For Which Elite Colleges and Universities Would You Pay Full Price ?

[Anonymous]

I think everyone is missing the forest through the trees.

The OP's straw man...a MC kid that has an undecided major that will need to borrow $7500/year...likely has the worst outcomes when attending an elite school. The low-income, 1st gen kids get all the university supports that help them find internships, get special tutoring, invited to corporate events only for them, etc. The wealthy kids...well they are doing just fine. The UMC kids for the most part at least know how to socialize, while not owning a yacht...certainly take European vacations and maybe have a 2nd home...they understand the importance of network, frats, etc.

The MC kid is most disadvantaged, unless they know the game from the start. If they spend 12-18 months figuring out their major...well all the other kids that want to work at GS, McKinsey, VC firms, hedge funds have already staked out their claims. In the meantime, because the picked an Elite College they don't really have the option of joining the Coca Cola management trainee program...because Coca Cola knows that nobody wants to work there from the Elite school so they go visit UGA and Clemson and those places (probably GA Tech because it is literally across the street).

Now, if MC kid is smart at least they pick an Elite school in a good career location. If they go to Stanford they know there are hundreds of start-ups where they can probably land on their feet (even not as a CS major)...however, they still are likely not getting a VC job. Same if they pick Columbia and can get internships during the school year with financial firms...and then hopefully parlay that into something.

However, if they decided to pick Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, etc....well then good luck. You better know the game you are playing and get up to speed quickly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For my junior, who's classically well-rounded, probably will major in the humanities or social sciences but may then pursue med school, and would benefit from both personal attention academically and a lively environment socially: Dartmouth, Williams, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Davidson, Rice, Pomona, maybe Princeton.

LOL at a 16 year old being "classically well-rounded." You people. LOL.

How do you know? Maybe the kid is a lyre prodigy, a nationally ranked sculptor, and captain of the chariot racing team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're in state VA. Would be willing to full pay:
Private: Ivy, Stanford, MIT
Public: Cal, UCLA, Michigan, UNC, Ga Tech

That's about it.

Why in the world would you full pay out of state tuition for any of those schools over in-state UVA?

IDK. Sounds good for this hypothetical exercise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone is missing the forest through the trees.

The OP's straw man...a MC kid that has an undecided major that will need to borrow $7500/year...likely has the worst outcomes when attending an elite school. The low-income, 1st gen kids get all the university supports that help them find internships, get special tutoring, invited to corporate events only for them, etc. The wealthy kids...well they are doing just fine. The UMC kids for the most part at least know how to socialize, while not owning a yacht...certainly take European vacations and maybe have a 2nd home...they understand the importance of network, frats, etc.

The MC kid is most disadvantaged, unless they know the game from the start. If they spend 12-18 months figuring out their major...well all the other kids that want to work at GS, McKinsey, VC firms, hedge funds have already staked out their claims. In the meantime, because the picked an Elite College they don't really have the option of joining the Coca Cola management trainee program...because Coca Cola knows that nobody wants to work there from the Elite school so they go visit UGA and Clemson and those places (probably GA Tech because it is literally across the street).

Now, if MC kid is smart at least they pick an Elite school in a good career location. If they go to Stanford they know there are hundreds of start-ups where they can probably land on their feet (even not as a CS major)...however, they still are likely not getting a VC job. Same if they pick Columbia and can get internships during the school year with financial firms...and then hopefully parlay that into something.

However, if they decided to pick Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, etc....well then good luck. You better know the game you are playing and get up to speed quickly.

You have an interesting point, but a lot of the top firms recruit on the campuses of elite schools. The top feeders for Wall Street and the best consulting firms have always been the top schools, even if they’re not in major locations. Dartmouth, for example, has been one of the poster children for Wall Street and consulting for decades despite being in the woods of northern New Hampshire. The best NY and SF firms aggressively recruit at Duke despite it being in the South.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone is missing the forest through the trees.

The OP's straw man...a MC kid that has an undecided major that will need to borrow $7500/year...likely has the worst outcomes when attending an elite school. The low-income, 1st gen kids get all the university supports that help them find internships, get special tutoring, invited to corporate events only for them, etc. The wealthy kids...well they are doing just fine. The UMC kids for the most part at least know how to socialize, while not owning a yacht...certainly take European vacations and maybe have a 2nd home...they understand the importance of network, frats, etc.

The MC kid is most disadvantaged, unless they know the game from the start. If they spend 12-18 months figuring out their major...well all the other kids that want to work at GS, McKinsey, VC firms, hedge funds have already staked out their claims. In the meantime, because the picked an Elite College they don't really have the option of joining the Coca Cola management trainee program...because Coca Cola knows that nobody wants to work there from the Elite school so they go visit UGA and Clemson and those places (probably GA Tech because it is literally across the street).

Now, if MC kid is smart at least they pick an Elite school in a good career location. If they go to Stanford they know there are hundreds of start-ups where they can probably land on their feet (even not as a CS major)...however, they still are likely not getting a VC job. Same if they pick Columbia and can get internships during the school year with financial firms...and then hopefully parlay that into something.

However, if they decided to pick Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, etc....well then good luck. You better know the game you are playing and get up to speed quickly.

You have an interesting point, but a lot of the top firms recruit on the campuses of elite schools. The top feeders for Wall Street and the best consulting firms have always been the top schools, even if they’re not in major locations. Dartmouth, for example, has been one of the poster children for Wall Street and consulting for decades despite being in the woods of northern New Hampshire. The best NY and SF firms aggressively recruit at Duke despite it being in the South.

I get that...but they aren't recruiting the MC kid who doesn't know how to work social connections, took 12 months to find their major, didn't join the Finance Club or equivalent, etc.. That is my point.

[Anonymous]

Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, Berkeley.

[Anonymous]

MIT

[Anonymous]

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Brown, and UChicago.

MIT/Caltech if they're insistent on engineering.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone is missing the forest through the trees.

The OP's straw man...a MC kid that has an undecided major that will need to borrow $7500/year...likely has the worst outcomes when attending an elite school. The low-income, 1st gen kids get all the university supports that help them find internships, get special tutoring, invited to corporate events only for them, etc. The wealthy kids...well they are doing just fine. The UMC kids for the most part at least know how to socialize, while not owning a yacht...certainly take European vacations and maybe have a 2nd home...they understand the importance of network, frats, etc.

The MC kid is most disadvantaged, unless they know the game from the start. If they spend 12-18 months figuring out their major...well all the other kids that want to work at GS, McKinsey, VC firms, hedge funds have already staked out their claims. In the meantime, because the picked an Elite College they don't really have the option of joining the Coca Cola management trainee program...because Coca Cola knows that nobody wants to work there from the Elite school so they go visit UGA and Clemson and those places (probably GA Tech because it is literally across the street).

Now, if MC kid is smart at least they pick an Elite school in a good career location. If they go to Stanford they know there are hundreds of start-ups where they can probably land on their feet (even not as a CS major)...however, they still are likely not getting a VC job. Same if they pick Columbia and can get internships during the school year with financial firms...and then hopefully parlay that into something.

However, if they decided to pick Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, etc....well then good luck. You better know the game you are playing and get up to speed quickly.

You have an interesting point, but a lot of the top firms recruit on the campuses of elite schools. The top feeders for Wall Street and the best consulting firms have always been the top schools, even if they’re not in major locations. Dartmouth, for example, has been one of the poster children for Wall Street and consulting for decades despite being in the woods of northern New Hampshire. The best NY and SF firms aggressively recruit at Duke despite it being in the South.

I get that...but they aren't recruiting the MC kid who doesn't know how to work social connections, took 12 months to find their major, didn't join the Finance Club or equivalent, etc.. That is my point.

The point is at elite schools the MC kids learn quickly how to get where they want. At other less prestigious schools the smart MC kids miss out.

[Anonymous]

(OP here. Thank you for all of your responses.)

Just finished looking over a study titled Revealed Preferences in Ranking of Colleges from 2004 (almost 20 years ago). The group studied 105 colleges & universities and listed them together in order of preference from #1 to #105. Below, I separate the schools into two broad categories: National Universities and LACs (although the #30 preferred school--Furman University--falls into neither category and the same for the #82 school--Rose Hulman Inst. of Tech.)

From a 2004 study, list in order of preferred colleges and universities:

National Universities:

1) Harvard
2) Yale
3) Stanford
4) CalTech
5) MIT

6) Princeton
7) Brown
8) Columbia
9) Dartmouth (among both LACs & Nat'l Universities, Amherst College, the first LAC to be listed, was #9).
10) U Penn

11) Notre Dame
12) Cornell
13) Georgetown
14) Rice
15) Duke

16) Virginia
17) Northwestern
18) UCal-Berkeley
19) Georgia Tech
20) U Chicago

21) Johns Hopkins
22) USC
23) UNC-Chapel hill
24) Vanderbilt
25) UCLA

26) Texas-Austin
27) NYU
28) Tufts
29) Michigan
30) Illinois

31) Carnegie Mellon (CMU)
32) U Maryland
33) College of William & Mary
34) Wake Forest U. (WFU)
35) U Miami

36) Emory
37) WashUStL
38) SMU
39) Lehigh
40) RPI

41) Fla. State (FSU)
42) UC-Santa Barbara
43) George Washington (GWU)
44) Fordham
45) Catolic U.

46) U Colorado
47) Wisconsin
48) ASU (Arizona State)
49) UC-Santa Cruz
50) Boston University

51) UC-San Diego
52) Tulane
53) Case Western Reserve
54) Indiana
55) Penn State

56) American U.
57) U Washington-Seattle
58) U Rochester
59) Purdue
60) Syracuse
61) Loyola (did not specify which campus/city)

Liberal Arts Colleges:

1) Amherst College
2) Wellesley College
3) Swarthmore College
4) Williams College
5) Pomona College

6) Middlebury College
7) Wesleyan University
8) Barnard
9) Oberlin
10) Carleton College

11) Davidson College
12) Wash & Lee
13) Vassar
14) Grinnell
15) Bowdoin College

16) Claremont McKenna College (CMC)
17) Macalester
18) Colgate
19) Smith
20) Haverford

21) Mount Holyoke
22) Conn College
23) Bates
24) Kenyon
25) Occidental College

26) Bryn Mawr
27) Holy Cross
28) Reed
29) Colby
30) Sarah Lawrence

31) Bucknell
32) Wheaton (Illinois)
33) U Richmond
34) Trinity Coll. (Conn)
35) Colorado College

36) Hamilton
37) Lewis & Clark
38) Wheaton (Mass.)
39) Clark
40) Skidmore
41) Scripps

Again, this study is almost 20 years old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:(OP here. Thank you for all of your responses.)

Just finished looking over a study titled Revealed Preferences in Ranking of Colleges from 2004 (almost 20 years ago). The group studied 105 colleges & universities and listed them together in order of preference from #1 to #105. Below, I separate the schools into two broad categories: National Universities and LACs (although the #30 preferred school--Furman University--falls into neither category and the same for the #82 school--Rose Hulman Inst. of Tech.)

From a 2004 study, list in order of preferred colleges and universities:

National Universities:

1) Harvard
2) Yale
3) Stanford
4) CalTech
5) MIT

6) Princeton
7) Brown
8) Columbia
9) Dartmouth (among both LACs & Nat'l Universities, Amherst College, the first LAC to be listed, was #9).
10) U Penn

11) Notre Dame
12) Cornell
13) Georgetown
14) Rice
15) Duke

16) Virginia
17) Northwestern
18) UCal-Berkeley
19) Georgia Tech
20) U Chicago

21) Johns Hopkins
22) USC
23) UNC-Chapel hill
24) Vanderbilt
25) UCLA

26) Texas-Austin
27) NYU
28) Tufts
29) Michigan
30) Illinois

31) Carnegie Mellon (CMU)
32) U Maryland
33) College of William & Mary
34) Wake Forest U. (WFU)
35) U Miami

36) Emory
37) WashUStL
38) SMU
39) Lehigh
40) RPI

41) Fla. State (FSU)
42) UC-Santa Barbara
43) George Washington (GWU)
44) Fordham
45) Catolic U.

46) U Colorado
47) Wisconsin
48) ASU (Arizona State)
49) UC-Santa Cruz
50) Boston University

51) UC-San Diego
52) Tulane
53) Case Western Reserve
54) Indiana
55) Penn State

56) American U.
57) U Washington-Seattle
58) U Rochester
59) Purdue
60) Syracuse
61) Loyola (did not specify which campus/city)

Liberal Arts Colleges:

1) Amherst College
2) Wellesley College
3) Swarthmore College
4) Williams College
5) Pomona College

6) Middlebury College
7) Wesleyan University
8) Barnard
9) Oberlin
10) Carleton College

11) Davidson College
12) Wash & Lee
13) Vassar
14) Grinnell
15) Bowdoin College

16) Claremont McKenna College (CMC)
17) Macalester
18) Colgate
19) Smith
20) Haverford

21) Mount Holyoke
22) Conn College
23) Bates
24) Kenyon
25) Occidental College

26) Bryn Mawr
27) Holy Cross
28) Reed
29) Colby
30) Sarah Lawrence

31) Bucknell
32) Wheaton (Illinois)
33) U Richmond
34) Trinity Coll. (Conn)
35) Colorado College

36) Hamilton
37) Lewis & Clark
38) Wheaton (Mass.)
39) Clark
40) Skidmore
41) Scripps

Again, this study is almost 20 years old.

Obviously UVA booster pretending not to be.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:(OP here. Thank you for all of your responses.)

Just finished looking over a study titled Revealed Preferences in Ranking of Colleges from 2004 (almost 20 years ago). The group studied 105 colleges & universities and listed them together in order of preference from #1 to #105. Below, I separate the schools into two broad categories: National Universities and LACs (although the #30 preferred school--Furman University--falls into neither category and the same for the #82 school--Rose Hulman Inst. of Tech.)

From a 2004 study, list in order of preferred colleges and universities:

National Universities:

1) Harvard
2) Yale
3) Stanford
4) CalTech
5) MIT

6) Princeton
7) Brown
8) Columbia
9) Dartmouth (among both LACs & Nat'l Universities, Amherst College, the first LAC to be listed, was #9).
10) U Penn

11) Notre Dame
12) Cornell
13) Georgetown
14) Rice
15) Duke

16) Virginia
17) Northwestern
18) UCal-Berkeley
19) Georgia Tech
20) U Chicago

21) Johns Hopkins
22) USC
23) UNC-Chapel hill
24) Vanderbilt
25) UCLA

26) Texas-Austin
27) NYU
28) Tufts
29) Michigan
30) Illinois

31) Carnegie Mellon (CMU)
32) U Maryland
33) College of William & Mary
34) Wake Forest U. (WFU)
35) U Miami

36) Emory
37) WashUStL
38) SMU
39) Lehigh
40) RPI

41) Fla. State (FSU)
42) UC-Santa Barbara
43) George Washington (GWU)
44) Fordham
45) Catolic U.

46) U Colorado
47) Wisconsin
48) ASU (Arizona State)
49) UC-Santa Cruz
50) Boston University

51) UC-San Diego
52) Tulane
53) Case Western Reserve
54) Indiana
55) Penn State

56) American U.
57) U Washington-Seattle
58) U Rochester
59) Purdue
60) Syracuse
61) Loyola (did not specify which campus/city)

Liberal Arts Colleges:

1) Amherst College
2) Wellesley College
3) Swarthmore College
4) Williams College
5) Pomona College

6) Middlebury College
7) Wesleyan University
8) Barnard
9) Oberlin
10) Carleton College

11) Davidson College
12) Wash & Lee
13) Vassar
14) Grinnell
15) Bowdoin College

16) Claremont McKenna College (CMC)
17) Macalester
18) Colgate
19) Smith
20) Haverford

21) Mount Holyoke
22) Conn College
23) Bates
24) Kenyon
25) Occidental College

26) Bryn Mawr
27) Holy Cross
28) Reed
29) Colby
30) Sarah Lawrence

31) Bucknell
32) Wheaton (Illinois)
33) U Richmond
34) Trinity Coll. (Conn)
35) Colorado College

36) Hamilton
37) Lewis & Clark
38) Wheaton (Mass.)
39) Clark
40) Skidmore
41) Scripps

Again, this study is almost 20 years old.

Obviously UVA booster pretending not to be.

Wrongo Bucko. Wasn't my study--just sharing the results.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Brown, and UChicago.

MIT/Caltech if they're insistent on engineering.

Not paying full freight over 4 years for Northwestern. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think everyone is missing the forest through the trees.

The OP's straw man...a MC kid that has an undecided major that will need to borrow $7500/year...likely has the worst outcomes when attending an elite school. The low-income, 1st gen kids get all the university supports that help them find internships, get special tutoring, invited to corporate events only for them, etc. The wealthy kids...well they are doing just fine. The UMC kids for the most part at least know how to socialize, while not owning a yacht...certainly take European vacations and maybe have a 2nd home...they understand the importance of network, frats, etc.

The MC kid is most disadvantaged, unless they know the game from the start. If they spend 12-18 months figuring out their major...well all the other kids that want to work at GS, McKinsey, VC firms, hedge funds have already staked out their claims. In the meantime, because the picked an Elite College they don't really have the option of joining the Coca Cola management trainee program...because Coca Cola knows that nobody wants to work there from the Elite school so they go visit UGA and Clemson and those places (probably GA Tech because it is literally across the street).

Now, if MC kid is smart at least they pick an Elite school in a good career location. If they go to Stanford they know there are hundreds of start-ups where they can probably land on their feet (even not as a CS major)...however, they still are likely not getting a VC job. Same if they pick Columbia and can get internships during the school year with financial firms...and then hopefully parlay that into something.

However, if they decided to pick Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, etc....well then good luck. You better know the game you are playing and get up to speed quickly.

You have an interesting point, but a lot of the top firms recruit on the campuses of elite schools. The top feeders for Wall Street and the best consulting firms have always been the top schools, even if they’re not in major locations. Dartmouth, for example, has been one of the poster children for Wall Street and consulting for decades despite being in the woods of northern New Hampshire. The best NY and SF firms aggressively recruit at Duke despite it being in the South.

I get that...but they aren't recruiting the MC kid who doesn't know how to work social connections, took 12 months to find their major, didn't join the Finance Club or equivalent, etc.. That is my point.

The point is at elite schools the MC kids learn quickly how to get where they want. At other less prestigious schools the smart MC kids miss out.

You would think...if not for the numerous threads on DCUM over the years about MC kids lamenting how elite schools did nothing for them.

I think you underestimate how much the random MC kid thinks just having the elite name is going to catapult them into some new class. They don't realize that is just the the first mile of a marathon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Columbia, Penn, Cornell, Brown, and UChicago.

MIT/Caltech if they're insistent on engineering.

Not paying full freight over 4 years for Northwestern. Sorry.

Okay. We'll take you off the list. Thanks for the heads-up.