The College Rankings Racket (New York Times)

[sorghum]

Getting into medical school is nice and all that, but not a sign of genius ..

[Canuckguy]

^ No, not genius, but certainly not a "regular" kid.

[annasdad]

Has anyone mentioned that one of this year's Nobel prize winners, a Stanford professor, went to a directional public university for undergrad? What's that school's ranking or is it ranked at all?

Could it possibly be that what you do in college is more important than what college you go to?

[Pizzagirl]

Has anyone mentioned that one of this year's Nobel prize winners, a Stanford professor, went to a directional public university for undergrad? What's that school's ranking or is it ranked at all?

I don't even know why anyone would consider a Nobel prize winner going to a non-fancy undergrad even worthy of commentary. It's like being "surprised" that someone who is the CEO of a company or who buys a luxury house didn't go to an elite school. I don't know why there is this CC ignorance of the real world in which many people are successful in their fields of endeavor without elite school degrees.

[annasdad]

I don't even know why anyone would consider a Nobel prize winner going to a non-fancy undergrad even worthy of commentary.

Maybe to address those who think going to a "top 50" USNWR school is oh so important?

Top schools are not worth it?

[NotYourBusiness]

As far as Noble prizes are considered, it is important. No doubt about it.

Look at this link with the undergraduate institutions of past Nobel winners in Medicine and Chemistry:

Life After Wall Street: Nobel Prize Winners' undergraduate colleges

Interestingly, the article is trying to argue that undergraduate degree is not important, but looking at the numbers, it proves exactly the contrary: The likelyhood that someone which an undergraduate degree from a top scholl will win the Nobel in these two categories is much higher than that of people who went to non top schools.

Given that there are more than 4000 colleges in the U.S., if undergraduate institution was not important, then we would think that the proportion of Noble prize winners from the top 40 schools (just to round it up with the 4000) would be 40/4000= 0.01 = 1%.

Now, count the number of winners from the Top 40 universities. In medicine they represent more than half of the winners (greter than 50%). This means that the top 40 schools get more than half the prizes, were people from the remaining 3,960 schools get the other less-than-half number of prizes.

In chemistry, the advantage of top schools is not as high, but we also see a number much higher than 1%.

[Pizzagirl]

You need to distinguish between treatment effect and selection effect. The elite schools attract and select for the smartest people to begin with, so no duh that Nobel prizes (etc) will skew there.

[Pizzagirl]

Nice c&p out of context, Annasdad. Was I saying that life success couldn't ever be achieved at a non top 50 school and that one should be surprised if such a grad finds himself anywhere higher than flipping burgers? Or was I just answering an inquiry as where I draw my own personal line and noting that there is no bright line?

[annasdad]

Out of context when I linked to the complete post?

Most people who draw "personal lines" do so for reasons that are based on assumptions, conscious or un. Maybe you're different and draw them for completely arbitrary factors.

[NotYourBusiness]

@Pizza
"The elite schools attract and select for the smartest people to begin with"

The point I make is still valid. It is "oh so Important" to go to a top institution. Unless you don't like to be among current/future Nobel Prize winners.

If undergraduate institution has no effect, why don't the brilliant individuals who are at the other institutions show up in higher numbers? Maybe you are arguing that there is a limited number of brilliant individuals at lesser institutions. This will not be an argument in favor of non-top instituitons I am afraid.

Having a ton of brilliant students/faculty at a top institutions is a plus that reinforces how benefitial a top school can be. The aforementioned Stanford Noble Prize winner seems to know this. No doubt being among other brilliant academics is part of his decision to be at Stanford and not at some other institution.

[Pizzagirl]

Both things can be true.

a) Attending a top school can be beneficial and enhance one's accomplishments and achievements.
b) We needn't go into insulin shock when someone from a non-top school is accomplished and successful, because it's not like it's all that uncommon.

[xiggi]

Nobel prizes have little to no relevance to the life of students at any school, as the laureates tend to live in the insular world of research.

It is the kind of bragging right for the insipid marketing drivel, or the moronic graduate schools ranking published by pseudo scientists.

[NotYourBusiness]

"We needn't go into insulin shock when someone from a non-top school is accomplished and successful, because it's not like it's all that uncommon."

I agree with this statement, but I disagree on arguing by exception. I.e., I disagree with using one example of a single person to try to make a general point, such as "Bill Gates is a college dropout and succeeded, so clearly there is no negative effect of dropping college." or "Person X from Directional College got a Nobel Prize, so clearly undergraduate college has no effect on your chances of getting a Nobel Prize".

[MiamiDAP]

"Having a ton of brilliant students/faculty at a top institutions is a plus that reinforces how benefitial a top school can be."
-No single student is dealing with "a ton of brilliant students" on a regular basis, they are in their own crowd. The Honor colleges at state publics are filled with kids many of whom would be accepted to very top colleges, including Ivy's. Top 2% of class? They will qualify, they just choose not to apply for various reasons.
Again, in regard to faculty, having "brilliant, world re-nowned" facultry is not always a plus. These people do not have as much focus on students, they are more into their own research (at least, according to my D's converstation with few of her HS friends who went to various schools). And there are other factors: accessibility, ability to teach, which means ability to explain the material in "students" language so to speak. Again, names do not mean a lot, unless name means that prof is very well known to be a brilliant lecturer / teacher, which many times is NOT the same as being a brillinat scientist, for example, actually sometime these are tow very different things.

[Hunt]

So why, exactly, does Harvard College produce more Nobel prize winners than any other school? I can think of several reasons--and they are all pretty good reasons to go to Harvard if you can get in.
First, maybe Harvard really does get the smartest and most talented people--or at least a bigger share of them than any other school. As has been explained many times on CC, that alone is enough reason that many students would want to go there--that's what they want their peers in college to be like.
Second, perhaps there is something about going to Harvard that makes it more likely that a person will get a Nobel prize--perhaps it's the education itself, or the connections, or the opportunities to get placement into the best graduate schools. If so, that's a pretty good argument for going there as well.
Is the number of Nobel prizes a good stand-in for other kinds of success? I don't know, but I suspect it is for academic things like likelihood of becoming a tenured professor.