Intellectual peers

[Anonymous]

To give some more concrete advice: ED 0 to UChicago

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people on this forum really think their snowflakes can’t be intellectually stimulated at “non-selective” schools??

First of all - there will be plenty of smart kids basically anywhere and people can find their tribe. Second of all - what about being able to function in the real world, in the workplace where people have all different strengths and skills. Sometimes an average student can be brilliant socially or politically or just “get” geospatial thinking. It would be a sad world if only good test takers prevailed across the board.

I hope my kid finds the school that meets their needs academically, socially and culturally and I don’t need artificial selectivity metrics to tell me what that is.

For some, they were not challenged much by their high school, even great privates with median SAT of 1400 do not challenge the very top kids as much as a college that has a median SAT (pre-TO) of 1500. Super-bright always >99%ile their whole lives type kids often need a larger cohort of similar peers to reach their full potential. T15/ivy types/williams/et al have challenging coursework above and beyond what T75 type schools can offer because they have a large cohort of students who can move at a faster pace rather than less than 5% who can. Ask professors who have worked at various levels of college: they will tell you there are significant differences. We have asked our family:
One studied through phD at a T10, then taught post doc at T20, saw no significant difference. Then taught at various T60-100 places and it was stark: lack of motivation, even the smart kids were bored, they had to have a certain % pass so they watered it down. The other ran an engineering lab as a professor at a T50 public then moved it all to an HYPSM. They have the same descriptions: had to slow the pace at the lesser school, were surprised at the high volume of intensely academic students at the top place they moved to.
Both professors have noted the pressure among undergrads is much higher at the top, warning us to consider whether ours would be ok emotionally not being the top kid in almost everything as they had been for all of their schooling. Intellectual stimulation from the brightest peers comes with increased motivation and growth, but also increased pressure. You have to take the good with the bad if you choose an ivy/elite.

I wouldn’t put Williams at this level. A lot of mediocre athletes and some DEI kids are not the type of intellectual that needs MIT, CMU, etc. Williams is no different academically than Amherst, Swarthmore, or Pomona.

SLAC hater emerges. Your kid will get a better education at Williams than at any T10 for subjects outside of Engineering and CS. Actually, your kid will get a better undergraduate education at any of the 8 SLACs who have an median SAT score of 1500 or higher than at any of the T10, their model is better and the cohort quality is just as strong.

This just isn’t true.

Sorry but it is. The consistent over performance of SLACs along post secondary performance vectors for grad school, med school, law school, etc. when adjusted for size cannot be ignored though I am sure that you would like to.

How come you adjust for size but not income?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t care if the rest of the student body is super smart, I care if they are motivated and enjoy having discussions on various levels. My teens go to a lower performing public school and get frustrated when there are kids who just don’t care, don’t participate, lag during group projects. How do we find a place for our kids that have people who care about learning?

Outside of highly competitive universities (and even there slackers can exist), I’d consider Honors Colleges or other programs that require special applicatIons &/or to maintain high GPA to be in.

Thank you, good idea. Will look into these.

A lot of these are just administrative fictions. UCSB CCS and OU HTC are meaningful though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t care if the rest of the student body is super smart, I care if they are motivated and enjoy having discussions on various levels. My teens go to a lower performing public school and get frustrated when there are kids who just don’t care, don’t participate, lag during group projects. How do we find a place for our kids that have people who care about learning?

Outside of highly competitive universities (and even there slackers can exist), I’d consider Honors Colleges or other programs that require special applicatIons &/or to maintain high GPA to be in.

The problem with those is that the honors kids do not take all classes separate from the rest, nor do they have dorms,clubs, ECs separate from regular students. The overall motivation and talent pool of the entire undergrad is what matters. In addition some honors programs are very easy to get accepted to. Some from our private who were the bottom third of the high school as far as course rigor got into "honors" at non-top-5 publics but known Top-30-publics. They were the ones who struggled a lot to keep up in high school. If your kid is near the top at such a high school they will not find their people in that kind of "honors" program.

How did your kid manage to thrive at a school where a full third of their classmates were apparently struggling to keep up? If these students are truly UC Merced quality as you seem to suggest, it raises some questions about either the school's admissions standards or your assessment of student quality. After all, if you're paying premium tuition for what you describe as an excellent institution, shouldn't all the students meet a certain standard? The fact that your child succeeded despite being surrounded by these supposedly inadequate peers suggests that these bottom third students weren't quite the academic dead weight you're portraying them as. It's interesting how the same students can simultaneously validate your school's rigor when it comes to your child's achievements, yet be dismissed as unworthy peers when evaluating college rigor.

highschool is different from college. You don't live with a randomly selected group of students from your highschool. You aren't dependent on your high school peers for future employment connections. Etc. etc. etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am pondering all of these things for my very high stats DD. If she feels an honors college at a “lesser” school would be a great fit …even if the overall peer composition is not nearly as good as at an ivy or T10…as long as the desired courses are offered, maybe it wouldn’t be all bad to be the big fish in a small pond? After all, bc tenured positions are so hard to come by, generally the pedigree of the professor is much much higher than the actual school s/he teaches at (so professor will be ivy-league/top school super smart person that will gravitate towards super smart students).

This is true if you wish to go to grad school, but I would temper your expectations a bit. A big way state schools attract and keep top researchers is by putting fewer teaching/mentoring obligations on them compared to top schools. Hence, there is often more of a culture of seeing anything to do with undergrads as a necessary evil, to be minimized wherever possible to save your energy for research and your PhD students (who are actually very good due to the difference in undergrad vs grad prestige of the institution). But these are just generalities - you can try looking at schools that make undergrad opportunities a priority, like UCSB CCS, OU HTC, Texas FRI, Alabama Randall Research Scholars, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people on this forum really think their snowflakes can’t be intellectually stimulated at “non-selective” schools??

First of all - there will be plenty of smart kids basically anywhere and people can find their tribe. Second of all - what about being able to function in the real world, in the workplace where people have all different strengths and skills. Sometimes an average student can be brilliant socially or politically or just “get” geospatial thinking. It would be a sad world if only good test takers prevailed across the board.

I hope my kid finds the school that meets their needs academically, socially and culturally and I don’t need artificial selectivity metrics to tell me what that is.

For some, they were not challenged much by their high school, even great privates with median SAT of 1400 do not challenge the very top kids as much as a college that has a median SAT (pre-TO) of 1500. Super-bright always >99%ile their whole lives type kids often need a larger cohort of similar peers to reach their full potential. T15/ivy types/williams/et al have challenging coursework above and beyond what T75 type schools can offer because they have a large cohort of students who can move at a faster pace rather than less than 5% who can. Ask professors who have worked at various levels of college: they will tell you there are significant differences. We have asked our family:
One studied through phD at a T10, then taught post doc at T20, saw no significant difference. Then taught at various T60-100 places and it was stark: lack of motivation, even the smart kids were bored, they had to have a certain % pass so they watered it down. The other ran an engineering lab as a professor at a T50 public then moved it all to an HYPSM. They have the same descriptions: had to slow the pace at the lesser school, were surprised at the high volume of intensely academic students at the top place they moved to.
Both professors have noted the pressure among undergrads is much higher at the top, warning us to consider whether ours would be ok emotionally not being the top kid in almost everything as they had been for all of their schooling. Intellectual stimulation from the brightest peers comes with increased motivation and growth, but also increased pressure. You have to take the good with the bad if you choose an ivy/elite.

I wouldn’t put Williams at this level. A lot of mediocre athletes and some DEI kids are not the type of intellectual that needs MIT, CMU, etc. Williams is no different academically than Amherst, Swarthmore, or Pomona.

SLAC hater emerges. Your kid will get a better education at Williams than at any T10 for subjects outside of Engineering and CS. Actually, your kid will get a better undergraduate education at any of the 8 SLACs who have an median SAT score of 1500 or higher than at any of the T10, their model is better and the cohort quality is just as strong.

This just isn’t true.

Sorry but it is. The consistent over performance of SLACs along post secondary performance vectors for grad school, med school, law school, etc. when adjusted for size cannot be ignored though I am sure that you would like to.

How come you adjust for size but not income?

You assume LAC students are wealthier than University ones, given they're both prestigious? Why?
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The difference is confidence. For smart UMC kids getting into the best or their dream school is the culmination of everything they have worked for in their young lives. So many high stat kids pushed themselves, did extracurricular to get into college and focused on that goal. When they succeed, they have a surge of confidence, feel they will do great things and it shows in their engagement. They are thrilled to be there, they believe they deserve to be there and they are happy to be there. They will ignore shortcomings at their university because they are happy to be there.

If they fail to get into what they consider a top school and in this world most of these kids do feel they failed, it’s a blow to their confidence. If they were sure they would get into a particular college it’s a blow to their identity. Some really can set this pain aside and move on quickly but for others they mask their suffering. They loose confidence in themselves, no longer feel they can conquer the world, and may have trouble adjusting to the college they did get into and choose. If they see others less qualified going to better schools, they will wonder what is the point, they can’t win. Any shortcoming will be magnified. It seems to take a year or two for many kids to process and heal from this.

The biggest peer difference in terms of intellectual stimulation will be with peers who aren’t secretly devastated they are there.

This is definitely part of what makes it so different and I have a kid that “won” and one that didn’t in their mind.

In the 80s, when I went to a flagship I chose and I asked my friend what it was like to be at Penn, she told me that she was sick of all the people complaining about not getting into Harvard and Yale. Times have changed and people are probably more grateful now but that was my first little peek at the maladjustment that comes with being focused on exclusivity.

Hahaha, I had exactly that experience at Northwestern in the early 90s. Lots of bitterness about missing out on the Ivy League.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t care if the rest of the student body is super smart, I care if they are motivated and enjoy having discussions on various levels. My teens go to a lower performing public school and get frustrated when there are kids who just don’t care, don’t participate, lag during group projects. How do we find a place for our kids that have people who care about learning?

Outside of highly competitive universities (and even there slackers can exist), I’d consider Honors Colleges or other programs that require special applicatIons &/or to maintain high GPA to be in.

The problem with those is that the honors kids do not take all classes separate from the rest, nor do they have dorms,clubs, ECs separate from regular students. The overall motivation and talent pool of the entire undergrad is what matters. In addition some honors programs are very easy to get accepted to. Some from our private who were the bottom third of the high school as far as course rigor got into "honors" at non-top-5 publics but known Top-30-publics. They were the ones who struggled a lot to keep up in high school. If your kid is near the top at such a high school they will not find their people in that kind of "honors" program.

How did your kid manage to thrive at a school where a full third of their classmates were apparently struggling to keep up? If these students are truly UC Merced quality as you seem to suggest, it raises some questions about either the school's admissions standards or your assessment of student quality. After all, if you're paying premium tuition for what you describe as an excellent institution, shouldn't all the students meet a certain standard? The fact that your child succeeded despite being surrounded by these supposedly inadequate peers suggests that these bottom third students weren't quite the academic dead weight you're portraying them as. It's interesting how the same students can simultaneously validate your school's rigor when it comes to your child's achievements, yet be dismissed as unworthy peers when evaluating college rigor.

highschool is different from college. You don't live with a randomly selected group of students from your highschool. You aren't dependent on your high school peers for future employment connections. Etc. etc. etc.

You aren’t dependent on your college peers for future employment either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Do people on this forum really think their snowflakes can’t be intellectually stimulated at “non-selective” schools??

Yes, people here think that. Neuroticism and ignorance are a hell of a combination.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The difference is confidence. For smart UMC kids getting into the best or their dream school is the culmination of everything they have worked for in their young lives. So many high stat kids pushed themselves, did extracurricular to get into college and focused on that goal. When they succeed, they have a surge of confidence, feel they will do great things and it shows in their engagement. They are thrilled to be there, they believe they deserve to be there and they are happy to be there. They will ignore shortcomings at their university because they are happy to be there.

If they fail to get into what they consider a top school and in this world most of these kids do feel they failed, it’s a blow to their confidence. If they were sure they would get into a particular college it’s a blow to their identity. Some really can set this pain aside and move on quickly but for others they mask their suffering. They loose confidence in themselves, no longer feel they can conquer the world, and may have trouble adjusting to the college they did get into and choose. If they see others less qualified going to better schools, they will wonder what is the point, they can’t win. Any shortcoming will be magnified. It seems to take a year or two for many kids to process and heal from this.

The biggest peer difference in terms of intellectual stimulation will be with peers who aren’t secretly devastated they are there.

This is definitely part of what makes it so different and I have a kid that “won” and one that didn’t in their mind.

In the 80s, when I went to a flagship I chose and I asked my friend what it was like to be at Penn, she told me that she was sick of all the people complaining about not getting into Harvard and Yale. Times have changed and people are probably more grateful now but that was my first little peek at the maladjustment that comes with being focused on exclusivity.

Hahaha, I had exactly that experience at Northwestern in the early 90s. Lots of bitterness about missing out on the Ivy League.

I went to Duke and was expecting that and there was none of it. I was very pleasantly surprised. I turned down a lower level Ivy to go there, but had not gotten into the SLAC that was my top choice. Best thing that ever happened to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of this assumes people only learn from their peers but that's not true.

I might have been the only one who read the hundreds and hundreds of pages of articles on the Japanese economy that were assigned by my professor. And maybe the tests were graded in a way that was easier on my peers. But I learned what I was supposed to learn. A lot of my classes were lecture and then written tests. On subjects like literature. Everyone can read the same Shakespeare plays...and if other people didn't get as much out of them, it was no loss to me. I was more interested in hearing from professors than my classmates. Also true in grad school.

+1. Especially at the undergrad level, if your predominant concern about learning is the “quality of your peers” then something has gone very wrong.

[Anonymous]

Some high stats kids end up at lower ranked schools because they need merit aid. They don't qualify as truly needy but parents can't pay full freight.

[Anonymous]

I was a "high stats" kid who went to a non selective school. Why? Full ride.

I was self motivated in my large wealthy suburban high school. I'm self motivated at my large fortune 500 company. Cream will always rise to the top. If motivation is coming from mommy and daddy I can see your concern. You actually have held up a dud kid and they will eventually fail when you can no longer hold them up. My parents didn't expect much from me, never checked my grades, didn't know what I got my degrees in - I'm not sure they know now. The point is I was successful for me and I knew from a young age how to be. I have a very high IQ - I think my dad does too, but his abusive family was a bit of a hindrance to his success. He was only emotionally abusive to me, which actually was just the fuel I needed to get the he!! out of Dodge.

On a side note I have 2 kids - both gifted. I've tried to be the parent I needed and they went to selective private schools, preK-12. I'm actually advising them toward non selective colleges, because they will stand out there, just like I did. I don't worry about their peers dragging them down. They know the success if for themselves. They do stand out at their private school, but probably not as much as they would at a non-selective school. They don't really get their motivation from their friends, or from me. My older one is driven by the work - she really loves to do a good job and will continue to tweak projects after she gets an A. The younger one is literally motivated by the grade. I was motivated by the competition and winning, which is easy to do when the other kids are only average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do people on this forum really think their snowflakes can’t be intellectually stimulated at “non-selective” schools??

First of all - there will be plenty of smart kids basically anywhere and people can find their tribe. Second of all - what about being able to function in the real world, in the workplace where people have all different strengths and skills. Sometimes an average student can be brilliant socially or politically or just “get” geospatial thinking. It would be a sad world if only good test takers prevailed across the board.

I hope my kid finds the school that meets their needs academically, socially and culturally and I don’t need artificial selectivity metrics to tell me what that is.

This is so important. I went to a highly selective school, think along the lines of MIT, a very long time ago and was miserable. I can only admit this here but it was filled with grinder nerds that I didn’t fit in with. For us, we are definitely trying to find a good fit socially as well as academically for our kids.

Most likely your SES situation was better those grinders. Typically there is an economic reason why some are grinders

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t care if the rest of the student body is super smart, I care if they are motivated and enjoy having discussions on various levels. My teens go to a lower performing public school and get frustrated when there are kids who just don’t care, don’t participate, lag during group projects. How do we find a place for our kids that have people who care about learning?

what percentage of kids at your lower performing public school go to college at all? You do realize that even by going to any college your kids are self-selecting away from totally disengaged kids in high school, right?