Why does college prestige matter to you? Rank these reasons.

[Anonymous]

DC went to a very prestigious and highly academic high school. He didn’t care for it and it didn’t benefit him more than any other school would. But it made me feel good and accomplished as a parent. I kind of feel similar about college. Would obviously love the ivy bumper sticker. But that’s about it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC went to a very prestigious and highly academic high school. He didn’t care for it and it didn’t benefit him more than any other school would. But it made me feel good and accomplished as a parent. I kind of feel similar about college. Would obviously love the ivy bumper sticker. But that’s about it.

Ivies and similar schools provide much more tangible benefits than bumper stickers and bragging rights. The huge endowments lead to opportunities not available to lesser -ranked schools.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

What do you mean? I just gave a task to compare the courses yourself; you can't disagree with that. If you want to refute me, find a comparable course at a VA school outside UVA (or MD school outside MD, etc), ignoring other elite schools of course.

In the thread it was asserted that "even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities. This was asserted without evidence so it can also be dismissed without evidence. The burden is not on me.

The evidence is that in VA, a state with many strong universities, only UVA (the highest ranking school) has a comparable freshman math course.

Show us the courses that you say are and aren't comparable.

The comparable course sequence is 1315/3315 at UVA. Even 2315 uses Williamson and Trotter, which is easier than Cornell's text by Hubbard and Hubbard, but they still are comparable. Every other freshman math sequence at every other VA school is not comparable.

What makes the standards at VT, W&M, W&L etc. lower in your view?

I don't know about the standards for the comparable courses (although I doubt they're at the level of the Ivy+ basic calculus classes I linked above), but the reason I said their sequences are not conpara is because none of them have a proof-based multivariable calculus and linear algebra freshman math sequence like Cornell (and similarly ranked institutions) and UVA (and UGA and UMD as a matter of fact).

You may use this as a canary in the coal mine for rigor throughout the later years of the math program - if you have such a rigorous course for freshmen, you likely have further upper level courses to challenge that course's graduates as sophomores and juniors.

Strongly agree. The most rigorous courses and offerings are located at the top 15 or 20 universities, and it applies across disciplines, not just math, though quantitative courses can be easier to compare. In humanities if one can get access to syllabi, the number and breadth of primary source use along with the textbook(s), as well as writing requirements: literature-cited writing expected throughout the semester not just one end of term paper. There are fluff classes at top universities too, but it is all relative: even the occasional easy ones are typically on par with a "normal" difficulty class at a typical non-T50 state school.

The humanities point is really moot. Essay expectations are higher, but there are plenty of top schools with light reading requirements. DC goes to Harvard and barely has to pick up a book for some of the humanities course work. It's a lot of talking about feelings of short texts these days.

Put another way…every university has “gut” classes that kids will seek out to fulfill a requirement where you have little interest.

The internet has reviews for every class, so you know which classes have more work than others.

It’s no different than the humanities majors picking Physics for poets to satisfy their science requirement.

Eh, there is no "physics for poets." Physics is just hard...

No…literally at Princeton there was a class with that title…still there anyone?

It was not considered a challenging course.

occasional dumbed-down compared to normal princeton classes happens at all elites. These classes in a T100 college would be considered normal difficulty. They are taught at elites because of the recruited athletes: that is who fills the majority of them, and the athlete tutor/course advisors push them into these unless they are actually bright athletes who are similar to the average student. Many helmet-sport and basketball athletes have SAT scores around 1100, and are not be able to handle normal elite courses: they have a couple easier courses in all disciplines to allow them to get through with a 3.3 (far below ivy medians). Occasionally a pre-law who detests stem will take Rocks for Jocks, for example, for the easy A, though it is not possible to use that course for anything other than elective credit if one is a stem major. However that Geology class uses the same text as they use at the state flagship for their earth science major requirement. The elite requires earth sci majors to do much more chem, bio, physics and math than the flagship. It is all relative. "Dumb" ivy courses are not watered down when compared to average-US-college courses.

The earth sciences are dominated by state schools with top climatology, physics, and chemistry programs. You're speaking out of your ass as someone who works in industry for the geosciences. I'm not taking some random guy from Princeton unless it's Harry Hess.

I'm not sure how that disproves PP's point, given that it was about undergrad course rigor rather than graduate prestige

Most rigorous geoscience programs are at like UOklahoma and UF, not the ivies. Its one of the few industries where there's an inverse of respect by going to a state school over private universities.

Can you provide evidence for this claim, perhaps by pointing out specific courses and/or syllabi like I did with math?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

What do you mean? I just gave a task to compare the courses yourself; you can't disagree with that. If you want to refute me, find a comparable course at a VA school outside UVA (or MD school outside MD, etc), ignoring other elite schools of course.

In the thread it was asserted that "even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities. This was asserted without evidence so it can also be dismissed without evidence. The burden is not on me.

The evidence is that in VA, a state with many strong universities, only UVA (the highest ranking school) has a comparable freshman math course.

Show us the courses that you say are and aren't comparable.

The comparable course sequence is 1315/3315 at UVA. Even 2315 uses Williamson and Trotter, which is easier than Cornell's text by Hubbard and Hubbard, but they still are comparable. Every other freshman math sequence at every other VA school is not comparable.

What makes the standards at VT, W&M, W&L etc. lower in your view?

I don't know about the standards for the comparable courses (although I doubt they're at the level of the Ivy+ basic calculus classes I linked above), but the reason I said their sequences are not conpara is because none of them have a proof-based multivariable calculus and linear algebra freshman math sequence like Cornell (and similarly ranked institutions) and UVA (and UGA and UMD as a matter of fact).

You may use this as a canary in the coal mine for rigor throughout the later years of the math program - if you have such a rigorous course for freshmen, you likely have further upper level courses to challenge that course's graduates as sophomores and juniors.

Strongly agree. The most rigorous courses and offerings are located at the top 15 or 20 universities, and it applies across disciplines, not just math, though quantitative courses can be easier to compare. In humanities if one can get access to syllabi, the number and breadth of primary source use along with the textbook(s), as well as writing requirements: literature-cited writing expected throughout the semester not just one end of term paper. There are fluff classes at top universities too, but it is all relative: even the occasional easy ones are typically on par with a "normal" difficulty class at a typical non-T50 state school.

The humanities point is really moot. Essay expectations are higher, but there are plenty of top schools with light reading requirements. DC goes to Harvard and barely has to pick up a book for some of the humanities course work. It's a lot of talking about feelings of short texts these days.

Put another way…every university has “gut” classes that kids will seek out to fulfill a requirement where you have little interest.

The internet has reviews for every class, so you know which classes have more work than others.

It’s no different than the humanities majors picking Physics for poets to satisfy their science requirement.

Eh, there is no "physics for poets." Physics is just hard...

No…literally at Princeton there was a class with that title…still there anyone?

It was not considered a challenging course.

occasional dumbed-down compared to normal princeton classes happens at all elites. These classes in a T100 college would be considered normal difficulty. They are taught at elites because of the recruited athletes: that is who fills the majority of them, and the athlete tutor/course advisors push them into these unless they are actually bright athletes who are similar to the average student. Many helmet-sport and basketball athletes have SAT scores around 1100, and are not be able to handle normal elite courses: they have a couple easier courses in all disciplines to allow them to get through with a 3.3 (far below ivy medians). Occasionally a pre-law who detests stem will take Rocks for Jocks, for example, for the easy A, though it is not possible to use that course for anything other than elective credit if one is a stem major. However that Geology class uses the same text as they use at the state flagship for their earth science major requirement. The elite requires earth sci majors to do much more chem, bio, physics and math than the flagship. It is all relative. "Dumb" ivy courses are not watered down when compared to average-US-college courses.

The earth sciences are dominated by state schools with top climatology, physics, and chemistry programs. You're speaking out of your ass as someone who works in industry for the geosciences. I'm not taking some random guy from Princeton unless it's Harry Hess.

I'm not sure how that disproves PP's point, given that it was about undergrad course rigor rather than graduate prestige

Most rigorous geoscience programs are at like UOklahoma and UF, not the ivies. Its one of the few industries where there's an inverse of respect by going to a state school over private universities.

Can you provide evidence for this claim, perhaps by pointing out specific courses and/or syllabi like I did with math?

I don't know why that's necessary. Why ignore people with industry experience because you have a bias towards elite schools. Unlike math, the course work really can go anywhere for "Intro to Geology" or "Meteorology 101" courses and heavily depends on the specialty of your program and how the faculty choose to set it up. In math, everyone needs to start with MVC, Linear, and Diff. Eq. That doesn't exist in the same way in the geosciences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:1) Status symbol that reflects intellect and ambition

2) Networking opportunities for graduate school, jobs, and more

3) Quality of education that includes instruction from noted academics

4) Recruiting opportunities, including Wall Street and high-end consulting companies

5) Family tradition to go to a particular school or type of school

6) Student quality, including smarts, wealth, celebrity, and more

3 and only 3

and then you attend and half of the important faculty only teach graduate students or hardly teach at all. It's a cool thought, but most students are being taught by "field famous" instructors that no one has heard of.

Huh? My kids have had tenured professors in almost every class, professors with world class research rankings or professors who wrote the textbook. These people are legendary within their field. I dont care if the common public does not know them; why would they?

Show me the evidence that there's a positive correlation between fame and quality of teaching.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

DP. Why do you doubt it? The most elite schools are known for having more challenging coursework, stem and humanities. Any professor will tell you that. Professors have written about it. Not cornell, but one student of ours takes second semester calculus at a different ivy versus one taking the equivalent at a non-flagship in VA: they are night and day. They both are equivalent to BC calc, are the “regular “ versions (the ivy has an even more difficult proof based version) and they cover almost the same topics, yet the ivy has several topics not in the state school curriculum, and the psets /quizzes/exams are much different, with the ivy much more difficult . For people who study math or are in mathematics-heavy fields, it is not subtle how much harder the ivy is. I do not have one at UVA to know where uva falls on the spectrum of difficulty.

Where is the actual evidence?

The commonness of extremely rigorous proof-based math courses intended for first semester students at top universities, compared to their rarity elsewhere. Just about every T20 has one.

You can also look at the finals for the lowest level, easiest math courses (which are often several levels below the most rigorous freshman classes):

Precalc final at Princeton: https://exams.math.princeton.edu/syllabus/mat103/precalculus

One-semester combined calc 1 and 2 final at MIT: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus-fall-2010/pages/final-exam/

Calc 2 final at Princeton: https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/104/F02ans.pdf

DP. We reviewed syllabi when our first was applying to colleges, at the urging of our college professor family member who has taught at T10s and T55-60. The course offerings are more rigorous, indeed as pointed out by other posters above and on other threads , at almost all T20s. Not sure why this is surprising to anyone. The student body makeup skews much further to the top-1% students; these students are the future of intellectual thought in whatever fields they choose. Of course the top schools need these courses, and their “regular “ intro courses are also more rigorous. The vast majority of professors are about the same—it is the student level that determines how hard the professors can push the pace and depth of coursework

You'd be surprised by how underwhelming the math talent is at most T20s. It's just that Princeton swallows all the students interested in math academia and MIT the competitive math students. Harvard has math geniuses, but they're 2% of the math students. The rest are very very average.

You’re missing the point.
The average student in average math are not “average”. I have kids at ivies and spouse and I went ourselves. The average student has gotten much smarter since we attended. It is very different than what our siblings and nephews have experienced at lesser schools that are not close toT30.

You're missing nuance. UChicago is not in the Ivy League yet their honors analysis sequence (which is formally open to qualified freshmen) is graduate level and at least on par with if not harder than math 55.

On the flip side, UMD is outside the T30 but still has the type of proof based calc 3+ linear algebra courses (340+341) that Cornell does (2230+2240)

Some people in this thread don’t get how many paths there are to coursework at any college, not just ivies. If you come in with BC calc, you have a lot of options at most colleges in the US

PP here, I wouldn't say "most" - outside the top 100, I haven't found a single proof based linear algebra + multivariable calculus freshman sequence like UMD and UVA have, and outside T30 I've only seen them at large state flagships which have both a large student population and a significant minority of extremely strong students who are often there for the in state tuition.

There are 3000 colleges in the US. Rigor of course offerings is correlated to student body: when 1/3-1/2 come in with exposure to post-BC calculus, as they do at the ivy/plus schools, those colleges have to offer more depth. Same with physics and chemistry and foreign languages. The syllabi and course progression differences is evident in many subjects. It is no surprise that T100 level schools do not offer the same education as the elites: the vast majority of the 3000 colleges do not. Kudos to UVA and UMD and other top large flagships for covering the math need and many other needs of the topmost students who attend. There is a reason academically highly gifted students chase the ivy-plus schools: the course depth and intensity plus smaller class sizes compared to the large top flagships is the best fit for a significant subset of them. DCUM seems to think it is all about finance career networking and wealthy peers(with less than 50% full pay now, the wealth is quite diluted compared to the 90s). For many it is about the specifics of the education.

"There is a reason academically highly gifted students chase the ivy-plus schools: the course depth and intensity plus smaller class sizes compared to the large top flagships is the best fit for a significant subset of them."

The depth, intensity and class sizes at top flagships is plenty challenging for highly gifted students. They place out of the large, introductory courses and into 300 and 400 level classes by sophomore year at the latest, and they are often offered graduate level courses by junior and senior year. All you have to do is look at lists of the top people in any field to see that students at state flagships are well prepared for any career. My favorite website for this has 12 careers listed. Here's the list for medicine to start.

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/medicine/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:1) Status symbol that reflects intellect and ambition

2) Networking opportunities for graduate school, jobs, and more

3) Quality of education that includes instruction from noted academics

4) Recruiting opportunities, including Wall Street and high-end consulting companies

5) Family tradition to go to a particular school or type of school

6) Student quality, including smarts, wealth, celebrity, and more

1) Silly reason to choose a college.

2) Many schools have excellent networking opportunities. Penn State's is the largest in the world.

3) There's zero evidence that 'noted academics' teach any better than those who are not well known, and the quality of teaching is assumed to be way larger than it actually is between top-ranked and lower-ranked colleges.

4) Recruiters are, indeed, more likely to visit higher-ranked colleges, but that's just because it's more efficient. Top students at lower-ranked schools who are aggressive about their job-seeking will do just as well.

5) Not a bad reason to choose any school.

6) Student quality does have value, but wealth and celebrity of classmates seems like another silly reason to choose a college.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

What do you mean? I just gave a task to compare the courses yourself; you can't disagree with that. If you want to refute me, find a comparable course at a VA school outside UVA (or MD school outside MD, etc), ignoring other elite schools of course.

In the thread it was asserted that "even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities. This was asserted without evidence so it can also be dismissed without evidence. The burden is not on me.

The evidence is that in VA, a state with many strong universities, only UVA (the highest ranking school) has a comparable freshman math course.

Show us the courses that you say are and aren't comparable.

The comparable course sequence is 1315/3315 at UVA. Even 2315 uses Williamson and Trotter, which is easier than Cornell's text by Hubbard and Hubbard, but they still are comparable. Every other freshman math sequence at every other VA school is not comparable.

What makes the standards at VT, W&M, W&L etc. lower in your view?

I don't know about the standards for the comparable courses (although I doubt they're at the level of the Ivy+ basic calculus classes I linked above), but the reason I said their sequences are not conpara is because none of them have a proof-based multivariable calculus and linear algebra freshman math sequence like Cornell (and similarly ranked institutions) and UVA (and UGA and UMD as a matter of fact).

You may use this as a canary in the coal mine for rigor throughout the later years of the math program - if you have such a rigorous course for freshmen, you likely have further upper level courses to challenge that course's graduates as sophomores and juniors.

Strongly agree. The most rigorous courses and offerings are located at the top 15 or 20 universities, and it applies across disciplines, not just math, though quantitative courses can be easier to compare. In humanities if one can get access to syllabi, the number and breadth of primary source use along with the textbook(s), as well as writing requirements: literature-cited writing expected throughout the semester not just one end of term paper. There are fluff classes at top universities too, but it is all relative: even the occasional easy ones are typically on par with a "normal" difficulty class at a typical non-T50 state school.

The humanities point is really moot. Essay expectations are higher, but there are plenty of top schools with light reading requirements. DC goes to Harvard and barely has to pick up a book for some of the humanities course work. It's a lot of talking about feelings of short texts these days.

Put another way…every university has “gut” classes that kids will seek out to fulfill a requirement where you have little interest.

The internet has reviews for every class, so you know which classes have more work than others.

It’s no different than the humanities majors picking Physics for poets to satisfy their science requirement.

Eh, there is no "physics for poets." Physics is just hard...

No…literally at Princeton there was a class with that title…still there anyone?

It was not considered a challenging course.

occasional dumbed-down compared to normal princeton classes happens at all elites. These classes in a T100 college would be considered normal difficulty. They are taught at elites because of the recruited athletes: that is who fills the majority of them, and the athlete tutor/course advisors push them into these unless they are actually bright athletes who are similar to the average student. Many helmet-sport and basketball athletes have SAT scores around 1100, and are not be able to handle normal elite courses: they have a couple easier courses in all disciplines to allow them to get through with a 3.3 (far below ivy medians). Occasionally a pre-law who detests stem will take Rocks for Jocks, for example, for the easy A, though it is not possible to use that course for anything other than elective credit if one is a stem major. However that Geology class uses the same text as they use at the state flagship for their earth science major requirement. The elite requires earth sci majors to do much more chem, bio, physics and math than the flagship. It is all relative. "Dumb" ivy courses are not watered down when compared to average-US-college courses.

The earth sciences are dominated by state schools with top climatology, physics, and chemistry programs. You're speaking out of your ass as someone who works in industry for the geosciences. I'm not taking some random guy from Princeton unless it's Harry Hess.

I'm not sure how that disproves PP's point, given that it was about undergrad course rigor rather than graduate prestige

Most rigorous geoscience programs are at like UOklahoma and UF, not the ivies. Its one of the few industries where there's an inverse of respect by going to a state school over private universities.

Can you provide evidence for this claim, perhaps by pointing out specific courses and/or syllabi like I did with math?

They can't, that's why. The top environmental sci grad schools have a disproportionate number of students from T25 universities and top LACs, and the top environmental consulting or think-tank jobs hire undergraduates disproportionately from the same group. The surge in environmental engineering has shifted the hiring dynamics of the non-engineer grads further toward rigorous-stem based programs, in other words favoring top rigor schools. Sure, mid-tier geo-science jobs that rely more on doing than thinking may prefer to hire from non-top tier schools, just like mid-tier engineering jobs (more hands on repetitive jobs, less intellectual/leadership based roles) hire from average state schools, but the top jobs and the top grad programs disproportionately favor the same schools over and over in every field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

DP. Why do you doubt it? The most elite schools are known for having more challenging coursework, stem and humanities. Any professor will tell you that. Professors have written about it. Not cornell, but one student of ours takes second semester calculus at a different ivy versus one taking the equivalent at a non-flagship in VA: they are night and day. They both are equivalent to BC calc, are the “regular “ versions (the ivy has an even more difficult proof based version) and they cover almost the same topics, yet the ivy has several topics not in the state school curriculum, and the psets /quizzes/exams are much different, with the ivy much more difficult . For people who study math or are in mathematics-heavy fields, it is not subtle how much harder the ivy is. I do not have one at UVA to know where uva falls on the spectrum of difficulty.

Where is the actual evidence?

The commonness of extremely rigorous proof-based math courses intended for first semester students at top universities, compared to their rarity elsewhere. Just about every T20 has one.

You can also look at the finals for the lowest level, easiest math courses (which are often several levels below the most rigorous freshman classes):

Precalc final at Princeton: https://exams.math.princeton.edu/syllabus/mat103/precalculus

One-semester combined calc 1 and 2 final at MIT: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus-fall-2010/pages/final-exam/

Calc 2 final at Princeton: https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/104/F02ans.pdf

DP. We reviewed syllabi when our first was applying to colleges, at the urging of our college professor family member who has taught at T10s and T55-60. The course offerings are more rigorous, indeed as pointed out by other posters above and on other threads , at almost all T20s. Not sure why this is surprising to anyone. The student body makeup skews much further to the top-1% students; these students are the future of intellectual thought in whatever fields they choose. Of course the top schools need these courses, and their “regular “ intro courses are also more rigorous. The vast majority of professors are about the same—it is the student level that determines how hard the professors can push the pace and depth of coursework

You'd be surprised by how underwhelming the math talent is at most T20s. It's just that Princeton swallows all the students interested in math academia and MIT the competitive math students. Harvard has math geniuses, but they're 2% of the math students. The rest are very very average.

You’re missing the point.
The average student in average math are not “average”. I have kids at ivies and spouse and I went ourselves. The average student has gotten much smarter since we attended. It is very different than what our siblings and nephews have experienced at lesser schools that are not close toT30.

You're missing nuance. UChicago is not in the Ivy League yet their honors analysis sequence (which is formally open to qualified freshmen) is graduate level and at least on par with if not harder than math 55.

On the flip side, UMD is outside the T30 but still has the type of proof based calc 3+ linear algebra courses (340+341) that Cornell does (2230+2240)

Some people in this thread don’t get how many paths there are to coursework at any college, not just ivies. If you come in with BC calc, you have a lot of options at most colleges in the US

PP here, I wouldn't say "most" - outside the top 100, I haven't found a single proof based linear algebra + multivariable calculus freshman sequence like UMD and UVA have, and outside T30 I've only seen them at large state flagships which have both a large student population and a significant minority of extremely strong students who are often there for the in state tuition.

There are 3000 colleges in the US. Rigor of course offerings is correlated to student body: when 1/3-1/2 come in with exposure to post-BC calculus, as they do at the ivy/plus schools, those colleges have to offer more depth. Same with physics and chemistry and foreign languages. The syllabi and course progression differences is evident in many subjects. It is no surprise that T100 level schools do not offer the same education as the elites: the vast majority of the 3000 colleges do not. Kudos to UVA and UMD and other top large flagships for covering the math need and many other needs of the topmost students who attend. There is a reason academically highly gifted students chase the ivy-plus schools: the course depth and intensity plus smaller class sizes compared to the large top flagships is the best fit for a significant subset of them. DCUM seems to think it is all about finance career networking and wealthy peers(with less than 50% full pay now, the wealth is quite diluted compared to the 90s). For many it is about the specifics of the education.

"There is a reason academically highly gifted students chase the ivy-plus schools: the course depth and intensity plus smaller class sizes compared to the large top flagships is the best fit for a significant subset of them."

The depth, intensity and class sizes at top flagships is plenty challenging for highly gifted students. They place out of the large, introductory courses and into 300 and 400 level classes by sophomore year at the latest, and they are often offered graduate level courses by junior and senior year. All you have to do is look at lists of the top people in any field to see that students at state flagships are well prepared for any career. My favorite website for this has 12 careers listed. Here's the list for medicine to start.

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/medicine/

You post this all the time. The med list was debunked in another thread: looking at the schools , the T25s are still by far over-represented.
Furthermore, at the top schools that provide the higher-rigor math courses upthread--some of which are ivies and some are UVA, UMD--the students can take grad-level courses as sophomores, rarely freshman for the extremely gifted. Taking grad level courses is done by average ivy kids all the time in junior and senior year of college. The "normal" gifted can just take the normal path, which puts them with the >75% of their peers who are also "normally"gifted taking the normal freshman math and science, then in junior and senior year they can take a grad class or two mixed in with their upperlevel undergrad courses. By the way the grad classes at these schools are typically a higher level than the average state grad school courses. The average freshman course moves at a completely different pace than the average state school, the upperlevel courses and grad courses do too. People who have taught at both or have transferred and taken classes at both know the difference.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

DP. Why do you doubt it? The most elite schools are known for having more challenging coursework, stem and humanities. Any professor will tell you that. Professors have written about it. Not cornell, but one student of ours takes second semester calculus at a different ivy versus one taking the equivalent at a non-flagship in VA: they are night and day. They both are equivalent to BC calc, are the “regular “ versions (the ivy has an even more difficult proof based version) and they cover almost the same topics, yet the ivy has several topics not in the state school curriculum, and the psets /quizzes/exams are much different, with the ivy much more difficult . For people who study math or are in mathematics-heavy fields, it is not subtle how much harder the ivy is. I do not have one at UVA to know where uva falls on the spectrum of difficulty.

Where is the actual evidence?

The commonness of extremely rigorous proof-based math courses intended for first semester students at top universities, compared to their rarity elsewhere. Just about every T20 has one.

You can also look at the finals for the lowest level, easiest math courses (which are often several levels below the most rigorous freshman classes):

Precalc final at Princeton: https://exams.math.princeton.edu/syllabus/mat103/precalculus

One-semester combined calc 1 and 2 final at MIT: https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/18-01sc-single-variable-calculus-fall-2010/pages/final-exam/

Calc 2 final at Princeton: https://web.math.princeton.edu/~nelson/104/F02ans.pdf

DP. We reviewed syllabi when our first was applying to colleges, at the urging of our college professor family member who has taught at T10s and T55-60. The course offerings are more rigorous, indeed as pointed out by other posters above and on other threads , at almost all T20s. Not sure why this is surprising to anyone. The student body makeup skews much further to the top-1% students; these students are the future of intellectual thought in whatever fields they choose. Of course the top schools need these courses, and their “regular “ intro courses are also more rigorous. The vast majority of professors are about the same—it is the student level that determines how hard the professors can push the pace and depth of coursework

You'd be surprised by how underwhelming the math talent is at most T20s. It's just that Princeton swallows all the students interested in math academia and MIT the competitive math students. Harvard has math geniuses, but they're 2% of the math students. The rest are very very average.

You’re missing the point.
The average student in average math are not “average”. I have kids at ivies and spouse and I went ourselves. The average student has gotten much smarter since we attended. It is very different than what our siblings and nephews have experienced at lesser schools that are not close toT30.

You're missing nuance. UChicago is not in the Ivy League yet their honors analysis sequence (which is formally open to qualified freshmen) is graduate level and at least on par with if not harder than math 55.

On the flip side, UMD is outside the T30 but still has the type of proof based calc 3+ linear algebra courses (340+341) that Cornell does (2230+2240)

Some people in this thread don’t get how many paths there are to coursework at any college, not just ivies. If you come in with BC calc, you have a lot of options at most colleges in the US

PP here, I wouldn't say "most" - outside the top 100, I haven't found a single proof based linear algebra + multivariable calculus freshman sequence like UMD and UVA have, and outside T30 I've only seen them at large state flagships which have both a large student population and a significant minority of extremely strong students who are often there for the in state tuition.

There are 3000 colleges in the US. Rigor of course offerings is correlated to student body: when 1/3-1/2 come in with exposure to post-BC calculus, as they do at the ivy/plus schools, those colleges have to offer more depth. Same with physics and chemistry and foreign languages. The syllabi and course progression differences is evident in many subjects. It is no surprise that T100 level schools do not offer the same education as the elites: the vast majority of the 3000 colleges do not. Kudos to UVA and UMD and other top large flagships for covering the math need and many other needs of the topmost students who attend. There is a reason academically highly gifted students chase the ivy-plus schools: the course depth and intensity plus smaller class sizes compared to the large top flagships is the best fit for a significant subset of them. DCUM seems to think it is all about finance career networking and wealthy peers(with less than 50% full pay now, the wealth is quite diluted compared to the 90s). For many it is about the specifics of the education.

"There is a reason academically highly gifted students chase the ivy-plus schools: the course depth and intensity plus smaller class sizes compared to the large top flagships is the best fit for a significant subset of them."

The depth, intensity and class sizes at top flagships is plenty challenging for highly gifted students. They place out of the large, introductory courses and into 300 and 400 level classes by sophomore year at the latest, and they are often offered graduate level courses by junior and senior year. All you have to do is look at lists of the top people in any field to see that students at state flagships are well prepared for any career. My favorite website for this has 12 careers listed. Here's the list for medicine to start.

https://lesshighschoolstress.com/medicine/

You post this all the time. The med list was debunked in another thread: looking at the schools , the T25s are still by far over-represented.
Furthermore, at the top schools that provide the higher-rigor math courses upthread--some of which are ivies and some are UVA, UMD--the students can take grad-level courses as sophomores, rarely freshman for the extremely gifted. Taking grad level courses is done by average ivy kids all the time in junior and senior year of college. The "normal" gifted can just take the normal path, which puts them with the >75% of their peers who are also "normally"gifted taking the normal freshman math and science, then in junior and senior year they can take a grad class or two mixed in with their upperlevel undergrad courses. By the way the grad classes at these schools are typically a higher level than the average state grad school courses. The average freshman course moves at a completely different pace than the average state school, the upperlevel courses and grad courses do too. People who have taught at both or have transferred and taken classes at both know the difference.

The top schools are overrepresented because they get first pick of the strongest high school students, not because there's something that goes on at those schools that is vastly different/better. Show us a link to the supposed debunking of the list, because I don't see how you can debunk something as straightforward as a list drawn directly from the Mayo Clinic's website.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m just happy that people aren’t putting 3 at the top. There’s too many PhDs coming out of the Ivy league, let alone the rest of the T50, to even begin suggesting that there’s some extreme difference in education. Unless your kid is on the bounds and is highly highly intelligent (like top 0.001%) where they need specialized/accelerated instruction to the level of grad school near freshman year, you’re probably receiving a very similar education to others.

Even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities

Cite?

https://math.cornell.edu/lower-level-courses (scroll to bottom)

https://pi.math.cornell.edu/~allenk/courses/14/2230/

Compre this to the freshman math options at most other lower ranked schools (e.g. any VA school besides UVA)

I don't think this is true.

What do you mean? I just gave a task to compare the courses yourself; you can't disagree with that. If you want to refute me, find a comparable course at a VA school outside UVA (or MD school outside MD, etc), ignoring other elite schools of course.

In the thread it was asserted that "even a standard freshman course like math 2230 at Cornell will exceed the level of rigor of any freshman math course at most lower ranked universities. This was asserted without evidence so it can also be dismissed without evidence. The burden is not on me.

The evidence is that in VA, a state with many strong universities, only UVA (the highest ranking school) has a comparable freshman math course.

Show us the courses that you say are and aren't comparable.

The comparable course sequence is 1315/3315 at UVA. Even 2315 uses Williamson and Trotter, which is easier than Cornell's text by Hubbard and Hubbard, but they still are comparable. Every other freshman math sequence at every other VA school is not comparable.

What makes the standards at VT, W&M, W&L etc. lower in your view?

I don't know about the standards for the comparable courses (although I doubt they're at the level of the Ivy+ basic calculus classes I linked above), but the reason I said their sequences are not conpara is because none of them have a proof-based multivariable calculus and linear algebra freshman math sequence like Cornell (and similarly ranked institutions) and UVA (and UGA and UMD as a matter of fact).

You may use this as a canary in the coal mine for rigor throughout the later years of the math program - if you have such a rigorous course for freshmen, you likely have further upper level courses to challenge that course's graduates as sophomores and juniors.

Strongly agree. The most rigorous courses and offerings are located at the top 15 or 20 universities, and it applies across disciplines, not just math, though quantitative courses can be easier to compare. In humanities if one can get access to syllabi, the number and breadth of primary source use along with the textbook(s), as well as writing requirements: literature-cited writing expected throughout the semester not just one end of term paper. There are fluff classes at top universities too, but it is all relative: even the occasional easy ones are typically on par with a "normal" difficulty class at a typical non-T50 state school.

The humanities point is really moot. Essay expectations are higher, but there are plenty of top schools with light reading requirements. DC goes to Harvard and barely has to pick up a book for some of the humanities course work. It's a lot of talking about feelings of short texts these days.

Put another way…every university has “gut” classes that kids will seek out to fulfill a requirement where you have little interest.

The internet has reviews for every class, so you know which classes have more work than others.

It’s no different than the humanities majors picking Physics for poets to satisfy their science requirement.

Eh, there is no "physics for poets." Physics is just hard...

No…literally at Princeton there was a class with that title…still there anyone?

It was not considered a challenging course.

occasional dumbed-down compared to normal princeton classes happens at all elites. These classes in a T100 college would be considered normal difficulty. They are taught at elites because of the recruited athletes: that is who fills the majority of them, and the athlete tutor/course advisors push them into these unless they are actually bright athletes who are similar to the average student. Many helmet-sport and basketball athletes have SAT scores around 1100, and are not be able to handle normal elite courses: they have a couple easier courses in all disciplines to allow them to get through with a 3.3 (far below ivy medians). Occasionally a pre-law who detests stem will take Rocks for Jocks, for example, for the easy A, though it is not possible to use that course for anything other than elective credit if one is a stem major. However that Geology class uses the same text as they use at the state flagship for their earth science major requirement. The elite requires earth sci majors to do much more chem, bio, physics and math than the flagship. It is all relative. "Dumb" ivy courses are not watered down when compared to average-US-college courses.

The earth sciences are dominated by state schools with top climatology, physics, and chemistry programs. You're speaking out of your ass as someone who works in industry for the geosciences. I'm not taking some random guy from Princeton unless it's Harry Hess.

I'm not sure how that disproves PP's point, given that it was about undergrad course rigor rather than graduate prestige

Most rigorous geoscience programs are at like UOklahoma and UF, not the ivies. Its one of the few industries where there's an inverse of respect by going to a state school over private universities.

Can you provide evidence for this claim, perhaps by pointing out specific courses and/or syllabi like I did with math?

They can't, that's why. The top environmental sci grad schools have a disproportionate number of students from T25 universities and top LACs, and the top environmental consulting or think-tank jobs hire undergraduates disproportionately from the same group. The surge in environmental engineering has shifted the hiring dynamics of the non-engineer grads further toward rigorous-stem based programs, in other words favoring top rigor schools. Sure, mid-tier geo-science jobs that rely more on doing than thinking may prefer to hire from non-top tier schools, just like mid-tier engineering jobs (more hands on repetitive jobs, less intellectual/leadership based roles) hire from average state schools, but the top jobs and the top grad programs disproportionately favor the same schools over and over in every field.

Environmental science isn’t geoscience, though…

[Anonymous]

I think prestige is mostly helpful in affording a person instant recognition. I just think prestige is much more concentrated at the top than people would like to recognize. At the Olympics, Gabby Thomas was repeatedly recognized as being a Harvard grad. That happens with VERY few schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think prestige is mostly helpful in affording a person instant recognition. I just think prestige is much more concentrated at the top than people would like to recognize. At the Olympics, Gabby Thomas was repeatedly recognized as being a Harvard grad. That happens with VERY few schools.

Interesting, because the Olympics is filled to the brim with Stanford grads, and it never really comes up. Then again, the h bomb just works that way.

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Anonymous wrote:I think prestige is mostly helpful in affording a person instant recognition. I just think prestige is much more concentrated at the top than people would like to recognize. At the Olympics, Gabby Thomas was repeatedly recognized as being a Harvard grad. That happens with VERY few schools.

Interesting, because the Olympics is filled to the brim with Stanford grads, and it never really comes up. Then again, the h bomb just works that way.

They also repeatedly recognized Kristen Faulkner in cycling as a Harvard grad. Perhaps Stanford gets short-changed because there have been so many over the years.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think prestige is mostly helpful in affording a person instant recognition. I just think prestige is much more concentrated at the top than people would like to recognize. At the Olympics, Gabby Thomas was repeatedly recognized as being a Harvard grad. That happens with VERY few schools.

Interesting, because the Olympics is filled to the brim with Stanford grads, and it never really comes up. Then again, the h bomb just works that way.

It’s the rare sight of a Harvard grad in a non-country club sport, that’s why. I guarantee it would come up all the time if she was a Brown or Yale or other Ivy grad.

You would hear even more if she went to Williams because it’s essentially unheard of for a D3 school to produce Olympic talent in non-country club sports (maybe even country club too).

Stanford is a Power 4 school…same reason you won’t hear someone accentuate Duke or Vandy or other dual Power 4 academic school grads…they produce lots of top athletes in general.