What's the REAL difference between an Ivy and any other decent private university
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Anonymous
Yeah, me too. I have a degree from Oxford and I still have plenty of people who don't return my phone calls and e-mails. I do not have this fabled immediate, comprehensive, universal access of which you speak. |
Anonymous
...and, in fact, your anecdotal experience is completely supported by the research, which finds that--except for poor and minority students--there is no lasting advantage to attending an elite college/university. This thread is a lot of nonsense. And anyone talking about judges/justices only hiring clerks from Harvard and Yale are clearly demonstrating their ignorance. Those anecdotes actually undercut your argument (since what matters to those judges isn't where the clerks went to undergrad, but where they went to LAW SCHOOL). |
Anonymous
| ^^sorry, "anyone talking about judges...is clearly demonstrating *her* ignorance." |
Anonymous
| Guy sitting in the office next to me, doing the same job I am doing, went to Harvard undergrad and Princeton grad. I went to state schools for both undergrad and grad. I guess he missed the secret handshake, too. |
Anonymous
Really? Is that why the 45 year old Ivy League boor the next office over from still manages to work where she went to school into every conversation and that's why she so smarter than everyone else? Puhleeze! |
Anonymous
+100 However, I'm not naive or idealistic enough to pretend that there is not immense value in attending an Ivy. |
Anonymous
No one disputes that--the question is, is it significantly better (some would say, in a lasting way), compared to attending a non-Ivy top university or SLAC? And in terms of the network...don't forget that these days, 90% of the people who apply to Ivys are rejected. That's a lot of people out there who may be less likely to value your alma mater. |
Anonymous
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re: Penn State
It's a perfectly fine school. I'm sure if you tried hard enough you could find your niche at PSU and have an amazing intellectually stimulating experience there and perhaps even dabble in cutting-edge research, but you would be more of an exception than the rule. No specific data to back that claim up, just basing that on my own experience growing up in PA and knowing many, many PSU grads. And even considering it for myself at one point. You don't think there would be any meaningful differences between the experience at a top 10-15 school on your list vs. 75-100? Better research options? Better funding/corporate support? And I'm sorry to say that the "prestige" does help with all of those things. Attracting innovators, investors, etc. Sorry, I just don't see it as being comparable. |
Anonymous
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Well, I went to Cornell, one of the land grant colleges (I was a NYS resident). It was the best school I could get into AND afford. My parents didn't have the money to send me to any sort of private school and the SUNY schools weren't that great at the time. I was able to graduate with minimal debt and I received a challenging, wonderful education.
OTOH, a lot of people sh*t all over Cornell for not being exclusive enough (see previous comments about SUNY Ithaca) so the reputation doesn't do that much for me. Instead, all of the benefit I got was the actual education I received. |
Anonymous
| Another recent Cornell grad here and I completely agree, PP. The reputation is fine enough for me (although I fully realize that some in other Ivies may scoff at it), and although the connections didn't get me my jobs, I've seen how they work. As a minority from a low-SES background, having a Cornell degree rocketed me out of poverty and for that I am extremely grateful. At my first post-grad job at a large government agency, my supervisor actually admitted that's why she hired me, sight unseen and without an interview. |
Anonymous
See the statistics in the Times World Ranking of Universities - it seems a lot of research is going on at PSU and Pitt, my alma mater (Incidentally, Pitt along with Army and Navy were considered for membership in the Ivy League at its founding). The Ivy League like the SEC, Big East or PAC-10 is a sports league, nothing else. |
Anonymous
I did look at your list and I was asking about the top 10-15 vs. 75-100. You don't think there are discernible differences in the research environments? Agree that Ivy League is just a sports league. However, many people do have hangups (good and bad) about it. |
Anonymous
I dispute it. I went to an Ivy. I posted above that it is helpful early in your career. But now I can't see it's of any value. And I can't really see that it was of much value other than it got me interviews by people who were impressed I went to an Ivy. But I had to get the jobs. If your kid likes Bates, go to Bates, if you can afford it. I don't think going to HYPS will give your kid much of an advantage over Bates. Plus some people HATE Harvard. A friend of mine hated every minute there. He's a genius BTW, but he wishes he'd gone to Wesleyan or somewhere smaller. |
Anonymous
See? That Harvard education is useless. I missed the humor seminar, too. |
Anonymous
Wow. This, +100. |