<p>as said by pizzagirl:
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<p>One Harvard student who can likely still be found on youtube said, and I’m paraphrasing, “You don’t come to Harvard for good teachers. You come to Harvard to be around other bright students.”</p>
<p>He was responding to a question about Harvard’s infamous reputation for providing poor undergraduate teaching.</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>But are the 1,600 frosh students at Harvard necessarily that much different in academic ability and motivation from strongest 1,600 frosh students at places like Virginia, North Carolina, Arizona State, etc.?</p>
<p>@truthseeker - although I disagree generally with the concept that there is no value to an “elite” (I dislike that word but that’s what we’re using in this discussion) education, I think your last post makes some perfectly valid points about why your D might prefer one college over another.</p>
<p>I guess I would just question whether “elite” education always equates to hyper competitive environment…I guess it depends on what colleges are considered “elite”, what major and how an individual reacts to a particular environment.</p>
<p>ucbalum, I don’t believe they are. You just have to find them. That’s a little easier in engineering as it pretty evident from the get go who has the chops and who doesn’t.</p>
<p>M</p>
<p>Phew! Both my kids’ schools are on the ROI list.</p>
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<p>With all due respect, I don’t think you recognize just how offensive your post about your former boyfriend if he had read the same and realized you were talking about him. And I would also guess that he would think to himself . . “I didn’t talk about the nuances of that damn movie because I just didn’t care about that movie enough”. It is quite arrogant and pompous for a person to think they have a better understanding of a movie because they are so much smarter than somebody else. </p>
<p>There is no question that some people are smarter than others. That their minds work quicker. And you know, I am really smart (over 700 math SAT back in the mid seventies), but my wife, who is not college educated, can run rings around me when completing word puzzles. She can look at a word puzzle, say on Wheel of Fortune ( I rarely watch any of this stuff) and complete it in a nano second while I would still be struggling. We once had a computer game called “You don’t know Jack” which tested how quickly a person could answer certain questions. She beat me every time. And yet, I know I am far smarter than her, or at least I think I am.</p>
<p>There are many types of “smart.” How’s the GFG at rebuilding a carburetor? ;)</p>
<p>M</p>
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What’s a carburetor? :D</p>
<p>How come no one is talking about time share jets? is the price worth it over first class?</p>
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<p>I consider that completely irrelevant to anything. Of course there are going to be X number of smart students at any university, all the way down to East Podunk U. To me, the relevance is the density in which they are found. To me, there is a real difference between a class of 1,600 in which all 1,600 are at a certain level, and a class of 16,000 in which the top 1,600 are similar to our first set of 1,600. It creates a different atmosphere socially. It means that finding your “tribe” may be harder. The “thickness” or density of these smart students makes all the difference in the world, because it means that you’ll bump into them at all opportunities, not just 1 out of 10 opportunities.</p>
<p>I find these threads interesting and frustrating at the same time. </p>
<p>I get the ROI argument although I do not view education through that lens. </p>
<p>It’s the argument that a class is a class and the educational experience is the same for a motivated student that tougher for me to understand. So the corollary to that would be if all schools cost exactly the same net cost that whatever school your child picked they would get essentially the same experience. So to go to the extreme if the names of all schools schools that met some global parameters (the correct majors, region of the country) that pulling a name of a school out of a hat would be as good a selection method as any other. </p>
<p>I don’t buy it … I think for any student there is a small subset of school that can provide a better overall college educational and social experience. I think if all schools cost the same that a lot folks claiming the education is the same everywhere would change where their kids attend school. Note, I did not say the highest ranked schools are necessarily the best but that they could be for some students, just a being in an honors college at a state school might be for another student, or etc, etc.</p>
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I can’t speak for all highly selective colleges, but I can say this is not the atmosphere at Yale, at least in the humanities. Perhaps that is more the case in STEM majors, but I really can’t say. It isn’t generally experienced as a cutthroat environment at all. I also don’t think there is really all that much pomposity, either. What there is, though, is intensity–people are intense about their studies, and (perhaps even more so) about their extracurriculars. I think most people find this an energizing setting. It’s my impression, based on what I hear from my kids’ friends at other schools, that this is pretty typical of highly selective schools.</p>
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<p>That is if you define your “tribe” purely in terms of academic achievement, and that is the only type of “tribe” you can relate to. But is it necessarily true that students who are very strong academically are always that way, perhaps even to the extreme of not being able to talk to a plumber?</p>
<p>Also, at a smaller school, if the “tribe” doesn’t fit, there may not be other “tribes” to find, unlike at a bigger school (the other “tribes” might not necessarily be any weaker academically than the non-fitting academically strong “tribe”).</p>
<p>One thing that I’ve never understood is the fact that so many people say it’s not worth spending the $ for an undergraduate degree. I think that degree is the most important one. </p>
<p>Given the economy, it is important to go to a top law school if you go to law school. But otherwise? Why save money on undergrad to spend more $ on a prestigious grad school?</p>
<p>You’re going to succeed as a M.D. as long as you go to an accredited medical school. I think it makes more sense to spend the extra $ for Harvard vs. UMass-Amherst for college than on Harvard vs. UMass medical school. (Yes, if you want to go to med school at all, it may make sense to save some $ on undergrad. That’s not the same as claiming that it’s better to wait and spend the $ on grad school.) </p>
<p>Academic Ph.D. programs are usually funded–at least the highest ranked are. So, it doesn’t make sense to save your $ to send your kid to Harvard for a Ph.D. after UMass-Amherst. He’s not going to pay for the Ph.D. </p>
<p>Moreover, MOST people don’t go to grad school at all. If they do, they often do it just because they need a particular credential–a master’s degree for teachers for example. </p>
<p>Yet, always on this board there are people who claim that it’s just not worth the $ for undergrad–as if they are more willing to spend it on an advanced degree. I don’t get it.</p>
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Well, yes and no. 6% of Arizona State’s freshmen have CR scores between 700 and 800, which comes out to 555 freshmen. At Harvard, it’s 77%, or 1232. But at Virginia, it’s 37%, or 1256. And Virginia has a really good honors program.</p>
<p>I still think it’s likely that Harvard will get a lion’s share of the most impressive cross-admits with Virginia, and thus Harvard will have more super-achievers than Virginia will. Arizona State, less so. I think at some of the really good public flagships, especially those with good honors programs, you can get a lot of what you’d get at some of these highly selective privates. But that’s because those programs are highly selective, too.</p>
<p>“Yet, always on this board there are people who claim that it’s just not worth the $ for undergrad–as if they are more willing to spend it on an advanced degree. I don’t get it.”</p>
<p>Law, business and medical school are all freakishly expensive. You can be admitted to L/B/M school from any undergrad school with a strong transcript/test scores. I for example attended a top 200 college on the cheap and then paid full price for a top 10 law school. Unless you have unlimited dough, it makes sense to keep powder dry for L/B/M school.</p>
<p>If you are pursuing an academic PhD, grad school does not cost very much. So go ahead and blow it on undergrad.</p>
<p>And just to compare a couple more schools–look at the SAT Math at MIT and Virginia Tech (a fine school–my dad went there). At VT, 10% of freshmen had a math SAT between 700 and 800, or 548 students. At MIT, it’s 94%, or 1066 students.</p>
<p>What does this mean? Well, of course, it means there are hundreds of really smart math students at Virginia Tech. But at MIT, almost everybody is really smart at math. I think that’s going to make a difference in the campus environment, at least with respect to math. There may be plenty of reasons to prefer Virginia Tech, but if you got into both places, and could afford both, and if your goal was to be around other top students, you’d probably choose MIT.</p>
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<p>However, Harvard does not admit all of the super-achievers with sky-scraping academic credentials who apply, since that would overfill their frosh class. So Virginia may well have a lot of (probably mostly Virginia-resident) super-achievers who simply lost the Harvard lottery (or perhaps did not even apply to Harvard) and would therefore not be counted in the cross-admit comparison, but would be academically competitive with Harvard students.</p>
<p>Also, the state flagships may pick up some brilliant students who may not have sky-scraping academic credentials in everything who would therefore be at a disadvantage at the super-selective schools where having sky-scraping academic credential in everything is merely the baseline for consideration (without a “hook”).</p>
<p>Yes, ucbalumnus, Many instate Virginia kids do not even bother to apply to Ivy League schools. My kids ,both over 700+ on math SAT , are happy grads of UVa and VT (well the VT one will be in 10 days!). I do agree with Hunt that the Virginia kids who do end up applying to Harvard, Princeton,etc. would probably pick those other schools over UVa if they do get in (otherwise why bother applying). Also, more OOS students probably would as well. There are plenty of 700+ kids at both UVa and Virginia Tech, particularly UVa. Neither of my kids had any interest in schools like MIT,CMU, RIT,etc. I don’t think it is a given that any particular kid would necessarily pick MIT over their state school.</p>
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I take it your critical variable would be the percentage or “density” of such students, rather than pure number. Because by pure number of freshmen exceeding a threshold, I think Caltech could only possibly have a couple hundred.</p>
<p>Actually, going by the ROI criteria (for those who care about that sort of thing) I think this must mean VT is a pretty good investment.
[Best</a> Bargain Colleges: Best College ROI Bargain: Virginia Tech - BusinessWeek](<a href=“http://images.businessweek.com/ss/10/06/0628_payscale2/8.htm]Best”>http://images.businessweek.com/ss/10/06/0628_payscale2/8.htm)</p>
<p>It has a relatively high ROI and does it with a student body with a less impressive Math SAT.</p>
<p>And BTW, I don’t know where Beliavsky is, but he’d be quite proud of these latest posts, extolling the powers of the SAT.</p>