DP. People aren't diminishing the value of the ivy league degree. They are saying that the cost of the ivy league degree isn't necessary, particularly at the undergraduate level, because graduates from "lesser" schools (1) end up equally successful and (2) end up in the same graduate programs with ivy league graduates. |
It’s not? I thought that was exactly what we were talking about. The Ivy League isn’t out of your reach. Just take out loans. It shouldn’t be a problem for you because you don’t look at education from a return on an investment perspective. |
No. Just look at all of the people who go into public service. If my kids can get in and it’s a good fit I’d pay for it for my kids. And not just because I think it’s more likely that they’d have a higher amount of lifetime earning. |
You don't get this at all. |
I'm the OP of that comment and I don't have any connections and am incompetent at "working" them even if I did. I'm saying the name recognition of the school helped pull me in for the interview after I took time off to mom it for several years, and helped me get a job in a very competitive market after graduation. And having a high GPA from that ivy (and a letter of rec from faculty there) helped me get into a good law school even though I was applying 6 years after i graduated. I'm sure my WHOLE resume counted, but people notice and ask questions about the ivy school -- it came up in those two job interviews specifically, even though for one it had been 25 years since I'd graduated. It keeps happening to me and that's why I'm convinced it's still a factor in getting hired etc. |
Another Ivy grad here with a similar life path, and I am convinced it has helped me too. After a non traditional path with time off, people still know that I got my card stamped at an Ivy. I think it helps. And not it's not connections either. I don't know where these Ivy connections come from. I don't have any! |
+1. An Ivy on your resume, whether for undergrad or grad school, gives you the benefit of the doubt if you ever do something nontraditional or aren't perfect. It's economically rational to decide that's not worth $400k, but personally I would make it work if my daughters could actually get in. |
Agreed. I'm the Ivy poster above. It gave me more freedom to do what I wanted job wise without feeling pressure to accept the most prestigious job. Then it helped me the most when I came back into the workforce after time away for family reasons. |
+1. It’s hard to take a school district seriously when it is has 200+ valedictorians at a single high school. Let alone that they don’t penalize grades for cheating. |
The valedictorian thing has been going on here for at least four decades. It’s so emblematic of the deeper problem of not being able to tell parents “no.” You want option school for your child? Yes! You want accelerated math for your child? Yes! You want your child IDed as gifted? Sure! You want your child to be valedictorian? Why the hell not! Everyone is the smartest and APS and deserves the education they demand. To the detriment of the majority. |
Oh good lord, you can be annoyed if you want about the valedictorian thing, but it doesn't have anything to do with your myriad other baseless complaints. Maybe you should go to private if you hate APS that much. |
+1 APS essentially doesn't have a "valedictorian" they use the term to really mean something like magna cum laude -- anyone who has 4.0+ weighted GPA. Yes it's dumb terminology. It tries to walk the line of reducing GPA competition at the top while not getting rid of ranking completely. |
There are no non-magnet high schools in the DMV the quality of New Trier. I went to a neighboring high school - Deerfield - and yes even today there is no non-magnet high school the quality of Deerfield. Not sure the reason is anything to write home about. The Chicago area is among the most segregated of areas, and the demographics at a Deerfield or Stevenson are quite different than high schools here. But contrary to a bias against the Midwest, these top flight Chicago suburban schools are very good. In the 80's the principal of Highland Park high school became the APS superintendent and while Highland Park had a small neighborhood of recently arrived migrants in Highwood, it was an an adjustment to APS (from what I can tell he did an acceptable job). The real loss, so to speak, in the State of Illinois has been in the secondary cities. Peoria Richwoods used to be excellent in the 70's, and now it is dismal. A singular example, to be sure - but in Peoria - formerly the hallmark of the middle class throughout America, it is really unfortunate. From this perspective APS looks fairly good. |
This. There are a lot of dual government families in Arlington. They make good money and live a comfortable lifestyle. They get very little need-based aid and don't have $300k to spend on college for one kid. It doesn't matter if the Ivy League is worth it. They don't have it. And people who work safe, steady government jobs don't borrow a lot of money for college. Not gonna happen. |
Arlington is a county based system. If Yorktown was its own school district and set it's own zoning laws, it would be a "better" school district in terms of getting kids into top colleges. |