Which schools will continue to be the most sought after in the next decade? Which ones will hit a downward trajectory?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HYPSM will continue to be overly popular.

Schools with strong comp sci or business departments are next.

Schools that aggressively manage their admissions process to lower their fake admit rates and inflated yields are next (Chicago, Northeastern, etc.).

Schools that don’t fit any of the above will suffer.

Hoping something will stop this aggressive admissions management, which to me is making anxiety worse and is more pernicious than all the AA/legacy/etc. policies everyone complains about.

Should be PSM at this point. Yale lost the plot some years ago. Early apps to Harvard declined by 17 percent this year - and that's before all the recent controversies.

But yes, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT will remain at the top.

US News made things weird this year. They don't care about class size. They don't care about the academic qualifications of professors. They don't care about how long it takes a student to graduate. They very much care about federal Pell Grants, even though most good private schools offer enough financial aid so that students don't need Pell Grants.

So, US News is no longer a great metric.

I would say schools on the up are the southern schools - Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice. As well as the really good publics, particularly those with good STEM - Georgia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M. And Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin. Also, Minnesota.

I get that trashing the Ivies is a favorite pastime on this forum, with Harvard and Yale taking the brunt of it. But I am just fascinated how people tend to give Princeton and Stanford (I know not an Ivy but part of HYPSM) a pass even though both of these schools engage in the very same policies, DEI engineering, etc, that Harvard and Yale get lambasted for.

Is that because Princeton and Stanford are not in the news as much as HY or do we conveniently give them a pass for another reason?

It's because MIT, Stanford, and Princeton are all good at STEM. And that differentiates them from Harvard and Yale, which are comparatively weak. Ergo, PSM are regarded as more rigorous and more serious institutions than HY.

They all may have their own institutional priorities when it comes to admissions, including DEI, but there is no question that an URM student at MIT or studying aerospace engineering at Stanford or CS at Princeton is a very smart and accomplished young person. It's not a questioned at all.

Whereas people are a little more maybe-maybe when it comes to students at Harvard or Yale, which is overwhelmingly focused on DEI, the rich, legacy, athletes, and family of faculty. Plus they don't really excel in the hard majors at the undergrad level. So there is increasingly a difference in perception. Who is to say whether or not it's fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Any college in the depressing Rust Belt. There are too many better or equal options in growing regions with good weather and scenic surroundings.

I was in Pittsburgh for a week on business last year, and came away with the impression that it was a city on the rise. It was vibrant and well situated, and it seemed like it had shed its industrial past. YMMV, but I think it'd be a great place to spend four years. (I have no experience with the rest of the Rust Belt though.)

Let us know when you move there. Lol.

Where I work we’ve had at least three people move to Pittsburgh in the last year. Two went remote, and one quit.

It’s lots of fun. DC is in college there. Great college town. 👍

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's like we need another DCUM category called something like "Hypothetical College and University Discussion"

No ! We do not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh wonderful. Yet another thread that is an expression of what someone hopes will happen. Because as predictive value, the value of this is 0.

+100

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Well, yes, a child visiting someone she knows will indeed have a different experience. But in general, these campuses have become dreary and dead.

I would submit that the reason kids visit students they know is to get a real look at the school, beyond the generic walk around the campus, what they heard from their next door neighbor's cousin's boyfriend, & the admissions office pitch. We've visited all the Ivy League schools in the last 1.5 years and UPenn is the only one that I would describe as "dreary and dead." I think it's funny a few people are trying to tear down the Ivy reputations. They are and will continue to be highly sought after. Yale recently had to institute a pre-screening process to address the increase in apps and I won't be surprised if other schools follow. I agree with a PP that B1G 10 schools are currently very popular - NU and MI have been popular for decades, but WI, MN, IN, Purdue, and OSU are also top choices.

Oh, the Ivies will still be highly sought after. But that doesn’t mean that the environment on campus isn’t grim.

There is a reason Yale has come under so much recent criticism for how it handles mental health issues and why so many students there have have mental health struggles. Elite? Yes. But decidedly grim, dreary, and unfriendly.

I think this is largely true. You have to recall that the New England Ivies were absolutely awful during COVID. Miserable places. No 18 year old wanted any part of that. Every day seems like a purity test up there.

For the standout schools, Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice, Northwestern, MIT, and Stanford will become the desirable schools - much more than Harvard and Yale and the other dour NE schools.

Public Honors programs will become ever more popular. There aren't a lot of families that can drop $400,000 per child on college. There's a number when it gets ridiculous, and we've reached that. A lot of talent is going to stay in-state. People seem to want a rah-rah go college experience. And they want good STEM. UIUC, Indiana, Michigan, Purdue, Wisconsin - are all going to do fine. So will the SEC schools. They've been very smart with offering good merit.

Small LACs in unpleasant areas in Ohio or Pennsylvania or New England are going to have a hard time. The Ivies will always be desirable. But the quality of their students is going to continue to go down.

I agree the quality of student at ivies will continue to go down, but it may remain quite popular among foreign students from some countries and those who will go into established family businesses. It will be mostly extremely wealthy people can afford any risks with the name or well funded people who fit criteria to get scholarships.

What objective evidence do you base the bolded on?

Because my husband and I interview for two ivies, and the calibre of student has only been going up. We joke that neither one of us could get in today like we did 20+ years ago.

Do you watch the news? They couldn't be that bright if they were so easily radicalized.

Many college students go through a period of being dumb, Ivies aren’t excluded. But the issue with the Ivies is that employers are becoming increasingly skeptical of Ivy grads because of the entitlement.

The other issue is that a lot of big employers started hiring programs at non-Ivy schools, originally for diversity purposes, but now they find they like those grads because they are hardworking. Ivy grads aren’t seen as the pinnacle of best employees as they used to be seen.

I don’t think radicalization is a factor to be honest.

I agree with a lot of this about the entitlement part. I do think the radicalization is a factor. it used to be these colleges were a place for lively discussion and embracing differences of opinion and learning from eachother. Harassment has become normalized. These young people are getting away with crossing abusive lines we would never have crossed decades alone. No workplace needs to be inundated with lawsuits from some entitled young person who learned it's totally OK to bully a minority group. They have been empowered in their audacity and hate by leadership. It will take more than a quick training session to undo that.

Look at the quality of Harvard with their affirmation action losses, antisemitism, and plagiarism. It's sitting on a dung pile ready to collapse.

I already posted, but why oh why did Obama have to get involved to help protect Dr. Gay. He tarnished his own reputation in the process.

Dr. Gay is under investigation after it was discovered she plagiarized at least 6 more works.

Should she resign or be removed from office?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HYPSM will continue to be overly popular.

Schools with strong comp sci or business departments are next.

Schools that aggressively manage their admissions process to lower their fake admit rates and inflated yields are next (Chicago, Northeastern, etc.).

Schools that don’t fit any of the above will suffer.

Hoping something will stop this aggressive admissions management, which to me is making anxiety worse and is more pernicious than all the AA/legacy/etc. policies everyone complains about.

Should be PSM at this point. Yale lost the plot some years ago. Early apps to Harvard declined by 17 percent this year - and that's before all the recent controversies.

But yes, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT will remain at the top.

US News made things weird this year. They don't care about class size. They don't care about the academic qualifications of professors. They don't care about how long it takes a student to graduate. They very much care about federal Pell Grants, even though most good private schools offer enough financial aid so that students don't need Pell Grants.

So, US News is no longer a great metric.

I would say schools on the up are the southern schools - Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice. As well as the really good publics, particularly those with good STEM - Georgia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M. And Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin. Also, Minnesota.

I get that trashing the Ivies is a favorite pastime on this forum, with Harvard and Yale taking the brunt of it. But I am just fascinated how people tend to give Princeton and Stanford (I know not an Ivy but part of HYPSM) a pass even though both of these schools engage in the very same policies, DEI engineering, etc, that Harvard and Yale get lambasted for.

Is that because Princeton and Stanford are not in the news as much as HY or do we conveniently give them a pass for another reason?

It's because MIT, Stanford, and Princeton are all good at STEM. And that differentiates them from Harvard and Yale, which are comparatively weak. Ergo, PSM are regarded as more rigorous and more serious institutions than HY.

They all may have their own institutional priorities when it comes to admissions, including DEI, but there is no question that an URM student at MIT or studying aerospace engineering at Stanford or CS at Princeton is a very smart and accomplished young person. It's not a questioned at all.

Whereas people are a little more maybe-maybe when it comes to students at Harvard or Yale, which is overwhelmingly focused on DEI, the rich, legacy, athletes, and family of faculty. Plus they don't really excel in the hard majors at the undergrad level. So there is increasingly a difference in perception. Who is to say whether or not it's fair.

It is not “STEM.” The correct acronym is now STEAM.

Do better.

[Anonymous]

Not to point out the obvious but anything said on this thread is pure conjecture, nothing more

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HYPSM will be just fine. Chicago, Rice, Northwestern, etc are not going anywhere.

The Biggest Losers: Dartmouth, Bowdoin, Williams, Amherst, etc. They'll be bitten by the hand that fed them - athletics. These schools will receive the same "woke agenda" accusation as HYP (perhaps correctly), but the second punch is the one that will connect: the many articles that will be coming down the pike about the full pay downhill skiers, sailing, and fencers (etc). These colleges are building classes that are either Pell kids paying zero and St Ann's squash who are paying full fare. That makes for a dysfunctional classroom experience that holds zero appeal to the rest of the world.

Other winners:

The Next Michigan: MN, Iowa, Illinois, Oregon .. basically any flagship with a college town and a football team. (Schools like UCs, UT Austin already in the Michigan category)

Revenge of the Nerds aka "I know what I'm paying for": Purdue, Case, CMU, RPI, WPI, Texas A&M, VT.

Hail Mary: ND but also places like Santa Clara, Loyola Marymount, Gonzaga, Dayton, U of San Diego, Marquette.

I disagree with the point about athletics because I think athletics are what will save these schools from being perceived as uselessly woke. For better or worse, the athletes are the ones that keep the deep ties to Wall Street, IB, etc going at the elite schools. They also bring a group of students to the schools who are perceived as hard workers who aren’t annoying and who can handle hard competition. Basically, the athletics programs bring kids to the schools who don’t melt down when faced an opinion they don’t like, who have been forced to get along with team members whether they like them or not, who can handle losing, and who have a lot of discipline. That’s appealing to many competitive employers and has been for many years.

Now if (say) Amherst College guts its athletics programs, I suspect you will be right about the decline of the school. Turning Amherst into another Reed will not be great for the perception of the school. But right now, athletics is one of the only things that is preserving the reputation of these schools from being seen as producing uselessly woke and out of touch graduates.

You don't have to be a recruited athlete to have the attitude you address. Most kids who were high school athletes do not get recruited to college but developed the same skill set. Most college kids were involved in something competitive in high school that develops the same skills: theater, music, debate, robotics, model UN, etc. etc. etc. Many did that AND athletics, but are not on the college team.

[Anonymous]

Who cares.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In general I think there will be a push to schools perceived as fun but with good educational rigor. The northeast schools will drop because they are perceived as grim grinds filled with backstabbing, unfriendly people. Political moderation will be appealing. I think this generation of kids, who suffered through covid, has little patience for schools where, fair or not, there is a perception of tolerance of drama queens and waste of education. This will also go with an increasing demand for good ROI.

Excessive drama, misery, and petulance is headed out, solid education, fun, and good ROI is in.

So kids weren't interested in schools that were fun before recently? And plenty of drama and backstabbing in the Southern sorority scene.

They were, but schools in the northeast used to be a lot more fun because there was more personality variety in who they attracted. They used to attract the population that made campuses come alive: the quirky geniuses, the smart frat and sorority kids, the theater kids who had the time in HS to really perfect their craft, etc. But those kids often don’t have the mid-career project management skills that getting perfect GPAs in a test-minimizing environment along with the requisite resume-polishing now requires. So these schools are instead filled with grim armies of Tracy Flicks who don’t understand what “fun” even means.

Have you been on the campus of some of these schools recently? What’s remarkable is how silent they are. It’s like walking through a library, but outside. It’s outright depressing and for some bright kids, that’s not going to be appealing no matter how shiny the name is.

I’ve visited nearly 100 colleges in the last decade. You are so right. Students walking to class at Williams were like zombies (and not in a GOOD way). Students at Michigan, Baylor, & Kansas State looked like they couldn’t imagine being anywhere else.

Since you brought up Kansas State, I was wondering if you could compare it to Univ of Kansas in terms of culture, student body, campus, and surrounding town. If you’re familiar! Thanks

NP. I am very familiar with both schools and towns.

KU also has very happy students. Many are from Kansas (and a lot from the KC area) but it’s also about 40% out of state. Lawrence is liberal and larger than Manhattan. More students from further away than KState. KState has more of a rural agriculture focus. Also a nice college town though. I love that Lawrence is so close to Kansas City and the airport. The KU campus is on top of a hill and very pretty. Easy to get around the town. More to do and less isolated than KState.

I visited Lawrence for a meeting and had an opportunity to drive around the KU campus. It was one of the prettiest campuses I have been on and it felt like it was a place where you would find a lot of contentment being on campus. It is not right for my older DD but I think it could be a good fit for my younger one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HYPSM will continue to be overly popular.

Schools with strong comp sci or business departments are next.

Schools that aggressively manage their admissions process to lower their fake admit rates and inflated yields are next (Chicago, Northeastern, etc.).

Schools that don’t fit any of the above will suffer.

Hoping something will stop this aggressive admissions management, which to me is making anxiety worse and is more pernicious than all the AA/legacy/etc. policies everyone complains about.

Should be PSM at this point. Yale lost the plot some years ago. Early apps to Harvard declined by 17 percent this year - and that's before all the recent controversies.

But yes, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT will remain at the top.

US News made things weird this year. They don't care about class size. They don't care about the academic qualifications of professors. They don't care about how long it takes a student to graduate. They very much care about federal Pell Grants, even though most good private schools offer enough financial aid so that students don't need Pell Grants.

So, US News is no longer a great metric.

I would say schools on the up are the southern schools - Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice. As well as the really good publics, particularly those with good STEM - Georgia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M. And Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin. Also, Minnesota.

I get that trashing the Ivies is a favorite pastime on this forum, with Harvard and Yale taking the brunt of it. But I am just fascinated how people tend to give Princeton and Stanford (I know not an Ivy but part of HYPSM) a pass even though both of these schools engage in the very same policies, DEI engineering, etc, that Harvard and Yale get lambasted for.

Is that because Princeton and Stanford are not in the news as much as HY or do we conveniently give them a pass for another reason?

It's because MIT, Stanford, and Princeton are all good at STEM. And that differentiates them from Harvard and Yale, which are comparatively weak. Ergo, PSM are regarded as more rigorous and more serious institutions than HY.

They all may have their own institutional priorities when it comes to admissions, including DEI, but there is no question that an URM student at MIT or studying aerospace engineering at Stanford or CS at Princeton is a very smart and accomplished young person. It's not a questioned at all.

Whereas people are a little more maybe-maybe when it comes to students at Harvard or Yale, which is overwhelmingly focused on DEI, the rich, legacy, athletes, and family of faculty. Plus they don't really excel in the hard majors at the undergrad level. So there is increasingly a difference in perception. Who is to say whether or not it's fair.

It is not “STEM.” The correct acronym is now STEAM.

Do better.

STEAM is a term made up by secondary and elementary schools to include art kids. No college is referred to as STEAM.
Do better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HYPSM will continue to be overly popular.

Schools with strong comp sci or business departments are next.

Schools that aggressively manage their admissions process to lower their fake admit rates and inflated yields are next (Chicago, Northeastern, etc.).

Schools that don’t fit any of the above will suffer.

Hoping something will stop this aggressive admissions management, which to me is making anxiety worse and is more pernicious than all the AA/legacy/etc. policies everyone complains about.

Should be PSM at this point. Yale lost the plot some years ago. Early apps to Harvard declined by 17 percent this year - and that's before all the recent controversies.

But yes, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT will remain at the top.

US News made things weird this year. They don't care about class size. They don't care about the academic qualifications of professors. They don't care about how long it takes a student to graduate. They very much care about federal Pell Grants, even though most good private schools offer enough financial aid so that students don't need Pell Grants.

So, US News is no longer a great metric.

I would say schools on the up are the southern schools - Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice. As well as the really good publics, particularly those with good STEM - Georgia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M. And Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin. Also, Minnesota.

I get that trashing the Ivies is a favorite pastime on this forum, with Harvard and Yale taking the brunt of it. But I am just fascinated how people tend to give Princeton and Stanford (I know not an Ivy but part of HYPSM) a pass even though both of these schools engage in the very same policies, DEI engineering, etc, that Harvard and Yale get lambasted for.

Is that because Princeton and Stanford are not in the news as much as HY or do we conveniently give them a pass for another reason?

It's because MIT, Stanford, and Princeton are all good at STEM. And that differentiates them from Harvard and Yale, which are comparatively weak. Ergo, PSM are regarded as more rigorous and more serious institutions than HY.

They all may have their own institutional priorities when it comes to admissions, including DEI, but there is no question that an URM student at MIT or studying aerospace engineering at Stanford or CS at Princeton is a very smart and accomplished young person. It's not a questioned at all.

Whereas people are a little more maybe-maybe when it comes to students at Harvard or Yale, which is overwhelmingly focused on DEI, the rich, legacy, athletes, and family of faculty. Plus they don't really excel in the hard majors at the undergrad level. So there is increasingly a difference in perception. Who is to say whether or not it's fair.

It is not “STEM.” The correct acronym is now STEAM.

Do better.

STEAM is a term made up by secondary and elementary schools to include art kids. No college is referred to as STEAM.
Do better.

This. No one uses STEAM at the college level

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I get that trashing the Ivies is a favorite pastime on this forum, with Harvard and Yale taking the brunt of it. But I am just fascinated how people tend to give Princeton and Stanford (I know not an Ivy but part of HYPSM) a pass even though both of these schools engage in the very same policies, DEI engineering, etc, that Harvard and Yale get lambasted for.

Is that because Princeton and Stanford are not in the news as much as HY or do we conveniently give them a pass for another reason?

The tech bros who are paying the PR firms to tear schools down must have gone to MIT, Stanford and Northwestern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HYPSM will continue to be overly popular.

Schools with strong comp sci or business departments are next.

Schools that aggressively manage their admissions process to lower their fake admit rates and inflated yields are next (Chicago, Northeastern, etc.).

Schools that don’t fit any of the above will suffer.

Hoping something will stop this aggressive admissions management, which to me is making anxiety worse and is more pernicious than all the AA/legacy/etc. policies everyone complains about.

Should be PSM at this point. Yale lost the plot some years ago. Early apps to Harvard declined by 17 percent this year - and that's before all the recent controversies.

But yes, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT will remain at the top.

US News made things weird this year. They don't care about class size. They don't care about the academic qualifications of professors. They don't care about how long it takes a student to graduate. They very much care about federal Pell Grants, even though most good private schools offer enough financial aid so that students don't need Pell Grants.

So, US News is no longer a great metric.

I would say schools on the up are the southern schools - Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice. As well as the really good publics, particularly those with good STEM - Georgia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M. And Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin. Also, Minnesota.

I get that trashing the Ivies is a favorite pastime on this forum, with Harvard and Yale taking the brunt of it. But I am just fascinated how people tend to give Princeton and Stanford (I know not an Ivy but part of HYPSM) a pass even though both of these schools engage in the very same policies, DEI engineering, etc, that Harvard and Yale get lambasted for.

Is that because Princeton and Stanford are not in the news as much as HY or do we conveniently give them a pass for another reason?

It's because MIT, Stanford, and Princeton are all good at STEM. And that differentiates them from Harvard and Yale, which are comparatively weak. Ergo, PSM are regarded as more rigorous and more serious institutions than HY.

They all may have their own institutional priorities when it comes to admissions, including DEI, but there is no question that an URM student at MIT or studying aerospace engineering at Stanford or CS at Princeton is a very smart and accomplished young person. It's not a questioned at all.

Whereas people are a little more maybe-maybe when it comes to students at Harvard or Yale, which is overwhelmingly focused on DEI, the rich, legacy, athletes, and family of faculty. Plus they don't really excel in the hard majors at the undergrad level. So there is increasingly a difference in perception. Who is to say whether or not it's fair.

Perception?

So what. A degree from Harvard or Yale is golden ticket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HYPSM will continue to be overly popular.

Schools with strong comp sci or business departments are next.

Schools that aggressively manage their admissions process to lower their fake admit rates and inflated yields are next (Chicago, Northeastern, etc.).

Schools that don’t fit any of the above will suffer.

Hoping something will stop this aggressive admissions management, which to me is making anxiety worse and is more pernicious than all the AA/legacy/etc. policies everyone complains about.

Should be PSM at this point. Yale lost the plot some years ago. Early apps to Harvard declined by 17 percent this year - and that's before all the recent controversies.

But yes, Princeton, Stanford, and MIT will remain at the top.

US News made things weird this year. They don't care about class size. They don't care about the academic qualifications of professors. They don't care about how long it takes a student to graduate. They very much care about federal Pell Grants, even though most good private schools offer enough financial aid so that students don't need Pell Grants.

So, US News is no longer a great metric.

I would say schools on the up are the southern schools - Duke, Vanderbilt, Rice. As well as the really good publics, particularly those with good STEM - Georgia Tech, Texas, Texas A&M. And Illinois, Purdue, Wisconsin. Also, Minnesota.

I get that trashing the Ivies is a favorite pastime on this forum, with Harvard and Yale taking the brunt of it. But I am just fascinated how people tend to give Princeton and Stanford (I know not an Ivy but part of HYPSM) a pass even though both of these schools engage in the very same policies, DEI engineering, etc, that Harvard and Yale get lambasted for.

Is that because Princeton and Stanford are not in the news as much as HY or do we conveniently give them a pass for another reason?

It's because MIT, Stanford, and Princeton are all good at STEM. And that differentiates them from Harvard and Yale, which are comparatively weak. Ergo, PSM are regarded as more rigorous and more serious institutions than HY.

They all may have their own institutional priorities when it comes to admissions, including DEI, but there is no question that an URM student at MIT or studying aerospace engineering at Stanford or CS at Princeton is a very smart and accomplished young person. It's not a questioned at all.

Whereas people are a little more maybe-maybe when it comes to students at Harvard or Yale, which is overwhelmingly focused on DEI, the rich, legacy, athletes, and family of faculty. Plus they don't really excel in the hard majors at the undergrad level. So there is increasingly a difference in perception. Who is to say whether or not it's fair.

Perception?

So what. A degree from Harvard or Yale is golden ticket.

Nope, major matters much more as proven numerous times on this forum.