To you, what's the bottom of the "elite" colleges?

[Anonymous]

WSJ Top 25 Ranking:

1 - Harvard
2 - Stanford
3 - MIT
4 - Yale
5 - Duke
6 - Brown
7 - Caltech
8 - Princeton
9 - Johns Hopkins / Northwestern
11 - Cornell
12 - U of Pennsylvania
13 - Dartmouth
14 - U of Chicago
15 - Vanderbilt
16 - Columbia
17 - Washington U in St. Louis
18 - Rice
19 - USC
20 - Emory
21 - Carnegie Mellon
22 - Amherst
23 - Williams
24 - U of Michigan
25 - Pomona

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Only people with kids at tier two colleges say such things or invent "Ivy Plus" and other things in a cringy attempt to wed your kid's college to the true elite. You boosters are projecting so hard. In fact, a deep applicant pool fortifies the elite. Makes them even more elite than they were. While faux elites like Chicago have doubled in size to chase tuition money.

I'm alum from Washington University in St. Louis. I don't say "ivy plus." I just I went to WUSTL. That's enought.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Only people with kids at tier two colleges say such things or invent "Ivy Plus" and other things in a cringy attempt to wed your kid's college to the true elite. You boosters are projecting so hard. In fact, a deep applicant pool fortifies the elite. Makes them even more elite than they were. While faux elites like Chicago have doubled in size to chase tuition money.

I'm alum from Washington University in St. Louis. I don't say "ivy plus." I just I went to WUSTL. That's enought.

Holy typos, Batman!

" I just say I went to WUSTL. That's enough."

There's a diminishing return on how impressive any college degree is as you get older. People are much more interested in what work you've done since you graduated.

[Anonymous]

Has anyone even mentioned the term Ivy Plus here? There's a seriously disturbed member of the prestige defense squad here (perhaps the lone member!) it seems. Ha!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UChicago and Northwestern are fine colleges but they're no kid's first choice, which by definition does NOT make them elite. If you offered 12th graders the choice between: Northwestern, UChicago, Columbia or Penn. 99% would choose Penn or Columbia. Therefore, not elite -- and their flyover geography certainly doesn't help.

Bingo!

No, that's just not true. No matter how hard you try.

Lots of kids in the Midwest and the South and the West Coast would choose Northwestern or Chicago over Penn or Columbia. Not everyone wants to live in New York or Philadelphia.

You are making a purely geographic argument.
If a student rather be in the Chicago area rather than Manhattan or Philadelphia, then that is not a reflection of the schools.
Close to 100% of admitted students would choose UPenn or Columbia over Chicago/NW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UChicago and Northwestern are fine colleges but they're no kid's first choice, which by definition does NOT make them elite. If you offered 12th graders the choice between: Northwestern, UChicago, Columbia or Penn. 99% would choose Penn or Columbia. Therefore, not elite -- and their flyover geography certainly doesn't help.

Bingo!

No, that's just not true. No matter how hard you try.

Lots of kids in the Midwest and the South and the West Coast would choose Northwestern or Chicago over Penn or Columbia. Not everyone wants to live in New York or Philadelphia.

You are making a purely geographic argument.
If a student rather be in the Chicago area rather than Manhattan or Philadelphia, then that is not a reflection of the schools.
Close to 100% of admitted students would choose UPenn or Columbia over Chicago/NW.

This is simply just not true. Please move on. Your obsession with these schools must not be healthy for either you or your kid.

UPenn, the school that frequently gets confused for a state school in the great, enviable state of... Pennsylvania. LOL. Okay. Really?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This question is a lot like asking someone their definition of rich. It’s both a relative and absolute thing. For the average person, a NW of $1+ million may be rich, yet it is “only” the 90th percentile. The Top 1% in NW is around $10 million. Even still, it’s mostly the 600+ billionaires that grab the headlines. And, within the billionaires, there are differences. Before Musk hit it big, Bezos, Buffet, and Gates (BBG) were a separate club. In sum, perceptions of rich depend on one’s awareness and life opportunities, but there are also the cold facts that define exclusivity.

Now, apply that same logic to colleges. Each year, about 5 million kids start a four-year school. The top 1% or 99th percentile, includes 50k kids. If the average freshman class at an upper-tier school is 2000, that’s 25 schools or the Top 25. In the analogy to “what is rich,” these kids are very rich. However, the Top 0.1% of kids, or 5000, go to the Top 3 schools. Traditionally, the well-educated considered those to be HPY. But, like BBG, there’s been one extra-special club, which is Harvard. As in wealth, distinctions other than these are mostly noise.

Oh Harvard....you were doing so great with your analysis until you had to ruin it at the very end. Did they forget to teach you voting yourself "extra-special" is not " extra-special" behavior? As for the "extra-special" BBG club......none of them sent their kids to study at your " extra-special" club. Strange.

Thanks for the compliment on the analysis, but I didn’t go to Harvard. I was trying to explain the TRADITIONAL thinking about what qualifies as elite, and, for many, if they had to select ONE college that epitomizes excellence in academics across a broad range of subjects and is the beacon of American education on both the domestic AND international stage, more would choose Harvard than any other college.

No one is impressed by obama’s first kid at Harvard. It's his second kid at Michigan who is impressive. She is saying she doesn't need the H name brand to strike out on her own.

The Obama girls could do nothing and still be successful. They are Obamas!

The Obama girls school choice has nothing to do whether they are successful or not.
Status as a child or grandchild of a US President or VP gains admission to any school they desire.
I believe Sasha was admitted to Yale but choose Michigan. Maybe because she has friends at Michigan. Maybe she wanted less academic rigor. As you know Yale is much more academically rigorous than Harvard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This question is a lot like asking someone their definition of rich. It’s both a relative and absolute thing. For the average person, a NW of $1+ million may be rich, yet it is “only” the 90th percentile. The Top 1% in NW is around $10 million. Even still, it’s mostly the 600+ billionaires that grab the headlines. And, within the billionaires, there are differences. Before Musk hit it big, Bezos, Buffet, and Gates (BBG) were a separate club. In sum, perceptions of rich depend on one’s awareness and life opportunities, but there are also the cold facts that define exclusivity.

Now, apply that same logic to colleges. Each year, about 5 million kids start a four-year school. The top 1% or 99th percentile, includes 50k kids. If the average freshman class at an upper-tier school is 2000, that’s 25 schools or the Top 25. In the analogy to “what is rich,” these kids are very rich. However, the Top 0.1% of kids, or 5000, go to the Top 3 schools. Traditionally, the well-educated considered those to be HPY. But, like BBG, there’s been one extra-special club, which is Harvard. As in wealth, distinctions other than these are mostly noise.

Oh Harvard....you were doing so great with your analysis until you had to ruin it at the very end. Did they forget to teach you voting yourself "extra-special" is not " extra-special" behavior? As for the "extra-special" BBG club......none of them sent their kids to study at your " extra-special" club. Strange.

Thanks for the compliment on the analysis, but I didn’t go to Harvard. I was trying to explain the TRADITIONAL thinking about what qualifies as elite, and, for many, if they had to select ONE college that epitomizes excellence in academics across a broad range of subjects and is the beacon of American education on both the domestic AND international stage, more would choose Harvard than any other college.

No one is impressed by obama’s first kid at Harvard. It's his second kid at Michigan who is impressive. She is saying she doesn't need the H name brand to strike out on her own.

The Obama girls could do nothing and still be successful. They are Obamas!

The Obama girls school choice has nothing to do whether they are successful or not.
Status as a child or grandchild of a US President or VP gains admission to any school they desire.
I believe Sasha was admitted to Yale but choose Michigan. Maybe because she has friends at Michigan. Maybe she wanted less academic rigor. As you know Yale is much more academically rigorous than Harvard.

Why would she want to be at a rust belt flyover state school that no one would ever choose, ever?!?!?!?! It just doesn't make sense!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you asked 12th graders where they'd like to attend college next year, no strings, no admissions gaming:

- Northwestern
- Chicago
- Duke

98 out of 100 would choose Duke.

Same question:

- Northwestern
- Chicago
- Columbia
- Penn

98 out of 100 would choose Columbia or Penn.

I don't care how many apps Chicago and NU receive, I don't care how you [they] twist the admissions data, Chicago and Northwestern are simply not top rung elite. And outside of the Rust Belt, nobody sees Chicago as some aspirational city to live in, let alone settle down in after college. It's fairly stagnant, cold as hell half the year, and the crime is through the roof.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of weird parochialism and claims of boosterism here from people who apparently have never left Virginia.

+1. I have no affiliation to NW or U Chicago and am certainly not a grad of either, and I’ve always known them to be excellent, some of the best schools in the country. Same goes with Duke, and I also have a lot of respect for liberal arts colleges like Williams and Swarthmore. I don’t understand all the nitpicking and insult-throwing and attempts to control what people are allowed to think.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’d argue for schools that made in top 10 list of all of the Forbes, US News and WSJ rankings: HYPSM, Northwestern, Duke

As others have noted, admissions shenanigans no longer justify this narrow focus. If one objectively compares the quality of students (average SAT, for example) attending the Top 25 schools, there isn’t much difference. Same with admission rates. And, the differences that do exist are not meaningful.

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Elite:

Harvard
Stanford
Yale
MIT
Princeton
Columbia
(Wharton)

I’m ok with this, but take out Columbia

Agree Columbia is out

[Anonymous]

For me elite is US News top 15

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Elite:

Harvard
Stanford
Yale
MIT
Princeton
Columbia
(Wharton)

I’m ok with this, but take out Columbia

Agree Columbia is out

Take Wharton out before Columbia, what is that nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Elite:

Harvard
Stanford
Yale
MIT
Princeton
Columbia
(Wharton)

I’m ok with this, but take out Columbia

Agree Columbia is out

Crazies are coming out.