Any Ivy League Graduates? - Page 4

i like richard vedder

I would agree that it all depends on what you are planning on studying. If you are interested in banking, international relations or government it is by far much easier to get your first job. One can not argue that the types of people you may meet or listen to at an Ivy also make them a great choice. I would also argue that if money is a factor an Ivy could be a good choice as well, but if you will be paying full or almost full price it's not worth it. Schools like UVA, William & Mary, Cal, Illinois (for engineering), Maryland, Michigan are all good choices. Smaller schools like Oberlin, Denison, Amherst, Emory, Washington & Lee or Claremont are also good looks. I certainly wouldn't confine myself to the world of Ivy.

It's great that you like your school, but your post is typical of people at schools like OSU, who silently wish they were at a prestigious school. If you don't need to go to to an Ivy, and say that your education is just as good as your friends' who do attend those schools, then why is it worth mentioning that most of your profs are from Ivys? Clearly that is a quality that resonates with you. Perhaps you should look into transferring?

This is so far removed from reality, it's not even worth commenting on (except to mention how ridiculous it is, of course).

Glad to be of service! But, I think it's true, though. I'm always impressed by the sheer diversity of achievement on this forum and how it fits into literally every category that keeps one from EVER getting "too full of himself." Quoth Star Wars: "There's alway's a bigger fish." Or, in SF terms, "Your walrus dick is never as big or as decorative as anothers." I've been on MANY forums over the years and to get this kind of excellent diversity is REALLY rare. That's probably why those of us who've been here a while came for the clothes, but stayed for the community. Anyway, enough praise. I'm a snooty liberal elitist, so let's get back to talking about our pricey snooty schools! I'm not saying this in reference to Conne, but the "Harvard penis envy" extends even to other top schools. I knew friends/profs/etc at Duke and at Chicago (where I went for undergrad) who also had this sort of penis envy and kept comparing themselves positively or negatively to it and to the other top ivies (Princeton and Yale, especially). I NEVER understood this... Chicago is a great school and was the only one to which I applied. Be happy where you are, wherever it is. The grass ISN'T always greener on the other side...

I think that any opportunity you could get while in any random school, you could also get at an Ivy, if you choose correctly (Princeton isn't great for study abroad, but I'm sure some of the others are.)

It is unarguable that I had opportunities while at school that I would not have had anywhere else.

So if money's off the table as a concern, you can have experiences at the best schools that you can't have elsewhere. Note that this may or may not be the same thing as "learning more" or "being better set up for a career." It is what it is.

Tom

This is typical of any research university - even lousy ones.

Faculty positions at research institutions are coveted, so professors with top credentials tend to fill the ranks on down the line

its further removed from reality to pretend that if you go to harvard you are going to learn something in intermediate macroecon that you wouldntve learned if you took intermediate macro at OSU or UT or <insert state school here> people tend to underestimate the importance of branding, but think about it from an insurance/asymmetric information point of view: employers spend a lot of money to recruit and train employees, but the thing is you cant really tell how good an employee will be just from a resume and interview, but when you go to harvard you know that they have already been vetted by admissions, and probably needed to work pretty hard to get a degree on the other hand, if you go to a big state school, your just in a big blob and you may be super smart and a great employee, but the employer doesnt know... but if you were harvard material and went to a state school, presumably your gpa would let them know basically the education is going to be the same, but the branding will be different, imagine those chinese factories that make tons of brand name merchandise and probably quite a bit of non brand name merchandise... yet the brand name merchandise can command a higher price, despite coming from the same place

I don't think anybody is saying that the classes in and of themselves and in isolation will teach vastly different amounts of stuff. BUT, the difference comes in the "little details" outside of class, in the resources, communities of learning with other students, opportunities, networking possibilities, opportunities for research, internships/mentorships, etc. Further, while at XX State School, you might take economic theories based on the research of Mr. ABC. At the ivy, you just might have the class taught by Mr. ABC. It's NOT just "name," no matter how you want to slice it, either for undergrad or for grad. State Schools are fine, of course, but it still is ridiculous for you to keep pushing this point of "They're all the same" UNLESS you've attended all of them.

It's kind of lost on me how people don't understand that a lot of your learning happens with discussion/study/even competition with your peers. If the profs were the only thing that mattered, you could just go to a library and read their book like Will Hunting. Having an elite peergroup is irreplaceable. Yes you will get the same type of people at Chicago etc... but you won't get it at UT, it's just a fact. Also, elite universities spend a lot more money on special lecturers, so from that angle your opportunity is superior as well.

with football and basketball, somehow i doubt that kids at UT or OSU are missing out on significantly more than kids at harvard or yale... and having an elite peergroup sucks if you dont enjoy studying all weekend every week my point to the op is dont get sucked in to the high school mentality of "ivy or bust," just go to a state school, have lots of fun, and enjoy college, instead of going to an "elite" school my biggest regret is not going to UT

Just three observations about American universities with selective admissions for their undergraduate programs, for what it is worth:

1. You will have access to some of the best minds in the world, if you are curious and seek them out seriously. The variety of such interactions are wider than elsewhere.

2. You will be surrounded by able students. Whether this is good for you or bad for you depends.

3. The top private institutions are substantially cheaper to attend then private institutions not at the top. At Harvard, students from families earning less than $60K (about a fifth of the undergraduates) have tuition, fees, housing and all other costs waived, and students from families who maked up to $180K year are only subject to 10% of such costs. This is before there is application of the more customary sources of aid, such as scholarships and loans. Since the algorithm is different, I do not know how this compares to public institutions. I think that is is probably far cheaper for the typical undergraduate to go to Harvard than to their state institution since many of the latter have been raising their prices dramatically.

It is might be comforting to think that few important differences exist among institutions. The most fortunate institutions, exemplified most extremely by Harvard, have been successfully widening their resource advantages compared to other places in the last twenty years.

It parallels the widening gaps in income and assets among individual Americans.


- B

Excellent point, B. I never went to Harvard, but the two with which I have experience (chicago and columbia) both were good with aid... Chicago much more so than Columbia. I come from a pretty regular middle class family and after financial aid and Scholarships, it was very affordable for me. Chicago in particular has a very good record for encouraging good students from MANY diverse ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds. I was also an RA and in our dorm were some VERY wealthy people, some middle income people, but also some economically disadvantaged kids who were also incredibly brilliant and got there by their efforts and were rewarded for it. That community/student life in the dorm at UC is actually my best memory of all. Spending time with that group of fellow students (most of whom I am still in close contact with) was really wonderful and it's been great to see where they ended up. OF course, classes and such were fine, but really it was this excellent "outside class" resources/life that made it worth it to me. I just didn't get that when I did some graduate work at a State School, though the classes themselves and the research I was doing were very rewarding.

I agree completely. But if you're going to be an elitist or education snob, don't go to UT. That's all I'm saying.

Interesting thread.

From my limited perspective and experience, the opportunities at a Berkley/Meechigan/UNC/UVA/Texas are there if you want to push yourself and seek them out. Perhaps that's why these were on the list of Public Ivies back in the '80s. However, its easy enough in these huge schools to slide by and not take advantage (or be exposed) to any of the enriching factors of elite education.

However, most of these schools require that XX% of the student body come from that state, which tends to limit the experience a bit. You ask someone where they are from and sometimes they will just give you a neighborhood in one of the state's major cities. At a private school with a large recruiting reach (and there are lots of them) you will meet a lot more people with a much wider background. The person sitting next to you might have grown up in that same town, or may be more cosmopolitan than Barack Obama.