^I don’t pay much attention to rankings, but a list that puts Villanova ahead of Carnegie-Mellon, Reed, USC, and Johns Hopkins is, I would claim, idiosyncratic at the very least.
I get where the OP is coming from, and I agree with some of the points, but I disagree with the point that the education ‘will be the same’ at either school. I’m not referring to Villanova or Fairfield specifically, but in general, I do think educational quality will be different at any 2 schools who have a wide difference in ‘ranking’- or a school that is not say in the top 100-125. The quality of teaching, the depth and breadth of classes, the research opportunities offered, the overall ability of your peers and the connections you will make etc.
Now I do agree with the posters that say you can be successful coming from any college, but I also think that the experience can be different. For instance, if you are coming from certain schools that emphasize writing skills, that is going to set you apart. I have worked with many recent grads, who have extremely poor business writing skills, so when you come across someone who is good, you do take notice and that impacts how they are viewed in the workplace.
Also agree that a majority of people have no idea what these colleges are. Took my D on 2 visits recently and was talking about them to relatives at Easter. One was an Ivy and it was immediately confused with a state flagship, the other, a very selective LAC, got a perplexed look. Only the current college students in the room, knew what we were talking about.
FWIW- I did a project recently and worked with 2 recent Villanova grads. Small sample size I know, but very impressive young woman with regard to poise, work ethic and computational skills.
The only Villanova grad I’ve met was my boss in one of my first jobs. She believed that people from Switzerland speak “Swiss” and actually asked a client to have a document translated from “Swiss” into English. I wasn’t impressed.
I want my kids to have careers they enjoy and make a comfortable living and that’s really all they want, too. Neither is interested in a field that would require attendance at a “prestige” school and the contacts and connections that go with it so it takes a lot of pressure off. There are a lot of ways to define success.
Discussions of prestigiosity mostly boil down to selectivity.
Notre Dame’s ACT range is 32-34; BC’s is 30-33; Nova’s is 28-31; Fordham’s is 26-30; Fairfield’s is 24-28. FWIW.
But obviously there are kids at all those schools with stats that overlap and kids at less selective schools who got accepted to more selective schools (usually because the kid got a better financial deal at the lower ranked school).
@trackmbe3, I’m sorry if post was not clear enough. I did not mean that the students of these extremely wealthy people went to less prestigious schools. I meant the people themselves went to them–the ones who earned their wealth. None of them–the parents–came from families with much wealth. One was suburban middle class; one came from a working class neighborhood in a major eastern city; another from a suburban high school in our area that is not highly regarded; and one from a small southern town, probably also middle class. Two kids from these families went to highly ranked state flagships. All their other kids went to very solid schools, only one though, I believe, would also appear in the USNWR Top 100 national universities. The others not.
I think the main point is, it’s not WHERE you go to school, it’s HOW you go to school. Work hard, embrace opportunities, engage with people (professors and students), and treat everyone with dignity and respect. Then one will do well.
If you think prestige is overrated, the only way to change the system is from within. Get yourself promoted to a high enough position that you can change your company’s hiring process.
In Silicon Valley, college prestige is probably mostly a concern among high school seniors and tiger parents, and in lines of work where college prestige is favored (law wrt law school, IB/VC, consulting). Would it be any different anywhere else?
Yes. That’s my point. Nutso college competition is way less of a thing in Minneapolis, Chicago, Atlanta, Phoenix, Tampa, Denver, Cincinnati, Houston, St. Louis, you name it. The most obsessive communities in these markets would be nothing special in metro NY/DC/Boston/SV.
Admissions consultants see this in our professional organizations. The number of consultants a market supports has very little to do with the size of a metro area. It has to do with the culture there. I’m pretty sure Westchester County has more consultants than the state of Arizona.
Perhaps, Hanna and @ucbalumnus are both right. People were definitely less obsessed about college admissions where I went to high school, and from what I hear still are. However, I’ll admit that I didn’t even know what IB/VC were until after I finished college. Perhaps, a greater awareness of certain hyper selective career fields is what drives the admissions arms race in certain prestige focused geographical areas?
Back in the day, a few decades ago, my relative opted to go to UCSF Med School over Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and all the other ones who accepted him. He also chose to internship and residency at UCSF and also Los Angeles over Harvard and Hopkins. It hasn’t kept him from getting amazing jobs and doing very well. He just couldn’t justify the price of the “prestigious Us.”
Yes, that’s what he told the Us he turned down. He became a CA resident as well and UCSF was even cheaper for him. He got the specialty he wanted (ophthamology) in the state and price he wanted with no sacrifice of prestige. He’s doing great!
UCSF is hugely prestigious. I’m not sure I understand the point. My nephew chose a PhD program there over one at MIT (his original undergrad first choice). He was cross when hi mentor ended up at MIT and he had to leave the Bay area which he’d grown to love.
UCSF is an amazing university for medicine and research!! It has a number of Nobel Prize winners. I think maybe people haven’t heard of it because it doesn’t have an undergraduate program. I would say it rivals or beats Stanford in many areas. It’ is no “sacrifice” of prestige.
Frankly I think prestige is changing in today’s world. The jig is up…people in the real world are onto the college B.S. and ridiculous majors. Learning for the sake of learning and going to a name school has changed (for better or worse). Now, it is about staying out of debt while getting a great, practical education. Employers know this and want real people with real skill and work ethic. Most of this board is obsessed with getting into name schools but in the real world, there is so much more that matters. Down the road I’ll happily compared the kid who went to a public institution and got an applicable degree for real life to the kid who went to a name school and got a degree in women’s studies or the classics (etc.). The most successful people I know did not go to the Ivys or “top notch” colleges/universities.
TRUTH!