What an actual meritocracy might look like
By 
Just a little followup to Scott’s inspiring tale of Prof. Tiger Mom pimping out her cub for a $400,000 SCOTUS clerk signing bonus and the associated Prestige:
Elizabeth Warren was born Elizabeth Ann Herring in Oklahoma City on June 22, 1949,[6][7][8][9] the fourth child of middle-class parents Pauline (née Reed, 1912–1995) and Donald Jones Herring (1911–1997). Warren has described her family as teetering “on the ragged edge of the middle class” and “kind of hanging on at the edges by our fingernails”.[10][11] She had three older brothers and was raised Methodist.[12][13]
Warren’s “A minimum-wage job saved my family” (3:28)
Warren lived in Norman until she was 11 years old, when her family moved to Oklahoma City.[11] When she was 12, her father, a salesman at Montgomery Ward,[11] had a heart attack, which led to many medical bills as well as a pay cut because he could not do his previous work.[8] He later worked as a custodian for an apartment building.[14] Eventually, the family’s car was repossessed because they failed to make loan payments. To help the family finances, her mother found work in the catalog order department at Sears.[8] When she was 13, Warren started waiting tables at her aunt’s restaurant.[15][16]
Warren became a star member of the debate team at Northwest Classen High School and won the state high school debating championship. She also won a debate scholarship to George Washington University (GWU) at the age of 16.[8] She initially aspired to be a teacher, but left GWU after two years in 1968 to marry Jim Warren, whom she met in high school.[15][8][17]
Warren and her husband moved to Houston, where he was employed by IBM.[8][18] She enrolled in the University of Houstonand graduated in 1970 with a Bachelor of Science degree in speech pathology and audiology.[14][19]
The Warrens moved to New Jersey when Jim received a job transfer. She soon became pregnant and decided to remain at home to care for their daughter.[20] After the child turned two, Warren enrolled in Rutgers Law School at Rutgers University–Newark.[20] Shortly before graduating in 1976, Warren became pregnant with their second child. She received her J.D. and passed the bar examination.[17][20]For a year, Warren taught children with disabilities who were enrolled in a public school. Her qualifications were based on an “emergency certificate” because she had not taken the education courses required for a regular teaching certificate.[41][42][43]
. . . Warren began her academic career as a lecturer at Rutgers University, Newark School of Law (1977–78).
. . .
Warren joined the University of Pennsylvania Law School as a full professor in 1987 and obtained an endowed chair in 1990, becoming the William A. Schnader Professor of Commercial Law. In 1992 she taught for a year at Harvard Law School as Robert Braucher Visiting Professor of Commercial Law. In 1995 Warren left Penn to become Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard Law School.[44] As of 2011 she was Harvard’s only tenured law professor who had attended law school at an American public university.[47]
If it keeps on raining . . .