Are the ivies overrated? Perhaps too much coddling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is disputing that there are super bright people at ivies, it’s more the idea that the dimwits there (and there are definitely plenty of dimwits there) are more capable than the top students at lot lots of other (less rich, less privileged) schools.

There are a much, much greater number of dimwits at non-Ivies...and more as you keep going down the rankings.

My brother was a complete idiot and on a full ride at an ~330 ranked university....between the 4 roommates they didn't have a 4.0 first quarter...didn't even pick their books up (that were paid for).

The liklihood of finding a dimwit is much greater not on an Ivy/T10/20 campus. These arguments are so stupid....everyone worked with that dumb Ivy grad...

look, I get it...we always make fun of our kid when he does something stupid...'Ivy grad' and joke about it with him.

But that misses the fact that there are so many schools in this county, many of them with crazy smart kids, though apparently not your brother.

I would pick a top 25% grad of a state flagship over a generic ivy grad any day of the week. (And that is backed up by my experience in professional school admissions.)

I would interview the person, understand their skills, temperament and goals, and then determine whether they would add and align with the company culture for long-term success. I wouldn’t have preconceived notions on their undergrad and instead see who I met that day.

Well yes, obviously. I don’t think anyone thinks that’s actually how interviews should go and it’s implied that this is a hypothetical “if that’s all I knew” situation.”

[Anonymous]

I think that it's hard to do these surveys in an unbiased way because (big) companies compete against each other for high-prestige grads. So of course tech companies and law firms and businesses that are participating in large scale surveys want to say "Well, we wanted to higher Big State U grads anyway!" as a way to eventually elevate their own pretige. It's all such navel gazing. Good schools produce good workers. There are more good schools than ivies. So while it's totally fair to say a kid from UT Austin or Wisconson will perform just as well as a kid from Brown or Yale, it's weird to say the kids from Brown and Yale are "bad employees."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is disputing that there are super bright people at ivies, it’s more the idea that the dimwits there (and there are definitely plenty of dimwits there) are more capable than the top students at lot lots of other (less rich, less privileged) schools.

There are a much, much greater number of dimwits at non-Ivies...and more as you keep going down the rankings.

My brother was a complete idiot and on a full ride at an ~330 ranked university....between the 4 roommates they didn't have a 4.0 first quarter...didn't even pick their books up (that were paid for).

The liklihood of finding a dimwit is much greater not on an Ivy/T10/20 campus. These arguments are so stupid....everyone worked with that dumb Ivy grad...

look, I get it...we always make fun of our kid when he does something stupid...'Ivy grad' and joke about it with him.

But that misses the fact that there are so many schools in this county, many of them with crazy smart kids, though apparently not your brother.

I would pick a top 25% grad of a state flagship over a generic ivy grad any day of the week. (And that is backed up by my experience in professional school admissions.)

Whatever. You have a chip on your shoulder. I went to public T25. My kid is at an Ivy. I know smart people that didn’t go to college too.

I work with many brilliant Ivy grads and my boss who went to my alma mater is also completely brilliant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish my kid was coddled more, not really, but that is so false. There may be some plush privates that do that but it’s not the Ivies. Most get humbled real quick and the expectations are very high. There is no hand holding.

I believe what they mean by coddled is the Ivies do not provide the full gamut of a real word education. For instance, you don’t have to be proactive to get your classes. If you’re struggling, they practically give your own personal tutor. You don’t get that in publics, at least not to that extent. You have to be responsible and get your classes early or they’ll run out of seats. If you’re struggling, they do have resources to help you but you have to seek out. And when you do, you might have to wait a couple hours for your turn (this is most common in lower division introductory courses. Upper division is much more intimate). So public school education is more relatable to the real world. No one’s gonna give you a job out there, you have to seek it out. If you’re struggling at your job, you’re pretty much on your own to figure it out. An IT person once said he could always tell what school someone went to. He said the private school people would call me to fix stuff that only took a reboot.

We wish, particularly the tutor one! Classes fill-up and it’s a fight, I’m sure large publics are worse though.

[Anonymous]

Can you guys not see that leaping to the defense of how super smart and incredibly hard working your adult children are is part of the coddling? And not just them, but all their classmates and members of their university’s athletic league?

The call is coming from inside the house, gals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doesn't have anything to do with sour grapes. It's more of a reaction to the obsession with obtaining 'elite' credentials, especially when they are gatekept by obscure or questionable processes, and the extreme min/max optimized paths parents put their children through to obtain them.

Lots of top schools, both ivy league and others are all competing to get the best student body they can get. These students are going to pursue a higher education somewhere and the top colleges want the top kids to pick their institution. The ivy leak might not be the perfect fit for everybody, but you could do worse than have access to the education available at some of the departments in these schools. There are a lot of excellent classes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you guys not see that leaping to the defense of how super smart and incredibly hard working your adult children are is part of the coddling? And not just them, but all their classmates and members of their university’s athletic league?

The call is coming from inside the house, gals.

It's all a well beaten path at this point. Tons of helicopter parents pushing their kids along it so they can go be cog # 19038 coder for a tech megacorp.

[Anonymous]

If they’re all so dumb and coddled and companies don’t want to hire them, then why do we have to have daily threads on Ivies. Enjoy your other schools and be good with it. No need to knock anyone else down if you’re content.

[Anonymous]

I used to have low self esteem about going in-state ($ thing) when I had stats/rankings for T10/Ivies. I grew up and got over it, but I used to make these stupid arguments like OP.

I grew up. I wear my alma mater sweatshirt proudly. I’m not looking for ways to sh@t on Ivy grads or look for bad examples of them.

Ironically, I also have a kid at an Ivy now. He has a lot more work than I did—and a whole helluva lot less drinking/partying too. lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wish my kid was coddled more, not really, but that is so false. There may be some plush privates that do that but it’s not the Ivies. Most get humbled real quick and the expectations are very high. There is no hand holding.

I believe what they mean by coddled is the Ivies do not provide the full gamut of a real word education. For instance, you don’t have to be proactive to get your classes. If you’re struggling, they practically give your own personal tutor. You don’t get that in publics, at least not to that extent. You have to be responsible and get your classes early or they’ll run out of seats. If you’re struggling, they do have resources to help you but you have to seek out. And when you do, you might have to wait a couple hours for your turn (this is most common in lower division introductory courses. Upper division is much more intimate). So public school education is more relatable to the real world. No one’s gonna give you a job out there, you have to seek it out. If you’re struggling at your job, you’re pretty much on your own to figure it out. An IT person once said he could always tell what school someone went to. He said the private school people would call me to fix stuff that only took a reboot.

What do you mean you're guaranteed to get your classes at an ivy League school. Quite a number of classes require an application and you have to be accepted into the class by the professor and plenty of students are rejected. You can certainly get an outstanding education at an ivy league institution, but you're going to work your butt off for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Actually, if you look at the top feeders for tech and finance, it’s mostly public schools, or private schools that have rigor similar to elite publics like Berkeley and Michigan.

That’s not even remotely true…especially for finance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If they’re all so dumb and coddled and companies don’t want to hire them, then why do we have to have daily threads on Ivies. Enjoy your other schools and be good with it. No need to knock anyone else down if you’re content.

No one thinks they’re ALL dumb and coddled, but anyone who has been at an ivy or worked with many knows some are and that it’s exactly a man bites dog story.

The Andy Bernard character on office was funny because it resonated wrt to a subset of ivy grads not because it was outlandish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they’re all so dumb and coddled and companies don’t want to hire them, then why do we have to have daily threads on Ivies. Enjoy your other schools and be good with it. No need to knock anyone else down if you’re content.

No one thinks they’re ALL dumb and coddled, but anyone who has been at an ivy or worked with many knows some are and that it’s exactly a man bites dog story.

The Andy Bernard character on office was funny because it resonated wrt to a subset of ivy grads not because it was outlandish.

Obviously being dramatic, just don’t understand why people that are supposedly content get so bothered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is at a HYPSM and working their butt off. No coddling there. Demanding academics!

M?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can you guys not see that leaping to the defense of how super smart and incredibly hard working your adult children are is part of the coddling? And not just them, but all their classmates and members of their university’s athletic league?

The call is coming from inside the house, gals.

+1 As if college students at many other colleges are not super smart and incredibly hard working.