Reply to Does anyone hate it when people dismiss state flagship universities like UW Madison or UIUC as less prestigious schools?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]MAybe easier to get into than "elite" schools but much harder work once in, and then that is the payoff.

I'd hire a Purdue engineering grad over most other engineering school grads in the top ten, excepting probably MIT, Caltech, Stanford CS (but not meche or cheme) and maybe...Princeton hard core engineering. Though maybe.  [/quote]

The copium comes out.[/quote]

Not sure what you mean.  I didn't go to any of these schools, and went instead to "elite" schools.  I teach at an "elite" private school and have a startup.  I'd choose to hire from these schools over the school where I work.  How is that an emotional shortcoming?  Or what are you meaning by "copium" these days, which honestly seems poorly placed here.[/quote]

Maybe your startup isn’t going anywhere?  My kid attends an “elite” school and many professors have startups and it’s common knowledge which professors make terrible startup founders, the startup is kind of floundering and kids avoid, and which are going somewhere and literally almost every kid working at those attends the school.

Not to mention the startups founded by the current students getting VC funding.[/quote]

You have gone off the rails. My point is that these schools and many other state flagships have fantastic engineering and CS programs.  The reality is that elite private schools either didn't do engineering historically or even closed their engineering programs for a long time.  Engineering was the key mission of a lot state flagships - Purdue, GA Tech and their historical continuity and focus on pedagogy has allowed them to continue to lead in these spaces. (To the extent that I use textbooks anymore, those textbooks are mostly written by profs at these flagships.  I got a great new one from a U Wisc prof and other classics in my field that immediately come to mind are from Minnesota and Mich profs. Big companies also go to these universities for recruiting much more than elite privates for traditional engineering.  I've had many PhD students and my "hiring" judgement is based on having seen the preparation and work ethic instilled by these programs vs elite privates in general and also the knowledge of the curricula where I teach and what my peers are doing.  I don't have a comprehensive knowledge of every field, though.  Particular judgements are in reality based on the limitations of elite private programs which are often smaller and have more limited class opportunities and busy profs who are generally not putting their energy into undergraduate education.  That doesn't translate into the field rankings, as those are based on research.

Those field rankings do have an impact - elite private schools can and do excel at research opportunities for students. That can be great for a PhD. That said, you can definitely do research at these schools too and students should proactively seek out those opportunities because the labs are also great there (See flagships also at the top on these lists as well).  A downside of a state flagship is, as you all know, more regional networking, especially if the flagship is far from where you want to live/work later, which might be true for an east coast/DC kid.  But it's a great opportunity and could be underrated by many so I think this is a great thread/point for tempering college insanity.[/quote]

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