<p>And what happens when all of these exceptional students have to work and their boss is not anywhere near their intellectual peer and their co-workers are also just mundane and nonexceptional in the brains dept.
But then I am sure they will leap frog the boss within the first few weeks on the job.</p>
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<p>These exceptional students go on to Wall Street. They use their brain power to find some obscure arbitrage - when it works out they make millions for their bosses and themselves - when it does not, they bring the whole financial system of the world crashing down. It is actually pretty cool. :)</p>
<p>^^What does Wall Street mean to you? And which institutions cause the collapse?</p>
<p>In line with what Hunt says: I have three kids, all different. My oldest is graduating from Smith this month, and she’s going on to graduate school. Smith was right for her, because it let her be exactly who she is (and no, she doesn’t miss football. She’s not interested in football, she likes computer games). She’s the closest to a genius of my kids, but she’s not particularly driven; her GPA and SATs in high school were what she did that day. She doesn’t do sports, and her social skills suck, but she’s great at what she does. She may change the world.</p>
<p>My second daughter is a first year at Dartmouth. She’s a wonderful person, a great friend, and she works really hard; she’s an all-around girl, who likes hiking and being outdoors, which is why she’s at Dartmouth. She’s very smart, but she’s not a genius, and if she changes the world, it will be by convincing people to go along with her ideas. (By the way, her boyfriend goes to auto mechanic school–sorry, riprorin.)</p>
<p>My son is sixteen, and he’s also very smart; I don’t think he’s a genius, but it’s hard to tell. He’s started writing two novels, but his best subject is chemistry; his GPA is not fabulous, but I think he’ll knock the SAT out of the park (it’s getting really hard to stump him with vocab). He plays tennis when he’s not reading or playing Magic. He wants to go to an LAC, but he doesn’t know which. He probably wouldn’t get in to Harvard; he probably wouldn’t want to. Harvard is not his fit.</p>
<p>What I’m getting at is that, despite what truthseeker thinks, I don’t want my kids to go to “elite” colleges to satisfy some need of mine, nor to achieve a sticker on the car; they will attend the school that suits them, I hope. I don’t have illusions about them, and I don’t live vicariously through them. I don’t think they’re geniuses, and they don’t think they’re entitled. I think it’s really insulting, truthseeker, that you think everybody who sends their kids to good schools is doing so for the wrong reasons and because they’re delusional, and that you think every kid should go to a big university and be happy there. I think every kid should be allowed to be himself, and that there should be lots of choices.</p>
<p>One last thing, and I’m done: I went to a good school because I got financial aid, and I worked really hard; I had to come up with my parents’ portion, because of my family situation. Many of the kids who were there with me didn’t have to work at all, but I knew exactly how much each class cost, and I didn’t skip them. I didn’t gain the “freshman fifteen” because I didn’t have money for pizza and ice cream. I earned my degree, and I worked for my education, and I feel that it was worth it, in so many ways, none of which have to do with ROI. I don’t want to hear that I was privileged, or that I was wrong to want to go to the best school I could, or that I could have gotten just as good an education at a state school. It really burns my socks right off that people who don’t know anything about me or my children presume that they know my motivations and their abilities. Choose whatever school you want, for you and for your kids, but stop passing uninformed judgements on people who choose differently.</p>
<p>Please define what a “good” school is. Do you think a school has to be “elite” to be good?</p>
<p>Well, flyaround, one of the benefits of going to a top school and doing well there, is that students are often prepared for the sort of jobs that require their level of academic achievement and intelligence. That increases the likelihood they will be working with other bright co-workers. And if they aren’t lucky in that regard, then they’ll manage just fine and do well at their job anyway, exactly as they did in high school.</p>
<p>I doubt that most of the kids who attend the top schools were abused by their parents. Most had healthy and happy childhoods. They did normal things, but they probably did them better than other kids. They exhibited more commitment and seriousness, greater talent and ability, stronger work ethic and discipline, etc. One example I write about a lot has to do with our high school cross country team. Just like a “normal kid,” my D participated in sports. However, only one other girl on her team was really serious about running. The other girls would find ways to get out of doing the training they were supposed to. Maybe they’d fake injury so they could visit the cute football player who was rehabbing in the trainer’s room, or maybe they’d skip out to the strip mall and buy a snack instead of running. Similarly, some kids approach their schoolwork with a different level of commitment and seriousness. They may watch “Jersey Shore,” but not when they have big AP History test the next day. They may hang out with friends now and then, but maybe they don’t hang out every single weekend because they have to write research papers and do problem sets. It’s not a difference of normal vs. not normal.</p>
<p>“Well, it may depend on exactly how you define smart and high-achieving.”</p>
<p>Hunt, how do you define smart and high achieving?</p>
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<p>To me, a good school is one where the life of the mind is valued for its own sake; where students evince some intellectual curiosity about subjects they are not "required’ to take; where kids stay up late and talk about politics, philosophy etc. among themselves; where students routinely go to on-campus cultural events; where students are passionate about their interests and studies; where there is a sense of identity and purpose beyond getting a job or a slot in a professional school. A good school has a critical mass of such students. Good schools are not always “elites.”</p>
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<p>Lets see how long this one lasts. Undoubtedly, sooner or later, she will come to the realization that she is too good for this guy. Her friends will tell her so if she doesn’t decide it for herself.</p>
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<p>For those of you who will tell us anti-elitests that nobody is denigrating those who don’t go to the elite schools, I rest my case.</p>
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<p>Can you tell me one school where this does not happen more or less?</p>
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<p>These are your words not mine. What i did imply however is that it is pretty obvious to me, reading these posts, that there are a number of people who are obsessed about their kids getting into the elite schools, that these parents have convinced themselves it is absolutely necessary for their kids to have a good life, and I am willing to bet a fair number of these kids are dysfunctional, more or less, because of these stresses and duties put on them by their parents. If a kid can not enjoy being a kid, which means doing nothing at times, playing video games, enjoying a football game, or if they actually look down on their peers because they consider themselves more intelligent and too good for them, then in my book they have some psychological issues. Hopefully they will grow into well adjusted adults. But maybe not.</p>
<p>NJSue, you are going to find those types of students at most any college. What would the “critical mass” be to move the needle to the “good” category.</p>
<p>You don’t mention attending sporting events. Would that be verboten?</p>
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<p>Yes. There are plenty.</p>
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<p>I wasn’t driven by my parents to achieve. I got a 4.5 GPA because I thrive on challenges and I got a 36 ACT because, I don’t know, I’m good at the ACT. I didn’t study for the ACT and I barely study for my classes, except before the occasional test and for APs. I’m not high achieving because someone wanted me to be – it’s just the way I am.</p>
<p>I also don’t feel “entitled” to the smartest friends for peers, but the idea of being somewhere where, for the first time in my life, I don’t feel like one of the smartest people in the room is absolutely thrilling. Why shouldn’t it be? For 18 years I’ve felt like I can’t really communicate with 95% of my peers I know because they won’t understand me if I say the things I think, and now I can be myself. What’s wrong with that? Am I really elitist for wanting to be among peers? I don’t think that elite schools are right for everyone, but when it feels like home, there’s nothing wrong with it.
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<p>I sort of take offense to this. I’m going to MIT in the fall and my boyfriend goes to community college nearby. Do I consider myself too good for him? Not at all. I consider him close to my intellectual equal, although much of his intelligence is in non-academic areas (musical ability, etc.). He’s in CC because he grew up EXTREMELY poor with an absentee single mom and he currently is trying to find a full-time job on top of school to pay the bills. I admire him and his strength for continuing his education under difficult circumstances and I don’t think I’m better than him because I’m going to an elite school. Or for any other reason. I’m privileged and he isn’t, it’s that simple.</p>
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<p>Not verboten, but not paramount to the identity and reputation of the school.</p>
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<p>I would say three quarters of the students have to be as I described. Not a minority or handful who are swimming against a tide of indifference and careerism.</p>
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<p>Is the school name on the diploma so much more important than all of the other experiences, opportunities, and outcomes that differ between the high achieving student and the one who does just the minimum to get in and out?</p>
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<p>So does the full ride (that seems to be frequently reported by high stats New Jersey residents).</p>
<p>Once again, truthseeker, you make assumptions based on your own values. If my daughter breaks up with her boyfriend, it may be because she is nineteen; how many people do you know who, at nineteen, found his or her soulmate? But if she did break up with him, how very quick you would be to assume that it was because “her friends” told her she was “too good” for him. You are the one who asserts that “undoubtedly” she will come to the realization that she is too good for him; is it not you who is making this assumption, that, because she is going to Dartmouth and he is an auto mechanic, she will dump him? That where she goes to school defines her, as it does him? What does that say about you, and about your preconceptions? </p>
<p>In fact, in hard cold statistics, more and more women are marrying men who are “beneath” them in terms of earning ability, because they value men who have other virtues than earning ability. It used to be that only men would do this, marry someone who was a good nurturer rather than a good earner, but times do change. Although, perhaps, not for you.</p>
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<p>truthseeker, as the parent of a high-level figure skater, I’m sure you’ve seen your share of pushy parents who force their kids to participate, against their will, in hours of training sessions and private lessons. It’s the “child abuse” we get to hear about ad nauseam every Olympic year… the poooor little girls who have been robbed of the childhoods! Yet anyone inside a sport like skating or gymnastics knows that the kids who are forced into it don’t make it to the high levels. They burn out, get injured and quit before they can reach that level. It’s the kids who have a true love of the sport and an intrisic drive to continue and improve (along with some natural ability), who make it to the top. No amount of “abuse” by parents or coaches can instill that in a kid whose heart isn’t in it; it has to come from within.</p>
<p>Doesn’t the same thing apply in academics? Isn’t it possible that some kids actually LIKE starting charities at 16 and do it of their own accord; honestly enjoy a full load of AP classes because they love being challenged? Aren’t there parents who, instead of forcing their kid to study, have to force them to STOP studying because it’s 3:00 am? I’d bet that most of the students at elite schools are “remarkable” because they were born that way, not because they were forced into a mold. And that comes through in their essays and interviews. The kids who attained similar stats by “force” probably have a lower acceptance rate.</p>
<p>First - define “prestigious universities” and give detailed examples of which is and which is not.</p>
<p>Second - define your value as what is “worth”, is it earning, experiences, personal gain or just something to show off</p>
<p>third - define “premium”. Are we talk about $200,000 or $20,000? </p>
<p>Once you get get agreements on these three key words, you get your answer.</p>
<p>My bet is that you will get a lot of arguements about above three definitions, just like prvious 2&<em>^%</em>&$67&%^$#78 threads on the same topic.</p>
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<p>EXACTLY! Everyone I’ve met associated with MIT – professors, students, and admitted students – shares two traits: they are brilliantly intelligent, and they are passionate about what they do. Most MIT admits were passionate about something in high school, and that’s what got them in, not a handful of points on the SAT that they got from studying for six hours.</p>
<p>Edit: Just to clarify, I am using MIT as an example of prestigious universities. I don’t have insight into every top school, but I do have insight into this one, so I hope that my contributions are meaningful applied generally.</p>
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<p>Rutgers is not all that easy to graduate from because it’s a complex bureaucracy with little guidance, and students who are not independent self-starters regardless of their SAT scores tend to drift and fall away after a time. A student looking to do as little as possible to graduate is sooner or later going to be defeated by his own inertia at a place like Rutgers. I suspect that’s true at many other very large state schools.</p>
<p>The same and not the same . . . </p>
<p>When QMP was in freshman year of high school, I used to be completely of the same opinion as ucbalumnus in post #318–namely, that if two students wind up at Reasonably Good University, and one has worked very hard on challenging courses in high school while the other hasn’t, then their experiences will be quite different, even though their university is nominally the same. Actually, I still think that this is true. I worked out once that there were approximately 15 trillion different course combinations that a student could take during four years at my current university. Of course, this is just the raw number–many of the combinations would not satisfy distribution requirements, many would not have students taking prerequisites they needed, some would consist entirely of graduate courses, . . . Still, there are an exceptionally large number of different routes through the university, and some of them have excellent intellectual pay-offs, as well as monetary returns.</p>
<p>My opinion changed somewhat when I saw how hard QMP and some fellow students worked in high school. This made me sympathetic to student disappointment, if they wound up in “the same place” as students who had not worked nearly as hard, nor taken on nearly the challenges. I really get this. coureur in #316 and #320 makes the view harder-edged than the one I take, but I understand that point of view, too.</p>
<p>I didn’t notice any reaction to my specific list of actual differences between universities, in post #62. Are any of these “worth it” to other posters? Or are we talking mainly about monetary return?</p>
<p>Two other thoughts: I suppose that a student who is not going to do the course readings would be better off not reading 3-4 books in a history course than not reading 10-12 books in a course with the same title elsewhere.</p>
<p>I went to a large, public research university. In terms of making connections with like-minded people there, I can offer the observation that when I was taking the GRE, I knew a very high fraction of the students who were taking it at the same time. We filled two very large lecture halls, since this was the era of the GRE on paper.</p>