<p>It also doesn’t count on CC unless you go to a liberal arts college, Rice, or the ivy league, but preferably not Cornell and maybe not Brown. Exceptions are made for Michigan, UCB, and sometimes UCLA and occasionally UCSD. You can avoid being the victim of ludicrous statements by Collegehelp (maybe) and others of his/her ilk if you go to another state flagship if, and only if, you are poor and you are in the honors program or the journalism school at Missouri. Otherwise you are doomed to failure.
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<p>You forgot that CAS at Penn doesnt count, but Wharton does.</p>
<p>Yep. Sorry. </p>
<p>Wonder where all the 16 year olds on CC who wanted to go into investment banking are these days? Not that being social parasites bothered them.</p>
<p>Probably doing back-office ***** work.</p>
<p>This thread is funny. The question is: Would these 6 people or others be better off if they had attended a more prestigious school? You can’t answer this with the data available and so people are resorting to preconceived notions. </p>
<p>Two points. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Without a randomized trial in which we could send people (perhaps even roughly comparable people) to NIU or Yale depending upon some randomized assignment mechanism, we won’t have a great ability to measure the influence of Yale and its peers versus NIU and its peers. Would these 6 kids already have Nobels or Macarthurs or whatever had they attended Yale? Who knows?</p></li>
<li><p>I didn’t think that there was any controversy over the fact that people in the US can be very successful without attending name brand schools or without graduating from them. But, we still don’t know the counterfactual: What would have happened if they’d gone someplace snazzier, to use the article’s words? And, what would happen to kids admitted to Yale if they went someplace lesser? We just don’t know.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>My preconceived notion, based upon my own limited experience, is that while one can get a very good education at lots of schools, a limited number of elite schools can do two things for their students (though not all partake of the elixir). First, they can change horizons. Kids who might think I want to be the best in Georgia begin to think they want to be the best in the world at what they do. Can you have that attitude at a less snazzy school? Sure. But, many kids don’t. Some would pick it up at a more prestigious institution. Second, the schools afford great contacts, which can be helpful in a career. These contacts include your classmates, alumni, and professors. Do all students use them? No. Do they benefit those that do? Sometimes. Could these things have helped the 6 sibs? Sure. Would it have made a difference. We don’t know.</p>
<p>On average, I’d expect a benefit. But, will this play out for positively all people? No. Moreover, some people might not be ready for the intensity of a top 15 school and might recoil and be less successful than had he attended someplace else. I was talking last week with a friend who told me that his 3 freshman roommates at Harvard were all math major types. One had placed in the Putnam national exams. The second was really smart, but was in awe of the first kid and ended up doing something different. Good career but didn’t go on in math. The third kid was the strongest kid in West Virginia (I think) and was bright but not in the league of the other two. He basically couldn’t handle the competition, ended up dropping out and when he was last heard from, he was flipping burgers (literally). He probably would have been better off at WVU.</p>
<p>Collegehelp, the “subtle differences” you detect in your colleagues might not necessarily be a bad thing. Elite colleges may develop one kind of thinking, but other colleges have their own methods and benefits too. This is the classic “ivory tower” dilemma. Just because someone has a world class degree doesn’t mean he or she knows what will be practical in the real world. </p>
<p>If nothing else, at least these no-name colleges give students a healthy helping of humble pie.</p>
<p>Bravo to these parents, and to their kids…</p>
<p>Imho—this demonstrates that it is largely what you do with your education, the character of the person, motivation, perseverence, etc. and these traits are nurtured by parents who value education and are simply there for their kids. </p>
<p>I wonder how much more successful collegemom thinks these individuals would be if they went to “top colleges”.</p>
<p>I’m going to agree with collegehelp in that students who are interested in going on to PhD programs will be better off at one of the schools that has a good track record for sending kids on to such programs.</p>
<p>They will likely have access to research projects, funding and prominent profs for LOR’s in this time of stiff competition for admission. Paul Sereno himself teaches at such a college, University of Chicago, and I knew an undergraduate who got to work with him.</p>
<p>I can see the advantage my daughter has had at Brown in such research opportunity, and the reputation of her rigourous department (Computer Science.) Such a vastly different experience that mine was as a California State University student.</p>
<p>Kudos to the Sereno family in any case. And it’s great to see that you can get there from most anywhere, should you aspire. I do suspect they all graduated long ago and I’m sure the numbers game has changed.</p>
<p>Like the Sereno parents, I spent a lot of time doing art, music, literary, science and math, games and fun stuff with my kid from when she was very small.</p>
<p>On and On this debate continues…</p>
<p>Each person has their own definition of “success.” </p>
<p>Many people equate a Ph.D with success. Others don’t.</p>
<p>Many people equate making money, starting a business, or being a CEO with success. Others don’t.</p>
<p>Many people equate being at the “top” of one’s field with success. Others don’t.</p>
<p>External accomplishments are not always an accurate measure of “success.” One can be, by all external measures, a success, yet miserable as a human being. This is not to denigrate achievement in any way. </p>
<p>I would be willing to bet that there is something more going on with this family than simply the externals.</p>
<p>when people say ‘success’ in the context of the thread, read ‘academic success’, because that’s what we are discussing here – success with GETTING A PHD.
'</p>
<p>The only thing this thread teaches me is that it’s perfectly okay to be politically correct until you lose touch with reality :)</p>
<p>Way to trash michigan and west point. Larry Paige was an alum of the college of engineering, one of the best undergraduate engineering programs there is.</p>
<p>Quote: “Many people equate a Ph.D with success. Others don’t.”</p>
<p>…And then there are others who equate a Ph.D with a failure to get a real job…;)</p>
<p>Can someone point to reliable statistics showing PhD recipients who have real jobs (e.g., curing diseases, teaching our college kids) and those not utilizing their training? I bet some PhD has studied the question. ;)</p>
<p>Going back to the beginning and the Sereno article–I still find it hard to fathom that collegehelp could denigrate the actual, real achievement of the 6 Serenos by saying that they could have done BETTER if they’d gone to a “better” undergraduate school. I mean, really, what’s the point of saying that? I don’t know his siblings’ work, but I do know Paul’s, not just because I’m interested in paleontology but also because I live in Chicago, where he’s based. What is it, actually, that could be better? And is his work tainted because he went to NIU? Should he have a disclosure form that he gives to students and colleagues saying that he’s not as good as he could be because of that? Should U of C have hired him at all? What about the many, many terrifically successful people (however you define that) who went to not-Ivys? (Which would be most of them.) </p>
<p>If going to college is only about being with your own kind, so to speak, we haven’t come a very long way as a society. </p>
<p>Sorry to belabor the point but this kind of snobbery (and that’s all it is) makes me into a Robespierre.</p>
<p>collegehelp is having difficulty comprehending the fact that they are more successfuly than a majority of ivy-league graduates</p>
<p>yay for snobbiness</p>
<p>“collegehelp is having difficulty comprehending the fact that they are more successfuly than a majority of ivy-league graduates”</p>
<p>You aren’t grasping the concept that he is trying to explain. I’m not even going to bother trying to explain it because it’s so simple, yet you don’t want to understand so there is no hope. Go ahead and make some rebut now.</p>
<p>The simple point here is that the kids learned for the love of learning, not for grades. They actually might have been at a disadvantage in an Ivy because they weren’t used to learning in a competitive environment, and might have been entirely turned off.</p>
<p>collegehelp detects “subtle differences” between his or her esteemed self and Phd candidates from lesser undergraduate institutions. Perhaps this is nothing but profound snobbery and the understanding of class differences that is an inevitable byproduct of education at these institutions. My son goes to an elite LAC and I wanted him go to the best college he could, but this gets absolutely ridiculous. In my long career as an attorney I have worked with many interns from elite and lesser-known institutions and I can tell you without a doubt that the graduates of elite schools have not been better, though it might be hard to convince a few of them of that reality. Sometimes they’ve been a real pain, with a “what can you do to make this a worthwhile experience for me?” attitude, while kids from less renowned schools are focused on making themselves useful, learning something and getting a job. Some of these prep school and Ivy League grads would also have an insurmountable challenge relating to a jury if they wanted to be litigators.</p>
<p>Methinks collegehelp needs to grow up, get out of school and live a real life. It may then come as an unpleasant shock to find that the world is less impressed with that undergrad degree than would be fair and just–but one can always commiserate over a few Chardonnays with old classmates who have suffered similar indignities and injustices in life.</p>
<p>Lonesin, if collegehelp were simply saying that different schools have different experiences no one would be arguing with him. He quite clearly stated that he believes that selective schools are measurably better than less selective schools and that students, with few exceptions, would be better served by going to the most selective school that suits their needs than considering other factors.</p>
<p>Also to the person earlier in the thread – I was pointing out the amount of students who didn’t go to Ivy Leagues and traditionally accepted ‘selective’ schools. I noted that the USNA and USMA are selective schools, but they are selective in a different way than Ivy Leagues. Michigan is a great school, but the person I pointed out who went there was <i>in-state</i> for MI (it’s easier to get in in-state). And Denison, although a great school, is generally not recognized as one of the ‘top’ schools either here on CC or in reality.</p>
<p>Vossron, the unemployment rate for Ph.Ds is relatively low – it varies by field, but it is less than 3%. It is even smaller in science and engineering fields, where it hovers around 1.5%. By comparison, the unemployment rate for all civilian workers is 4.4%. Also, only 4.2% of S&E Ph.D holders reported not finding a job that was related or somewhat related to their training. I’m sure that the rates are higher in the humanities. (For the National Science Foundation, the people who compiled these statistics, ‘science and engineering’ includes not only the natural and physical sciences but also psychology and the social sciences like anthropology, sociology, economics, political science and some other fields.)</p>
<p>[Chapter</a> 3: Science and Engineering Workforce: Labor Market Conditions for Recent S&E Degree–Holders](<a href=“http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind02/c3/c3s2.htm]Chapter”>http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind02/c3/c3s2.htm)</p>