Even if you just look at top schools, there is a difference.
I’m not going to turn this into yet another race discussion.
You are very right to make that point – there is tremendous talent in almost any university. Sometimes (often) the most talented professors don’t wind up at the most selective universities. The most intriguing, brilliant botanist I know of taught at a school virtually no top student would ever consider.
Another end of that point is that even at Princeton or Harvard, professors can not infrequently be out-argued as soon as you step out of their tight area of focus, if not at their focus itself.
However, my original point is valid. There are a lot of terrible, incompetent professors who at their best are a half-step ahead of their students – I went to college at a so-called elite public school and you could not imagine the depth of incompetence and anger at students who point out errors, no matter how politely. It would shock anyone who believe the academic talent in the US is deep The further you move from the most selective schools, the more common this becomes. It could be a real problem for a brilliant, hard-working student. Even just moving out of the top 10.
Students should evaluate the department they want to study in. A less selective school may turn out to have better professors.
@Farquhar: This has more to do with temperament and maturity than ability.
I have found that certain tenured profs (at some institutions you have heard of named Princeton, Cal, and UChicago) do not handle people pointing out flaws in their logic or biases well at all.
Extremely thin-skinned and unreasonable.
IMO, tenured profs could be a cosseted and cocooned lot. Not all, of course, but folks who work (and are not independently wealthy) typically can not afford that attitude while if you are a tenured prof, you can get away with acting thin-skinned/immature/vindictive.
Threads like this remind me of the loathesome parent chatter one can hear on the sidelines of a high school soccer match or in the audience before a school band concert. “My daughter gets straight A’s and I swear I never see her study.” or “I’m really worried that my son is going to have a hard time adjusting to college because he’s very smart and is just not used to having to work hard here at ABC High.” Since the “my kid gets straight A’s mantra” was so common, I used to wonder what was wrong with my kids because I had thought they were smart, but they were studying so hard they barely slept and THEY didn’t get straight A’s. But a year later one hears from the same parents that their children couldn’t break 1000 on the SAT and are headed to the lowest ranked state directional university…where they will no doubt easily get A’s, if we believe mom.
And then, when my kids are again working their butts off at elite schools, these same individuals love to announce that they heard that the hardest thing about the Ivies and Stanford is getting in. I wonder what would happen if they loudly proclaimed that lovely sentiment before finals in the quad at one of those schools? (For what it’s worth, a friend’s daughter, who was her good high school’s val and whose parents are both elite schools grads themselves, is a freshman at Yale. Her mother admitted she is barely surviving, despite going to every help and tutoring session, so apparently my kids are not the only secret dunces. And I know for a fact that there are plenty of hardworking kids who couldn’t get A’s at our rigorous high school who then went on to earn A’s at the flagship. Did ALL of them suddenly mature intellectually in three months? Doubt it. Schools are not all the same.)
So yes, elite schools are harder. That doesn’t mean every class is, or every department. But overall, YES!
Too bad I cannot like TheGFG’s post #224 multiple times.
I don’t know what departments you are talking about, Farquhar, at your “so-called elite public school,” but your comments in #222 would not be true of faculty I know at my university.
I teach at a large public research university, but it wouldn’t be called elite by most people. QMP went to one of the universities represented by single initials on CC. QMP had several truly outstanding professors in classes–people who are internationally known for their research and who are also excellent as teachers. But the overall summary from QMP was that the faculty there were “no more brilliant and no less limited than you and Dad.” (Gee, thanks! I guess. 
)
Getting in is the hardest part. After that, the work-load is comparable. Save your money and send your kids to a public college. Hard work, motivation, emotional intelligence and a work ethic lead to success. The name on the diploma is far less important and doesn’t guarantee you anything in life.
@Farquhar : Wait, are we discussing teaching quality? Perhaps then yes, you may have a point. Most PhDs in the U.S. were not trained to teach and those who wanted to really learn or who valued that, perhaps opted for small liberal arts colleges and not research universities. Many instructors great at running their research program may not make great teachers but are still quite talented in other ways.
Do most PhD-granting departments in research universities not have a TA requirement for the PhD degree, along with a “how to teach [subject]” course or seminar for first-time TAs?
As far as I’m aware, all have TA requirements. In later years, a grad student might be asked to TA for someone, and given additional money. My son felt honored to TA for a well known prof.
There are several colleges in my city, tho I doubt any are ranked in the top 500 or even 1000. When there is an opening, there are hundreds of applications. When my son took some college classes, he had profs from MIT and Princeton. People who want academia face so much competition
Sorry Patriotsnation but I don’t agree at all. Getting into a school like Stanford is extremely hard, and perhaps its the hardest school now to be accepted in, but the difficulties do not end there. I can speak personally to Stanford since my S graduated from there a couple of years ago. Getting in was hard, but staying in and doing well was definitely harder. Keep in mind, my S, like all kids that get into the elite schools, are high achieving hard working students. So getting in is just part of their everyday lives. These kids are the type of students who have been excelling from the second they came out of the womb. When their classmates are partying and getting drunk on a Saturday night, they are most likely not. So to be honest getting in isn’t so hard because these kids don’t know any other lifestyle. However, being successful at Stanford is a whole new level of dedication and hard work. Keep in mind in schools, like Stanford and Dartmouth are on a quarter system. Therefore, they take their classes in 10 weeks, whereby the semester students have 15 weeks for the same material. The pace of the work is incredibly fast. In addition, lets not forget that then there is also the whole issue of your peers. Your peers in Stanford are academically homogenous. The best of the best are going to that school, so when you sit in those classes and take a test, your curve (if they curve at all) is now based on some of the brightest individuals in the world, that are all converging on this one campus. That makes it extremely difficult to do well. As a student at Stanford, you are competing for grades against the best of the best. Good luck!
Lastly, here’s a copy of a thread I started under the CC Stanford. Again, I completely disagree with anyone who thinks that there is any comparison in a school like Stanford to a regular public school education. The the name is worth lot$$$$
Five years ago, my S was a senior in high school. Like many of you now, he was in the throes of college applications. He applied to 13 schools. He applied to all the academic scholarships he could and after that we prayed that he would get in somewhere. Yes, he was a good student but , in truth, there were kids who were definitely better than him. He was smart but not some crazy genius. He was extremely active and hardworking, but he wasn’t going off to college with a coding degree under his belt already, nor had he IPO’d a company or nor had he performed some off the wall research that could put an end to world hunger or cancer. He was a normal, bright, hard working kid.
Interestingly, in high school he was always the kid who flew under the radar. He was quiet, not shy, but unassuming. He was well liked, but he wasn’t a big personality. So no matter what he did, he just never seemed to get the credit he worked for nor was he awarded for his efforts. But then senior year came around and he was accepted to all 13 schools that he applied to (Colgate, Dartmouth, Lehigh, Geneseo, Richmond, Duke, Vandy, Notre Dame, Tulane, Rice, Wash U, Wake Forest and Stanford)
Stanford was the last to accept him. The schools that he EA’d, of course we knew early on were possibilities for him. The rest, with the exception of Stanford actually sent him “likely” letters. So by February of his Senior year we knew he had 12 schools to pick from. Honestly, never in a million years did we think he would get into Stanford. So we revisited some of the schools from his list of 12 and started to truly whittle down the list. It came down to one school. He had received a scholarship that would cover full tuition for four years. We aren’t rich but we don’t qualify for finaid either. So to think that College was only going to cost us a room/board ($13k/yr) was miraculous! And just as important our S was very excited with this college option too! So it was a win-win.
Then April 1st came around and Stanford sent us the email accepting our son…I cried. The expense of this school was far beyond my comprehension. We didn’t have $60K a year to spend and he wasn’t our only child. He had a sibling who needed to be educated too. So we flew out to CA and checked out the school. Needless to say, he fell in love with it. He actually came back from admit weekend stating that this was the place for him. He felt like he belonged! Well my husband and i had some serious thinking to do. How could we afford this? Even with loans, could we do it? Then there came the typical banter that everyone always hears…
-Undergrad isn’t important. Save the money for grad school.
-School is school. Math is math. Its the same where ever you go, why pay so much more for the same education.
-You’re paying for the name. (Whats in a name?)
We were told by so many family members that we were CRAZY to pay for Stanford, when he can go to another top private university for $13k/yr. After all, we were talking paying $52 v. $240K!
It was insane to think that anything could be worth that much money. To make a long story short, and obviously since I’m on the Stanford thread, we decided to let him go to Stanford. It was the scariest financial decision of our lives!
But here are the results.
Stanford has opportunities far beyond your wildest imagination. The opportunities are both on and off the campus. S graduated having worked not one or two internships but 11. He started his own consulting company going into his junior year and graduated last year with two 6 figure base offers. He and a friend started their own company upon graduation and are doing tremendously well. My husband and I never wonder for one second if we made the right choice. Stanford was absolutely worth every penny. As for the nay-sayers, they were wrong. Undergrad school does matter, especially if you don’t go on to grad school. Math isn’t just math. Math, Computer Science, Economics etc is anything but the status quo at Stanford, and companies realize that and value it. And lastly, I agree that the name -Stanford- does come with a hefty price tag, but the Stanford name also brings about respect and appreciation by companies out in the real world. But here’s the last bit of proof in the pudding…S decided to treat himself to a very expensive limited edition car. He’s worked insanely hard. Hasn’t taken a vacation or a day off since he started school (Keep in mind that the majority of his internships took place while he was at school. So he would take 18-21 credits a quarter, plus work one to two internships at a time and in junior year run his company. Came summers he worked 80hrs/wk so he could have money to support himself with the internships because some were unpaid). So he calls us one day and said I’m buying myself my dream car. As parents we were concerned. But he was doing well, so what could we say. So he goes off to the dealership in SF, negotiates the car. They settle on a price and when the paperwork is being processed, S asked them, “Do you need a co-signer, since I’m only 22?” They said, “Did you graduate?” S said, “Yes a year ago from Stanford.” They said, “Just show us your diploma and we are set. We know you kids are golden!”
And off he drove with is new car.
(So yes schools of this caliber are ridiculously expensive, but in the long run, completely worth it. No one will ever convince me otherwise. There is a difference!)
Re: #231
However, since there is no comparison case of your son going to some other school, it is impossible to really tell what different outcomes would have occurred in that case, and therefore what difference Stanford actually made.
Regarding the car financing, it is not all that special to get financing without a cosigner. Income (relative to payments) and credit score matter, but even relatively low credit scores can get financed (at higher interest rates). There may also be new college graduate incentives or finance programs from some makes, so it is unlikely that being a new graduate from Stanford would matter over being a new graduate from San Jose State for this purpose.
Not true. My daughter attends a private college. Its very good, but nothing compared to Stanford. She has the same major as my S and as a sophomore she has sent out close to 300 resumes, in search of a summer internship and she has received nothing. Several bites but nothing at the end. However, S had a lower GPA and had three paid internships for the summer going into his junior year.
LOL as for your statement “There may also be new college graduate incentives or finance programs from some makes, so it is unlikely that being a new graduate from Stanford would matter over being a new graduate from San Jose State for this purpose.”
Thats adorable to think that way but S bought a limited edition race car…So no they aren’t eager to give out financing for a car like that…Good try though
All schools are not created equal thats the bottomline…
@Dungareedoll
I am not going to comment yet on the quality of the education based on selectivity. Instead, I will postpone any comments until I get more results to analyze since my d is just a freshman. She is on full academic scholarship at a top 100 public National university and currently has 4.0 GPA in pre-med. She was offered two paid research internships this summer. Her friend who also received the same scholarship was also offered a prestigious internship in accounting (actuarial science major). Another friend of hers with the same scholarship is attending a prestigious MD/ Phd training program this summer. So, it would seem that academic excellence is generally recognized and rewarded, regardless of the selectivity of the university attended.
In her case, I will see how well she does on the MCAT her junior year, as I feel that would yield an objective analysis and could be used for comparison. My d always soaked up everything a teacher taught and the only time her achievement test results dipped below the 99 - 100% growing up was when she had a teacher who was not strong in that particular area. She excels equally in math and verbal areas- so I think the MCAT results will be a strong indicator of the quality of the education she has received. She is currently averaging about a 98% in Chemistry, Biology, Statistics, and Psychology (mostly honors classes). So, she is learning everything they are teaching. If their curriculum is good, it will be reflected in those MCAT scores.
@dungareedoll I agree with a lot of what you had to say. I do think that the Stanford name means a lot. If you are full pay that means you make in excess of 200k per year which means you are wealthier than most of the people out there. If you son treated himself to a very expensive limited edition car that means that a 22 year old is buying probably around a 150k car. To me that sounds very excessive.
Collegedad…my point was to prove that his Stanford education afforded him the ability to purchase an excessively expensive car. I don’t know many college grads, at the age of 22, can afford to do that. For that reason, along with many others, I think theres a big difference between the elite schools and the rest…
The bottomline is that not all colleges are created equal…So to all those nay-sayers who state that you don’t get any more bang for your buck at the elite schools, I disagree. Thats it plain and simple.
Are there exceptions to the rule? Yes, I too, know of a kid who went to a flagship SUNY and then went off to Duke for his MD/PhD. So it can be done. Its just far and few between.
@ucbalumnus : Yes, but the “TA” positions vary in rigor. For example, some students may get away with grading duties or just TAing a lab which can be challenging but is not equivalent to being head TA of a lab or teaching the lab lectures and developing the quizzes/exams for it. You can skate by being a “helper” if you want to at many places still. I personally am very into teaching so decided to run a couple of tutorial courses (my current public schools has credit baring tutorial courses that can get up to 40-50 students) with a large degree of autonomy. When needed I wrote the problem-sets I could. If I wanted to “free-style” my sessions I could. But the point is, I lead those sessions which run in parallel to the lecture. Many folks will not get such an experience and even if so, they may go hand in hand with the course director (like if you are a recitation instructor, the course director will likely construct the p-sets independently of you). Note that humanities seem exceptional in many cases. Like I notice that many language and math departments even at elites (at the ones that have smaller sections of say, Calculus), they actually have graduate students teach sections (honestly, many are old and good enough, that you would not know they were a graduate student).
Interestingly enough, some of those top Ivies, have “sections” in large STEM classes that students complain about when watching from outside, but I call it “excellent training” for those doctoral candidates. Like, from what I saw from Harvard’s chemistry 27 course, it appeared the section leaders constructed their own problem sets so each section had a different flavor. One chemistry 30 section instructor’s section took on a life of its own. I am guessing a similar thing happens in Yale STEM, because I am fairly sure Dr. Weinschenk at Emory must have led sessions for Dr. McBride’s freshman organic course. The teaching materials and content indicate so. It is clear he developed some of them back in his PhD days at Yale and then he became a very rigorous lecturer that enhanced and developed those materials further. When it comes to graduate programs, it is kind of clear why certain schools come out on top. The research environment and other requirements are just much more intense, so the students graduate with many marketable qualities.
For kids that are certain they want to become doctors, and have the demonstrated aptitude for it, the best strategy is to choose a respectable school where the student can get a very high GPA.
Prestigious schools with grade deflation like Princeton, UChicago, or MIT are among the hardest paths to getting an MD.