<p>This is ridiculous. My top choice school is not in the top 50 in the country. It’s not the best school I can get accepted to. It’s the school that fits me the best. I don’t need to go to Yale to know I’m smart, and I’ll get out of my education what I put into it, and graduate schools and employers know that. Someone who works hard at a lower-ranked school is more desirable than someone who barely gets by and has no other activities/internships at Princeton.</p>
<p>there’s this kid at my school, got into Brown early decision with a 3.3 GPA and 1900 on his SAT’s…I have a 3.0 GPA and a 2100 on my SAT and will be lucky if I get into Northeastern</p>
<p>high sats mean nothing if you gpa is subpar.</p>
<p>well, griljaye, that’s great that you’ll have 4 enjoyable years. however, after college ends, you might regret not shooting for hopkins.</p>
<p>of course, you might end up being very successful, but why take that risk?</p>
<p>you should just go to a top 50 school that is easy to get into, like george washington university.</p>
<p>theendusputrid, the Ivy-League does not make your future, it does not guarantee a job, it does not guarantee success.</p>
<p>I’m sick of people trying to justify an ivy league education with this. You got an ivy league education and that’s fine, but you should accept that there are many more successful people who went to public flagships than there are that went to ivy leagues. </p>
<p>Also, if an employer has 2 grads from Harvard law school, one with a degree from Northwestern and one from community college, then he will hire the one that he thinks is best. I highly doubt that the employer will care at all that you went to Northwestern first because you both came out in the same place. If the Northwestern grad interview goes terribly and the community college grad goes well, guess who gets the job!</p>
<p>Yes, I second titan.</p>
<p>I’m sick of people telling me I need to forfeit my life to spend every waking hour I have getting into HYPS, and being told if I don’t, I’m subpar intellectually and going to be poor.</p>
<p>
hahaha, yeah.</p>
<p>…
Wait, you were being serious?
You really think you need a ivy league degree to be successful?
UMD is a “bad school”? I hate college park as much as the next sane person, but a “bad college” that will drag you down for life? Are you high?</p>
<p>
This is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard. Your degree gets you an interview at your first job. The interview gets you the job. After that, your experience gets you a job and no employer cares at all where you went to college, only how effectively you can preform the job. </p>
<p>
No, war is a war zone, the fight to get into the best colleges is not so much a “fight” as a contest. Ask anybody who was in the D-Day invasion if they would rather be there or at their computer typing up essays and thinking about how best to word their ECs to impress adcoms. The results will be pretty unanimous. </p>
<p>This is not to mention the fact that where your bachelors is from means NOTHING if you go to grad school, and the prestige of undergrad school means very little in grad school admissions.</p>
<p>It’s stupid to say that no schools are good except Ivies, but it’s also stupid to say, “Oh, any school is as good as the Ivies, it’s all just about prestige.” When schools are ranked extremely high, they can attract the best and brightest students from around the country, as well as the best and brightest faculty. Obviously it depends to large extent on you personally - but top-ranked schools generally do have certain merits that lower schools may not.</p>
<p>Now if you’ve been accepted to Harvard, then you’ve got some justification in saying that any school’s as good as an Ivy…</p>
<p>Well, in that case, I might as well throw going to college out the window and start my own personal business and pray that I might be hired</p>
<p>AHAHAHAHAHA!!!
Wait, are you serious? You act like an education at an Ivy League school is the only way to success. Sure, the prestige is always nice, but you seem to think that the education at Ivy’s is simply better than the rest.</p>
<p>Now I completely agree that there are many schools that are definitely better than others academically, as well as significantly tougher than others. Many schools are much tougher to do great in than most the Ivy’s and other similar status universities. Grade inflation and deflation plays a role at most top schools (inflation usually being at a lot of top privates, deflation at some top publics, and the occasional deflation at a select group of top privates). I’ll argue any day that a degree at Garbage State U is nothing in comparison to say UCLA, Princeton, Rice, Williams, or any other top school. </p>
<p>But to say that only the the Ivy’s or similar schools are best is foolish.</p>
<p>I’de be interested to see what you would have to say if I classified Berkeley, Harvard, and MIT, Oxbridge, and Stanford as being equally as excellent as each other. Or how about if I said Brown, UCLA, Dartmouth and UMich are the same caliber of schools?</p>
<p>
True to an extent, but a small liberal arts college (in the top 50 or so at least, but probably many more) will give you as good an education as any ivy league school, you just miss out on the “networking” aspect. The “best and brightest” profs are the best and brightest at one thing - research. Undergraduate instruction is not only a low priority, but it’s seen as a burden that the profs need to do in order to keep up their research. It may be cool to learn from the guy who wrote the book, but if you’re one of 200 undergrads that he’s burdened with lecturing for a few hours a week, you’re not going to learn any more than you would from a LAC instructor who’s job is primarily to teach.</p>
<p>So let’s take two people.
One is at an Ivy League school. They party 7 nights a week. Their GPA is below average and just barely keeping them in the school. All they do is go to class and then go get wasted. Or go play video games. Whatever they please.
The other is at a school that’s not in the Top 50, but they work unbelievably hard. They maintain an incredibly high GPA, are active in extracurriculars and campus events, get prestigious internships, participate in outstanding research opportunities (and maybe even publish their own paper), and earn a great deal of respect from all of their teachers (who will, in turn, write glowing recommendations).
Both of these students are applying for the same job. You’re telling me the student from the Ivy League school is going to get chosen over the student with the research and the internships? Simply because of the name on their degree (and not the rest of the print on their resume)?
I’m sorry, it’s just not true.</p>
<p>and to what anonymityyy said, I definitely agree with your points on school’s merits.
Top schools are better than non-top schools, even prestige aside. Probably the most furious argument I’ve had was when my neighbor (attending a top community college in California (yeah, community college)) was completely sure that if he did well at the CC, he could transfer to MIT, and that MIT would be the exact same difficulty as the CC. I was astonished that someone would be so foolish as to say that. Being that I took a course there when I was in high school and now I go to a top University, I can say with certainty, not only was the class easier than most my AP courses in high school, but since my courses here make my AP courses look easy, then the CC course is a joke in comparison.</p>
<p>Funny thing…I have the feeling that when a lot of people go off to a terrible state school and graduate thinking it was way harder than high school, I get the impression that it is only because they messed around all of high school and so they were not prepared to actually do high school level work at their bad university (since they didnt do their work in HS).</p>
<p>“True to an extent, but a small liberal arts college (in the top 50 or so at least, but probably many more) will give you as good an education as any ivy league school, you just miss out on the “networking” aspect. The “best and brightest” profs are the best and brightest at one thing - research. Undergraduate instruction is not only a low priority, but it’s seen as a burden that the profs need to do in order to keep up their research. It may be cool to learn from the guy who wrote the book, but if you’re one of 200 undergrads that he’s burdened with lecturing for a few hours a week, you’re not going to learn any more than you would from a LAC instructor who’s job is primarily to teach.”</p>
<p>Excellent point mephisto.
I think an LAC education can be a huge asset to many (if not most students). However I think it is important to just note that more attention isnt necessarily better. It all really depends on what type of goals you want.</p>
<p>Here’s what I think is good about both Top LACs and Top research unis</p>
<p>LACs:
Your classes are small=more attention. More attention means you will get the help you need fairly easily(in comparison to big schools)</p>
<p>Generally you will get a solid liberal arts education.</p>
<p>Endowments are often nice at top LACs.</p>
<p>Profs are often (at top LACs) going to be very well educated (PhDs from top schools), and they love teaching.</p>
<p>Alumni networks tend to be very favorable on the few graduates.</p>
<p>Top Universities:
Classes are huge (why is this good you ask?). Help from profs. is not that openly available. The big PRO to this is 4 years in a university where you can’t really get help makes you MORE independent. If you do well, chances are that you will have no problem adapting to the workforce straight away (the big problem is that not everyone does well).</p>
<p>Profs are brilliant and can often be some of the top researchers in their field. However this can and does often mean research is more important to them.</p>
<p>Research opportunities are more numerous.</p>
<p>Alumni networks are large.</p>
<p>I personally go to a top research university and I love the fact that I feel very independent here. My profs. don’t really care all that much about me (except in smaller classes), but their knowledge is excellent. Im sure i wouldnt like being here though if I felt like i was one of the many students being fed to the sharks. It works either way really.</p>
<p>So which Ivy will you be attending?</p>
<p>
Who are you asking, and why does somebody need to go to a school that is in a certain sports league that happens to contain 5 of the “top ten” colleges according to USNews in order to discuss them?</p>
<p>BIGTWIX: True, a research uni is better for some just like a LAC is better for others</p>
<p>I’m asking the OP- and I agree w/ you. I am wondering if he’s a ■■■■■- such vitriol!</p>
<p>Well I have to admit that I am sick of all these kids complaining about how much they work to get into these schools…but after there I sort of lose you. Essentially, with the extremely intense college admissions, there are going to be really bright gifted kids not going to top schools. In fact some of them will be going to second tier schools because of the economic crisis, because they can’t afford to attend top 50 schools that give poor FA. Now, I’m not going to argue that the prestige of the school you attend doesn’t matter, but what matters more is the person itself. The reason lots of Ivy graduates do well financially is well they are really smart and are in a position to get a high paying job. You’ll see at lesser ranked schools less smart people and therefore less people in a position to get a high paying job and therefore may lead one to conclude that the school itself affects one’s success. While it is true that a top investment bank may not recruit at a certain school as heavily as say Harvard, there are always lots of opportunities for success, especially given the nation we live in.</p>
<p>“Well I have to admit that I am sick of all these kids complaining about how much they work to get into these schools…but after there I sort of lose you. Essentially, with the extremely intense college admissions, there are going to be really bright gifted kids not going to top schools. In fact some of them will be going to second tier schools because of the economic crisis, because they can’t afford to attend top 50 schools that give poor FA.” </p>
<p>Exactly, kids are too spoiled now adays. If they didn’t get into Harvard, it was their own fault, they should have studied more, tried harder, tried to do better ec’s.</p>
<p>“Now, I’m not going to argue that the prestige of the school you attend doesn’t matter, but what matters more is the person itself. The reason lots of Ivy graduates do well financially is well they are really smart and are in a position to get a high paying job.”</p>
<p>That is not true. Many Ivy League grads only got in because their parents donated a lot of cash, they were recruited athletes, etc.
They still reap the benefits though.</p>
<p>" You’ll see at lesser ranked schools less smart people and therefore less people in a position to get a high paying job and therefore may lead one to conclude that the school itself affects one’s success. While it is true that a top investment bank may not recruit at a certain school as heavily as say Harvard, there are always lots of opportunities for success, especially given the nation we live in."</p>
<p>A degree from a top school will help you immensely however.</p>