Saturday, June 19, 2010

Why Adam Wheeler wanted in at Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc.

A post by Eve Tahmincioglu titled Ivy League degree no surefire path to success includes the text

What’s the allure? Statistics show you’ll make more money. “The typical Ivy League bachelor’s graduate earns about 27 percent more early in their career, and about 47 percent more by the time he or she is about 40, than the typical bachelor’s graduate from all U.S. schools,” according to compensation website PayScale.com.

which suggests that an Ivy League degree DOES offer better chances of success.

Nevertheless the TITLE of Eve's piece reminded one of Ben Stein's recent commentary on "CBS Sunday Morning." On 16 May 2010, Ben Stein, who is a graduate of Columbia and Yale, gave an opinion piece about how not getting into the college of one's choice won't really affect your later life. [See Ben Stein's wrong on "not getting into college of your choice" ]

IPBiz wondered "where" Eve went to school. This proved a bit tricky. Here's what you learn about Eve at MSNBC:

Eve Tahmincioglu writes the weekly "Your Career" column for msnbc.com, aiming to tell daily grinders how to make work life work for them by sleuthing out career-ladder secrets rung by rung.

Tahmincioglu has written about workplace issues for nearly 20 years for a host of daily newspapers from New York to Florida, covering everything from auto plant strikes to office dress codes to the explosion of overtime.

Her book, “From the Sandbox to the Corner Office,” offers insights from more than 50 CEOs on how life’s screwups and stern parents are really lessons in disguise.

She’s a regular contributor to the New York Times and BusinessWeek’s SmallBiz magazine, and her blog, CareerDiva.net, offers another place to hash over matters of life and its toils. Despite her dwindling free time, she is forever hopeful work/life balance is more than a cliché.


At a blog:

Eve Tahmincioglu is a journalist with more than 20 years experience covering labor, career, and workplace issues, in addition to a broad spectrum of business news for the New York Times, BusinessWeek, Time, Salon, Kiplinger's and a host of other pubications. She's an award-winning columnist who writes a weekly column called "Your Career" for MSNBC.com and author of "From the Sandbox to the Corner Office."

Oh, well, returning to the Wheeler piece, one finds Eve wrote:

Getting that status, however, is harder than ever. According to the Harvard Crimson, the school accepted a record-low 6.9 percent of applicants this year even though the number of applications actually went up 5 percent — topping 30,000 for the first time in the school’s history.

Could that have been written: the school accepted a record-low 6.9 percent of applicants this year BECAUSE the number of applications went up 5 percent ? If there are roughly a fixed number of places and the number of applicants goes up, then the acceptance rate goes down.

IPBiz found the remarkable part of the Wheeler story NOT that Wheeler wanted to get into Harvard, Yale, Stanford, which objective might seem obvious, even in the non-patent law sense. The more interesting part is that he got in to Harvard (and Stanford) with completely bogus transcripts, including an MIT transcript that used a non-MIT grading system.

Other stories by Eve:

That 'noncompete' can really tie you down
Employees should think twice before signing; employers going to court
, which included:

In addition, noncompete agreements have become more common as the economy has shifted more toward service sector jobs and away from manufacturing.

“More jobs are in the service world, where information is the premium,” says Steve Fox, employment attorney at Fish & Richardson in Dallas “The value of what employees have in their heads is greater. There’s more of a need for noncompetes because it’s so much easier to leave and take what you’ve learned from the old employer and apply it with the new employer.”


There is mention of the Mark Papermaster matter and the text:

Daniel Levine, an employment attorney with Shapiro, Blasi, Wasserman & Gora in Boca Raton, Fla., says a company doesn’t have to necessarily show that an employee is hurting a firm by going to work for a competitor.

“There’s a presumption of irreparable harm,” he says. But that doesn’t mean an employee can’t present evidence showing he or she is not causing any damages to their former employer. Then it’s up to the judge to decide.

In Florida, where Levine practices, the courts are more favorable to employers in the matter.


Working for Free: The Boom in Adult Interns including

"You know the old Depression-era signs, 'I'll work for food?,' " asks Philadelphia workplace attorney Robin Bond. "Well, now they say, 'I'll work for free.'" Bond says she has heard from a growing number of unemployed professionals looking to volunteer for corporations because they don't want gaps in their résumé.

Companies are often eager for the extra set of hands. Michael Schmidt, an employment attorney in New York City, has seen an uptick in recent months in private employers calling him to find out if they can bring in unpaid interns as a way to cut costs. His answer: volunteering at for-profit companies is, legally, a no-no. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has spelled out several criteria with the goal of ensuring that internships not only provide real training but also can't be used by companies to displace regular employees.


***In passing, in a post about what hiring managers seek, there is a line

We pay attention to small stuff. IPBiz notes as to college admissions officers, certainly not in the case of Adam Wheeler.
As to We may check references beyond your list., the college admissions people obviously didn't check ANY references on Adam's list!

Elsewhere, We want you to ask questions.. LBE recalls an event with a certain central New Jersey law firm wherein the candidate had asked a question, and, later, on the same day, got a response to the question from one HR person, and a ding letter from another one, saying too much time had elapsed in considering the offer.

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