Is it worth-it to sacrifice prestige for better advisement and caring professors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want professors with a high-quality personal network who actually know people at top grad schools and employers, then sorry, those are the professors at elite schools not at "lower caliber" schools.

A high quality network does not mean that those professors will put in the time and effort to help individual students. That network doesn't mean anything if professors don't know your name or won't do anything other than a simple recommendation letter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want professors with a high-quality personal network who actually know people at top grad schools and employers, then sorry, those are the professors at elite schools not at "lower caliber" schools.

A high quality network does not mean that those professors will put in the time and effort to help individual students. That network doesn't mean anything if professors don't know your name or won't do anything other than a simple recommendation letter.

Professors can devote time to research. They can devote time to graduate students. They can devote time to undergraduate students. I simply suggest finding a place where undergraduates aren't an afterthought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think smaller size is going to be the factor that determines level of faculty involvement and advising, as opposed to low prestige. You're best off at Cal Tech or the WASP schools, which are both small and prestigious. Plenty of big state schools have lower prestige and crud advising.

What are the WASP schools?

WASP colleges are Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona. (Very commonly used acronym that is, oddly, unfamiliar to many DCUM readers.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you have a kid who thinks they know more than any professor and that lectures in college are a waste of time because, really what does that PhD have to say about it anyway, then go for prestige. Prestige schools are sadly full of such students.

If you have a kid who wants to learn, pay attention to who is doing the teaching and make your choice that way.

Reads as if one with no experience whatsoever at elite colleges & universities wrote this. Seems like one who may have experienced a lot of rejection from prestigious, elite schools.