Comment by jcbeard

It's also about familial/class privilege. Once you get in with a good mentor (for academics that means advisor)...it sets you up for life. Getting into a good lab (train under uber mentor X or Y), no matter if your work is crap or not (definitely not implying elite lab work is poo, simply emphasizing to make a point) will gain you citations and socialization that a lesser one would not. Want to find good work from university of Smallville USA (or equiv int'l uni)...it exists, you just wouldn't know it from the hype. It's nobodies fault really (except our own), just the way the system is setup. To break out takes extreme amounts of work, and likely can't happen. So you end up with entrenched "genealogies" like the one for mathematics. I'd suspect you could find the same in computer science (despite it being a rather young field) and computer engineering. Things like double blind conference submissions help, but even there there is trendiness to consider as a limiting factor. Going further, breaking out of this rut requires us to disseminate how to get ahead more than anything else. Who should people talk to? Where should they apply? What programs are available? What are the best conferences/journals to submit to? These are all things people in these elite circles have (even if they don't have the $$ background) which provide them a leg up over everyone else. How we even the playing field, no idea...it's a monumental task. I for one start by not caring where somebody went to school, what they look like, what their gender is, nor how they pronounce things. Can we all do that? I certainly hope so.