<p>Alumother, I agree that your daughter would be the same person at Wisconsin or Princeton. So why should she be judged differently depending on her college? </p>
<p>That’s what you are doing to other kids. You are judging them by the school. </p>
<p>The intellectual discussion from Princeton graduates might be higher than the intellectual discussion at no-name school. This doesn’t mean that the intellectual discussion by some students at the no-name school is inferior to the intellectual discussion by Princeton students. </p>
<p>Yet, we paint the intelligent students from no-name school with the same brush as the student body as a whole. And that brush is inferior to the Princeton brush. </p>
<p>We should be judging the students as individuals. But that takes too much work.</p>
<p>Friend. Im saying that so shoot me is not really an insult. She is basically saying something like I have yet seen no argument powerful enough to sway me. So, maybe the only thing left to do is to just get rid of me. Its just a throw away commentary on the arguments she sees, not an attack on the arguers themselves.</p>
<p>But when you say you have a problem with people who disagree with you, then you are attacking Alumother herself. I am saying lets just keep this away from the person so that we can keep on the issue. It is important to me that we do this because I am learning a lot from you, Alumother and others here. I fear itll all just come crashing down if we let it go much further.</p>
<p>The big issue for me now is whether gathering a bunch of smart kids together is enough to lavish a lot of attention on a school. I think it isnt. I think several components are needed: smart kids, money, and great and involved professors. I have read several studies supporting my view. So, when I look for the best schools, I look for them to have ALL of these components. I dont think all of the ivies have them to the same degree. I am also thinking that some LACs have them more than many ivies.</p>
<p>Dstark–I don’t think Alumother, or anyone, is saying that you can tell how bright any individual student is by knowing what school they went to. I teach at a college with a three digit average SAT; there are brilliant students here. In the aggregate, though, the level if discourse here is going to be different, and is different, from a school with a larger cohort of highly academically adept students.</p>
<p>Drosselmeier–I have come to really value and appreciate the sanity and generosity with which you always post. I’m very glad you have joined us here.</p>
<p>“Is Smith elite? We haven’t had a president who graduated from the school.”</p>
<p>Just two President’s wives, and only one who graduated. The profile of the school has changed radically since Jill Ker Conway was there (25 years ago), with more than 62% on need-based aid, and 27% on Pell Grants.</p>
<p>So in terms of social class, I doubt it anymore (though there are still some cashmere twinsets and pearls.)</p>
<p>“When I think of Kerry and Bush, “Great Minds” doesn’t come to my mind.”</p>
<p>I know, but they are quintessential Yale grads at a time that Yale was more economically diverse than it is today.</p>
<p>“The silver spoon image may have been true in the 1950’s and 1960’s, but it is not accurate today - at least, not enough to generalize.”</p>
<p>The silver spoon image is more a matter of “class” than it is purely of money. However, at many of these colleges, there are higher percentages of private school graduates than there were 25 years ago, higher median incomes, and fewer low-income students. (And, at some, even fewer minority students - Princeton has a smaller percentage of African-American students today than they had in 1970, and of those they have, far fewer receive need-based aid. The second statement is likely true at most of the Ivies and prestige LACs.)</p>
<p>When I hear parents say that their kids are not interested in the backgrounds, wealth, and social class of their classmates, I have cause to wonder why the kids are so lacking in intellectual/social curiosity.</p>
<p>There is a very interesting study about names…</p>
<p>Names do have connotations. You hear the name “Taneesha,” and you get a picutre. You hear the name “Yale,” you also get a picture. It is just reality, though not fair in all cases to brilliant neurologists named Taneesha, nor loser dolts who went to Yale.</p>
<p>I understand your position and I know you will consider mine. Alumother became exasperated with the debate and “so shoot me” is illlustrative. I intended to make that point with my response. I did not make an ad hominem attack like “your mother wears army boots”. </p>
<p>However, in the spirit of detente, I want to affirmatively state that I like Ivy League colleges. My son was admitted to one but chose not to attend, and I occasionally regret his decision (although I’m happy when it comes time to pay the bills). Ivy League colleges have historically produced some excellent minds. They are renowned for their faculty, academic achievements, facilities, libraries, and students. I’m old-fashioned enough that I wish they would remain as influential as they once were. </p>
<p>But the fact is, they won’t. They are already losing the battle for National Merit finalists - Yes, they still have plenty, but they don’t have virtually all of them the way they used to, and that trend will continue in the future as more colleges compete for NMFs. NMFs are the lifeblood of the brilliant students that have been rhapsodized by the Ivy League graduates here. Unless it wakes up, the Ivy League will not continue to be the crown jewel of American higher education that it once was.</p>
<p>Regarding my Stepford student comment, it was partly bombast because I liked the sound but I also think it is true. Many graduates are liberal, PC, and destined to live in blue states. For the most part, they support the same environmental, political, and personal causes. They are important to our society and they add much that is good, but it is an homogenous group with rare exception. Similarly, the faculty and trustees/governors of the various Ivy League colleges are homogenous (except for Dartmouth, thanks to Todd Zywicki and Peter Robinson). Institutions like this resist change, and sometimes with good reason: If you have a good product, don’t change it. But change is inevitable in higher education right now and I fear the Ivy League colleges will prove the most resistant to that change.</p>
<p>Where in any of my posts did I say that the ambition and hubris at Harvard was caused by smartness? I never did, because I don’t think that. The kids are screened for smarts (which is what leads them to academic achievement), and they’re also screened for drive and energy (which is why so many of them do things like choreograph dance numbers for local schoolchildren, teach the kids all year, and then produce a performing-arts show starring the kids in the biggest theater on campus in the spring: <a href=“http://www.citystep.org)%5B/url%5D”>www.citystep.org)</a>. Each class of active and motivated freshmen sees what the students before them have done, and they are inspired, as I was, to think big.</p>
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<p>Wrong. Halle Berry (and Will Smith, and Queen Latifah, and Salma Hayek, who have hosted the same event in other years) are not paid for their involvement with Cultural Rhythms. This is likewise true of Richard Gere, Julia Roberts, etc. who come to campus as guests of the Hasty Pudding. The performers at Cultural Rhythms are unpaid undergrads, and the show costs very little to produce. The university paid to build the nice theater where the event is held, but most public schools have a big auditorium. Celebrities come because they’re getting an award that comes from Harvard – and because the kids have the chutzpah to invite them.</p>
<p>Harvard Student Agencies, which publishes the Let’s Go travel guides, is not now and never has been funded by the university (or even by alumni donations). From its founding, it has been a for-profit corporation run by students who wanted to earn money for college costs while gaining hands-on business experience. It’s quite the opposite of kids with money finding a project to spend it on.</p>
<p>The a cappella groups receive zero funding or support from the university – all they get is a performance space twice a year, which is typical of college singing groups nationwide. There’s some alumni support, but as the former business manager of a group, I can tell you that the tours are paid for by gigs. The Krokodiloes can do an annual world tour because they put on up to 200 paid concerts per year, gigging at private events several nights a week during the entire school year. The kids in that group work their butts off performing more often than most professional musicians. They EARN that tour.</p>
<p>The only resource the kids in all these groups have at their disposal that other college kids don’t – besides whatever talent and ambition they bring to the table – is the Harvard name. And yes, that is an asset that goes a long way in selling your product, whether it’s a pudding pot, a travel guide, or an a cappella concert. But don’t confuse it with money.</p>
<p>SBmom, what you say is true, so we judge kids not on merit, but on labels that may or may not be accurate as applied to the individual. </p>
<p>If you had written post #207 months ago, you could have saved me from writing over 1,000 posts. :)</p>
<p>There are people on this bb that have affiliations with hundreds if not over 1,000 schools. People with various backrounds, intellects, drive, opportunities, income, status, etc. Yet, all these different people have ended up in the same place. This bb. I know that means something and is relevant to the arguments made in this thread, but I’m too tired to think what it means.</p>
<p>“Is Smith elite? We haven’t had a president who graduated from the school.”</p>
<p>Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan, Brown, Columbia, and etc. have all been admitting women since the late 60s/early 70s. The early-admit women would now be in their mid-to-late 50s (and an occasional 60s). Find out how many of these women currently serve as members of Congress (Senate or House.)</p>
<p>I resonate strongly with Hanna’s comments, but I think a lot of it is very special to Harvard. In both academic quality and quality of life, H. ranks very close to the bottom of the COFHE schools (27th in the last survey), and that reality is much talked about by Harvard administrators. However, no one can fail to miss the vibrancy, vitality, (and money) that goes into making “off-classroom Harvard” one of the most interesting/exciting places on the planet. But you really don’t (or at least I don’t) see anything comparable (in degree) at YP or anywhere else.</p>
<p>Well, Columbia went coed in 1983, and all the rest you named did so during the 1970’s, not 1960’s. None, to my knowledge, approached gender parity before the 80’s (Harvard got there just last year; Princeton still hasn’t). Even in the late 70’s, we’re talking about schools that were still about 3/4 male. The top law schools, which produce a huge number of future Congresspeople, likewise reached the 60/40 neighborhood only in the 1980’s.</p>
Let me spell this out because somehow what I am saying gets lost. Imagine that at this exact moment we take a snapshot of all students currently enrolled at all the Ivies plus MIT plus Stanford plus top LACs. And at this exact moment we take a snapshot of all students currently enrolled at universities let’s say 30-40 schools down the list. My position is that ON AVERAGE the capability of students to engage in meta-level thinking will be higher in the first group.</p>
<p>I am however not a slave to statistics and if I meet someone who graduated from the 30-40 schools rank I may at first assume they have a high probability of being less capable of meta-level thinking than someone who graduated from the top rank but I will be easily convinced otherwise by their behavior, thinking, discussion, etc.</p>
<p>One other thing we might do is argue this all the way in the other direction.</p>
<p>If I take your argument all the way it implies to me that you really believe that between the student bodies of the mid-rank colleges and the student bodies in the top-ranked colleges there is no difference at all in terms of meta-level thought capabilities? In that case, you must believe that the top universities are bastions of the privileged accessed by social standing and financial resources with intelligence no criteria? Is that the implication?</p>
<p>“…less able than most of us to tolerate different views.”
As a regular person (;)) who has Harvard and Yale graduates in my family, and who has known quite well several Cornell graduates, I would have to agree with this to a certain extent. With some of these people, not all of course, there is an aura of superiority I have felt from them when engaging in discussions. It’s as if, when they make their final pronouncement, there is a feeling of “discussion is closed, why bother to continue since I have spoken.” Of course, I am not generalizing to any degree, just pointing out my experience.</p>
Im not so sure. You mention Dartmouth, which seems to have very active, fairly balanced right, moderate, and left thinking contingents on its campus. I think I once read that the right-leaning paper at Dartmouth once hammered at the schools administration so effectively that the schools president tried to get it shut down. That the president was unsuccessful is really a testament to that schools sense of democracy. I think a Dartmouth education is just plain worth it, and not because of its name. It seems also to have all of the components that I think make for a top-notch undergraduate experience. Also, in America blacks have this reputation of being monodimensional and liberal. I didnt get this from my study of Dartmouth. I recently had the great fortune of being able to read a few papers by Dartmouths students. These were black kids. I read them and just kinda was floored because these kids are really much freer in their approach to black culture than I ever thought possible. I mean, they are speaking Chinese, getting really deep into Asian literature and art forms, and more than a few are openly questioning what has come to be seen as the black status quo. One kid had come to the same conclusions as I about black culture and voiced his vision with stunning precision. It was enough to cause me to really push Dartmouth in my home.</p>
<p>But Princeton also seems not so run over by an imbalance of views. Recently the student body, I think, had a kind of referendum on how students and teachers should get on. Pardon me if I am wrong about some of this. Memory is not one of my strong points, but I think the proposal set forth by the students was pretty right leaning, so much so that the left leaning contingent of the school vigorously lobbied against it. The fantastic thing is that the resolution passed! This suggests to me that at Princeton, you are very likely to find a good deal of variation in worldview, rather than the Stepford syndrome youve mentioned. Personally, this sort of variation is exactly what I would want to have among the students I am to study with, even if I was a totally committed right-wing or left-winged fanatic.</p>
<p>I think Brown, Cornell, UPenn, Yale and Harvard are probably imbalanced toward the left, maybe even significantly so (dont really know about Columbia). But I have read stuff by Harvard folks that suggest even they have a very significant rightward and moderate thinking crowd that perhaps is just not as active as the left. I think that crowd was somewhat evident when Larry Summers stepped down. I suspect the moderates at Harvard are typical moderates who dont speak up much unless things get too out of hand.</p>
<p>I do think the ivies in general will over time lose their dominance, especially as people and schools keep specializing. There are gonna be more MITs and Caltechs that in some areas, significant areas, are gonna blow away all the ivies. But these schools, especially HYP and especially Harvard, have so much caught the imagination of the world, I dont suspect they will go gentle into that good night.</p>
<p>Luckily, though, it isn’t quite as bad as the Taneesha example when we get back to colleges. Whether with a HYP degree or a Wisconsin degree, the brilliant kid will usually find a way to rise. In fact I’d dare to say if someone simply can’t excel in life with a Wisconsin degree, he wasn’t really that brilliant to begin with.</p>