. However, I distinguish schools based on how hard it is to get into and the quality of their undergraduate students- graduate programs are difficult since quality varies depending on the program.

Asians are actually popular in Ivies just not as much as Berkeley (Supossedly 40%+ Asian, despite attempts by white people to reduce asian numbers). Nigerians are equally represented as asians in ivies/mit/stanford relative to their population in the US.

H2O2:
Stanford by definition is not an ivy due in large part to region since the Ivy League was established as an athletic program anyway, but Stanford is just as prestigious and reputable as the ivy leagues as far as academics are concerned.

Depending on the field of study, I would be under the impression that aside from the Harvard, Yale, Princeton . . . Stanford's more difficult to get into than the UPenn's or Dartmouths'

Stanford blows the IVIES out of the water in science and technology. Infact it blows nearly every school in my own opinion except Berkeley. Infact if I had know this I would have worked hard while I was in secondary school in Nigeria so that i could reach it. IMO these are the three best Universities in the world for graduate studies in science and technology- Berkeley, MIT and Stanford. Infact, in the next 20 years, I predict major research institutions like UWisconsin-Madison, JHU, UIUC, UChicago, Cornell (supposedly the lowest Ivy after Brown) and the previously named schools would have the established position as the top graduate science and engineering schools.

i dont really care about the social sciences, pele

I wish I had known these and not attend a substandard University in the US . However Asians right from secondary school are preparing for the SAT and GRE, most of us poor people from public secondary schools dont even know where America was on the map.

bawomolo:
oh Oyibo is the GAGUT guy.  The creator of the almighty unification power 
nigerian 419 on the intellectual scale.

The unified field theory formula. I remember when I was young and my dad forced me to read the Gagut guy's story in punch newspaper. My dad them summarily lambasted my minute academic achievements and said I should work hard to be like Prof. Gabriel Oyibo- tufiakwa 

He further claimed to be nominated for the Nobel prize despite the fact that nominated people are never known

bawomolo:
who no like better thing, noble prize ko peasant price ni

Yeha him and Oyibo. Its so sad the two biggest African fraud scientists are Nigerians. Represent

Oyibo even made is own worse claiming to find the formula for God or some crap like that, hehe Nigeria- I love you

bawomolo:
umm emeagwali achievements are exaggerated and no he isn't an unsung hero of the internet.  The software he won an award for  had to do with geology and computing (not the internet).  It's laughable to call him Africa's Bill Gates considering he didn't successfully defend his dissertation nor has he introduced a lasting product to the market.

there is nothing like "noble prize" for supercomputing.   this is all propaganda.

Please tell them Oh. The guy is a big fraud

The topic was on their population and not their performance. If you want evidence you can go and ask at an Ivy league institution. For example, pick a professor that is endowed by an asian company and then look at the composition of the research group. Check with financial officers and look for distribution of external financial aid. External funding for Nigerians are usually limited to Petroleum and Geo-sciences.

Biina is 100% on point with this, and when I say 100% on point you cannot find a single counterexample. I would assume biina is speaking from an engineering perspective but its an all round phenomena. There are special financial aid programs specifically for Asians. While its hard for a Nigerian to get funding or bursaries to school in the UK there are a lot of bursaries established for international Asian students.

At the graduate level, lots of grants are also available for asian students. They even get an edge in the market- two of the top largest sponsors of the H1-B visa to work in the US is Tata Consultancy and Satyam, both indian companies. So approximately 5000 indians are ensured work visas in the US, and you think the field is fair. iWho do they hire- fellow Indians .

http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-cio/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=199601616&pgno=2&queryText=&isPrev=

^ LOL, then you should just use the word Top engineering school. Ivy league is important because its distinctive- it gives you a group of schools which train elite of America. Moreover the Ivy Leagues are notorious for being terrible in engineering- because to be sincere they were never really interested in developing their programs. However, with Ivies pouring a lot of money into their engineering programs, scared that they will lose their world rankings which are based on research, I can bet the top 25 schools in engineering would look different in 20 years.

I rarely see the elites of society come from Berkeley, Uiuc or caltech. Moroever the ivy league is an undergraduate phenomena IMO.

At the Undergraduate level, asians are way more represented in Berkeley, UIUC or Caltech than Ivies who try and balance their student body. I heard there are lots of nigerians at berkeley though- met these white berkeley kids at a party and they were singing a Dbanj song- Booty call, that there Nigerian friends taught them. However at the graduate level in science and engineering black people are nonexistent and the large majority are Nigerians- case in point we rock 4play. As for Caltech there is a total of 10 black people in their undergraduate program hehe when I was applying to college. It might have increased. I heard of this nigerian boy who got in, I wonder how the guy is doing though.

As for me all this one na story. I am going back home to nigeria, broad even if it is Ghana 

That's a silly comparison. IQ tests show no difference between the genders and the difference in GCSE performance, which I assume applies in US as well, is a function of girls maturing faster than boys. However, for the purpose of this thread, the results show an undeniable trend - Chinese and Indian kids outperforming whites and other races.

Do you have any enlightening insight to explain this clear case of over-achievement? I'm all ears.

Not really, I use classical logic to prove points which is quite hard to understand if you have never taken philosophy. But basically I was pointing out to the fact you presenting and interpreting GCSE statistics as evidence for Asian achievement is incorrect. Funny that you presented the data while unwilling to accept an interpretation.

http://web.archive.org/web/20080130023006/http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nber.html

Lawrence summers was fired for claiming gender differences in the severe lack of women professors in Engineering and Science. A recent study by the Wall Street Journal showed significant variance between the quantitative abilities of men and women. There is still significant debate on whether this is as a result of socialization and a gender-biased patriarchal system.

I would point out to socioeconomic factors as well as self-perception as a result of low black achievement. The major reasons why African immigrants do well is that they have been socialized to do well. Moreover our educational system has significantly giving us an edge that we never notice which is way better than the poor public schools the majority of black kids go to in the US. Magnet high schools and schools in wealthy suburbs in the US are predominantly White and these schools have the best teachers and best guidance counselors. Asians when they move to the US, send their kids to this school and this gives them the same edge.

There are so many factors sigh.

So how do you explain the over representation of second generation Nigerians and other Africans in science and engineering compared to other black people (native blacks in the US or UK).

That's besides the point. The average Nigerian migrant is not representative of the average Nigerian back home. That there are bright people who lacked the opportunity to make much of their talents does not alter this relevant point.

LOL, I dont understand you man. You said is the average Nigerian a graduate and I pointed out that being a graduate in Nigeria and IQ levels are mutually exclusive. The average Nigerian migrant is not smarter than the average Nigerian at home. Just more driven to look for a better place to work at. Is there any evidence to show that an average African immigrant is more intellectually capable than his counterparts in Nigeria? Remember Nigeria is not like China and India where education is a priority in the Government. Like if a significant part of the Nigerian populace or the African populace is denied access to education, how do you expect to get good statistics on IQ levels and such. How can the son of a vulcanizer in west Africa do well in an IQ test compared to an Indian born in the slums of Mumbai but who has the opportunity to be exposed to the growing software industry around him and so is able to experience an environment that despite his poor surroundings give him the arsenal to succeed in IQ tests.

In the UK, blacks and Asians have universal education. However, these Asians still outperform their black counterparts. This is far cry from Nigeria where disproportionate numbers of Northern Nigerians do not attend schools in the first place, rendering pointless any comparison by region of JAMB stats.

My analogy was based on your basic reading of the stats without any analysis. The UK might have Universal education but is the quality the same throughout? Not from what I have heard. I am sure schools with significant black population will be significantly less funded than those in white majority areas.

The average African immigrant does not represent his home community. Is the average Nigerian a graduate?

This has nothing to do with IQ but opportunity. Living in Lagos, I have come across thousands of people who have dropped out of school for financial reasons. They would love to go to school and if given the opportunity would excel extremely well. You could say the same for India too though but less so for China.

From the GCSE stats, Girls consistently outperform men- so are women smarter than men? 

Or did you conveniently  forget to consider a socioeconomic analysis of these statistics?

Also from previous Jamb statistics and performances at the secondary and university level in Nigeria you are confidently say that the people in Southern Nigeria are smarter than a large majority of people in the North due to genetic or inherent intellectual differences  . As absurd as that sounds, I am sure you would find sympathizers in the politics section of NL.

4 Play:
Indians are smart up to a point. Migrant Indians, as opposed to Indians in general, are notably generally smarter. That could be a function of the fact that these represent the cream of a population of 1bn plus.

However, if you take Africans in general, the migrant Indians are more successful than the migrant African so there is some truth to your point. In reality, as much as it's politically incorrect to say, intellectual ability differs amongst races.

I beg to differ. American embassy don't take IQ tests before they let you into their country. People have given a similar reason for why African Immigrants supposedly had a lot of PhDs.

I don't believe intellectual ability differs amongst race. Just exposure to opportunities. For example, my one of my friends struggled while in high school in Nigeria, especially in science subjects but in his University in the US he is a phenomenal student. His University just recently started admitting black students just after desegregation 40 years ago. However, despite the fact that he was an average student in Nigeria, he is one of the best mathematics students in his school (Which by the way is a very good school). My example is not for self-aggrandizement, but to point out that being aware of opportunities and taking them defines the successful student.

However, most Africans are not aware of opportunities available to them.

biina:
I disagree. There is no racial bias in intellectual abilities. What you could say is that those from less well off background tend to be more aggressive and while those that are from more comfortable origins often get complacent. Same percentile of students from different countries, often have similar intellectual abilities. Those from better academic foundation might fare better initially, but thing usually even out after the first year.
Unfortunately, there is an avalanche effect in academia, as programs tend to use existing students as a strong measure of the performance of future admits. Thus you have a situation of the 'rich getting richer' and certain populations grow at the detriment of others, not because they are inherently better, but more because they are the incumbent majority.

When I mean smart not intrinsically or genetically smart- that would be a bold statement- but smart in knowing what to do and making use of every little opportunity available to them. I really dont believe in intellectual ability and see it as a kind of myth- like I dont think I am better than anyone because I had better grades than them, just that I am a bit more ambitious and driven. People would disagree with me on this point, but I still hold that success is 10% innate ability and 90% drive.This is where I agree with your statement:

What you could say is that those from less well off background tend to be more aggressive and while those that are from more comfortable origins often get complacent.

I have noticed it a lot both back in Nigeria and moreso in the US. Just like what i just told bebure about less Americans (especially top students)  going into graduate school and research and opting for more lucrative career options. Like I noticed that a large number of Asians who have parents who did a PhD (probably so that they could stay in the US, and escape third world conditions) and none of these second generation Asians would consider the stress of working for a PhD instead going to the far more lucrative option of going to law school (Where at the top you are guaranteed a salary of $120,000 after 3 years of school or just moving into investment banking).

I was once talking to my research mentor/professor and he told me that his children make twice as much as he does- they are Investment bankers. His own incentive for getting a PhD and going the professorial route was a better life in the US compared to his home country in China.

I guess you're right about the merit stuff, there was this Indian guy at Georgia Tech who came 4th out of 900 students or something like that at IIT and who had a 4.0 GPA for undegrad and was maintaining a 3.9 as a PhD student at Georgia Tech. And he is not an isolated case.
What do you mean by grad school is considered bottom of the pile?

Indians are smart thats the basic truth. Instead of us acknowledging it and working to be as brilliant as this people we will keep denying it claiming its their large population. I am sure when the guy is done he will get job offers from Boston Consulting Group while the Nigerian is obsessed with getting a job at an oil company. One way mind .

I guess you're right about the merit stuff, there was this Indian guy at Georgia Tech who came 4th out of 900 students or something like that at IIT and who had a 4.0 GPA for undegrad and was maintaining a 3.9 as a PhD student at Georgia Tech. And he is not an isolated case.
What do you mean by grad school is considered bottom of the pile?

That would be very hard to explain but its quite an interesting phenomena. Well for one you would notice that the large majority of people in PhD programs are Asians and less and less Americans do engineering and science PhD (So its really easier for them to get into a program). Usually the most sought out opportunities for people at top schools in the US are Investment banking, Consulting, Getting into medical/law school. Graduate schools is usually for the very academically minded types and PhD even moreso. Also most graduate schools are not considered as competitive as these programs (Bar top graduate schools) and removed IB. Like my roommate got into every PhD program he applied for- he is heading to Uchicago and turned down Harvard because he could - and he had a GPA of 3.54 (All he did everyday was watch American Football while I was working my ass of as a science student). The department he applied for has a 7.5% acceptance rate and despite his average GPA he was still a top applicant. However, my other roommate who is ten times smarter (GPA of 3.86) is going to an unranked medical school (Mostly for financial reasons though).

TIA this is africa

^ Hehe Onlytruth don craze finish. He has gone the way of becomrich, dede1, mekusxx and jona all the craze people from NL. I say na craze world, na craze world we dey

I didn't realise your first degree was in a science. In that case it'll probably be very tough but possible. I don't think you should completely give up on applying for a PhD. Try applying to 3 average to lower ranked schools for a PhD and 6 good to average schools for an MS (thesis).
All the schools I applied to for petroleum engineering have different policies regarding the students they accept based on their undergrad major. The one thing that's clear is that if you are applying for a program different to what you studied you better be very smart (stellar GPA and GRE).
One of the schools I applied to only takes students with an undergrad in PE,  while all the others take anyone with an undegrad degree in engineering (with the exception of systems, computer, software and electrical engineering) and one of them will take any engineer and anyone with a background in physical sciences such as physics and chemistry. For the engineers, the levelling courses required will take an additional semester but for the scientists it could take up to a year depending on whether or not you took core engineering subjects like thermodynamics, engineering mechanics etc. Now these are by no means ivy league schools (after reading profiles on collegeconfidential I've decided not to even bother) but they are at the top of their game for petroleum engineering so I'm assuming for chemical engineering it would be somewhat similar. Just do your research on potential schools you want to apply to and see what their policy dictates.

I know the policies and what you need to transit to an engineering grad program. In retrospect I significantly lack the prerequisites and such. Its really not that hard to get into a top engineering program- graduate school has always been considered the bottom of  the pile when it comes to lucrative career options for engineers but the science background screws it up a bit. The people on CC are actually very average academically, there are people with higher stats who just dont bother applying for graduate school and get jobs or go to professional school.

I totally see what your'e saying about the Asian professors but if American professors did the same thing in the 60's, 70's and 80's when most of these professors were applying for PhD;s then how would those Asian professors have ever gotten into grad school in America? I think admission should be based purely on merit and not who the professor thinks he'll have a lot in common with dammit.

It is based on merit. Most of these grad students from India for example are outstanding and they chew up the GRE and have significant research experience. Just that when its a 50-50 (If they have to pick between two students with similar academic qualities they might pull Lakshmi into the group over Olu or Chinedu  ).


By the way Bebure if you schooled in the UK- I think- why dont you try other schools like Imperial or UCl for engineering. I know UCL requires a 2-1 (Which i think is what you got?)

Americans schools are sometimes way too difficult compared to prestige levels. Its 100 times harder to get into a top 20 engineering school in the US which are all comparable to Imperial in Engineering quality (Except Harvard Engineering which is a s.h.itty engineering school no matter how much money they pump into it  )