<p>I really depends on where you live. If you are in a well-to-do county in or near a place like Philly or Chicago, many folks will be less than impressed with a Big 10 choice. Just stay out of these small pockets of “elitist slobs” and you’ll be OK :-)</p>
<p>With Penn State in the Big Ten, most people in the Philadelphia area think quite highly of the Big Ten schools. Big Ten is a popular choice- many of the schools are a reasonable driving distance from east coast cities. Remember the WSJ article about all the New Yorkers at IU?</p>
<p>MOW - I agree with what you say about most of Philly. As long as you stay out of a few fancy suburbs, the Big 10 is cool (we decided to settle in one of those suburbs cause the public schools were good). So, yeah we get a warped view here. Kind of like CC sometimes…</p>
<p>There’s nothing wrong with attending a Big Ten School. In fact, the Big Ten conference has one of the strongest (if not, the strongest) groups of academic universities in the country outside the Ivy League. No other Division 1 conference has such overall high-caliber academics than the Big Ten.</p>
<p>I grew up in a fancy Phila suburb and went to IU. The more competitive it becomes to get into the top 20 colleges, the more “prestige” the Big Ten gains.</p>
<p>Someone once flamed me on a message board because I’d mentioned that older S was “going to a Big 10 school”.</p>
<p>The poster thought I was shamelessly bragging.</p>
<p>**The Big Ten Conference is the United States’ oldest Division I college athletic conference. Its eleven member institutions are located primarily in the Midwestern United States, stretching from Iowa and Minnesota in the west to Pennsylvania in the east. The conference enjoys the prestige of both high athletic achievement and academic excellence: nine of the eleven conference schools are considered Public Ivies<a href=“Purdue%20University%20and%20the%20private%20Northwestern%20being%20the%20only%20exceptions”>1</a>. The conference competes in the NCAA’s Division I; its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly known as Division I-A), the highest level of NCAA competition in that sport. Member schools of the Big Ten also are members of the Committee on Institutional Cooperation, a leading educational consortium. **</p>
<p>[Big</a> Ten Conference - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Ten_Conference]Big”>Big Ten Conference - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>There’s nothing shameful about attending a Big Ten school.</p>
<p><– Proud Big 10 alum</p>
<p>I’m not saying that I would choose a school based on sports, but I can’t think of a conference that has a better mix of high quality education with such prominent athletics.</p>
<p>BTW, didn’t know the BigTen was the oldest in the nation.</p>
<p>Proud OSU alum here and I can testify that the education I received was as good as any of my Cornell grad school mates. I had two friends attending Cornell as undergrads(I’m from upstate NY) and the freshman texts in calc(Fisher&Zeber) and physics(Halliday&Resnick)were the same and the chem text they used was assigned as a secondary text(Sienko & Plane), our primary text being much more advanced(Mahan). And I cannot say that the quality of classroom instruction was superior at Cornell either.</p>
<p>And dont even bother to ask why I can remember my frosh year texts more than 40 years later. Maybe it was because it was so traumatic.</p>
<p><strong><em>I really depends on where you live. If you are in a well-to-do county in or near a place like Philly or Chicago, many folks will be less than impressed with a Big 10 choice. Just stay out of these small pockets of “elitist slobs” and you’ll be OK :-)</em></strong></p>
<p>I grew up on Philadelphia’s Main Line and currently live in the north shore suburbs of Chicago, and I’d happily send my daughters to any of the schools in the Big Ten.</p>
<p>Let me join the chorus in answering this question of whether one should be ashamed of attending a Big Ten college. Absolutely, positively NOT. Students can have an excellent experience at all of these colleges and there is nothing to be ashamed about at all. If someone makes you feel that way, then the problem lies with them…not you. </p>
<p>I want to also add that there are several other non-Ivy conferences that provide outstanding academics, eg, the ACC, and top-flight athletic life. The ACC’s top six schools of Duke, U Virginia, U North Carolina, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech and Boston College are all ranked in the USNWR Top 35 with U Miami, U Maryland, Clemson and Virginia Tech in the next 35. </p>
<p>All of the colleges in the Big Ten and the ACC and many other places can provide a great academic experience and oftentimes, much more so than the fabled Ivies, a significantly better social and athletic life experience.</p>
<p>Unless one’s concept of “prestige” is the USN&WR top 20 or “socially prominent” private colleges, there’s no reason to be ashamed of the Big Ten in the least.</p>
<p>Aside from the facts outlined above, the Big Ten is the only sports conference in America of which all its universities have been elected to the 60 member Association of American Universities–most since before the 1920s. Top to bottom, it’s the best collection of universities in America outside of the Ivy League. Both the Pac 10 and ACC match it at the top, but each falls off significantly when one gets to the bottom half of the conference.</p>
<p>The only other collection of public universities that rivals the Big Ten would be the University of California system, and there only Cal and UCLA have major sports programs.</p>
<p>BIG TEN SCHOOLS are excellent. Go for it!</p>
<p>MSU grad (undergrad and graduate school) here. OOS. Turned down UVa’s grad school program (not from Va either) as MSU’s was far superior.</p>
<p>I am a proud Spartan. You will get a great education there (and likely all the Bug Ten Schools). </p>
<p>Remember, not everyone will or can get into a top 50 USNWR school, or wants to for that matter. The majority will not be in that group anyway. </p>
<p>When applying for a job (that’s what counts, not whether your fried Bob is at a higher ranked school than you) everyone has heard of the Big Ten Schools and you can’t say that for so many schools out there. </p>
<p>Good luck. You will be fine. Enjoy your college years.</p>
<p>They’re all excellent schools - you should absolutely positively NOT NOT NOT be “ashamed.”
Anyone who’d tell you otherwise is addicted to quite simply, uneducated.
In fact, you should be proud if you attend any of those schools.</p>
<p>I would think that anyone who disparaged a person for graduating from a Big 10 school isn’t worth your time.</p>
<p>That’s my take, at least.</p>
<p>I completed my two-year degree from community college first and I am proud of that. </p>
<p>I mean, good grief. Ashamed to participate in higher education? No, thank you.</p>
<p>Of course you should be ashamed. The Big 12 is the only way to go. What a dumb question. :-)</p>
<p>Add my vote to those saying no, in general. You may encounter a few people who look down on Big Ten grads, but only a few–and those few often wind up surprised.</p>
<p>Are you kidding? I suggest trying to get in Ohio State’s Honors or Scholars Program. Our valedictorian with perfect SATs or ACTs (can’t remember which one) did just that.</p>
<p>MSU grad here too – out of state, back in the stone age. I was lucky enough to get a full tuition scholarship and get into the Honors College. I got a great education. Go Spartans!</p>