<p>Personally, I think prestige has very little to do with how well-known something is among the masses. The Porcellian Club at Harvard is prestigious. Deep Springs College is prestigious. None of those depend on everyone’s-heard-of-them for prestige. Personally, I’m also an advocate of the prestige that comes from making the choice that not everyone else makes, that isn’t the “obvious” choice. It’s very prestigious that bclintonk’s D went to Haverford, for example, despite the fact that it raises eyebrows in her Minnesota neighborhood. Doesn’t make it a tad bit less prestigious.</p>
<p>
prestige: a high standing achieved through success or influence or wealth etc</p>
<p>The question is: a high standing among whom? Prestige is going to vary depending on the population in question. Where I live, the University of Washington is immensely prestigious among high school students, possibly in the top 10 worldwide.</p>
<p>
pizzagirl - You win. Go ahead and give some more attacks.</p>
<p>Ditto here with U of I. And that is something that some people on CC refuse to understand. They really, seriously think that every smart hs kid in the country dreams only of top schools. I mean, look at the people who don’t even get that yes, for some kids, a Vandy or Emory or Brandeis or whatever IS their top choice, not just second-fiddle-to-the-inevitable-desire-for-Ivy.</p>
<p>^ Agree, PG- and Emory, Vandy, Brandeis, etc should be top choice schools for many, many students. They are great schools!</p>
<p>I don’t discount the fact that name recognition of a school can be helpful in some situations. I got a comment just the other day (had to give a deposition) from the attorney who said he was impressed by my undergrad, and I attended 35+ yrs ago. That said, in many cases… maybe in reality in MOST cases, where a person went to undergrad doesnt come up in conversation all that often, and really doesnt matter down the road. Sure, it may help with some grad/professional school acceptances, but then again it may not be a tipping factor for others.</p>
<p>As whacky as the Forbes list may be, perhaps its point is that when we look at something with a different set of criteria, different results emerge from the data.</p>
<p>Coolweather - it was no attack AT ALL. Quite the contrary! The people who frequent CC are people who have above-average interest in colleges. But most people don’t! And they don’t really need to! They live their lives just fine without being able to identify all 8 Ivy Leagues or without making it their life’s dream to send kids to the tippy-top schools. I’m the daughter of such people, so definitely no attack :-)</p>
<p>I get two reactions when people hear my S attends Williams. The first is a blank, polite look. I know the person is thinking, “Too bad, he’s not very bright.”</p>
<p>The second look is, "Gee, I’m surprised. I didn’t know your S was <em>that</em> smart. (He isn’t. He’s an ordinary CC kid. There are much smarter kids, but he is very interesting with unusual interests. He’s read the Aeneid three times in Latin, for example and can play every Bach Partita.)</p>
<p>Let 'em think that, mythmom. Their problem, not yours.</p>
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<p>This is how it was for myself and for my own kids. Yes, they wanted selective schools that were challenging but they didn’t care if it was an Ivy. They had specific things they wanted their college to have…a certain major, a certain sport, a certain location, etc. and Ivy or no Ivy, if the school didn’t meet that selection criteria, it wasn’t on the list. </p>
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<p>No, I meant “educated.” If you are educated, for one thing, you have gone through college admissions yourself and unless you applied to just one college, you have looked around at colleges that exist. Further, as an educated person, you may have some worldly knowledge whereby you came in contact with names of colleges over the years. Schools may be well known because they are very selective, have been around for many years or have famous spectator sports. I mean I venture to say that many (but not all) college educated people may have heard of Harvard, Columbia, University of Texas, Penn State, NYU, Notre Dame, U of Michigan, MIT, Stanford, Georgetown, University of Virginia, UCLA, USC, Ohio State, Purdue, Syracuse, Princeton, University of Chicago, Northwestern, Duke, Berkeley, McGill, etc. You don’t have to be economically successful to have heard of these famous schools. </p>
<p>noimagination, in your question to do with my statement that my kids started with big fat college directories that are full of hundreds of schools that are not ranked or are not the most prestigious, you wrote:</p>
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<p>OK, for the three performing arts directories we own that my D2 used: </p>
<p>Directory of Theatre Training Programs…includes every college that offers theater by state and there is no ranking and many are not well known whatsoever. No rankings or ratings. Just descriptions and data about the college.</p>
<p>Peterson’s Professional Degree Programs in the Visual and Performing Arts…arranged by area of the arts…very comprehensive …no rankings or ratings</p>
<p>ARCO Performing Arts Majors College Guide…arranged by major but all inclusive of lots of schools. For each major, they do have a list of noteworthy programs, but alas, not by my daughter’s major: musical theater. (by the way, I have never seen a ranking of BFA in MT programs and to my knowledge, none exists, and I would know it since I advise many students seeking such programs and in fact, on CC’s MT Forum, long time participants repeatedly have to tell newbies that there is no ranking of MT college programs)</p>
<p>For the general college directories that mostly D1 used, but D2 may have also looked at (can’t recall the latter):</p>
<p>The Insider’s Guide to the Colleges…arranged by state…no ratings or rankings</p>
<p>Fiske Guide to Colleges…Ya know, I didn’t notice until I went searching in the book now (2003 edition) that under a college’s listing, it gives a certain number of stars for academics, social life, and quality of life, but I never noticed that before! Though that is not a ranking. We used the stats for admitted students to see if she was in range and then read the descriptions. </p>
<p>Princeton Review Best 345 Colleges…there isn’t a ranking of colleges. But under each colleges there is a number of stars for selectivity (but that is easy to figure out by acceptance rate and stats of admitted students anyway) and number of stars for academics and campus life. I didn’t notice these until I just went to look at the book (2003 edition) but again, we used the stats for the schools and the descriptions and then used the colleges’ own websites to dig deeper and then visited.</p>
<p>The answer to YOUR question is that my daughters did not pick by name and location, ha ha. They read the descriptions, the stats of admitted students, acceptance rate and then went to read about certain things they cared about at the college on the college’s own site…such as their major/program, sports team (for participation), various extracurricular activities in their interest areas. So, they read about each school in depth and the directory was just a starting point to find schools. I don’t recall reading any ratings or rankings ever. My kids kept spreadsheets that had SAT range, acceptance rate, etc. etc. </p>
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<p>No, I don’t think well known is equal to prestige. For instance, in my state, many know of University of Vermont. One may know of Syracuse or Clemson or Penn State for spectator sports but that doesn’t mean those are very prestigious colleges. In fact, many prestigious colleges may not be that well known to the masses (such as Swarthmore). I went to UG at Tufts and many have not heard of it. Many well known colleges are indeed prestigious (such as Harvard, MIT), but not all well known colleges are prestigious.</p>
<p>I forget. How does one measure “prestige” ???</p>
<p>Is that a ranking? ;)</p>
<p>^ ^
Great post, soozie.</p>
<p>Also, since I venture to guess that many on this thread are not that aware of BFA for Musical Theater programs which are the only colleges my daughter applied to…</p>
<p>HIGHLY selective (or dare I say, “prestigious”) programs are located within universities or colleges that are not that selective. So, even if Penn State has an acceptance rate of 51%, they accept only 5% into the musical theater program, and even though Ithaca College has an acceptance rate of 65%, they accept about 5% into the BFA in MT program, University of Cincinnati (which is one of the tippy top regarded MT programs) accepts 75% to the university but about 4% for Musical Theater. Now, if I told some local person, who knows nothing about how highly competitive BFA in MT admissions is, that my D was applying to Penn State or Ithaca, and considering she is a very strong student (these would be academic safety schools for her), most people would say, “of course she’ll get in there!” but have NO clue that the chances are just about 5%, very low odds. </p>
<p>So, college rankings like USNews or Forbes are meaningless for someone like my kid who was applying to highly competitive specialized degree programs (every single BFA in Musical Theater program accepts anywhere from 2-9% approximately).</p>
<p>Four of the top 10 schools have 1000-2000 undergraduates. Who are these kids and how representative are they? I bet the kids are quite satisfied. I only know big schools with 20K to 50K students.</p>
<p>Forbes has mixed up the two Wheaton Colleges. </p>
<p>[We’re</a> No. 59! (Or Is It 244?) - Tweed - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Were-No-59-Or-Is-It-244-/26218/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en]We’re”>http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Were-No-59-Or-Is-It-244-/26218/?sid=pm&utm_source=pm&utm_medium=en)</p>
<p>EDIT: Upon closer look, Forbes seems to have fixed the data:</p>
<p>Wheaton College (The Christian LAC in illinois) is #59</p>
<p>Wheaton College (LAC in MA) is #244.</p>
<p>@soozievt:</p>
<p>I provided a dictionary definition of prestige in post #182: “a high standing achieved through success or influence or wealth etc”. The group among whom a school has a “high standing” is what will vary on an individual basis. You claim that your kids did not pay attention to prestige, but I assure you that the Fiske etc. books do present the opinions of the editorial staff with regards to a schools academic standing. I’m not sure how you could know that your kids did not at least observe the ranking indicators in these books, but regardless the descriptions confer plenty of opinion. I must confess that I am ignorant on the topic of theater programs in general, so I will not choose to comment on that area.</p>
<p>Even if we accept the idea that you did not directly target prestigious institutions, unless you show that most people do not apply to such places your use of selectivity stats effectively eliminate schools not prestigious to applying seniors and their families.</p>
<p>I am not attempting to criticize your college search strategy. It is natural human nature to consider the opinions of other people before making an important decision, and I’d argue that not doing so is actually unwise.</p>
<p>Regarding the distinction between “well known” and “prestigious”, it’s simply a matter of whether a school is considered to have “high standing”. In my example, Udub is held in extremely high standing among college-bound students and their families in my area.</p>
<p>I truly think the entire concept of “prestige” is outdated (a point I tried to make many posts ago). Most people really have moved on from that concept, I think.</p>
<p>noimagination…what I said is that my kids were not aware of rankings. </p>
<p>As far as prestige, they didn’t say “I want a prestigious school or one that is ranked higher than the others I got into” but yes, they did look into well known and very selective colleges because they craved a certain level of challenge and a certain type of student body that are typically in very selective colleges. I simply said that they were not aware of RANKINGS. And secondly, that they did not pick colleges BASED ON prestige, but more so on various selection criteria (ie., has a major in architecture, has a MT program, has a ski team, is near or in a city, etc.). But ONE factor was “selectivity” so that the college fit their academic (as well as artistic) level of ability. Yes, they cared about that. Now, obviously many of the highly selective colleges tend to be well known or some consider these schools to be prestigious. I don’t know how to put it but they didn’t pick the schools due to prestige but rather due to how the schools fit them with one factor being selective and challenging and that one factor does tend to often coincide with well known or prestigious schools. But as I wrote earlier, D1, when cutting down all her acceptances, eliminated Penn and went back to visit Smith and Tufts ands she liked those better than Penn and so the prestige was not the determining factor. Smith and Tufts were selective and challenging and so how they “rank” mattered not to her. She just wanted it to be a challenging environment. </p>
<p>I don’t think of what is in Fiske as a ranking. It just has with each college a certain number of stars for academics, social life and quality of life. I don’t think they tuned into these “stars”. I saw D1’s spreadsheet and she recorded facts about each school in terms of her list of criteria (ski team? study abroad?) and also the stats of admitted students and if it was a reach, match, safety for her, and the acceptance rate. No rankings or ratings were listed and I know she has never seen USNews rankings. D2 used the theater directories which list every program. But again, since she has been in the field of musical theater her entire life, many programs are ones she has heard of before as there are not that many to begin with and she knows older kids who went into the field and also has seen credits in playbills and such. </p>
<p>But I never said my kids didn’t apply to or target prestigious colleges. They certainly applied to prestigious colleges or MT programs, because as you say, very selective schools (which they wanted for the adequate level of challenge) often tend to also be known or prestigious. I simply said they did not view or use RANKINGS (USNews) and that “prestige” was not how they selected their final college choice, but rather picked which one they felt fit them the best. The fact that the schools are prestigious is due to the fact that these are good fits for their qualifications and level of academics and artistic talents where they felt they would be challenged and my kids REALLY care about being challenged.</p>
<p>I find this discussion fascinating on many levels:</p>
<p>The discussions among parents are very different from the discussions about the rankings in other areas on CC. I also find the degree of “admission” and “denial” truly fantastic, and in all the meaning of the words. </p>
<p>When it comes to the Forbes rankings, one has to realize how interesting it is that the rankings, despite being the product of one of the most ridiculous methodologies and the work of pseudo-scientists, end up with a very plausible final list at the TOP of their listing. In so many words, isn’t it fascinating that using a method that I consider to be utterly questionable does yield a most acceptable final result? </p>
<p>Rather than stick to hollow words, why don’t we look at the listing of schools and add a few names and rankings to the “top” ten schools that were quoted earlier. For good measure, I added the USNews 2010 rank for Universities and Lacs. So, here we go:</p>
<p>For starters, what are the universities that MOST everyone considers the best in the nation:</p>
<ol>
<li>Princeton University U1<br></li>
<li>Massachusetts Institute of Technology U4</li>
<li>Stanford University U4</li>
<li>Harvard University U1</li>
</ol>
<h2>10. Yale University U3 </h2>
<p>13 Columbia University U8
18 Northwestern University U12
19 California Institute of Technology U4
20 University of Chicago U8</p>
<p>Then what are the LACs that are also considered at the top of most everyone’s list? </p>
<ol>
<li>Williams College L1</li>
<li>Amherst College L2</li>
<li>Swarthmore College L3
9 Claremont McKenna College L11
12 Wellesley College L4
14 Haverford College L10
15 Wesleyan University L13
17 Pomona College L6
21 Carleton College L8
22 Harvey Mudd College L14</li>
</ol>
<p>Leaving us with the best military academies …
4. United States Military Academy L14
11 United States Air Force Academy L19</p>
<p>So, Forbes has the top 5 universities, the top 3 LACs, and the top academy among its highest ranked 10 schools! </p>
<p>As I wrote, it is fascinating. But of course, not as much as reading the accounts of how many schools people visited as part of their family college selection, and reading the discussion about the Ivy attraction. Texans must be quite a diverse bunch; on the one hand, you can read Cur’s herculean periples of rubber burning miles and the use of more science in the search than Vedder used to put the rankings together. On the other hand, I see the experience of my family. For my sister and me, there were a grand total of 7 applications, a unyielding refusal to look at anything east of … the state of Texas, and the visit of perhaps 12 schools, with many in driving distance. And this included the trip that solidified the absolute non-interest to apply to one of the Ivy League schools. This said, my younger sister, the traitor, liked Princeton and Amherst a lot, but for the latter it must have been for the Frost legacy and the color of the athletic uniforms.</p>
<p>xiggi – Good point, but I found some schools very oddly placed, like Middlebury and Cornell.</p>
<p>[Hey, xig. I wondered when you’d chime in. I saw that “other” ranking thread. lol. P.M. me what you are doing with yourself these days.]</p>
<p>Vedder’s methodology IMO had all the statistical validity of a voodoo priest reading chicken guts but…like you said, freakishly, at the top, it didn’t end up that bad. </p>
<p>And anyway … CMC is looking mighty fine at numero nine. ;)</p>