Reply to Most prestigious SLAC in the Midwest?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Most prestigious SLAC in the Midwest?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For a restaurant, probably not in Sheboygan, fair enough. (But for The French Laundry, of course. Say you’re eating there and watch the reaction.) For a college or a law firm or Duke basketball and lots of other things, yep. Prestige is a word for a real thing. Like it or buy into it or not, perceived value is real. [/quote]

I didn’t say prestige wasn’t real.  (In fact, I said it was sociological).  Just that it isn’t meaningful or consequential when the category is defined so narrowly/particularly as Midwestern SLACs or Sheboygan restaurants.  [/quote]

Understood. What if someone said most prestigious in New England? Guess I’m trying to understand your point as it relates to the Midwest as a thing. [/quote]

The most prestigious SLACs in the US have to be somewhere and a number are in NE.  But their prestige isn’t seen as a function of (or defined in terms of) their location.*  It’s like your French Laundry example.  It’s a prestigious restaurant in California (vs one of CA’s most prestigious restaurants).  The competition (for prestige) isn’t primarily limited to or among restaurants in CA; nor are the arbiters/judges limited to Californians— and if it/they were, the amount of prestige at stake would be much less (regional rep vs world renowned; Bib Gourmand vs Michelin stars).  So “are there any prestigious SLACs in the Midwest?” might be a sensible question (especially if accompanied by a comment about target audience/type of appeal), but “Most prestigious SLAC in the Midwest?” isn’t really.  No one’s ranking that way.

*though some might argue, persuasively, that there’s a locational bias (rooted in part in an historical/establishment bias?) wrt collegiate prestige.  But the point remains that the prestige of NE SLACs isn’t vis a vis other NE SLACs but among SLACs more generally.[/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