Anonymous wrote:The people I know who went to Harvard will say some version of, “I attended school in Boston.” They won’t even say the name.

False modesty.

There are some delusional posters in this thread. There is the Ivy and a few others that are elite. Perhaps 4 state schools. But at the end of the day, any Ivy school has more brand name everywhere--public, employers, etc. People want to say they are affiliated with Ivy.

Here are the schools that matter (again this has been done so many times in tier rankings).

Ivies, MIT, Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Cal Tech, Chicago, Hopkins, Carnegie Mellon for Computer Science, and Georgetown for Government/Intl Affairs. SLACs: Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, and Pomona. Out of this list four state schools matter: Berkeley, Michigan, UVA, and UCLA (in that order).

Note the first state school does not appear till 20 in US News. As to SLACs, when looking at joint surveys of SLACs and National Universities in one ranking e.g. Forbes, SLACs don't appear till the 20s as well.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not in terms of just number of applications they receive, but in terms of general recognition by the public. For example, it feels like "Ivy League" is used all over movies and TV because it's a very convenient shorthand for "good colleges." Even a school like Cornell probably benefits from just being associated. Does this leave behind other great schools like Stanford and Duke in popular recognition who don't get on the big screen as much because they aren't technically Ivies?

I think its more about T20 now then Ivy8.

There's a qualitative difference between ivy pluses and the rest of T20.

Anonymous wrote:Not in terms of just number of applications they receive, but in terms of general recognition by the public. For example, it feels like "Ivy League" is used all over movies and TV because it's a very convenient shorthand for "good colleges." Even a school like Cornell probably benefits from just being associated. Does this leave behind other great schools like Stanford and Duke in popular recognition who don't get on the big screen as much because they aren't technically Ivies?

I think its more about T20 now then Ivy8.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry how exactly is the quality of the education at Columbia and Cornell declining? I am deeply familiar with one of these institutions - there is absolutely no evidence of such decline from what I see (quite the opposite).

For Columbia, it was mostly smoke and mirrors in the first place. Making up crazy stats, leaving out the stats from the School for General Studies. That’s what the math prof who exposed Columbia’s data fraud said in an interview with Malcolm Gladwell. He said that there’s no way Columbia could ever compete with schools like Harvard and MIT. That’s why UNSWR T5 ranking immediately made him suspect fraud.

Pound for pound, Columbia does better than MIT or Harvard in silicon valley placement.

Visualized: The Top Feeder Schools into Silicon Valley
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/the-top-feeder-schools-into-silicon-valley/

This thread is asking for opinions. It is completely worthless.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry how exactly is the quality of the education at Columbia and Cornell declining? I am deeply familiar with one of these institutions - there is absolutely no evidence of such decline from what I see (quite the opposite).

For Columbia, it was mostly smoke and mirrors in the first place. Making up crazy stats, leaving out the stats from the School for General Studies. That’s what the math prof who exposed Columbia’s data fraud said in an interview with Malcolm Gladwell. He said that there’s no way Columbia could ever compete with schools like Harvard and MIT. That’s why UNSWR T5 ranking immediately made him suspect fraud.

Columbia GS needs to compare with Harvard Extension. There's no way Harvard Extension students could ever compete with schools like Columbia and MIT.

Anonymous wrote:Less, the second tier elite (Vandy, ND, Emory) etc have siphoned off a lot of Ivy bound/ Ivy caliber students with ED and scholarships. Also some ivys have declined in quality like Columbia and Cornell. I think the next ranking in a few months will be eye opening.

No, the overall number of kids competing for seats at top-ranked schools has increased. So they are “spreading the wealth” to the next tiers.

The next tiers getting more high-caliber students means those schools are lifting up, not that the tippy top schools are declining.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry how exactly is the quality of the education at Columbia and Cornell declining? I am deeply familiar with one of these institutions - there is absolutely no evidence of such decline from what I see (quite the opposite).

For Columbia, it was mostly smoke and mirrors in the first place. Making up crazy stats, leaving out the stats from the School for General Studies. That’s what the math prof who exposed Columbia’s data fraud said in an interview with Malcolm Gladwell. He said that there’s no way Columbia could ever compete with schools like Harvard and MIT. That’s why UNSWR T5 ranking immediately made him suspect fraud.

Anonymous wrote:Most ivies are filled with legacies, athletic recruits, and affirmative action admits. The performance of these students in jobs after graduation often lags behind expectations.

Doesn't matter.

There are two kinds of employers

1. Hiring for talent. They interview for talent and look at demonstrated achievements. School name doesn't matter.

2. Hiring for PR/marketing (Consultants, banks). Ability doesn't matter at all, they just want the "Ivy League" brand to sell to their customers who want to be perceived as "elite".

Anonymous wrote:Sorry how exactly is the quality of the education at Columbia and Cornell declining? I am deeply familiar with one of these institutions - there is absolutely no evidence of such decline from what I see (quite the opposite).

+1

No decline in the quality of the education.

Decline is in the methodology where they are adding things like diversity, social mobility, political correctness... Universities move up and down based on changes on methodology, while the quality of education remains the same.

Most ivies are filled with legacies, athletic recruits, and affirmative action admits. The performance of these students in jobs after graduation often lags behind expectations.

Anonymous wrote:I've seen fewer applications from our high school over time, with occasional spikes, but a steady downward trend.

Definite increase in strong engineering schools, and a steady number opting for small engineering schools, like the STEM equivalent of a SLAC.

Well, duh, with Harvard at a 3.4% acceptance rate, and a limit at some privates on 10 applications why on earth would you waste money on an Ivy application? THAT's why you are seeing the numbers go down. no other reason. My DS applied to four Ivies where he was hooked (and had the requisite stats) and they were wasted applications.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not in terms of just number of applications they receive, but in terms of general recognition by the public. For example, it feels like "Ivy League" is used all over movies and TV because it's a very convenient shorthand for "good colleges." Even a school like Cornell probably benefits from just being associated. Does this leave behind other great schools like Stanford and Duke in popular recognition who don't get on the big screen as much because they aren't technically Ivies?

Stanford is recognized. It's world class.

Duke? It's not on the level of Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Stanford, MIT...

Duke is roughly tied with Penn and beats Brown, Dartmouth, and Cornell.

"Tied," how?

No one's ever confused Duke with Oxford or Cambridge. It doesn't belong in that crowd. It doesn't have the international recognition.

Sorry how exactly is the quality of the education at Columbia and Cornell declining? I am deeply familiar with one of these institutions - there is absolutely no evidence of such decline from what I see (quite the opposite).