What's the REAL difference between an Ivy and any other decent private university
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Anonymous
Hmm. this is interesting. I didn't attend an Ivy. Actually I attended at top public flagship. In my workplace, 1. People know how smart I am. They see it in my work and in my conversation every day. In fact, I have been told on at least two occasions that I am one of the smartest people they've met. 2. There are people in my organization who went to Ivies - some are up the chain and some below. 3. I never, ever have to apologize for where I went. There is nothing wrong with my alma mater. I made great connections that have helped me career-wise, nailed down my command of a hard foreign language, enjoyed my college experience, graduated from a recogniized program in my field of study, and only have very little college debt. Hah! |
Anonymous
| And among my colleagues in my field, I am a recognized expert, so I doubt I would be turned down for a job b/c I didn't attend an Ivy League school. |
Anonymous
I meant, its of value as a good education. It is. So are lots of other places. I wonder if anyone on this thread who didn't go to an Ivy thinks they would have been better off if they had? |
Anonymous
doesn't number 2 apply to their graduate programs, not their undergraduate programs? I think the real question is whether an ivy undergrad degree helps you get into a top graduate program (for law, mba) |
Anonymous
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My father was funny on this topic. When I was a HS senior, his take was CC plus state school makes the most sense. My mom was the one who said of course we'll pay for Harvard (Little did I know (though I learned years later), she was thinking MRS). Summer after sophomore year of college, Dad and I were talking and suddenly he just looked at me and said "Wow, I was wrong. The education you're getting is so much better than what I got." He's as smart and as hard-working (and as voracious a reader) as I am. So it wasn't talent or effort that made the difference -- it was exposure.
OTOH, I ended up in a much less lucrative job than I probably would have had I followed his recommendations. OTOH, Mom ended up being right about the MRS. OTOOH, to me, the lasting value of my education is that I'm never bored. So many interesting things to learn about that I'll never run out. Didn't go into college with that attitude -- certainly came out with it. |
Anonymous
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Article on this topic: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/04/05/our-dangerous-obsession-with-harvard-stanford-and-other-elite-universities/?tid=sm_fb
References both Penn State and Cornell: "Bigger employers are now increasingly using “people analytics” in hiring to determine the pedigree of their best employees, and to their surprise they are finding they don’t always come from elite schools. As a result, many are revamping their recruitment practices and hiring from a wider swath of college and universities...Large companies already appear to favor schools outside of the elites. In 2010, the Wall Street Journal asked recruiters at nearly 500 of the largest companies, nonprofits, and government agencies, which schools they liked the best and trusted the most when looking for new college graduates. The top five? Penn State, Texas A&M, the University of Illinois, Purdue, and Arizona State — all public universities. The only private school in the top 10 was Carnegie Mellon (at No. 10) and the only Ivy League institution in the top 25 was Cornell, at No. 14." The Ivy education may be more intellectual (can't compare since I've only attended one type) and be a great stepping stone to a career in banking or consulting but it's hardly a ticket to success. The super-driven kids who get into Ivies will be successful anywhere they go. Unless they hit some difficulty that they can't cope with since to get into a Harvard etc. these days you seem to need to be someone who has literally never failed at anything. And, really, after your first job who cares where you went to undergrad? The only people I know who reference their undergrad are either talking about it in reference to college basketball or they are those insufferable people who think their Harvard etc. degree proves how smart they are and thus must mention it regularly so we don't forget. Not saying they are all like that -- I know plenty of people who are ivy grads who never mention it (only learn of it when it comes up naturally in conversation at some point) -- but the ones who are so insecure that they NEED people to know where they went to school are not helping the schools' reputation in the real world. |
Anonymous
And yet you still have poor reading comprehension. Maybe you got what you paid for. |
Anonymous
But is that a function of it being an Ivy, or would any LAC do the same? |
Anonymous
| Not of an Ivy per se, but wouldn't have happened to/for me at a LAC -- the range of course offerings and of viewpoints was a crucial part of my experience. A department with 8 profs is really different than one with 40+ and access to grad students and to course offerings at professional schools were also important in my case. |
Anonymous
| To put this another way, "good undergraduate teaching" wasn't key. Exciting, dynamic, robust, diverse, and sprawling intellectual environment was. I'd already experienced well-taught college classes in another context. Something I appreciated, but didn't experience as transformative. |
Anonymous
Well, I'm the PP who posted above about the Harvard alum in the next office doing the same work that I, a state college alum, do. (Should also add that I have colleagues who went to Brown, Chicago, and Stanford as well.) So, I have a hard time imagining I would be much better off if I had gone to Harvard. (I do think my colleagues who went to Stanford and Chicago are smarter than I am in many ways, even though we are all successful performers here, and we all have our relative strengths and weaknesses. I actually don't think the Harvard and Brown colleagues are smarter than I am.) |
Anonymous
| Yet you are still trying to explain yourself pp |
Anonymous
| That's because she's thoughtful -- not because she's defensive or inarticulate. |
Anonymous
But you are making the assumption that your Ivy education is the reason for this. Because you don't have a clone of yourself to test this hypothesis by sending her to CC and state school, you really have no idea if you would have blossomed intellectually at pretty much any college. Harvard offers a great education, but it's not superior to the education you'll receive at, say, Pomona or Swarthmore. Different, but not better, at least in the liberal arts. |
Anonymous
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No, I don't have a clone. I have a parent with whom I share many similarities who believes (and I agree) that he'd have had a better education had he gone to school where I did (and he refused to believe that before I went -- he became convinced as he saw the effects of that education on me). And, as luck would have it, I actually did take classes (film, philosophy, world lit, Latin, pol theory) both at a CC and at a good state school prior to attending Harvard. So, yes, I do have an empirical basis for the judgment I'm making.
Re Swarthmore and Pomona. The only claim I've made about LACs is that, for objectively verifiable reasons (things like course offerings and size of faculty), what I found appealing about Harvard is something I wouldn't have experienced at a LAC. No one asked (nor did I opine) re which education is "superior." People want different things from college, and people learn in different ways. They also have different interests, abilities, aspirations, and work ethics. So choose a school that gives you what you need or want. But recognize that other people will see and value differences in schools that go beyond ROI or job placement or connections or prestige. |