Why are "elite schools" still a thing?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We like to say it’s a lottery, but it’s not completely, and the difference matters. Kids who go to elite schools are pretty smart and ambitious, which typically yields great results. Of course, someone with the same qualities can go to community college and also succeed, but they do so against the odds. It’s a lot easier to succeed when everyone around you is pushing you to be your best self, when the best employers want you to work for them, and the best graduate programs are happy to have you. Sure, anyone can own 10 pizza joints, but many don’t want that type of success. It is what it is.

Owning 10 pizza joints is a lot harder than going to an elite school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We like to say it’s a lottery, but it’s not completely, and the difference matters. Kids who go to elite schools are pretty smart and ambitious, which typically yields great results. Of course, someone with the same qualities can go to community college and also succeed, but they do so against the odds. It’s a lot easier to succeed when everyone around you is pushing you to be your best self, when the best employers want you to work for them, and the best graduate programs are happy to have you. Sure, anyone can own 10 pizza joints, but many don’t want that type of success. It is what it is.

There is a vast middle ground between an "elite" school and community college. The OP is correct. Students can get an equally comprehensive education by attending a good state school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they are on their way out: cost, high profile stupid alumni like Trump, DeSantis and Vance, idiotic protesters and bad leadership in the news...People are waking up to it all.

I completely agree with you, except for your need to drag politics into it. Plenty of stupid people of ALL political stripes attend/attended elite schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We like to say it’s a lottery, but it’s not completely, and the difference matters. Kids who go to elite schools are pretty smart and ambitious, which typically yields great results. Of course, someone with the same qualities can go to community college and also succeed, but they do so against the odds. It’s a lot easier to succeed when everyone around you is pushing you to be your best self, when the best employers want you to work for them, and the best graduate programs are happy to have you. Sure, anyone can own 10 pizza joints, but many don’t want that type of success. It is what it is.

Owning 10 pizza joints is a lot harder than going to an elite school.

Also - where did the PP even come up with that bizarre example? Pizza joints?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard and Yale are less and less of a thing, if you’ve been paying attention.

Harvard will always be a thing.

[Anonymous]

As we know, it can make a difference, particularly for the not-already-elite: https://opportunityinsights.org/paper/collegeadmissions/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We like to say it’s a lottery, but it’s not completely, and the difference matters. Kids who go to elite schools are pretty smart and ambitious, which typically yields great results. Of course, someone with the same qualities can go to community college and also succeed, but they do so against the odds. It’s a lot easier to succeed when everyone around you is pushing you to be your best self, when the best employers want you to work for them, and the best graduate programs are happy to have you. Sure, anyone can own 10 pizza joints, but many don’t want that type of success. It is what it is.

There is a vast middle ground between an "elite" school and community college. The OP is correct. Students can get an equally comprehensive education by attending a good state school.

A lot of states don’t have very good state school systems. The very very top students in those states need somewhere to go and places like Harvard can afford to admit them needs blind. They can weed out the typical tutored kid in a suburb with excellent schools and bring in the brilliant kid who didn’t have the advantages but still managed to do amazing things in high school. That’s why we will always need places like Harvard and Columbia. Let the average to bright kids go to state schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they are on their way out: cost, high profile stupid alumni like Trump, DeSantis and Vance, idiotic protesters and bad leadership in the news...People are waking up to it all.

You forgot the war criminal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We like to say it’s a lottery, but it’s not completely, and the difference matters. Kids who go to elite schools are pretty smart and ambitious, which typically yields great results. Of course, someone with the same qualities can go to community college and also succeed, but they do so against the odds. It’s a lot easier to succeed when everyone around you is pushing you to be your best self, when the best employers want you to work for them, and the best graduate programs are happy to have you. Sure, anyone can own 10 pizza joints, but many don’t want that type of success. It is what it is.

Owning 10 pizza joints is a lot harder than going to an elite school.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they are on their way out: cost, high profile stupid alumni like Trump, DeSantis and Vance, idiotic protesters and bad leadership in the news...People are waking up to it all.

Vance went to college at Ohio State. Maybe if you’d gone to an elite school you would know how to use Google.

[Anonymous]

by far the best FA for us

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems to be pretty common knowledge that for the vast majority of applicants, getting accepted to a school like Harvard or Yale is pretty much a lottery. So why are these insanely selective schools still considered better than all of the others? Why haven't we let the idea of "prestigious" colleges go? Many students get equal or better educations at their state school.

Because they don't get an equal or better education at a state school. As one who started at one then transferred to another...the difference is vast. The middle-50s state school with good engineering was not anywhere close to the pace and depth of classes, and without professor guided research opportunities at the elite private school with amazing engineering. The peers from the better school have gone far and wide, with startups or into academia or high up in industry. The midlevel state peers have midlevel tech-type jobs that are closer to IT jobs than innovative engineering. They make 70-100k in their 40s and hit their ceiling long ago. Their bosses are almost all top engineering program grads. Professors, who are great at both, will be the first to admit they have to dumb down for the state schools, and do not have the resources to take on and pay undergraduates for research. Fast forward 25 yrs and sophomore history kid and peers at a top10 uni had to explain primary sources and tips on keeping up with reading to a junior transfer from a LAC ranked in the 20s. The lac kid was completely unprepared for the transfer. Yet had a 4.0 from the prior school. They said the workload was almost double, in the humanities no less, which dcum often mocks and does not understand is also much more rigorous at elite schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We like to say it’s a lottery, but it’s not completely, and the difference matters. Kids who go to elite schools are pretty smart and ambitious, which typically yields great results. Of course, someone with the same qualities can go to community college and also succeed, but they do so against the odds. It’s a lot easier to succeed when everyone around you is pushing you to be your best self, when the best employers want you to work for them, and the best graduate programs are happy to have you. Sure, anyone can own 10 pizza joints, but many don’t want that type of success. It is what it is.

This is the key. This is why we paid for elite and we will for our third. The top 15/ivy-plus or Williams/Amherst/Swarthmore open the doors everywhere and the kids push each other to be their best. The $$ resources and faculty willing to make connections for undergraduates are incomparable. These are the schools well worth paying for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Has nothing to do with the education. Has to do with the connections with the right people and institutions.

zero way you have taken classes at both or have taught classes at both. The education at elites is not the same as the education at most publics. A handful of very top publics overlap private elites in rigor but the rest do not.

[Anonymous]

Are elite employers still a thing? elite zip code? elite hotel, elite class, elite football players ... Almost everything has an order.