Seahawks506

For the most part these Ivy league college students are still hard-working and you can't expect everyone to be a "life of the mind" type of person; then again as the article states many kids go into one of these colleges with the mindset of adding a pedigree to their name and therefore add to a cesspool of conformation, self-aggrandizement, and exclusivity. It's really a nasty cycle that sucks the vitality, self-esteem, and health of well-meaning teenagers (and their well-meaning parents).
Everyone's obsessed with prestige these days, and it goes beyond the "Ivy League sticker" or naive high school kids. Those kids are mistakenly viewing it as the golden ticket to success in life (and if they make it, rest on their ivy laurels). Facts: Ivy league schools are *among* the best in America. They aren't the only good schools. High schoolers look to USNWR like it's the bible, and measure their self-worth by which schools accept and reject them. Prestige-chasing is endemic in society, and the best you can do is to rise above it and determine for yourself what truly matters. As I've said- for future applicants, Ivy league schools are *among* the best in America, and that's really all they should be viewed as- not some mystical launching-pad to a silver spoon 1% lifestyle. That shouldn't ever be the point of going to college.

annasdad

^ For the most part, I agree. I do not, however, place the onus on the kids, but on the adults who should know better.

Pizzagirl

Believing that the Ivies are "the magic 8" as opposed to "8 of the top schools that are connected by a shared athletic league and history" is really sort of the definition of not being very "elite" in the first place. It's a marker of unsophistication to think that way.

RML

For the first time, Pizzagirl made a lot of sense.

The Ivies are not the top 8 schools in America, though it is safe to assume that all of them are well within the top 50 schools in America.

annasdad

Based on what criteria?

RML

^ Based on opportunities after graduation (career placement, salary scale, etc.), academic prestige (all ranked in the top 30 in most league tables), quality of teaching, spending on student and quality of faculty and students.

annasdad

None of which have any verifiable effect on the quality of the education delivered. You could look it up.

dwincho

Seems like you totally missed the point.

RML

^ Really? If I'm an employer, why would I hire someone academically unequipped?

The fact that graduates of the Ivies are almost always "first in line" at most top companies' doors says a lot about the quality of teaching at those schools. Don't you think?

dwincho

Here's the link that was posted, how about you read the piece again:

The American Scholar: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - William Deresiewicz

RML

Are you suggesting then that graduates of the Ivies learn less compared to grads of other schools? Which schools teach/deliver better instructions than the Ivies? Are graduates of, say, Rice or Vanderbilt, learn more during their undergraduate years than those of, say, Princeton?

Greybeard

There are benefits for bright students from learning side by side with other bright students. Ivy League schools have an abundance of bright students, but they can be found in many places.

One of my elementary school classmates from the small town where I grew up holds an endowed chair at an Ivy League school; another is the CEO of a pharmaceutical company, with numerous drug patents to his name. (Neither of them went to Ivy League schools as undergraduates, by the way.)

tk21769

It may or it may not. To the extent this is true, it may reflect treatment effects (quality of education per se), or it may reflect selection effects (cherry-picking applicants who would have been about as successful, in these terms, wherever they went).

With respect to financial success after graduation, the preponderance of evidence seems to suggest that such effects are selection effects, not treatment effects.
Revisiting the Value of Elite Colleges - NYTimes.com

Of course, there are other kinds of success besides financial success. I don't know that anybody has tried to assess the comparative advantage (if any) of "elite" schools in teaching students how to read a book, how to make a well-reasoned argument, how to make good use of leisure time, how to live a purposeful life, etc.

annasdad

What tk said about selection effects.
And I'm not "suggesting" that graduates of elite schools learn less - only pointing out that copious evidence establishes that they don't learn more.

LakeClouds

Interesting article and research. It calls into question the whole Ivy-madness that seems to obsess students and parents. Despite the data to the contrary, there's still a wide-spread, if misinformed, belief that the Ivies produce better outcomes for students. Is this driven by the sweatshirt culture we live in where people want to wear a Harvard, Princeton sweatshirt as some sort of message to others?