Reply to Why is it so hard to accept that the students at better colleges are simply better students?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]No one is disputing that top colleges have better students than ones like the college you describe.  But I DO question whether there is any meaningful difference between students at a, say, top 15 vs the students at somewhere 50-75.  If there is, it’s not nearly as much as people on here seem to think. [/quote]

+1 Absolutely the kids that get into more highly ranked colleges (which is what I think OP means by "better colleges") are excellent at doing school in the way that those schools want to see it done.  And, obviously there is a difference between a T15 and a school with a sub-20% graduation rate and predominantly C-students. But the range of schools that have a good concentration of strong students and do a decent job of graduating them in 4 years goes well beyond the uber-selective. People so invested in their kids going to the very top tier schools seem to fall into thinking that it's that or ruin. Steadfastly ignoring the fact that they are surrounded by people who went to a wide range of colleges and are doing well in life.

You absolutely should pay attention to things like graduation rate, retention rate, share of the student body that were in the top x% of their class (My DD is in the top 25% so I tend to pay attention to that in looking at common data sets). I care about that data but I did not spend time looking at rankings. Beyond those actually relevant points, much of USNWR is based on measures of institutional wealth and things like surveys that just serve to replicate the existing rankings. And anyway, my kid is a good student but definitely not elite so why should we expect her to go a school with a sub 25% acceptance rate?

As someone who hires interns and entry-level employees, my focus is on what they did in school -- classes, projects, prior internships. I see and hire good candidates from a wide range of schools. I've had great and so-so hires from Ivies as well as public Us. Being a great student doesn't always translate into being great at a specific job.[/quote]

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