Ivy education really a fraud??

soozievt · March 23, 2006, 4:51pm

NewMassDad,
My intent is not to “attack” you but to respond to what frankly really surprised me in your post because I have known you a long while on CC and have respected you and found your post today rather shocking because it was from you. I feel that your post was a gross generalization about a group of people (students at Ivies) and I do have a D who belongs to that group. It appeared to ME, that you WERE talking about ALL, not some, and then making assumptions about those who attend Ivies. Since your assumptions did not fit my own kid’s situation and I can ONLY talk of my own kid, I felt compelled to respond.

You wrote:
“IMHO, the main reason folks seek educations at some places is for the NAME. And that they get.”

You did not say “some folks.” I only know that MY kid did NOT pick her school based on its name. She was the antithesis of someone who only wanted an Ivy. I already explained that she was going to pick Tufts and Smith over her acceptance to Penn. She never cared about her school being an IVY whatsoever. She had specific things she wanted in a college. SOME of these were…(and this is why her ultimate choice is a good fit) being on the East Coast and not far from skiing, near a city, medium sized, very challenging academic environment with a motivated student body, availability of an architecture major in a liberal arts curriculum, study abroad opportunities, general feel for fitting in, a ski team at either the club or varsity level (would have done club but since she did get into Brown and it is a varsity team, it was even more attractive as only 2 of her schools had a varsity team…Brown and Smith), and she liked the open curriculum at Brown (Smith had that too) and the emphasis on independence such as independent studies or guiding one’s own learning, Brown had connection with RISD (is on second RISD course so far), availability of club soccer and tennis, dance, theater, music, and I am forgetting what else at the moment as it has been two years and I have gone through this with another kid since then. She wanted a “good college” but prestige is not her thing and in fact, she is someone who almost goes out of her way to be overly modest and not let on that she even goes to an Ivy…in fact, nobody in her entire graduating class went to one.

You also wrote:
" let us all thank the Ivies for providing a place where the seekers of status and privelidge can hang out for four years, while the kids who really want an education can head to the Reeds, the Oberlins, the Chicagos and many others to learn with fewer distractions."

Now you are saying that you never said ALL kids at Ivies were seekers of status and priviledge, and that you hit some raw nerve but the way I interpret the above statement was that Ivies were where seekers of status end up and that anyone who really wants to learn or get an education ends up at schools like Reed, Oberlin or UChicago. It seems to ME, that this WAS a generalization about those who attend Ivies, and not any “some” or exceptions. The opposite, therefore, that I would infer from your statement is that those who go to Ivies do not seek an education or so much want to learn but are more motivated by prestige and priviledge (oy, my kid is on financial aid no less). That was the inverse of your saying “while the kids who want an education go to blah blah.”

In a later post you wrote:

"I do not know wy a regular poster like soozievt needs to drag in what my own family did several years ago, other than as some backhanded way of attacking the credibility of a posting that did not even say what she accuses it of saying. Nonetheless, for the record I will clarify that my own D did in fact apply to some schools that were closer to home than the one she ultimately ended up attending. I suppose it stretches credibility of some readers to think that geography influenced her applications.

These flames are just one more reminder of why it is so important to protect our identities here. One never knows how past postings will be used out of context in some sort of attack."

In no way was my intent to attack your credibility. Rather, I am just very surprised that a parent of a student who actually applied to Ivy league schools, even including an EA one, would later poo poo Ivies. It is NO secret that I revealed as you have posted on here for years and about your D’s admissions’ process. I am reflecting that I simply do not understand the put down of Ivies or those who choose to attend, from someone who applied or had a child apply in the first place. I understand if geography was her reason. You don’t even have to give me her reason as I don’t frown upon her ONE bit. I admire your daughter. I even posted the other day congrats on her recent award! You need not worry about protecting her from me because I have no ax to grind or no intent of attacking someone. My point was to explain as a parent of an Ivy student that she did not fit into the broad brush stroke you painted whatsoever. I particularly don’t understand your comments given that your own kid was an applicant, though happened to land at a school of her choosing, UChicago. My D might have just as easily landed at Tufts rather than Brown because until mid April she wasn’t sure. She might have picked Tufts. Then Brown had a few things to offer that were more appealing, the ski team being one of them, plus several other things. She didn’t think Brown was BETTER but just favored some things about it more in terms of fit and the feel she got at the accepted student event. In fact, ironically she had come full circle from the beginning of junior year in high school flipping through fat college directories and the first school that popped out as really “just right” was Brown. Brown was not her top favorite for a long time. During winter of senior year, Brown moved into a three way tie for favorite with Tufts and Yale. As I said, she preferred Tufts and Smith over Penn. If she was a prestige seeker, then she’d be odd to pick Tufts or Smith over Penn in many folks’s eyes.

Are there prestige seekers out there? YES…I read students on CC all the time that have an “Ivy or bust” mentality and apply to all 8 Ivies even. Would I call a UChicago student a prestige seeker even though that is a top school? Nope. I think kids who go there are a certain fit and of course, very bright as well. I don’t really think your D is that different than mine or lots of kids represented in this thread. They sought challenging learning environments that fit their personalities and preferences. Your D did and so did mine and lots of others. I don’t understand the negativity toward Ivies but particularly coming from someone who had a child apply to Ivies, geography or no geography. She was from Boston and it is not like she applied to Simmons or Endicott, right?

I think highly of your accomplished daughter who loves to learn and seeks a fine education. I don’t mean ANY attack. I only felt a desire to not be lumped into your attack about others such as my D and so mentioned her case not fitting into your generalization, thank you. I think you have to know by now that I am not an attacking sort of poster. The raw nerve you think you hit was not my feeling of defending something that identified some truth but more that it was so OPPOSITE from my reality in my family that I spoke up. You have no need to worry about your D’s identity as I have no attack meant or intended. Bringing up that she applied to Ivies is not to discredit but to explain WHY I completely found your remarks today so out of character from what you have written in the past. I have read some other parents on CC who have had kids apply to Ivies and then their kids did not end up at one who also later poo pooed Ivies. I simply don’t quite get it. I also read kids and parents after rejections come who put down the college from where they were rejected and I don’t get that either because they applied in the first place so must have had SOME interest in attending.

If you saw an attack in anything I wrote, forgive me as that is not my intent. Some have read your statements as an attack on them because they belong to the group of people about whom you made generalized statements that were interpretted as ALL, and not read as “some”.

Also, the poo pooing of adjuncts, I do have feelings about because I have been an adjunct on the undergraduate and graduate level. I hardly pity my students who have had me and doubt they received something so inferior or fraudulent.

lkf725 · March 23, 2006, 5:01pm

Let’s not criticize posts #1 and #3. Nobody ever said that all students are status seekers, but a great many are. How many post are here seeking advice on how to get into an ivy, any ivy? LOTS!

And if it is a fact that only 40% of Penn classes and only 30% of Yale classes are taught by tenure track professors, I don’t see how saying so is “narrow-minded and prejudiced”.

marite · March 23, 2006, 5:02pm

If we’re discussing tenure-track vs. non tenured, I don’t see what the involvement of graduate students is. 
I also question the idea that adjuncts are necessarily inferior to tenure-track profs. More and more schools (but less so at Ivies and top LACs) are resorting to adjuncts to circumvent the tenure system and to rein in costs. As the Chronicle of Higher Education reports, up to 50% of college-level profs are now adjuncts. I would suspect that the majority of adjuncts are to be found at public institutions, both two years and four years, where reining in expenditures is a major consideration.

Whether at private or public schools, there are different reasons besides costs to hire adjuncts. In some cases, the non-tenured instructors are practitioners; this applies not only to painters, film-makers, music teachers, etc…, but also to preceptors of foreign languages, whose main qualification is of being fluent in the language rather than to produce academic scholarship of the kind that is expected for tenure. In some cases, their role is mostly administrative, but they are expected to teach a class or two. There are also many visiting professors who are invited to fill in when regular faculty go on leave.
Among the Ivies with which I am familiar, I do not see find the problem of non-tenured and non-tenure track profs to be a major issue at all. I wonder where the Penn students got their statistics.

barrons · March 23, 2006, 5:41pm

When Penn or Yale puts a quote in their viewbook saying “60% of your classes will NOT be taught by regular tenure-track faculty” I’ll believe it was what people were buying when they signed up.

No offense to all the great hard-working adjuncts out there. More like truth in advertising.

newmassdad · March 23, 2006, 5:56pm

soozievt,

Thank you for the clarification. In my first post, I chose words poorly, as I never intented to brand ALL HYP attendees with my stereotype.

Fresh in my mind when I made the first post, though, were comments from another discussion thread about some groups (asians, in particular) that seem to excessively gravitate to the Ivies, in pursuit of the name.

I do know, because I have run into it personally, and received the feedback from many other parents etc., that there is a subset of students/families that choose colleges for, shall we say, reasons that we CCers do not hold in high value. I also recognize that this tendency is not restricted to Ivies, but goes to a broad range of institutions.

epiphany · March 23, 2006, 6:16pm

lkf,
For your information, regarding the posts you referred to (identified by me),
there’s plenty to “criticize,” as you say, as these were not merely neutral bits of information or arguments per se about tenure & teaching. They were loaded posts. So you can invoke the first person plural all you want, but I think the plurality of replies here reflect disagreement with the tone of these posts (despite the “us” you invoke), & so far they have not come down in agreement with you.
(1) Post #1 was provocative by its thread title, & unnecessarily so. It belongs in the general category of a Flame
(2) Post #3 was loaded with insinuations & statements about motivations to apply to, attend an Ivy. (Any ole’ Ivy: just name them, they’re all bad & filled with low-life status-seekers who value scholarship & academic industry less than the rarefied, special students attending Reed, Oberlin, Chicago.) That was also a Flame.

As to there being “plenty” of Ivy-seekers on CC, this is the message board that seems to attract them the most. That’s not surprising, since this board contains so much useful information about Ivies – including those who’ve attended, who are admissions officers, whose children attend, etc. Thus, CC is hardly representative of the college-bound in general, in the States & overseas. It’s a skewed population. No inferences can be made from the particular to the full range, by reading College Confidential threads.

As to the population beyond CC, even then the particular does not prove the universal: never has. This is a fundamental principle of logic & classical discipline.

A statement about a class, when not qualified, assumes the full universe. Soozie correctly noted this. Those who claim to value intellectualism need to study syllogisms more carefully before posting sweeping, universalist statements. I really don’t care how, why, what particular families in the city of Boston or the State of Massachusetts believe about Ivy attendance – at least as it pertains to how my own family thinks, & what motivates us.

I never claimed that the discussion about tenure track, or statements about it, was “narrow-minded & prejudiced.” I claimed, correctly, that broad statements, not supported by data, & relying on one’s own personal experience, are not valid (accurate) beyond that personal experience (& therefore narrow-minded & prejudiced).

It seems that more than one person should read more carefuly & think more carefully before posting.

garland · March 23, 2006, 6:22pm

Newmassdad–I just realized you were the old “Massdad”!!! (Slaps head). Wow, am I slow.

Well, I’m glad you’ve tempered your comments. I, like Soozie, feel we’ve gone way back, so I wouldn’t like to think this was representative.

And glad to hear how well your D is doing, national awards and all! :)

barrons · March 23, 2006, 6:46pm

Provocative yes, but not a flame. No fact based discussion is really a flame. I was truly shocked at that data published in a very reputed magazine.
I’d call it a dirty little secret. Maybe that should have been the title.

marite · March 23, 2006, 6:50pm

Barrons:

The Chronicle is a very reputable source; but I have my doubt about the accuracy of the stats gathered by the graduate students. Those with kids at Penn or Yale would surely have heard about the preponderance of adjuncts there, wouldn’t they? It seems very odd to me.

sac · March 23, 2006, 7:24pm

Some institutions have a category of lecturer that confers security of employment after a certain number of years. Often, those lecturers are the people who have chosen to focus on teaching and/or advising, and are by definition some of the best teachers, since that is what they are judged on rather than research.

epiphany · March 23, 2006, 7:53pm

To propose that an Ivy Education is, or may be, a “fraud” is not in the category of “fact-based discussion.”

Wow, there are some way, way off assumptions governing this thread. Big jump from lack of disclosure to “fraud.” Similar big jump from policies governing professorships & TA’s to the [entire] “education.”

Your last sentence is the most accurate. And I myself have referred to dirty little secrets, by that phrase, of an illustrious institution or two in my own backyard. While such a renamed opener would have generated healthy controversy, the titled thread invited something else.

Separately, referring to nmd’s more recent post:
I happen to agree with the fact that there are subgroups of populations, and subgroups of ethnicities (including some Euro-Caucasian subgroups), who place inordinate value on acceptances to certain institutions. But I will again point out that some of these institutions are public, & extend to both high school & college choices. In some pockets of the country, one would think that attending X public high school or college was equivalent to winning a plural-State lottery. I think this is sad for those who truly belong at those institutions because of appropriate fit, but are unnecessarily associated with such dubious “status” (prize)-seekers; it’s equally sad for those who have accepted such a rigid value system & narrowed their options so early in life: Those students may have found an equal or better fit, with even more opportunity, elsewhere.

It’s just that it doesn’t mean that even most – let alone all- of the attendees or applicants to such institutions are motivated by misguided or shallow peer values or subgroup expectations. No such extension or generalization is valid.

barrons · March 23, 2006, 7:59pm

Fraud–an act of deceiving or misrepresenting. Webster’s

I seriously doubt that any information made available to applicant’s discusses the level of use of non tenure track faculty. Probaly not legal fraud but certainly not all up front either.

What if you bought a car and found that it got only 40% of the expected fuel economy?

lefthandofdog · March 23, 2006, 8:08pm

Leave the keyboard for a couple hours and it explodes. Back to soozievt - my comment about it being an argument for LACs really meant - if there’s something you don’t like about a large university, there are alternatives (not that one is better than the other. But when a poster puts out a statement like that, I feel like saying “wow, you could have had a V-8!” No one should be unhappy - for very long - there are too many choices and paths out there. Find one that fits.) Really, I think that could have been today’s theme - the thread about girls having harder competition - it seemed kind of false to me (and I have a daughter). The girl who doesn’t get into Kenyon surely gets in somewhere - and that somewhere is most likely just as good. So I don’t understand the baiting statements - except they are effective. They represent a point of view, then others chime in with opposing points, and I get dizzy and think I’m going to throw up …

epiphany · March 23, 2006, 8:28pm

barrons,
thanks for the effort, but I do not need a quote from Webster’s. Indeed, a fraud refers to an act or a representation, not an entire 4 years, not the representation of the overall product (necessarily) available at an institution. Your premises continue to be way too sweeping. Your thesis statement is not supported by the details supplied. (AP Engl. Lang & Composition; College Freshman English, etc.)

Additionally, in the law, fraud must have the element of intent to deceive, to qualify as fraud. Again, what a stretch.

soozievt · March 23, 2006, 8:52pm

NewMassDad, thank you for apologizing that your words were stronger or not what you had truly intended to mean. I appreciate that. I only responded to what you wrote and my interpretation and others came away with a similar interpretation. It came across as a sweeping generalization and stereotype and surprised me given how I have respected your posts over the years. As with many folks, I don’t like being grouped into some unfair category of such and such people do such and such things. So, thank you for explaining yourself further.

As I said in previous posts, I am aware that there are SOME who do have a mentality of “must attend an Ivy” as I have observed some posters, particularly student posters, who express this very notion. Until I came to CC, I truly was not that aware of prestige seekers with college admissions to the degree that it can exist. It is very much not the norm in my community but I have written on CC before, that I am aware in certain circles that this is a way of thinking. I’m not sure I’d make the jump, however, that those who go to Ivies are not also interested in learning for learning’s sake. In fact, I think adcoms at these Ivies are interested in finding students who love learning. I recall my D’s GC report talking about that very thing about my own kid, in fact. She was always the type to pursue things because she wanted to, not because she had to for college or whatever. So, some kids who go to Ivies are not that different than some kids who to go schools like UChicago, Reed, Oberlin, etc. In fact, many kids who apply to Ivies are also applying to schools such as those. The kids are still who they are, no matter which school they opt to attend (or get in for that matter).

Garland, until fairly recently, I had not caught on that NewMassDad was “old” MassDad (not old, but you know what I mean!) so don’t feel bad…it takes us longer to catch on!

About the original topic, I agree with Ephiphany that the thread title is provactive. I think it is a big jump to relate some information from an article about tenured professors and who teaches courses at Penn or Yale to then calling an education a fraud. It’s an education any way you slice it. People can weigh what criteria is important to THEM in evaluating a college. Frankly, these were NOT statistics that my kids, nor I, evaluated in choosing a college. I even had a kid apply to Penn and Yale and would have been happy to have had her attend, even after reading the article you referenced. I must say that I agree with this statement by Epiphany: "Big jump from lack of disclosure to “fraud.” Similar big jump from policies governing professorships & TA’s to the [entire] “education.” I’d rather have an article posted and discussing the use of professors vs. TA’s or lecturers or adjuncts at various schools. But to label the topic “fraud” is misleading and only your opinion. As well, the jump from policies with professors to the entire value of the education itself is a BIG jump. As well, you jumped from an article on Penn and Yale to “Ivies” in the heading. Even if anything in that article were true, each person has to evaluate a college and for me, I still think quite highly of both Yale and Penn. My D did not opt to go to Penn only because it did not fit her criteria in a college as well as some others she got into but not because the college wasn’t good enough of an education. I don’t think Ivies are a better education than nonIvies whatsoever. I really have no concept of “best school” other than which is best for what my kids want and where they’d be happy and flourish. That was ALL I ever thought about and even now that they are in college, is all that I care about when viewing the “worth” of their educations. I’m sure they’d get a good education at our state university too but it did not fit their college criteria in what they wanted but not because the school wasn’t good enough. I realize others may pick for other reasons but we all have different personal perspectives so let’s not group everyone together.

LefthandofDog…oops, I just saw your post…no problem, no worries. I just wanted to point out that the alternative to the Ivies wasn’t necessarily LACs and also that the statements as to who teaches students wasn’t an Ivy phenomenom or even a large university one. As I mentioned, I do have a child in a very large university that is not an Ivy but she has professors and so I just wanted to make sure that it wasn’t this Ivy vs. LAC or big vs. small college based on this one person’s “take”…I see this all the time on CC and I’d rather read of personal experiences at a college and not broad generalizations or pitting one kind of school against another. NONE are best. What is best is whichever school matches what YOU want in a school. And everyone at that school didn’t necessarily want the same things. For all I know, some kid at my kid’s school only cared about prestige but certainly that is not the majority. My kid’s college attracts kids who want a certain kind of education as well…and I do believe adcoms look to see who fits the school and articulates why they want to attend…I think that is true at most places but giving some examples…I think Brown would look at a match of kids who want open curriculum and to direct their own learning, Chicago attracts certain types of intellectual students…and MIT knows which kinds of kids fit their environment and so forth…so I think not only are kids looking for the right match up but the adcoms are also looking at who fits their insitituion.

Anyway, having gotten a graduate degree from an Ivy myself and having one child who attends one, I think I have had to go through life apologizing for attending an Ivy…have no idea why this is so but I do wonder when folks poo poo the Ivies as I read here or elsewhere and in some cases, those folks may have even applied themselves.

NewMassDad, I value your posts and due to knowing ya a long while, I reacted more out of surprise than anything else because what you wrote did not seem representative of your other posts. Also, please know that I would never reveal anything someone told me privately about any identity. Where your child applied or attended has been posted on the forums so I didn’t think I was getting too personal. I think well of you and your daughter and am glad you’ve clarified your post further as I found it disconcerting that it was not like other posts you’ve shared.

Susan

fudgemaster · March 23, 2006, 9:06pm

An ivy league education is definitely worth the money. It’s a very unique experience to be among very bright students. The competitive nature of the students and the harsh curves for the science classes definitely make me study more than I ever did in high school.

emeraldkity4 · March 23, 2006, 9:26pm

harsh curves- you mean the Ivies * don’t * have grade inflation?

Dizzymom · March 23, 2006, 10:34pm

Responding to the original query: Is an Ivy education really a fraud?

H and I both attended public universities, albeit out of state for both of us, which was terribly exciting for children who had grown up in families where education was not particularly highly valued.

S is at an Ivy League school, which, for parents like ourselves, as you can imagine, is a curious and new experience. We don’t come from three generations of Ivy graduates so we can’t compare his education to ours or our parents’. But what I do very much appreciate about the school he is attending - - and this has nothing to do with the name or the reputation – is that he does not have to declare his major until his junior year.

So many universities have gone the “factory” route, presuming that our young people know, at age 18, what their life’s passion is going to be. I think I have read that for about a quarter of students, that may be the case, but our S is in that other 75%. The freedom – nay, the encouragement – to take classes in any discipline he might choose, is, to me, worth every penny we pay to the insititution scorned by certain parents on CC and glorified by others.

In the end, whether S’s education is “worth it” or not can be determine only by him, but since we, as parents, decided early on that we valued education in a way our own parents did not, we are happy to write the checks. And write them we do, because we pay 100% out of pocket.

That said, whatever “sour grapes” you are seeing stomped on this forum, the sheer numbers of students and the social engineering done by the Ivies and most other colleges and universities most likely will dictate that the next generation of leaders cannot be presumed to come from that same privileged group of schools that produced the leaders of past generations. Our society ultimately rewards merit, and thus tomorrow’s leaders, hopefully, will be those who shine by their talents, not simply by their credentials. If you really believe in your child, you know that he or she will be happy and successful no matter what college or university he/she attends.

Garland, your comments on this thread are so astute. If you haven’t written a book already, I hope you have one in the works.

barrons · March 23, 2006, 10:40pm

It was like a headline in a paper-designed to get your interest. No need to parse the exact legal meaning. It seems to have worked. Why do you think the COHE decided to print the story? It’s not what most would have expected.

jonri · March 24, 2006, 1:32am

Know what Mark Twain said about there being three kinds of lies–lies, d@#n lies and statistics?

Well, the way the grad student unions do the stats is as follows:

Professor Smith teaches constitutional law. It’s a very popular course and there are 240 students enrolled in it. He lectures twice a week. There are sections or discussion groups which meet once a week. Assume there are 10 discussion groups; each meets once a week. According to the unions at Yale and NYU, there are 12 classes held and of these, 10 are taught by grad students. That means that 83% of those classes are taught by grad students. In other words, the statistics are not based on courses, but on classes and each discussion group counts as a class.

Ivy education really a fraud??

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