<p>dstark - :p</p>
<p>I wonder if the undergraduate degree connections/ prestige are sufficient to “launch” a larger number of students w/out grad school? Also lots of “connected” kids go straight to family businesses & Wall Street.</p>
<p>“Colleges That Change Lives” makes the point that the Earlhamns & Beloits “turn on” late bloomers really well, and this accounts for the high #s going on to grad school. I posted on the Smith thread an anecdote of a friend-- whose D had been a lackluster student in HS, barely squeaked into Smith, and wound up at MIT grad school.</p>
<p>The same kid, had she been a “development admit” at Harvard might not have turned on in the same way; she needed the nurturing environment… Four years later she had the chops to be admitted to MIT. </p>
<p>In some ways when we talk about relative merits of students we are identifying that HYPS kids have hit their stride in HS; many other kids get there, but just a bit later.</p>
<p>
Very insightful, imho.</p>
<p>The top rung HAS grown. The problem is that certain names or acronyms are used as shorthand for a larger group; but sometimes people misunderstand that and think these names and acronyms represent only an extremely limited number of colleges (eg, Ivy, or HYPSM or ASW).
As well, some colleges are less well known or “less desirable” because of location as opposed to the excellence of their faculty and offerings or the qualifications of their students. This is particular true of colleges in the Midwest. But WUSTL has benefitted from the overflow of highly qualified students who did not get into HYPSM as well as its hugely expanded endowment and its aggressive marketing. Rice is another great university whose reputation has grown in the last decade or so. Reed, Pomona have become better known on the East Coast.</p>
<p>“mini - re your point on % who go on to PhD, EdD, MD etc. Why do you think that % is not so high from the Ivies?”</p>
<p>Oh, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think the performance of the Ivies in the Ph.D., Ed.D., M.D. sweepstakes is so low either. It’s just that the “value-added” at the Ivies is likely lower than it is at many other top 50-75 schools. Again, not that it’s bad; but the students come in with so much, the added value is less likely to be there. In contrast, a place like Hope College, which accepts 90% of its applicants, has the highest rate of undergraduates published in peer-reviewed journals in biology in the country - Harvard, Yale, and Princeton aren’t even close. And Earlham is close behind.</p>
<p>I think in the sciences there are, percentage-wise, fewer research opportunities at the Ivies, especially in the first two years. I know for sure there are fewer than at Smith I also think that, for the average student at the best 75 or so colleges and universities (the top students do great wherever they are), there is more likely to be quality advising and, especially, mentoring at many of the non-Ivy schools. I was a TA at UChicago once upon a time. I knew my stuff! But I would have been a terrible mentor (and I was!)</p>
<p>However,I think the main explanation is the one that the Ivies provide themselves. They are rejecting, year after year, entire classes of students equally academically talented as the ones they are accepting. These students are going some place else. I expect that a larger number of Ivy students - or at least the well-heeled ones (who are overrepresented in admissions)-- are attracted to investment banking and the like rather than to slogging out a Ph.D. in biology, and then finding themselves teaching at North Dakota State. </p>
<p>And, finally, the admissions committees at the Ph.D., Ed.D. and MD programs have cottoned to the fact that, compared with the rest of the pool of applicants, Ivy students are just not relatively stronger. The admissions committees are voting with their dollars (in fellowships), and they are not overrepresenting Ivies in these decisions. In short, to answer your other question, the top rung may not have grown to 50-75 schools for us, but it HAS for the graduate admissions committees.</p>
<p>Please don’t over-interpret. Ivies offer terrific educations, and to a terrific group of students. It’s just that the gap is much smaller than it once was, and after four years…well, the data tells the tale.</p>
<p>Perhaps students who choose to apply to Ivies and other research universities are inherently more “preprofessional” (aiming for medical, law, business school, and/or investment banking) while students who choose LACs are more interested in learning for learning’s sake and therefore more tend toward academia (graduate school to earn a Ph.D. in the arts and sciences).</p>
<p>Well, they do tend to be wealthier (speaking of Ivies or AWS specifically.). But the gaps in medical school admits are closing as well, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the same in admits to law schools outside of the HYS social hierarchy. However, as there are few scholarships/fellowships to these places, inherently students from lower-income backgrounds, whether they go Ivies or not, are less likely to apply generally speaking, and/or more likely to apply to the lower-cost ones. To the degree that wealth is overrepresented at a college or university, to that same degree one would expect to find overrepresentation in costly post-grad educations.</p>
<p>But, to feed on your explanation, if one has been well mentored at a small LAC in, say, biology (Hope or Kalamazoo or Earlham are good examples), I think it would be more likely to consider going on for a graduate degree in such a field (in emulating a mentor’s path.) Anyhow, they are probably lots of explanations for the data - however, one simply can’t ignore that the data are there.</p>
<p>mini - The thing is, people who go to medical, law, or business school, in general, can anticipate a higher income in the future than people who earn Ph.D.s. And the time before earning a professional salary is also longer, as Ph.D.s can take 5 years or longer, and then be followed by years as a post-doc, instructor, etc. So I don’t get your reasoning about wealthy people going into the professions vs. poorer to Ph.D.s. I think it may also have to do with the inherent nature of the individuals - people who seek a LAC environment with small classes and more professor interaction may be the type who tend to go into academic careers. Maybe I am off-base on this, it’s just my theory.</p>
<p>wish-it-was-april
:rolleyes: That is the best I have ever heard. He was not good enough for them as a student, but now he’s teaching their amazing students!! Does this mean that students graduating from Ivies are not really able to effectively communicate their knowledge? So Ivies have to go elsewhere to hire teachers? Okay,okay, jk.</p>
<p>“mini - The thing is, people who go to medical, law, or business school, in general, can anticipate a higher income in the future than people who earn Ph.D.s.”</p>
<p>I’m not talking about middle class folks here, I’m talking about poor people. Anticipation (coupled with huge loans) just doesn’t cut it when you have a disabled mom with 3 younger kids at home. This is why, for example, Princeton’s plan to do away with the loan component of financial aid hasn’t borne great fruit, but Brown’s plan to do away with expectations for first-year employment as part of a financial aid package has (President Simmons is the daughter of sharecroppers, so she knows.). The first is aimed at middle income families (which is a good thing - I don’t have any problem with that.) But low-income students often use work at school, and during the summers to help to continue to support their families back home, rather than being able to use the funds for tuition. The dollar in the pocket today is worth a lot more than the anticipation of two tomorrow.</p>
<p>And imagine a low-income student with $18k in loans, no assets to speak of, siblings at home (or struggling to meet tuition payments themselves), figuring out whether to get up the gumption to find the financial support for $50k/year at Harvard Law. It does happen, of course, but, even for law school, if one planned to go, Brigham Young would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?</p>
<p>(Wealthier people also tend to go into law and high-finance at higher rates, I would think, because they are more likely to have the connections to do well - and the family mentoring in what these professions are all about. None of this will matter much with someone seeking a Ph.D. in biology, except in “entrepreneurial” areas.)</p>
<p>mini - I am pretty ignorant about careers in finance, such as investment banking, as neither my husband or me work in this field (and I have a personal aversion to learning about investing, etc, but that is another story). However, my son (a college junior) is interested in finance as a possible career and I have been learning from him how one goes about entering this field. It seems that the major investment banking employers interview juniors at major universities for summer internships, and these interviews are often grillings where fact-based questions relating to solving problems in finance, mathematics, brain-teasers, etc. are asked. If the student does well in the summer job, they are often offered a full-time job after graduation. These jobs are usually for about one to three years, after which the person often leaves to go to business or law school or to a wide variety of other employers. Both the summer internships and the permanent one to three year jobs demand grueling hours, seven days a week, with very few days off. As I understand it, the experience from the first job lasting one to three years opens up many opportunities for the future. My son is pretty savvy (for a college student) and he didn’t mention anything about connections being involved. In fact, I know that a number of his friends who have been very successful in landing these jobs are very bright students with high GPAs who are first generation Americans and children of parents who are not wealthy nor do they have connections. It seems like a really stressful and grueling process, but from what I have been told and read on the internet, it seems like it is open to anyone who has a relevant major and can do well in these interviews. Am I missing something here regarding connections? It would seem to me that this type of career WOULD be open to a person from a poor family who is attending a top-ranked school, and it might be attractive to such a person as they can get a relatively high-paying job directly after graduation. As I said, my only sources of information have been my son and then searches I have done on the Internet, since all of this was new to me and I wanted to see what it was all about.</p>
<p>Choc and Berurah- it is a good one, isn’t it. Should make lots of kids (and their parents) who didn’t get into their first choice ivy feel better, I hope. By the way, he was also rejected at one of the AWS. He ended up at a fine state u where he graduated with honors. And met me :)! </p>
<p>The reputation of whom you studied with - at least 25+ years ago and probably today too - was very important in getting a job interview. If that person had colleagues and contacts at a school with an opening in the right area, his student might come to the top of the pile as one to look at. That becomes probably more important than where the undergrad degree was from…</p>
<p>“It would seem to me that this type of career WOULD be open to a person from a poor family who is attending a top-ranked school, and it might be attractive to such a person as they can get a relatively high-paying job directly after graduation.”</p>
<p>I DO think that is true - the question is whether they will have the gumption to go for it. And from the little I understand, business schools are changing, and they are very much more unlikely to accept students directly out of college - ANY college – and more likely to require experience first. The question is whether students will have the chutzpah to grab for it. (As I said before, being able to hobknob with wealthier students can provide a lot of that drive, or, anecdotally, at least it did for me.)</p>
<p>But…(and it’s a big but), there are very few (relatively speaking) students from low-income families at HYP (or WS, though A has been changing)… The percentage of Pell Grant recipients (those with incomes at approx. $40k/year and below) at Harvard in 2003 (the latest data I have) was 6.8%, virtually the lowest in the nation, and, according to Harvard, the next quintile up income-wise had even fewer students. At Princeton and Yale the numbers aren’t much higher. </p>
<p>I have never seen any data on the issue of the degree to which HYP/AWS overrepresentation in HYS law/business schools reflects family income patterns (and/or legacies, which may amount to the same things), but I have strong suspicions.</p>
<p>I used the law school example because YOU did. Then when I point out that what you are saying is untrue, you say it doesn’t matter. Now, you say:</p>
<p>“And imagine a low-income student with $18k in loans, no assets to speak of, siblings at home (or struggling to meet tuition payments themselves), figuring out whether to get up the gumption to find the financial support for $50k/year at Harvard Law. It does happen, of course, but, even for law school, if one planned to go, Brigham Young would make a lot more sense, wouldn’t it?”</p>
<p>First, no it wouldn’t. Why? Because Harvard Law gives NEED-BASED financial aid and BYU Law does not and because Harvard Law has a loan forgiveness program that means if you choose to take a low paying job you don’t have to repay the loans–including some UNDERGRADUATE loans–and, to the best of my knowledge, BYU does not. So, for the genuinely poor, HLS costs less than BYU Law does. And for the kid who is worried about having to pay back all that money, it’s good to have the guarantee that if you don’t get --or choose to take–a high paying job post-law school, you won’t have to pay back loans. HLS gives you that guarantee; BYU does not. That makes a lot of savvy middle class kids who go into debt for law school choose one of the top schools because they have much better loan forgiveness programs. You know that if you do end up making big bucks and can afford to pay it back–and you’re more likely to make those big bucks coming straight from law school coming out of Harvard than out of BYU–you’ll pay it back. If you decide to be a Legal Aid attorney, you won’t have to repay most of what you borrowed if you go to Harvard. If you go to BYU, you will. </p>
<p>Second, the example you give undercuts your own argument. I think that fewer families are willing to shell out the big bucks or go into debt to attend Kalamazoo rather than state U. than are willing to attend HYPSMC rather than state U. Smith’s a fine school, but fewer people are willing to pass up William and Mary or UVa or UMichigan or Indiana U for Smith than for Harvard or MIT. (You may think that’s a stupid decision; I’m just saying that’s what people tend to do.) </p>
<p>As for Ph.Ds. there are lots of reasons.One is that the LACs use the percentage of graduates who earn Ph.D.s In the old days, only 70% of Reed grads got a degree. Some of the stats include Ph.Ds earned by people who graduated in the old days. When you lop off the bottom 30% of the class and only look at graduates, it gives you rather distorted results, IMO. I think it’s fairer to look at the percentage of incoming students who earn Ph.Ds. (You, of course, will disagree.) If you used that as the standard, Yale would wipe most of the LACs on that list off the face of the earth. Also, some of the data are from an era in which women could not attend Yale or Princeton. During that era, women who went to Smith or Wellesley did remarkably well in graduate school. (And, while it may be politically incorrect to say it, today women’s colleges have a higher proportion of lesbians and my own anecdotal experience is that lesbians are more likely to go on and put in the 7+ years a Ph.D. in the humanities takes right now than are heterosexual women.) </p>
<p>I disagree that the gap is growing smaller. I think it’s actually increasing. Why? Because more kids DO want to go to the top schools now. This year, every Ivy except Yale saw an increase in the # of applications. The top schools are now need-blind for internationals; the others are not. This in and of itself affects the quality of the student body. </p>
<p>There’s no way that you’re going to convince me and, obviously, I’m not going to convince you. Again, I admit that some people, especially those who are in the market for merit money, will choose Smith over Harvard…but that still doesn’t mean that in the aggregate, the students at Smith are as accomplished as those at Harvard. I freely admit that there are many students who are every bit as good students as those who get into Harvard who get rejected every year. But again, that doesn’t mean that the gap in the quality of students at the top 50 schools is narrowing.</p>
<p>mini - I think that the type of person from a poor background who had the gumption to apply and be admitted to a top-ranked college would likely also have the gumption to pursue a career of interest to him or her.<br>
Also, my knowledge of business school requirements is also somewhat limited, but I understand that almost all business schools now require work experience before attending. For example, several years ago a young man we know graduated from a nearby state university and wanted to go on to his MBA at the same school. He had to work for at least one year, I believe, before he could go on to his MBA.</p>
<p>jmmom asks why hasn’t the top rung grown larger? Maybe it’s just as simple as the #'s…not enough population growth in high school aged kids to overwhelm the system yet…so Yale can be choosy and get 90+ percent from the top tenth of their high school class…Rice about 80% are top tenth…at B.C. about 70%…</p>
<p>While there are a lot of bright kids there are not enough to flood even “top tier” schools with 1500+ SAT’s</p>
<p>Maybe there is a difference between Yale and Lehigh in terms of the caliber of the student body (please don’t be offended Lehigh folks)</p>
<p>“While there are a lot of bright kids there are not enough to flood even “top tier” schools with 1500+ SAT’s”</p>
<p>I don’t know Oldman, in 2003 when I checked the statistics of students applying to Yale with a 1550 and above the number was 9000 . That would fill the top 6 and that is just the students applying to Yale.</p>
<p>MotherofTwo, you are correct, getting a job with a top tier investment bank does not require family connections. You can go to the website of Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, etc. and go to their recruiting section and see the calendar of their “cultivation events” (where they get kids excited about working for them) and their “recruiting events” (starting with interviews, then dinners, etc. for students with offers).</p>
<p>The list of schools they recruit at reflects several things-- their history at certain schools (why Williams pops up so often despite its relatively small size and remote location), the size of the pool of high quality applicants from that school (explains Wharton) and a few “outliers” which may reflect a senior executives alma mater, or a specialized program in Finance which is highly regarded.</p>
<p>Kids get hired for these programs from other schools… but it is much harder. However, the lack of “connections” isn’t a factor, if by connections you mean family status or friends from the Country Club. Nevertheless, it is much easier to get hired from one of the company’s “core schools” than from a place where they’ve never recruited anyone before, just because the economics of sending a team of high priced executives to spend a day interviewing 21 year olds suggest that banks like to go where there’s a high probability of extending several offers, rather than poking through hundreds of applicants in the hopes of finding one.</p>
<p>All that being said-- if your son has strong quantitative skills, is fast on his feet, and has the “triple crown” that banks look for, namely high SAT’s, a high college GPA, and at least one campus leadership or distinctive accomplishment in college, he’s got a good shot at one of these programs.</p>
<p>Hope this is helpful.</p>
<p>Thanks Blossom, I can see what you are saying about the companies only recruiting at certain schools. My son goes to Stanford and many of the students (including him) have had multiple interviews for these summer jobs during the past several weeks. And it occurred to me that students at schools where these recruiters weren’t interviewing wouldn’t have had the same opportunities as those at the schools you referred to as “core” schools. At least for the summer jobs, it doesn’t seem like “cultivation events” are involved. It is more like, once someone makes you an offer, you are expected to accept quickly without even being able to do the rest of your interviews or even possibly wait to hear from other interviews you have already had. As I said, this is all new to me, but my son seems to thrive on economics/finance and he fortunately seems to fit the profile you described in the last paragraph of your post. You seem very familiar with this system - what kind of distinctive accomplishments in college are the banks looking for?</p>
<p>“I don’t know Oldman, in 2003 when I checked the statistics of students applying to Yale with a 1550 and above the number was 9000 . That would fill the top 6 and that is just the students applying to Yale.”</p>
<p>It would be interesting to check the source for that number and compare it to </p>
<p><a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools; </p>
<p>to see just how many 1550 and above scorers should be in each year’s applicant pool. The College Board figures I post the link to should be single-sitting aggregate scores, and of course most of the top colleges give applicants the benefit of their highest sum of individual SAT I sections from multiple sittings of the test, but still I think that the number of 1550-and-up scores has a hard limit that MIGHT fill the Ivy League but would definitely NOT fill all the CC top 25 universities or top 25 LACs.</p>