How commonly is college brand/prestige/selectivity an important "fit" factor?

[AustenNut]

@tamagotchi

Hmm… I’m really confused by your post! You said reputation for parties and sports culture both count as “fit,” while interest in theater, art museums, and other urban amenities is only a “preference” because “most colleges will offer that no matter where they’re located.”

I don’t understand the distinction you are making.

Good point! Sometimes I’m thinking through my thoughts as I’m typing, and perhaps I should let my thoughts form better before posting!

In terms of something like significant Greek life, I was thinking something like 65% of students being Greek, not like 25%. Regardless of whether that appeals or repels, I think it would have a significant influence on campus life. Thus, for me, it was fit,

In terms of partying, I interpreted reputation for great parties as reputation for partying. Good parties would be a preference, but a culture of “partying” would be a fit issue. When referring to partying, I’m thinking of the stereotype of a lot of people gathered with alcohol having a significant presence and attempts to try and romantically/sexually attract others. So if there’s a significant (as in majority of students) who find “partying” as their entertainment of choice, then I think that’s a fit issue. So, “great” parties = preference. “Culture” of partying = fit.

With those clarifications, hopefully my thoughts about theater and art museums makes more sense than what I originally wrote. But if not, please let me know!

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@pa94306

“honestly, I just want to get into the best brand-name I can, because it gives me the best “OPTION VALUE”

I actually think putting a lot of weight on option value makes perfect sense.

But as usual with this sort of thing, I am not sure what this hypothetical kid thinks “best brand-name” actually means, and I am not sure it would really track “best option value”.

Like something like having a lot of resources to fund a wide variety of high quality academic programs and students activities does in fact represent a lot of option value in a potentially useful way. If you can get this all while not having to take out a lot of student loans, even better, because a lot of student loans can really limit options.

So if you want to consider all that sort of thing as opposed to getting really particular about things you don’t really care about, that makes a lot of sense to me.

But why call that “brand name” or “prestige”? You should be going straight to looking at actual resources, actual costs, and so on.

I feel like this is behind a lot of this. People are using those terms in a very loose way such that they can simply assert things like “schools that are more prestigious are better for X” for lots of different values of X. But when it comes to identifying those schools, instead of actually looking at which schools are better for X, they are using some other way of identifying which schools are “prestigious”.

This makes no sense if that is your real motivation, you should cut out this middle step which is just adding noise to your process, you should instead investigate seriously what schools are in fact better for X.

And unfortunately, I think what is really going on usually is that X isn’t what they really care about, it is a rationalization. What they really care about is some form of peer bragging rights, or proving themselves to some specific individuals, or so on.

[tamagotchi]

@AustenNut

Regardless of whether that appeals or repels, I think it would have a significant influence on campus life. Thus, for me, it was fit

So for you, “fit” means something that affects campus life specifically?

Is that why you downgrade access to urban cultural amenities (such as live music and theater and art) to simply a “preference”?

Still trying to understand what you mean!

I would personally think that it depends more on the student whether some feature feels to them more like “fit” (must have) or “preference” (nice to have). Students differ so much in which things matter to them.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

So I don’t believe anyone is saying that Yale, Harvard, Williams, Stanford, or so on could not be good fits for some kids.

So to me, you are providing examples of how someone could like those specific schools without it actually being a matter of “prestige”.

In practice, if a kid comes here saying they are applying to, say, Yale, William & Mary, and Pitt, because they like their History departments but want a balanced list, and they are looking for more suggestions–I am not going to see the inclusion of Yale on that list as somehow indicative of this kid being a prestige hound.

It is the kid who says they are applying to all the Ivies, or wants to go to a T20, or similar, and do we think that bad semester they had sophomore year during a major mental crisis means they are “cooked”–that to me indicates they might not be thinking about fit in the way I would usually suggest.

[AustenNut]

If I have given the impression that I am opposed to anyone who has interest in a prestigious school, that is not my intent. I think that prestigious universities can make very logical additions to a student’s college list. The point I have been trying to make is that prestige is not always a matter of fit. For most, I think it’s a matter of preference.

For instance, I could see a student with a list that had Syracuse, UMass, Notre Dame, and Cornell on it, as I think those schools have a lot of parallels. Or a list with St. John’s, Loyola Maryland, U. of Chicago, and Columbia. And I would not argue with anyone that Cornell or Columbia might offer the greatest “optionality” on those lists.

I think that the prestige as fit conversation comes up when a list looks like Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, and Harvard with Big State U added on as an afterthought. Apart from an athletic league, I have a much harder time seeing the commonalities between those schools in terms of fit than I do in the lists I made up in the paragraph above.

But we all have different preferences (whether about prestige, Greek life, cultural activities, geography, etc) and it reminds me of my dad always telling me, “De gustibus et de coloribus, non disputantum,” (of tastes and colors, do not dispute).

[blossom]

@NiceUnparticularMan

This makes no sense if that is your real motivation, you should cut out this middle step which is just adding noise to your process, you should instead investigate seriously what schools are in fact better for X.

Not every HS kid (or their parent) has the time or inclination to do the obsessive deep dives that many on CC find interesting and amusing. We’ve got posters who normalize statistics across a wide range of inputs, posters who ■■■■■ Linkedin to discover how many kids who graduated from Eastern Oklahoma Bible College work at Goldman Sachs in M&A, and posters who can advise on the impact of a teenagers savings account on their financial aid award.

This is not typical!

For most people, knowing that kids who attend Notre Dame generally get a solid education and seem to be employed or in grad school afterwards, or knowing that kids from CMU who are interested in CS or Robotics seem to get jobs in those fields pretty quickly-- that’s enough. And their own flagship (or a reasonable facsimile) is a fine backup as long as its affordable and employers outside the state have heard of it.

You know that we’re not remotely typical, right? And you think someone is going to do the NiceUnparticular research on every single X factor? Naah. Prestige is a good enough short hand, and most of the time, the short hand is actually correct.

Most parents don’t need to understand the inner workings of Career Development at UT Austin. They just don’t. They should just know that nobody on the team is coming to their kids dorm room to drag the kid out of bed to show up at a resume writing workshop. So if the kid graduates with no resume- it’s on the kid, not on career development.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

For the record, I have no problem seeing off campus factors as a fit factor. Again this is just semantics, but to me wanting to be in a setting where you think you will be comfortable and have fun and so on is all part of an individualized process.

I guess I would add a caveat, though, about people who maybe do see certain cities as more “prestigious”. That is such an alien way of thinking to me that it didn’t even occur to me when first looking at the list above, but for sure if you would rather be in, say, Boston versus Cleveland not because you have well-informed reasons to believe you would be more comfortable and have more fun and such in Boston, but rather because you think Boston is more prestigious than Cleveland–I guess I would view that as maybe not such a fit thing anymore.

The tricky bit for me is I think a lot of people really do not understand how much fun they could have in the Clevelands of the world, which can actually be great places to be a college student. But that to me is an information problem, and potentially solvable with things like visits.

[pa94306]

The type of “option value” I was thinking of relates less to a particular value of X but relates more to the assumption that a prestige, brand-name school will simply open more doors to you down the road, no matter how where you life leads, whether “X” or not. Imagine Harvard vs. (fictional) ‘Eastern Idaho State’: the Harvard prestige or brand-name gives you more of a foot in the door than EIS. That is, Harvard on your resume is “safer” if you are not certain where you life will lead.

What it boils down to is that I really don’t think 18 year olds are that future-seeing, such that “X” is easily identified by them. After all, we all have seen the statistics that a vast majority of college students change majors from the one they came into freshman year with.

So, back to the original question in this thread, if you are not completely sure of what you want and/or believe your preferences are fungible, then choosing a college based on “prestige” or “brand-name” is not really the shocker that many of us here in CC seem to believe.

[ucbalumnus]

@AustenNut

In terms of something like significant Greek life, I was thinking something like 65% of students being Greek, not like 25%.

For fraternities and sororities, 25% participation is likely on the high end. Supposedly, about 8-9% of male undergraduate students join fraternities. Very few colleges have at least 65% participation in fraternities or sororities.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@blossom

For most people, knowing that kids who attend Notre Dame generally get a solid education and seem to be employed or in grad school afterwards, or knowing that kids from CMU who are interested in CS or Robotics seem to get jobs in those fields pretty quickly-- that’s enough.

Again, to me that doesn’t seem like prestige thinking in the first place.

@pa94306

the assumption that a prestige, brand-name school will simply open more doors to you down the road, no matter how where you life leads

Yeah, that assumption to me is typically dangerous for a variety of reasons. I mean, there are actual studies about this sort of thing, so you can look into that. But without some sort of testable definition of “a prestige, brand-name school”, I think this is in rationalization territory again.

By the way, I think comparisons between Harvard and regional publics are rarely of much practical relevance. I think in practice, what happens is kids and parents are looking at not Harvard but some other selective colleges that a lot of their peers (kids’ or parents’) know about and see as “prestigious”, and some other colleges that are still selective, although maybe not as low in terms of admit rates, and often not as well known among their peers.

And the real issue is how much weight should they put on things like relative admit rates and being well-known among their peers. And in fact, sometimes the question is how much more debt are they willing to take on so they can choose a college with a relatively low admit rate and/or that is better-known among their peers.

[blossom]

@AustenNut

I think that the prestige as fit conversation comes up when a list looks like Cornell, Dartmouth, Columbia, Brown, and Harvard with Big State U added on as an afterthought. Apart from an athletic league, I have a much harder time seeing the commonalities between those schools in terms of fit than I do in the lists I made up in the paragraph above.

Back in the 1970’s, my list was Brown, Barnard, U Penn, Radcliffe, Cornell and my state flagship as my afterthought (Columbia had just started accepting women and I was risk averse). I still fail to see the problem in my list, despite what you have stated. Four of my schools were urban, two were not (and yes I’d visited both Cornell and the rural-ish area where my flagship was located). A couple had the specific major I wanted and a couple did not (but they had “reasonably close disciplines” and that was good enough for me). A couple had required/core type classes and others did not.

Etc. I didn’t see a problem then, and I don’t see one now. I’d have likely had similar or identical outcomes no matter where I landed, and since my guidance counselor said that my flagship was a rock solid safety, I didn’t see the need to boil the ocean looking for a match option. I’d either get into a reach, or I’d go to the flagship.

Is it so hard to understand why a kid might like Cornell AND Columbia?

[blossom]

And yet-- a kid who wants Notre Dame but gives pushback when a poster suggests Seton Hall or Stonehill… or a kid who wants CMU but isn’t interested in WPI or Wentworth, gets accused of being obsessed with prestige. So what exactly is “prestige thinking”? To me, it’s a shorthand for “preserving optionality down the road”. Folks on CC generally don’t like that shorthand, because we are supposed to believe that you can get a quality education everywhere. Which I absolutely believe.

But you cannot get the same education in every field everywhere. And pretending that you can is somewhat condescending to posters who show up here looking for help from us veterans.

Kids in my states regional U system can get a fine education in accounting, early childhood ed, K-12 education, communications, and some allied health fields. You cannot get a fine education in nanotechnology, robotics, any advanced engineering discipline, research based life sciences, philosophy, foreign languages beyond a few “service courses”, etc.

So a kid who thinks that U Michigan is a better option than local state college-yes, many more areas of academic excellence. Yes, much better connectivity with fellowships and employers across the country. Yes, much better lab facilities and opportunities for interdisciplinary work. So yeah- I’d call that “more prestigious” and I don’t have a problem with that.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@blossom

Back in the 1970’s

So at least three relevant things have changed since the 1970s, or for that matter the 1980s when I was applying to college.

One is just that colleges have gotten way more expensive in most cases, even with what today counts as generous aid, except in rare cases.

Another is most selective colleges are way more selective than they used to be.

And the third is that it is way, way easier to research and then apply to colleges than it used to be.

One implication of all this is kids are often (not always) applying to more colleges than they used to.

Another is that many more kids are looking outside of their state or region, sometimes just for more options, but sometimes also in pursuit of lower costs.

In many ways, I think all that is good–as long as you can still find a comfortably affordable college in the end.

But it has also made it possible for kids across the country, indeed across the world, to flood certain very famous/popular colleges with just a ludicrous number of applications. From what these colleges are saying sometimes, it seems clear they see a lot of those applications as not particularly competitive. But still, if those are the colleges you focus on, you are joining an extremely large crowd of other kids doing the same thing.

And that’s not necessarily a reason not to apply to any such colleges. But if you apply to ONLY such colleges, plus like one “safety” you don’t even like, that is how you get kids deeply disappointed with their results.

@blossom

or a kid who wants CMU but isn’t interested in WPI

I can only answer for myself, but I would definitely not leap to accusing such a kid of being obsessed with prestige. I do think such a kid should likely not only apply to CMU and then a “safety” they don’t actually like. But I also would not insist they apply to WPI in particular. I would hope such a kid could find some colleges that they did like besides CMU and that were not so Reachy, but I would not blame them for having CMU at the top of that list.

Again, to me the kid who might have an unhealthy attitude toward “prestige” is more the kid who says they love CS, but isn’t willing to consider CMU because it is not an Ivy, or not a T20, or whatever. But that is not the kid you are describing.

[circuitrider]

Trying to answer this question is like trying to come up with a Unified Theory of the Heuristics of College Choice. There isn’t one. One person’s heuristic is another person’s shorthand.

[tamagotchi]

@blossom

You cannot get a fine education in nanotechnology, robotics, any advanced engineering discipline,

These are also lacking at plenty of high prestige institutions, such as high prestige LACs. So although I agree with you that “optionality” makes sense, and may have overlap with prestige in many ways, I don’t think it is the same thing as prestige.

[blossom]

I agree with your post- but the phenomenon doesn’t have much to do with “prestige”. The statistics still seem to bear out that most college attending kids in America stay close to home (either really close to home or at least instate). So describing something that is observably true in a handful of high end zip codes and generalizing that cross the country is not realistic.

Even the affluent suburbs of Kansas City, Omaha, Tulsa, Minneapolis, Nashville, Cincinnati, etc. are filled with kids whose “one and done” is the state flagship. And maybe a Hail Mary application to great grandpa’s alma mater, his beloved Dartmouth. The less affluent districts? The flagship IS the prestigious option. And likely mom and dad’s alma mater as well.

The “I applied to 20 colleges but if I don’t get into Penn I don’t know how I can live with myself” phenomenon isn’t nearly as widespread as your analysis makes it out to be.

[NiceUnparticularMan]

@blossom

So describing something that is observably true in a handful of high end zip codes and generalizing that cross the country is not realistic.

I fully agree what I am describing is not at all a widespread way of thinking in the real world. Heck, my S24 went to a high school that actually does send a lot of kids to T20s, and yet I had never even heard of that term until I first entered some online discussions. Those were just among the various colleges that kids in my circles sometimes picked, and I didn’t see them as a particular group, aspiration, or whatever.

So yes, I am talking about just a small group of kids and parents in the greater scheme. And I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.

[beebee3]

There are other ways to look at “optionality” in regards to fit as well.

Going to a school that offers many excellent academic pathways, but leaves the student in debt after graduation may not give as much “optionality” post graduation as a school that has very good to good academic pathways and a debt free route.

Most of the ‘prestigious’ opportunities my children have gotten (through their hard work and academic excellence) have also been viable options because they didn’t have debt they needed to service and/or they didn’t need to make money over their summers (prestigious summer fellowships that were fully funded but didn’t provide “extra” funds to someone needing summer job money for the following school year, or an unpaid research opportunity after federal funding was pulled).

[Badge]

There’s a funny montage on YT of popular shows (Suits, Simpsons, Ted, etc) bagging on ASU. The school is ingrained in pop culture as a cruise/party school that only turns down applicants if their check bounces.

My D26 gets mailings from ASU. Every other school spells her name correctly except ASU. I wrote and told them to stop soliciting her.

FWIW - I have 3 degrees from ASU (incl 2 graduate) and my wife has 5 degrees from ASU (incl 2 graduate and 1 law).

[tsbna44]

@blossom

The “I applied to 20 colleges but if I don’t get into Penn I don’t know how I can live with myself” phenomenon isn’t nearly as widespread as your analysis makes it out to be.

There’s society. And then there’s College Confidential.