<p>I am not sure where Cornell is listed because I have not looked at the Forbes ranking too deeply. If I am not mistaken Middlebury is the first school on the second page. That should be number 26th. This represents a departure from the USNews rankings but hardly a VERY odd placement. But, here I must admit to be VERY biased as I never understood why the ranking organizations did not apply a modicum of scrutiny to the reports submitted by Midd --reports I called only half-jokingly as clear as the worst Vermont syrup.</p>
<p>Aha mythmom your encounter makes me feel so much better about the looks i get after I say swarthmore. At least williams is easy to pronounce. I’ll say to the questioner (whomever it may be) “I’m going to Swarthmore” and they go “Hm? Swatmore? What’s that?” “Oh… it’s a liberal arts college about 25 minutes away…” But then, and these reactions make me feel a bit better, i’ll get the “Oh wow! Congratulations!” It’s just annoying sometimes because I know that if I’d chosen to go to Hopkins or Penn or whatever I’d get the latter reaction every time…</p>
<p>@soozievt:</p>
<p>I certainly don’t mean to imply that prestige was the sole criterion at work. But to some extent, I think we all look to external sources for advice, suggestions, or validation. And that’s really all that prestige means. For your kids, prestige among the groups represented by the USNews methodology may not have mattered much.</p>
<p>Tying things back together, my point regarding the Forbes rankings is that their methodology does not successfully quantify prestige among any clear groups. As such, they are not useful rankings.</p>
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<p>Since prestige is ENTIRELY in the eye of the beholder, how could any ranking quantify it in a manner that is acceptable to anyone? </p>
<p>Haven’t we read sufficient stories on how the definition of prestige is different in Asia from in the United States, and for that matter how prestige is utterly regional in the United States? In fact, one could make a very good case that the least successful a ranking is in quantifying an element such as “prestige” the better and more scientific it would be. </p>
<p>On this account, it is good to remember how the USNews final rankings are marred by their insistence in using that cynical and manipulated crutch called Peer Assessment. That is what a “prestige measurement” tool accomplishes when you leave in the hands of academic bandits such as the officials at Clemson and Wisconsin who completed the PA survey in such a devious and self-serving manner.</p>
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<p>What’s the difference between the two? Why it is not right to say I want to go to Ivies or HMSPY or High Ivies or Low Ivies or Ivy+. </p>
<p>DW always told DD to work towards attending HMSPY, while I maintained that DD should work towards attending a highly selective university or college. At the end it resulted in the same thing because the most selective happens to be HMSPY.</p>
<p>By giving a face to highly selective DW blocked DD’s escape route while by making it highly selective I just provided DD with some breathing space. </p>
<p>In my feeling the phrase “My kids want highly selective challenging schools” means Ivies but people tend to stay away because somehow others don’t like it and this provide some breathing space to the student.</p>
<p>But In my opinion this means the same thing, i.e. I want to go to an Ivy or Ivy+.</p>
<p>^^ IMO, the ARWU rankings do a fairly good job of measuring the prestige of an institution’s research faculty.</p>
<p>BTW, unless you can show that large numbers of schools conspire to fix the PA rankings small deviations like those you describe shouldn’t have much of an impact on the final result. I do agree that more transparency is needed.</p>
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<p>PG: That means you were a daughter of such people but now have become a CC parent whoes only goal is to send their kids to the tippy-top schools.</p>
<p>Will you enlighten why you made this transition?</p>
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<p>Fwiw, you make my point about rankings that attempt to measure prestige and scientific integrity. This said, there aren’t any reasons to discuss the hopelessly mistitled and misguided ARWU’s validity or scope in this forum. </p>
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<p>There is no need to demonstrate conspiration theories. There are sufficient accounts of dishonesty or ignorance --courtesy of the officials themselves. The Clemson, Florida, and Wisconsin officials who were caught red-handed and exposed represent the tip of the iceberg. Fwiw, te simple step of making ALL survey results viewable online by the public and requiring all officials to sign a statement that they DID not only complete the survey but actually READ it would result in a useful exercise, but more than probably in its quick demise. </p>
<p>People who cling to the notion that the PA is actually completed by experts who know the schools they are evaluating must also believe in the existence of blessings. You know, blessings as the name for groups of … unicorns!</p>
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<p>I think you may be mistaken. My kids aren’t in line for tippy top schools, though each has a reach at that level. They are in line for very good schools that we believe will suit them well. But their sweet spot is well below what you and your wife would have considered acceptable for your D. No Ivies on our college tours.</p>
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<p>Well, first off, no one IRL uses the term lower Ivy. That’s a CC affectation.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with that approach? First, that’s a horrible burden to place on a kid, that the only places worth getting into are that specific group of schools with such low acceptance rates. And it’s an unsophisticated view of the world, too. It says that the person thinks that these few schools are some sort of holy grail and everything else is just vastly inferior. It’s brand name focused instead of quality. It’s like saying that your goal for your vacation is to stay at the Four Seasons or the Ritz instead for having your goal be to stay at an excellent hotel. You miss the gems if all you think about is brand name.</p>
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<p>Please, Four Seasons and Ritz are hardly the HYP of hotels.</p>
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<p>Actually most people IRL could not tell you how many schools are in the “Ivy League,” let alone name them. Many also believe that there are “Ivy Leagues” with the emphasis on the plural. Those “leagues” are composed of schools in the NE or include schools that have a prestigious sounding name such as Duke, Johns Hopkins, or Tufts.</p>
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<p>I don’t have a frequent traveler card for the Ritz, but I don’t think this Berlin song would be too popular …</p>
<p>Have you seen the well-to-do up and down Park Avenue
On that famous thoroughfare with their noses in the air
High hats and Arrow collars, white spats and lots of dollars
Spending every dime for a wonderful time</p>
<p>If you’re blue and you don’t know where to go to
Why don’t you go where fashion sits
Puttin’ on the Hampton Inn </p>
<p>Diff’rent types who wear a day coat, pants with stripes
And cutaway coat, perfect fits
Puttin’ on the Red Roof Inn </p>
<p>Dressed up like a million dollar trouper
Trying hard to look like Gary Cooper
Super duper</p>
<p>Come let’s mix where Rockefellers walk with sticks
Or “um-ber-ellas” in their mitts
Puttin’ on the Days Inn</p>
<p>Prestige is not out-dated. It is still alive and well in certain professions (academia, consulting/think tanks, law, banking) and it still opens doors. Think how often Harvard professors are called upon as experts, for example. </p>
<p>My S and other kids who just graduated from an Ivy, were able to enter his company on the same level as people with master’s degrees who went to lower-ranked schools. My rising college freshman got a fabulous summer job with a policy research institute based largely on how impressed her interviewers were with her future college. However, if she had been slovenly, rude, tardy, unsocial, boring, or completely lacking in job experience, prestige would have meant nothing. Prestige counts, but it certainly is not supreme. It is just one factor a student can use to his advantage in the job market.</p>
<p>“…their ranking does not successfully quantify prestige among clear groups.”</p>
<p>Prestige can’t be quantified. It is illusory and fickle. USNWR simply feeds into the illusion and fickleness. It’s pretty sick, actually. I’m sure glad I’m done with it all. </p>
<p>I think the concept of quality has replaced that of prestige. I’m not so sure some of the highest ranking schools on USNWR are necessarily of the highest quality. Many have reputations left over from years earlier, and many are too willing to play with the numbers.</p>
<p>I think rankings can be very useful so long as you understand what methodology is being used. Like curmudgeon and D, we did look at rankings but took into consideration whether the factors that weighed heavily in the methodology were important to S and D or not. For example, neither kid cared about the strength of study-abroad programs or the rare book collections in the library. If they had planned to major in a foregin language or history, then those criteria would have mattered more.</p>
<p>Thank god my sons are going to be seniors in College this year and are engineers. That “prestige” list is very, very different and of much less importance to most students to be sure.</p>
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<p>POIH:
I think in your family’s view, “highly selective” meant “HMSPY.” But ya see, that was not how it was in my family. D1 wanted a selective school but that was one criteria of many. Of your “HMSPY” group, she was not interested in Harvard (no UG architecture), was not interested in Stanford (wanted East Coast), and not MIT (wanted more liberal artsy type college). By the way, she, nor we, ever heard of the acronym of HYPSM until I saw it on CC. For that matter, we never heard of “lower Ivies” ever before either (I have only heard that on CC!). What is Ivy+? Forgive me, I don’t know. Anyway, when I said she wanted selective and challenging, she never used the word Ivy ever. As I said, she liked Tufts and Smith more than Penn which she got into and eliminated. So, “highly selective” to her was not “Ivy” or whatever “Ivy+” is. It was schools with pretty low acceptance rates (30% or less approximately). So, no her desire for a very selective challenging school would not equate with “Ivies” only. “Very selective” was just one selection criteria in the first place. Dartmouth? never…not near a city, too similar to where she grew up, no architecture major, let alone she could not ever make their ski team. Cornell? did not want a BArch. Columbia? did not want to go to school in NYC. If it didn’t have architecture, an alpine ski team (not a recruited athlete), or wasn’t near a city, she was less inclined to look at the school. Ivy was not the criteria. If “most selective” or “prestigious” or “rank” or “Ivy” was her main criteria (it wasn’t), she would not have very seriously been considering attending Tufts over Penn. But she was. She liked it better and it was still very selective and met that one criteria. And so, no…“Ivy” did not equate with highly selective for her. </p>
<p>For my other kid, she wanted highly selective as well. However, not a single Ivy even offers a BFA in musical theater, and so these would never have been of interest, nor most schools high in the USNews rankings. There are no rankings for BFA in MT Programs in the first place, but there are ones that are well regarded or well known. But she had many other criteria in her selection process. For example, NYU/Tisch was a top choice because there is a fair amount of liberal arts with the BFA program which is not the case at another well regarded program in her field, Carnegie Mellon. As well, many BFA in MT programs are not located within selective universities even though the programs themselves are HIGHLY selective. Since she was a very strong academic student and enjoys academics, she wanted her BFA program to be located in a school that had challenging academics while still offering conservatory training. NYU/Tisch is such a school. </p>
<p>So, no, “highly selective” did not equate with HYPSM or “Ivy+” (still not sure what that term refers to) for my kids. If D1 had some Ivies on her final list of 8 schools, those particular ones met several other criteria she wanted. Brown, where she attended was a perfect fit and much preferred over Harvard, which she did not apply to as it did not fit her criteria. Her favorite three schools were Brown, Tufts and Yale. Then came Smith and Princeton.</p>
<p>soozievt: Unless you children threw dart on a board with colleges name and then applied to all those that were hit, they have used some percieved notion of ranking. This ranking might be from USNews or created by your family. </p>
<p>As soon as you put some college as your top choice or college list to apply you ranked those against other and selected.</p>
<p>So first you need to admit that you and your children have used ranking to select and apply and then picked colleges.</p>
<p>Now coming to why the notion of highly selective, selective are same as HMSPY or Ivies or Ivy+.</p>
<p>What I meant by these that the Acronym doesn’t matter you child could have an Acronym TSU to refer to Tufts, Smith and U Penn. </p>
<p>For DD also MIT, Stanford were better than Princeton, Yale. Caltech, UCB (EECS) were better than Dartmouth, Brown or Cornell. </p>
<p>So everyone comes to a list of their own based on their own criteria and they ranked the colleges on the list and pick the 5, 10, 15 best colleges to apply and then pick the best college to attend.</p>
<p>There are families, students who work hard to find the best choices above and beyond the USNews, Forbes or other ranking and Acronym and define their own.
Like we did HMSPY, lot of people have asked why I use HMSPY when most common usage is HYPSM. But HMSPY depict our family ordered list. We didn’t like Yale surrounding or U. Penn surrounding. We also didn’t like Brown open curriculumn and never tried touring Dartmouth or Cornell.</p>
<p>But there are families and students who take the short cut by not spending time finding what is the best colleges for them.
These children, families rely solely on the USNews, Forbes or the standard Acronym (Ivies) and apply to them.</p>
<p>I don’t see any difference between the two things except that our family and DD took the pain to find more information above and beyond provided by US News or standard Acronym and devised our own Acronym and our own Ivy+.</p>
<p>POIH-It certainly seems like there was lots of pressure to go to certain schools in your family. I understand counseling kids to work hard enough to go to the most selective schools, but what if they didn’t want to go to those schools. My D, for example, certainly had the grades, SATs, and ECs to be a viable Ivy+ admit. Although I encouraged her to apply to an Ivy, she only wanted to go to a LAC (attanding Williams) only applied only to LACs beside our state university as a financial safety. It doesn’t sound like such decisions would be acceptable in your house or even open for consideration.</p>