Reply to get over name brand / prestige obsession

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, you’re 100% correct, but no one believes it until they see it. It’s something that people just have to experience to understand, and even then, some never do, which is how you end up with some people who wrap their entire identity around the ranking of their undergrad school and literally can’t shut up about it, even though they’re working alongside and under others who went everywhere else. [/quote]

I disagree.  Maybe you are correct about career outcomes, but the actual quality of education is a lot different between top schools and Southwest X State.  The faculty is better, the other students are better, etc.

I will say that actual education in the humanities, though, seems to be struggling everywhere, as kids all parrot back the media narrative on many issues and professors fail to teach them how to analyze opposing viewpoints and argue a position without reverting to emotion or ad hominem.[/quote]

I agree about the quality of education, but disagree about better faculty at Brand Name U.  The top professors at Brand Name U are not teaching undergrads, and many top schools rely on graduate students for that.  For the more junior faculty, the academic positions are so competitive, especially in the humanities, that you can find great professors everywhere.   The difference in quality comes from the student body because the professors are basically adjusting to their audience.  I know, I got my undergraduate degree in math from Southwest X State, and one of my kids is now getting his from a top school.  The difference in quality is incomparable, and given the difference in depth of the course work, I’d have a hard time justifying hiring someone from my alma mater over my son’s school.[/quote]
So you're saying "current you" wouldn't have hired "young you" now? You wouldn't be working at your current company?[/quote]

THe argument about the faculty at Ivies, etc.  being significantly better than the faculty at third tier schools doesn't always hold.  There is, for example, a massive oversupply of PHd's in fields like philosophy.  I know of a guy with a doctorate from Cambridge who teaches at a relatively unknown LAC in Alabama.  He publishes a ton too and gets grants.  It's called "being underplaced" or something like that -- being much better than the school that you wind up at.  Happens A LOT these days!  YOu can meet terrific faculty now at some of the strangest schools, and if you can find these faculty at your third tier LAC you will do very well!
One more thing:  I've served on committees awarding prestigious fellowships to faculty, and often there is a genuine attempt to NOT give all of these awards to the same six people from Harvard and Yale, so you are just as likely to find people with Mellon Fellowships, NEH, NHS, etc.  at second and third tier schools.  These days, there's a lot of emphasis on outreach to HBCU's, for example.  It's kind of simplistic to say that only Harvard has good faculty winning fellowships.  It's also wrong.[/quote]

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