> I come from France, I had a better education than you can get probably anywhere in the world (I went to les Mines de Paris, roughly equivalent to the top 10% of MIT)
What is it about French Universities that makes them so exceptional? I ask because I've heard this "I come from a French University, and it is reaaaally good" refrain from a lot of French people – but I haven't seen that many exceptional performance amongst them. [I should say though, I have met some really great and hard-working French university graduates, so the overall level is definitely quite good.]
I suspect that, much like the U.S., the French simply have grown accustomed to seeing themselves as having the best education in the world. So when I read comments like this, I just tell myself that this must be what it's like all the time for people in other countries hearing Americans bragging about the U.S.
As for the evidence that one system is better than the other, I think I'll stay out of that one, other than to say that I don't know how you would reliably measure this objectively except by looking at a ranking that attempts capture programs' reputations among employers in the field. Even this will, of course, exhibit some form of national bias, though interestingly the most well-known ranking, U.S. News and World Report ranks many Chinese universities very highly, which might suggest that their national bias isn't too extreme. And then there is the problem of controlling for differences in population, etc.
> I suspect that, much like the U.S., the French simply have grown accustomed to seeing themselves as having the best education in the world. So when I read comments like this, I just tell myself that this must be what it's like all the time for people in other countries hearing Americans bragging about the U.S.
In my experience (not American, though I work in the US), that isn't usually the case in the tech field. I've almost never heard Americans bragging about how good or exclusive their school is.
Now there is a lot of mystique about being from the Ivy League in the US, but it is usually confined to status and social connections within the US ("ooooh, he went to Harvard and the Yale for grad school, must have connections") rather than being compared worldwide. Maybe this is what you mean by "bragging about the US"?
He's not even talking about an university and rather about a selective public college that only selects few people. Its selection is elitist and surprise, people who come out of it are good + have a good network. I'd say there's a strong selecition bias there.
What is it about French Universities that makes them so exceptional? I ask because I've heard this "I come from a French University, and it is reaaaally good" refrain from a lot of French people – but I haven't seen that many exceptional performance amongst them. [I should say though, I have met some really great and hard-working French university graduates, so the overall level is definitely quite good.]