A book came out recently (I’m at the beach, so I have to be vague but I can look up the title later) whose author has calculated that between 78-80% of students at Harvard are first-born children in their families.
Question: why does this happen?
Riddle: Who Goes to Harvard?
Clarissa's Blog 
Hm, because parents push their first born children harder? Once they have one successful child they’ve learned to relax and let the child do as he or she pleases.
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That was my guess, too, but I was wrong.
Let’s keep guessing! This riddle shows very well what kind of mind one has and what discipline one is more inclined towards.
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I have 2 theories.
1 – Because their parents have only 1 child. After all, richer, well educated people tend to have less children later in life. Then they want to give only the best for their child, including what they see as the best and most prestigious education.
2 – Your posts about not superior quality of education at such top universities gave another idea, which is probably the correct one:
After parents put lots of money into 1st child for Harvard, they both are poorer and see that economically (child’s wages) it wasn’t worth it, so they send next children to other places.
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Hm maybe the economical side was more true in the past, but today the most prestigious universities have the best financial aid – and when I say aid I mean grants, not loans. The prestigious school I go to was also the very cheapest option for me. It costs half as much as my state university would have.
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This is good news!
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//This riddle shows very well what kind of mind one has and what discipline one is more inclined towards.
What does my answer show in those regards?
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You have a mathematical brain coupled with a social conscience. So both sides of your brain work very well. I only have one side developed.
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Wow, you are good. 🙂 I can see a mathematical brain in action. 🙂 you are absolutely right: the researcher didn’t take into account that rich highly educated people have fewer children, so many of those students were simply single children.
Good job!
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The genetic endowment tends to be highest for the first born. It then often declines. The last born in very large families may well be an idiot.
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I adore Charles Rowley for his bluntness. 🙂 He reminds me of me. 🙂
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Is this true and if so, is it known why it happens? It would explain a lot … or does this have something to do with the kind of attention the firstborn gets?
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I’ve heard of it too. It has to do with finite abilities of woman’s body, if children come one after another, without giving her body to rest and gain powers back.
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That fact actually surprises me, because my own experience is quite the opposite. I’ve always been more comfortable in my own skin and less focused on image and prestige than my younger sister, who put a great deal of emphasis on doing well academically and showing off. I think that it was her way of getting out of my shadow, since I got more attention by default as the oldest child. So, when university applications came about, I wasn’t interested in going to a big-name school with a lot of prestige attached to it, I wanted to focus on my interests and live in a place where I knew I’d feel comfortable and welcomed. My sister, however, wanted to go someplace where she would cover herself in glory. She’s now a sophomore at University of Washington, which is a few steps below Ivy League, but still very, very famous and reputable.
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I also went to a much less expensive college than either of my younger siblings. There were a lot of reasons for this, including 1) my siblings were both more accomplished than I was, and thus more likely to be accepted by prestigious schools; 2) I needed more support, was less able to live independently, than they were at the same age, so we thought I should go somewhere close; and 3) I have always been very acutely cost-conscious. I have the longest memory of my family’s needing to be on a tight budget, so I chose to accept the full scholarship to my home state university rather than ask my family to spend tons of money to send me someplace else. I also, like Leah, do not care much for prestige and figured I could get what I needed just about anywhere.
Your riddle is funny; I would never have thought of el’s answer because the word “firstborn” made me assume we were talking only about families with more than one child. As is often the way with riddles; their difficulty turns on whether or not you make assumptions based on the way they are phrased. (The one about the father taking his son to the hospital, where the doctor says “I can’t operate on this boy because he’s my son”, is another example of this.)
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Maybe the older siblings told the younger ones something that dissuaded them from going to Harvard?
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Brilliant!!! 🙂 After my experience at Yale, nobody I know would ever go there.
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