<p>One possibility I would suggest is that it is only recently that the “top” schools have become terribly competitive and that people have traveled far and wide to attend colleges. Not only were there far fewer applicants to graduate programs, but the ability level of students across institutions was more heterogeneous. The percentage of current PhD-holder, for instance, who attended The University of Nowhere at Middle says very little about the current effects of attending well-regarded schools on graduate admissions.</p>
<p>@aigiqinf</p>
<p>Great point. One thing we often joke about in the family is that we/parents would have no chance to attend HYP if we were applying today. </p>
<p>@Hunt</p>
<p>Even in my STEM department, there is a strong bias in favor of top-school graduates in doctoral admission.</p>
<p>Hunt, it may serve you better in the application process for humanities and social sciences graduate school to have attended a prestigious university, but in terms of taking on debt in order to go to a prestigious university so that one can then attend graduate school in those subjects so that one can teach–that’s a recipe for financial disaster. Academic jobs are truly almost impossible to get these days, as they have been for at least two decades, and those who do get jobs get paid less than most people with mere bachelors’ degrees, and trying to pay off debt with that salary, now that you’re 8 years older and more likely to have other expenses than a person right out of college, is terribly difficult. It may be that this is all part of the argument not to go into academia as a career, at all, but to go into debt as an undergrad to do so is madness.</p>
<p>I think a prestigious graduate school is likely to be more valuable in the search for job application success than one’s undergraduate school is; while it might be more difficult to get into grad school from a less-prestigious undergrad school, once you’re through grad school it doesn’t matter much where you went undergrad.</p>
<p>I agree with you about debt, but “spending more” is not necessarily the same as going into debt. It may be that people who can’t afford to spend more can’t afford to think about academia as a potential career.</p>
<p>What about things like the Payscle ranking? Granted, some technical schools fare better because they are graduating more engineers, but compare, for example CalTech (11% annual return on investment [AROI]) or MIT (11% AROI) with Rochester Institute of Technology (7.7% AROI)?</p>
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<p>Is this idea being applied to undergrad education? If where one goes for undergrad makes no difference, then even the geniuses would be fine at “Podunk U”, otherwise we’re left with the assumption that elite colleges provide a better education. It seems the general consensus here, feels that isn’t so.</p>
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You mean this? -
[College</a> Education Value Rankings - PayScale 2013 College ROI Report](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/college-education-value-2013]College”>College Education Value Rankings - PayScale 2013 College ROI Report)</p>
<p>Not sure how valuable this info is for the typical person. Figuring out how you would fare under your specific situation would be difficult. For example, DeVry appears to top UCLA on the list. DeVry is pretty specialized so it would really depend on what you intend to do at UCLA.</p>
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<p>The mix of majors at any given school is likely one of the biggest factors in the school’s Payscale ranking. Payscale would make itself much more useful if it would stratify data and rankings by both school and major, rather than either school or major as it now does.</p>
<p>Note that the first twelve spots in [College</a> Education Value Rankings - PayScale 2013 College ROI Report](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/college-education-value-2013]College”>College Education Value Rankings - PayScale 2013 College ROI Report) are occupied by schools that are heavy in engineering majors. But the ranking may look different if it were done only counting students in a specific major (e.g. only mechanical engineering, or only biology, or only economics).</p>
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<p>There may be a subtle quirk in that large state flagships that are not particularly selective may be better regarded than smaller state or private schools of similar baseline selectivity (or even a higher baseline, but a narrower range of students). For example, PhD programs may realize that a school like Arizona State is big enough that among the masses of mediocrity are enough excellent students who would make good PhD students that top applicants from there are worth considering.</p>
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<p>Because for the great majority of students, it doesn’t make a difference. However, young Albert would be recognized for his special gifts at MIT or Princeton and would thus be exposed to the very best minds that could help bring his gifts along. The average Ivy Leaguer is simply not in this category. He can learn, just like most students even at Podunk U, from the course material presented through the books and the lectures of the typically ho-hum professors at both places. Same material. Same education. Same lectures. Little difference.</p>
<p>Just as a personal anecdote, my brother’s wife went to a relatively low-ranked state school for her undergrad degree. However, she ended up getting into Columbia Law School and is now working in big law and making “the big bucks.” </p>
<p>In the end, I think it comes down to what kind of person you are. If you’re motivated and hard-working, nothing (not even your school) can hold you back.</p>
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I don’t think this is entirely true, any more than the AP class in high school is the same as the non-honors class. It may be more true in some disciplines than others, of course.</p>
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<p>Law school admissions is generally thought to be GPA and LSAT oriented, not school-prestige oriented. However, law employment is generally thought to be very law-school-prestige oriented.</p>
<p>In academia, the reputation of the mentoring professor is extremely important for grad school admissions. A student at Podunk U wouldn’t have access to the same recommendations as a student from university where top level research in his field is taking place.
Most kids don’t know “what they want to be when they grow up.” That’s one reason parents with very bright students, who they know will probably want to continue to grad school in something, feel it’s worth a little extra money to give them the exposure to different areas of study, high level research and profs who are tops in their field.<br>
Again, it only makes sense if the financial situation warrants it.</p>
<p>I’ve heard my share of stories about freshly-minted science PhDs and post-docs coming from non-prestige universities with top-ranked departments in their fields searching for that first tenure-track job at, well, anywhere that would take them, really (openings being scarcer than hen’s teeth). Everyone prayed that no Ivy/MIT/Stanford/CalTech alum was in the running because more often than not, that meant game over for everyone else unless Dr. PhD from Prestige-U turned down the offer. I’d guess it’d be different at colleges and universities that had top credentials in their own right and had nothing to prove, but at the smaller, third tier institutions looking to gain prestige-by-proxy, nothing says “we’re contenders” more than trumpeting the presence of prestige-school professors on their faculty.</p>
<p>I don’t really think so - but I am in Arizona and all of the schools here are basically regional. The goal should be how to achieve a high quality education at a reasonable price. Shakespeare and Math are the same everywhere - the only difference is how much you pay and who you study with.</p>
<p>I can come up with ever so many success stories of those who started out at regional schools, community colleges, tech schools, you name it, and went on and did well. For some kids, it doesn’t matter, they will do well anywhere. FOr some kids, they are going to bomb out, regardless where they go, too. Then you’ve got those kids whose chances MIGHT be better depending on where they should go. But it’s not always apparent who is in which category. </p>
<p>I think my one son would have done well anywhere . Just that type of kid. Not super duper straight A well, because he isn’t that way, but would have made it through nearly any major, and gotten mostly Bs with a few sprinkling of As, and maybe a C or two. For him the level of difficulty does not seem to be the issue. He cranks it up when he has to, and relaxes when it’s not so necessary to pound salt, but he learns the material covered very, very well. </p>
<p>But when we were looking at colleges, he just loved this little school far away from home, with a laid back atmosphere, unusual way of doing things and just everything about the school. Could have just been a great visit, but, no. I can say he enjoyed most of his 4 years there. Loved the school, kids, subjects, profs, setting, everything. It was as good as it gets, and I feel it was worth the premium we paid. He could have gone for free and gotten even a stipend at a state option that interested him initially. Or gone to another state uni for $15K a year after scholarship or to a private school for less than $30K, several of them “discounted” their prices. Which did get him a bit more merit from his first choice school, but yes, we paid. Not for the prestige, as most people have not even heard of this LAC, and think it is some state school in the west, but for the fit, the experience and because he wanted it It hurt, because, he gave up an ivy choice at discount for it, but it was what he really wanted. So it’s not just prestige in the picture, and he turned down prestige.</p>
<p>My other son is going to an OOS public that costs double what our instate counterpart would cost. Yeah, some more prestige, but that isn’t the reason, and don’t think the prestige differential is worth the cost difference, but he wanted that OOS school. Is it worth it? He’s happy and doing well. Would he have been as happy at the instate school? I think he would have settled. He’s a great kid. Does what he has to do. But I am glad we can pay for his choice, and if it had been the prestige,lustre that he had wanted, I would have still done it. Whatever he wanted as long as we could afford it.</p>
<p>Now when a school is truly beyond what a family can afford where it can get them into financial trouble, that’s a whole other story. I think both of mine understood that well. Both just put all the $60K schools with no sweetners off the table without a thought since they were simply not doable. We had set our contribution amount and they only considered schools doable with us contributing that amount.</p>
<p>“Same material. Same education. Same lectures. Little difference.”</p>
<p>In my field, which is English literature, this is both true and untrue; at conferences, I have met great teachers from Podunk U (at this point, most teachers who are employed anywhere are, in fact, products of the top ten programs in their subject who have endured a very stringent process, so they are usually excellent). However, if you are teaching Shakespeare, the plays are the same, of course, but the students and the secondary material you can assign and expect to be understood are very different, and the class size can also vary very much, which has a big effect on the nature and quality of discussion. Lectures are very different from discussion classes; the value of peer-assessment and so forth will vary with your classmates’ degree of sophistication in their writing and critical skills. Class size has an impact on the workload a teacher can assign, and on the amount of feedback she can offer (if you have twenty students, and they each write 2 five and 1 twelve page papers, you might be able to respond with reasonable thoroughness to 440 pages of writing in a semester, in that one class. If you have thirty students, you will simply have to substitute some other kind of assessment for part of the work, because 660 pages of thoughtful, careful analysis can’t be done, when you have other classes as well). There are other differences: how many classes are offered? Can you take classes in fairly obscure topics? How much time will your professors have for you?</p>
<p>In short, an English class at Podunk is not the same as one at Prestigious U. I am not saying that every class at Prestigious U is better than every class at Podunk; I am saying that, on the whole, the chances are better at Prestigious U that you will have a better education in your subject. (Always assuming that the reputation of Prestigious U is based on solid educational grounding, rather than how nice the dorms are.)</p>
<p>^^^^ How does a 17 year old simply decide “this is the school for me” without regard to price, simply because his parents can afford it . . . even if a struggle? If your 17 year old goes to visit and sees a cute little blonde who smiles at him, that might be enough to entice him. So, on what basis does a student decide that far away, expensive school is just a better fit for instead of the local LAC or State School. I’ve never understood how children can make these decisions when they are not the ones footing the bills.</p>
<p>^^^^^^^^^^ As for the English class at the more prestigious university . . doesn’t this all depend on the class size?</p>
<p>The question presumes there is a “premium”. Harvard can be cheaper than going to a State Flagship. With need based financial aid, for most people, the prestigious universities that meet aid without loans is cheaper than State Flagships that offer very little in scholarships and grants.</p>
<p>If you are full pay, then it presumes you have money. The question is not much different from: Is a Mercedes worth the premium? I don’t have money, so for me, it is not. But, if I was making $500k/yr, why not? And, if I’m making $500k/yr, why not send my kids to a prestigious university if they make it in and want to go? I’ll even assume they learn exactly the same thing. If the prestigious university makes their job hunt a little easier, doesn’t that help their self esteem (quickly finding a job, multiple job offers, etc.)? Look at how some parents go off the deep end if you dent Jr’s self esteem in any way.</p>