Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hey OP:

- Nobody who knows anything thinks only the Ivy League has good colleges. Everybody knows Stanford and MIT are "more prestigious" than Cornell, for example. I'm not saying you won't find someone who will disagree with that, but it will be a rarity, and they will be mis-informed.

- More importantly, nobody cares but idiots who like to say things like "The Ivy League is just a sports league!" - which is a stupid thing to say and only said by those with issues abut the ivy league.

- Those with kids in the Ivy League - and I am one - know that those schools have flaws also and no college is perfect. Most of us would be just as proud if our kid was at U Chicago, Williams, Michigan, or (gasp!) UVA. We know the US is blessed with hundreds of good colleges and it is possible our kid would have a better experience and outcome elsewhere.

It's only the Ivy League haters that have Ivy League issues.

I repeat:

It's only the Ivy League haters that have Ivy League issues.

Is it hating to state a fact? It is a sports league. (You added "just").

Anonymous wrote:These threads always come across as multi-act plays where someone is trying to advance the notion that a school like JHU is comparable to an Ivy. You can’t just come out and make that pitch, so you have to start off by denigrating the Ivies and go from there.

You care too much to convince others they should care so little.

Anonymous wrote:Hey OP:

- Nobody who knows anything thinks only the Ivy League has good colleges. Everybody knows Stanford and MIT are "more prestigious" than Cornell, for example. I'm not saying you won't find someone who will disagree with that, but it will be a rarity, and they will be mis-informed.

- More importantly, nobody cares but idiots who like to say things like "The Ivy League is just a sports league!" - which is a stupid thing to say and only said by those with issues abut the ivy league.

- Those with kids in the Ivy League - and I am one - know that those schools have flaws also and no college is perfect. Most of us would be just as proud if our kid was at U Chicago, Williams, Michigan, or (gasp!) UVA. We know the US is blessed with hundreds of good colleges and it is possible our kid would have a better experience and outcome elsewhere.

It's only the Ivy League haters that have Ivy League issues.

I repeat:

It's only the Ivy League haters that have Ivy League issues.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The fact you all use the word prestige and elite when discussing Education says it all.

We’re hardly unique in this regard. “Elite universities” is an extremely common designation, whether with positive or less than positive connotations.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are people in this thread actually claiming schools like Brown and Dartmouth are more prestigious than Chicago or Duke or Northwestern? That doesn’t seem right to me. Would be more impressed to hear someone went to Caltech than Penn. And so the list goes.

Umm, no - unless you think JHU or George Tech is more impressive than Penn.

Cal tech is more impressive than penn/brown/Cornell. Stanford is as impressive as any ivy. The Ivy League is a sports league that people use as short hand for elite school, but that doesn’t mean anyone is dumb enough to think all ivies are better than all other schools

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming across the JHU thread and it’s clear there are some people unfamiliar with American colleges who think Ivy League = the best. It is worth repeating that there are just as many universities NOT in the Ivy League that are just as good and just as prestigious as the Ivies.

Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Cal Tech, JHU, Northwestern, Duke

If we expand to LACS, add Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore and Pomona.

If these schools were to just start their own separate academic “league,” they would rival the Ivy League, easily.

ivies (minus Cornell) = Stanford, MIT > Chicago, JHU > Cal Tech, Northwestern, Duke, Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, and Pomona.

Anonymous wrote:This thread is so stupid - there is only one Ivy League and this Ivy Plus stuff is nonsense. People know there are lots of good schools - they are just not Ivy League and that’s okay. Yeesh.

Anonymous wrote:OK, OP. I partly agree with you. But you don't go nearly far enough. You want to maintain the façade that there is a strict hierarchy, but you want to quibble about the order. I would say that there really is no hierarchy.

First of all, there are probably around 500 schools in the US with high enough overall quality that even the brightest kids cannot learn everything and cannot exhaust the opportunities presented to them. The job market in academics is so bad that the professors at secondary and tertiary public colleges got their PhDs right alongside the professors at Ivy League schools. There just isn't room for all of them at the most selective schools, so they go where they can get jobs.

Secondly, I dispute the notion that there is such a thing as "prestigious" undergrad. I care about where people went to grad school, where they did their post-doc or fellowship (though even then, it is more about WHO they trained under, than where they did it), and subsequent work experience. Unless they were trying to make conversation about people we might know, or football rivalry, I would find it sort of pathetic if they tried to brag about undergrad. Like bragging about graduating high school. Sort of expected. Any field where a bachelor's degree is terminal is not really particularly "prestigious". Any field where a higher degree is required, people only care about your higher degree.

So, just go to a school where you will learn the most, be happy and can afford. It is not so hard.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are people in this thread actually claiming schools like Brown and Dartmouth are more prestigious than Chicago or Duke or Northwestern? That doesn’t seem right to me. Would be more impressed to hear someone went to Caltech than Penn. And so the list goes.

Umm, no - unless you think JHU or George Tech is more impressive than Penn.

Anonymous wrote:Are people in this thread actually claiming schools like Brown and Dartmouth are more prestigious than Chicago or Duke or Northwestern? That doesn’t seem right to me. Would be more impressed to hear someone went to Caltech than Penn. And so the list goes.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coming across the JHU thread and it’s clear there are some people unfamiliar with American colleges who think Ivy League = the best. It is worth repeating that there are just as many universities NOT in the Ivy League that are just as good and just as prestigious as the Ivies.

Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Cal Tech, JHU, Northwestern, Duke

If we expand to LACS, add Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore and Pomona.

If these schools were to just start their own separate academic “league,” they would rival the Ivy League, easily.

No one thinks only Ivy League is the best. It's a straw man in your own head. But Ivy League is a real grouping that conveys prestige for lay people. MIT and Stanford are also widely accepted as being in the top 5 prestigious schools in the country. T5, HYPMS is a real grouping.

The rest of them are all good schools. But they are not prestigious.