<p>I’m so lucky I live in California, I have a much better chance at UC’s and lots of them can be safeties for me. They still take good grades to get into but they can be considered safeties since I’m aiming a lot higher.</p>
<p>@hailbo </p>
<p>Which UCs are you looking at?</p>
<p>I think UCLA and UC Berkeley are great schools but the only problem I have with them is class size and the size of the schools themselves. I shouldn’t really consider them safeties since they aren’t very easy to get into. My safeties would probably be UC Santa Barbara, UC Davis and UCSD</p>
<p>@hailbo
What do you want to major in?</p>
<p>Leaning heavily towards Physics, then next would be Chemistry or Engineering. Then very slightly Math or Economics. The thing I really like about Santa Barbara is that they are a pretty good school in terms of Physics/Chemistry and its a really nice area and a small campus. </p>
<p>@hailbo </p>
<p>Check out Harvey Mudd and UPenn M&T then.</p>
<p>@Apollo11
Right, and my argument was that the most basic point of a college would be education. The schools that teach what you want to learn, are very easy to get into, and give great scholarships become the primary list. After that, if you want to cut some by fit, you can…</p>
<p>IMO going to a lower tier college that’ll cost me $20k+/year isn’t worth it, and spending another $20-40 per safety, if you have a lot of them, is rather wasteful. That’s why I first look at the scholarships and application fees, unless there are ones that stand out for both their academics (in a safety way) and their scholarships, such as University of Alabama. I would then make sure I don’t hate the school, but the rest of “fit” can come later, if I resort to safeties. </p>
<p>I think more emphasis should be placed on choosing great matches. They’re most likely the ones you get to go to. Making sure you choose true matches, where you are likely to get in, where you can afford, where you will fit in, where you will learn, is most important. Reaches and safeties are relatively less likely of a choice and admittance.</p>
<p>@Woandering </p>
<p>A huge part of those scholarships will be your essay writing and background.</p>
<p>Also, “lower tier” doesn’t really mean much. Unless you’re going into investment banking or something, the name of the school will likely matter very little when it comes down to things. Also, you’ll be paid about the same amount, which is why a school like Harvey Mudd, not Harvard, can lead the nation in ROI</p>
<p>@Apollo11 True lower tier schools can make a difference. The ones that really give a lot of scholarships, to attract students; the ones that are really only known by the locals. Their scholarships are pretty much GPA and SAT based, rather than essay and background, because they really just need anyone with an above 3.5 GPA or an above 1800 SAT. </p>
<p>More importantly, those school usually don’t attract the type of student you need to network with. </p>
<p>Practically any school talked about on CC aren’t really that low, and most don’t have as great scholarships, except for University of Alabama, which has a pretty good education with amazing scholarships. Then again, its a public school, so it is more well known. </p>
<p>Besides, Harvey Mudd is a great school, with few students and top education. I don’t see why it shouldn’t lead in ROI. It specializes more in sciences, whereas Harvard has a variety of students and departments.</p>
<p>When it gets up there, its kind of a crapshoot for the schools, too. A mixture of the school and the student makes the career, and once the school is that great, the rest comes down to the student. </p>
<p>If what you said was 100% true, why are we all aiming for the top colleges?</p>
<p>@Woandering </p>
<p>What I’m saying is 100% true, but we live in a delusional world in which we all make ourselves so anxious to only over-encumber ourselves in failure.</p>
<h1>1. The prestige factor:</h1>
<p>This is complete BS. Most colleges will be known when you are getting a job, and it’s not as if you can’t get a job out of these colleges. Not only will you likely need to get a MA degree or something for most jobs that you’ll be interested in as a career, most community colleges allow you to go for 2 years and then go to a state school, which is not only affordable, but logical, since it is fair to say that more people know about UConn than CalTech.</p>
<h1>2. Low schools aren’t talked about on CC except on the Parent’s Forum, where colleges like Drexel and Northeastern are perennial favorites since they are the best at getting jobs for their alumni immediately, but the HSL circle-jerk means anything not on the based USNWR chart is horrible and a failure.</h1>
<h1>3. Networking. That is complete BS actually. Going to a top school doesn’t mean you’ll network well and going to a lowly ranked school doesn’t mean you’ll network poorly. Don Bronstein of SPM was a philosophy PhD in the middle of Kansas with a degree from a backwater state school, and now he runs one of the world’s most powerful hedge funds since he networked like a pro. You don’t need a “top college” for that</h1>
<h1>4. Education. This is also a BS factor. The education is exactly what you make of it; some people will truly learn more at UIUC than at MIT or CalTech. The education is fairly linear across the board and the teachers are usually better at certain institutions over others, but not necessarily in terms of prestige (UIUC teachers>CalTech teachers).</h1>
<ol>
<li>You said that only lower tier colleges give (merit) scholarships, but Johns Hopkins and Princeton have merit scholarships that go up to full tuition. So does Duke and some others.</li>
</ol>
<p>Nearly none of the HSLers are going into a field in which they need a “top college”.</p>
<p>@Apollo11 I already talked about point 1. Prestige is obviously BS. I’ll cede point 2. I haven’t been around the Parent’s Forum too much. But I’ll keep pushing point 3 and 4.</p>
<h1>3 A top college makes networking much, much easier. You’re hanging around with the people most likely to do something amazing. Now, I know people at other colleges come out doing great and world changing things, but most of those who change the world come out of amazing colleges, in the modern day. Furthermore, the more prestigious colleges, by attracting the highest achieving students, also attract some of the best faculty. This part of your network can’t easily be replaced. While it won’t differ too much from Harvard to Harvey Mudd to most of the UCs, the faculty at top school are still the best. When you know a different professor for each area of the science your interested in, finding the right support comes much easier later on. Overall, the students and faculty a higher prestige university attracts give you much better networks, assuming you’re friendly and basically just average (the constant in our hypothetical, the variables being the schools)</h1>
<h1>4 Education does vary, though not too greatly. Because a great many things are standardized, a few subjects can be learned the same way everywhere. But many subjects also differ at various schools. Computer science differs in the way it is taught. For most advancing sciences, the prof’s experience and education affects the resource pool that the prof is. You can’t expect a prof that has won awards at Harvard to be the same resource as the prof that hasn’t experienced much of new parts of his/her field. You will need to be a curious student, but if you attend Harvard, a curious student will learn more than s/he would at a lower tier school.</h1>
<h1>5 I did not say only lower tier colleges give merit scholarships. I’m saying only lower tier give easy merit aid, which constitutes it as a safety. If your going to a lower tier anyway, where you won’t have the top faculty or best networks, why not try for the colleges with the best merit aid?</h1>
<p>I wouldn’t say that a top college makes networking much, much easier.</p>
<p>For example, CalTech is a “top college”. However, it has a very weak alumni program, as compared to say, USC, a lower ranked college. USC has several thousand alumni in incredibly high positions in literally every field possible. CalTech is barely known by anyone on the East Coast and its alumni are small in number, all clustered in one industry and are about equal in terms of people in really high up spots.</p>
<p>Also, your #4 point is pretty logically flawed. Most Nobel laureates in Physics make for horrible teachers; Richard Feynman openly discusses this in his book, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”. However, some teachers may lack awards and prestige, but are exceptional teachers and great and getting the point across. This may not always be the case, but the opposite isn’t either. Also, the point about curious students is pretty flawed, since most psychological studies have shown that such students experience conformity and naturally begin to learn less than they would at a school in which they would have been higher up in terms of rank</p>
<p>Also, #5 is pretty incorrect. Safeties don’t even have to be a lower tier. Safeties just have to provide a better acceptance rate. For example, West Point has a lower acceptance rate than Barnard, but Barnard is more prestigious. Also, the faculty claim is off-base. AFAIK, the University of Colorado Boulder has more Nobel Prize laureates teaching there than Harvey Mudd and USC has a far better alumni network than CalTech</p>
<p>@Apollo11 </p>
<p>Firstly, Princeton does not offer merit aid. To quote their site, “All financial aid awards are based solely on need.” </p>
<p>Networking at top schools is significantly easier because the schools have already filtered people out for you. You’ll be surrounded by peers who have a very high chance of doing something significant, seeing as how the school’s selection process acts like a filter against the less qualified students. In addition to that (as @Woandering said), the top schools have the best faculty; they have more Nobel laureates, Fields medal winners, etc. than the “non-top” schools. You’d be lying if you said that you’d rather have the physics professor from Podunk State than Alan Guth of MIT. The top schools also have more resources for stuff like research. </p>
<p>The top schools aren’t top schools just because; they’re top schools because they’re regarded to be prestigious, which attracts intelligent, powerful, or wealthy (or all three) people to them. These people then give back to the schools in the form of either financial endowments or through boosting the reputation of the school with their accomplishments. This forms a feedback loop, as both the prestige and resources of the school increase, which attracts more intelligent, powerful, or wealthy people, and so on. </p>
<p>//</p>
<p>Excuse any errors, poor sentence structure, etc. Just got back from a trip and I’m kind of tired atm, but I wanted to respond. </p>
<p>AFAIK, Princeton’s Alumni group does one for an incoming freshman, hence the listing.</p>
<p>Also, the key point is that your argument,as well as Woandering’s argument, is a complete fallacy. Networking isn’t easier in more prestigious schools. You mention that there are more talented people there and that they have a better chance at something significant. The issue is that you still have to make contact with these people and reach the end goal of networking. Thus, your argument is essentially that these people are more valuable in a Rolodex than those you’d meet elsewhere, and I’d disagree with that point. One can easily network without a top college; in my Rolodex, I can see an ex-NATO Supreme Commander and a Nobel Peace prize nominee, and I’m not in college. The issue with your argument is essentially that the college isn’t required to network with these people; the skills are necessary. Also, in such a college environment, odds are, you’ll get shut out pretty quick. It is the same number of people that go on to be millionaires after Harvard as it is at USC, and the connections are arguably equal in networking power.</p>
<p>Also, no one cares if your professor has any kind of award. What’s important is how well they can teach you the topic, and if they can’t do that, they aren’t useful to you.</p>
<p>Lastly, my argument is simply that the “top colleges” don’t set you beyond anyone else. The fact remains that it is the person that does the work. Many unknown liberal arts colleges, places that aren’t considered to be “top colleges” have large endowments, great available educations and set you up for success.</p>
<p>The key point is this: Top colleges don’t turn you into a super-god. If you can do it, you can do it. </p>
<p>Top Colleges don’t offer you a better education, for the teachers and curriculum have been proven to not be inherently superior, and they don’t offer a better chance at overall success, since networking isn’t based on being around people, but actually having extreme social skills, and it is clear that the alumni are still equally powerful at all kinds of institutions (USC even has more billionaires than Yale)</p>
<p>The whole point of my argument is that this circlejerk in the name of Ivy or bust creates a myopic lens of success, in which perhaps 1-3 of you may actually blindly succeed in doing, but it will only come to kill the rest. You need to have skills beyond a college for true power and success; otherwise, you will be working at the same cubicle with the same pay as Joe Shmoe from State College. </p>
<p>@Apollo11 </p>
<p>@TeamRocketGrunt added a little more, which you should consider.</p>
<p>Also, regarding your responses. Sure, Nobel winners don’t necessarily make for great teachers, but past the teaching level, students need to know about what’s happening now. Nobel winners most certainly do know what’s happening now, especially the found out about it. Nobel winners might now know how to effectively communicate it to a class, but they do know how to write papers that the students would’ve learned to read well, from either lower tier professors within the department or TAs. Sure, if you’re not a great student, you won’t learn much, but that’s why great professors are attracted to great colleges, which attract and admit great students.</p>
<p>Regarding networking, sure a decent amount of skill is needed to network well, and a bad networker can’t network at a great university while a good networker can at a worse university. But, beyond that skill level, as a decent networker, you get to network with the better students if you attend a better college. They simply attract, overall, better students.</p>
<p>Yes, colleges don’t necessarily differ in that they all set you up for success. However, some still do it better than others, and this is with regards to networking and teachers. For all my points, I assume a decent student who has gone beyond just learning textbook material. Teachers teach from a textbook (as you will notice textbooks are used more in high school than in college. You buy a textbook to use about a tenth of a chapter in college), while professors are resources for the students. They’re the extra bit in the top colleges, along with amazing facilities, including labs, theaters, and sports facilities. </p>
<p>I agree that a college isn’t everything in success, and I think that’s your point. Going to a good college does not guarantee success. However, going to a good college makes success a little easier to attain, in terms of its resources, both in the humans and the facilities. You can’t ask a nobel winner a question as easily in a lower tier college.</p>
<p>Regarding safeties, the general trend, I’m sure, is that lower tier is easier to get in. It’s not 100%, but there is that trend.</p>
<p>EDIT: Hey Apollo, you passed your 2000th post mark while debating. Well done :P</p>
<p>@Woandering
- Nobel Prizes are usually given out to people who are winning awards due to their work from 10+ years ago
- Nobel Prize winners don’t necessarily have much fame in the academic world. Richard Feynman actually split his Nobel Prize with two others, but no one know who they are. Also, those reading Nobel Prize winning work will also know the modern work of most people, Nobel or not
- Students aren’t taught to read Nobel Prize winning stuff well if they don’t have a good teacher to teach them that ,hence your argument literally means nothing, as you aren’t saying why it’s important for students to then have a Nobel Prize winning teacher and you aren’t explaining why better teachers would be worse as faculty.
- Also, great students tend to normalize to tropes of mediocrity in such institutions without the help of great teachers according to most psychological work on the field
- “Better students” is the fallacy here. No one cares if you can study well. You’re scoping for prime business partners and players, which occur at places like USC too, since they have more billionaires there than at places like Yale. Also, even if we use a baseline skill, you seem to not understand that networking with better students is much harder since networking essentially operates on tit-for-tat and communal, supportive environments, which is why places like Babson, Drexel and USC can get so many millionaires pumping out of their system.
- Facilities are better at “lower” colleges. Like I said before, unless you are in a particular niche of work, which not only none of you are in, but it voids the very argument that top students don’t need top colleges, you don’t need a rare manuscripts library in order to better understand Liberian cultural traditions. However, most of these “lower” colleges spend insane amounts of money on such facilities. NYU has New York and a litany of such things available, but Dartmouth literally is a barren wasteland in the middle of New Hampshire. USC has state of the art facilities in literally everything, including the best animation/film facilities in the world.</p>
<p>My argument is to say that these “safeties” shouldn’t just be for the aid; there’s a lot more to it. You’ve essentially proven it too; clearly, you’ll need a safety that can help you get a job and be enjoyable too, since it is apparent the that the money alone isn’t enough for a safety in your eyes. Thus, my point has been conveyed.</p>
<p>Also, @Smrtical, have a field day on this.</p>
<p>@Apollo11 </p>
<p>Regarding, Nobel, I really didn’t know much, so great, yeah, you got me there. Still, I’m fairly sure top colleges are hiring researchers.</p>
<p>None of the colleges you mentioned so far are really lower tier. They’re great matches and middle tiers. I would definitely think they can do as well or better than Harvard, and the like. My main point is the difference between true lower tiers and the other. </p>
<p>I understood your argument as lower tier=higher tier, 100%. Wasn’t that what you basically said back up somewhere? Sure, I already ceded that safeties shouldn’t just be for the aid, although IMO it’s the more important one if we’re talking about $20k+ colleges that IMO aren’t as great as the higher tier ones. (Not gonna debate this anymore. I honestly think the networking opportunities and professors are better.) </p>
<p>More importantly, for myself, I anticipate working overseas very soon out of college, perhaps directly. Still debating that. A higher prestige university in the US will definitely push me up overseas. Good night, now. I need a good sleep for the first time in a year. School’s out! Woohoo! (Sike, Sunday Chinese Final tomorrow, sigh.)</p>
<p>Really, @Woandering, no one cares what I think. Even if it is the most intrinsic want for Ivys, I wholeheartedly support you, as long as you do whatever finds you true happiness. My arguing was really for the sake of all of those HSL threads about how peoples’ lives are over due to x event happening. The point is that is truly a mindset to become successful rather than just rote action.</p>
<p>Google’d “self study ap chem” and guess what came up. @TeamRocketGrunt 's post. </p>
<p>Got some questions, if you don’t mind answering. I wanna self study Chem senior year, for the credit. </p>
<p>Did you finish the book with 3 months? (Not that I’m going to do that or anything)</p>
<p>How do you think you did? Was the test easy?</p>
<p>What other sources did you actually find helpful?</p>
<p>Thanks :)</p>
<p>…again thanks everyone for the input.</p>