Reply to Top School vs. Best Fit. Is Prestige Worth Being in the Bottom Half?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Top School vs. Best Fit. Is Prestige Worth Being in the Bottom Half?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At places like top 10, half the class is going to be below the median, 25% of the class will be below top 75 percentile. That’s just how it works.

I get it that you’re still surrounded by smart people, big-name professors, and strong recruiting pipelines. But does that actually translate into good outcomes for students in the bottom half or bottom quartiel? Are they still landing solid jobs and grad school placements?

On the flip side, what if you went to a slightly less selective school and ended up in the top 10–20%? You might get more leadership roles, closer relationships with professors, stronger recommendation letters, and maybe just more confidence overall. Does standing out more beat having a big brand name on your resume?

How people think about this tradeoff. Is prestige worth it even if you’re below average there? Or is it smarter to pick the place where you’re more likely to shine?

Would love to hear from people who’ve actually seen this play out.[/quote]
A bottom half Harvard student would not be top 10-20% at JHU, Rice, Michigan, etc[/quote]

A bottom-half ivy kid who got in unhooked would have a very good shot at top 20% at Michigan, or UVA for that matter. Look at the stats from when test scores were required. JHU, of course not because JHU has essentially the same score distribution as Harvard/ivies!  Rice is between the two. 
We know many ivy students, as well as JHU, and UVA, michigan too. "Stars" with 3.9+ at UVA and Michigan are pulling 158-160 on the LSAT, well below the average at ivies. 
Worse is UGA: bio major, 3.92, could not get above a 505 on the MCAT and had many premed peers with similar scores.
Meanwhile 3.82, JHU, MCAT 517 which is around average there, into NYU with a full merit as well as their state med school, waiting on answers from some T15 med where they interviewed recently. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics