<p>barrons, I believe that mini’s point is that the Ivy League and its ilk poorly serve their female undergraduates, not that they poorly serve their students in general. (The ilk of the Ivy League apparently includes Wesleyan and Amherst, but not Stanford, Duke, or Georgetown.)</p>
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<p>Don’t agree. This is about historical prestige, but not about money or facilities. Scores of less famous universities – Indiana U comes to mind – have BETTER, larger performance spaces than Harvard’s best. They also regularly pay big bucks to fly in celebrity performers as the guests of the college (I saw Ani DiFranco at Bryn Mawr; Bill Cosby at Haverford). IU students may not invite Halle Berry to host a show because they fear she wouldn’t come, and they may be right…because there’s nothing in it for her. There’s nothing in it for her at Harvard, either, except prestige, a tiny dressing room, and a bunch of favorable national press. Money a hundred years ago contributed to Harvard’s reputation today, but Harvard’s name now brings people independently of money or facilities.</p>
<p>Now, undergrad housing and dining; research labs; faculty recruitment; libraries; nationwide marketing? That’s where Harvard’s money comes in. Big.</p>
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<p>Well, you and I disagree. As long as you transferred all the kids at once – so that existing student clubs moved intact, and the seniors would still teach the freshmen how to run things – you’d have a way more vibrant scene than Podunk U. I don’t know if they’d be able to book 200 gigs a year without a famous name, but the Kroks would still be a major force in a cappella, etc., etc.</p>
<p>What’s wrong with someone who’s bright and driven wanting to be with others like him/herself? I’m no rocket scientist, but I like to be with people who have something to offer in that way. It makes me stretch. I like it when my kids are around bright kids, too. They have to keep on their toes. I’m not saying that only bright kids are at HYP but as someone said, at the elite schools its a concentrated environment. What’s wrong with wanting that?</p>
<p>I agree with you regarding Dartmouth. That’s why I specifically excepted Dartmouth later in my comment but I didn’t make it clear. I’m glad that you addressed Dartmouth in more detail. </p>
<p>I think the verdict is still out on Princeton. The recent vote was encouraging but the aftermath suggests widespread opposition to the result and a strong movement to set it aside.</p>
<p>Somebody wrote that a huge advantage to going to an elite college/U is that at a relatively young age you meet students from all over the world. My college wasn’t considered elite, but it was private, and there were women from Iran, Sri lanka, Peru etc. and they added so much to the mix. The idea of being somewhere where everyone is from the same state sounds kind of…limiting to me. (no flames, please. IMHO)</p>
Vast amounts of that historical prestige is grounded, often quite directly, in money. William and Mary is nearly as old as Harvard, but it doesnt have the prestige largely because it has never been much driven by the money.</p>
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This is much bigger than mere performance space. It is about historical prestige, which is grounded in money. It is not about the innate chutzpah of students. I suspect that the same students, even if moved together to Podunk U., simply would not create the same thing you are talking about here. Indeed, they very likely wouldnt even try. I think the influence of money is quite significantly driving them, and that this discussion is overlooking this significant fact.</p>
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This really supports my point. IU students here are simply making up in hard cash for what they lack in historical prestige grounded in money. But we are seeing students with the same initiative due to their having resources. Move all of Harvards students to IU, and youll probably get the same thing because those students will simply not try some things due to a lack of resources, including the significant resource of Harvards name. Here we have a school that rates near the very bottom of student satisfaction and educational quality in its peer group. But it has a lot of capital stored up by various means. I dont think it is all a matter of student quality here.</p>
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haha, which for an actress is as good as gold.</p>
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Money contributed a hundred years ago appreciates dramatically over time. It is that money that finances the professional schools that really give Harvard its name, which name draws people like Helle Berry, smart students, etc. I am not saying it is ALL a matter of money. I just dont think the idea of Harvards students being so much better than everyone else has any real support.</p>
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It comes in big from a lot of other places and for a lot of other reasons too. The picture, I think, is possibly a LOT bigger than you are presenting here.</p>
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haha. Okay. We will just have to disagree. I really dont know if what I am saying is all that true. I suspect it is quite true because of everything I am seeing. When you talk of seniors showing people stuff, you are really talking about kids who have accumulated intellectual capital from Harvard, capital which spans hundreds of years and that is made possible because of lots and lots of money. Now I am saying, take the same kids, aggressiveness and all, take them fresh out of their respective high schools, kids just like YOU, and then drop them in Podunk U., and I think youd probably get results that are far less than what you get were they stamped with a big name and dropped within a bunch of resources. I do not think the students are so much more special than everyone else. The difference seems to me to be money. Follow the money.</p>
But dont you think it says quite a lot that the resolution even saw the light of day, and that it even passed? Do you really think the same thing would even have a snowball’s chance at any other ivy, except Dartmouth? This suggests to me that Princeton is not completely overrun by one view. That the resolutions opponents think they have the muscle to overturn it also says a lot. It seems we are talking a campus with fairly equal ideological camps. Right?</p>
<p>Yeah, yeah. Im using the word fairly here pretty loosely. But still </p>
<p>I’m an Ivy grad. I worked extremely hard before and during my UG school.</p>
<p>Most Ivy grads are unemployed upon graduation (so many go onto grad schools for a reason); don’t make any more money than average students. Many are downright poor, strugglin and going nowhere.</p>
<p>It’s a real mystery why so many strive to get into the Ivies.</p>
<p>Speaking of the link between privilege and philanthropy, I’d like to add a thought which ties this thread (particularly the Peace Corps anecdote) to discussions about diversity at the elite schools. The message has been disseminated that the Ivies are indeed interested in students from all economic and social backgrounds, and are willing to contribute significant financial aid so that these students can afford to attend. However, as kids from families with no experience at all with this stratum of university consider whether they are qualified to apply, they often rely on the guidelines and formulas-for-Ivy-success taught by GC’s, as well as hear-say from peers. (Our family fell into that category to an extent, though now I have a better handle on things due to CC.) A consistent idea we heard repeated over and over in the media and at elite college information sessions was the emphasis placed on community service and volunteerism. Top colleges want to see these in their candidates and they want their students to particpate in charitable endeavors once they arrive on campus as well.</p>
<p>So great was the emphasis on this theme during our Yale info. session, for example, that we concluded our S would have little chance for admission there due to a lack of significant community service on his resume. This was frustrating and disheartening. My son was carrying a course load of 6 difficult AP classes, was a three-season athlete, and worked on weekends. In addition to some minor school-based EC’s, he helped out at home with his younger siblings, particularly when his father was traveling. Where on earth would he find the time to volunteer on top of that? In addition, the question by a prospective student whether attending summer courses at Yale would help a student gain admission. The answer was “Well, it certainly wouldn’t hurt.” Summer courses costing thousands of dollars? Despite that discouragment, my S applied anyway. The Yale interviewer asked him why he had not participated in certain EC’s related to his intended major, like Model UN. This was an intimidating question. At our school, those clubs are very expensive since they entail field trips to other schools and overnight stays. My S knew that would not be feasible for him and stuck to the free EC’s.</p>
<p>Paid employment is also rather passe these days. Most of the top students at my S’s HS have never held a job. During the school year they study and over the summer they also study or travel. Typical Ivy student bios include a wonderful array of enriching summer experiences, like mission trips to help the needy, unpaid internships, foreign travel, and college courses. These types of things were mentioned at the Yale info. session as examples of the kind of “profitable summers” they like to see. These activities cost money or at least imply opportunity cost in lost wages. And thus these activities are out of reach to many lower income students.</p>
<p>Now of course some of you will be quick to point out that elite schools do indeed look favorably upon employment and take soci-economic factors into consideration, but I can tell you that in our experience that message has not received adequate exposure. I actually called the admissions office at Princeton to ask how they would view it if my S worked summers instead of taking classes, especially given that he would be unable to keep up academically with peers, who as a result of summer study kept accelerating, eg. taking multi-variable calculus as freshman!</p>
<p>My point: the willingness of the elite schools to embrace students from lower income brackets is irrelevant if those kids don’t bother to apply because they feel unqualified.</p>
<p>Just discussed this with my son. I kinda pushed the point too hard so that it may have seemed I think Harvards students are not any more special than those at Podunk U. They are special because they have what it takes to drive toward great stats and accomplishments. Many, not all, kids at Podunk dont have this. Podunk students raw abilities are gonna vary so widely they likely wont have the general intellectual vibrancy of the students that comprise any Harvard class.</p>
<p>So I agree with you that if you take the same H bound students in any class from their high schools, and sent them to Podunk, you would probably get a measurably better result than a straight Podunk class. But this would likely be equally true of results from students bound for any top school, since I think the general student quality between these schools is pretty much indistinguishable. So I still maintain my general view.</p>
<p>The evidence for this as far as I am concerned, is found in the academic communities on Yales and Princetons campuses. While you are understandably big on Harvard, I have read a lot about the school and even have spoken to many of its students. I have done likewise with Yale and Princeton students. Based upon what I can see, I think Yale has a general intellectual vibrancy and style that is unique among the ivies and that in many ways excels all others. I also think Princetons intellectual climate is superior overall, and hands down, especially since it seems its professors and students are generally more eager to engage each other than apparently is true at most other schools. The fact these students are able to accomplish so much on their respective campuses, competing handsomely against Harvard even without the ancient capital stored in the Harvard name, tells me they would produce the same thing currently produced at Harvard were any of their classes suddenly moved at once to the school in Cambridge. I just dont see the magical difference here except in money.</p>
<p>Now, I think I have come around to supporting pretty much what I have always suspected. Prestige matters because it is, in a very real sense, money. And money can attract good things that a lack of money cannot. For example, I think an ivy education is worth it because the money at ivies allows these schools to attract a wide array of young intellectuals, probably wider than most schools. This may not translate into money in a students pocket (though I recently met three recent grads from an ivy, all with great jobs, and who said their jobs came via their alumni network), but it should translate into a superior social and academic experience that will have lifelong benefits.</p>
<p>I understand not wanting to talk about your kids on the forum (I have generally kept comments about my first and second children out of the discussions) so I will make my comment more generic. It seems that this discussion gets off topic. The original topic was:</p>
<p>“What are the lifetime advantages of attending top colleges”</p>
<p>The subject of discussion varies between success being defined as how much money the gratuates make with positive and negative references to the Krueger and Dale study. Recently you introduced the concept of “meta-thinking”. Is this a trait of a lifetime advantage? If so, what are the subjects that teach the meta-thinking skills.</p>
<p>Separately, some students want to go into more service oriented careers, i.e. Peace Corps, Nursing, Education, etc. Are these lifetime advantages? Do they contribute to meta-thinking? If so, then perhaps one measure should be a study on the “career” path or first jobs of students out of school.</p>
<p>In other words, do the "elite’ schools produce more students for service oriented careers? Or at least some measure of service, i.e. CityYear.</p>
<p>I hunted down the resolutions text. It seems pretty innocuous enough. But cmon. I dont think the left is so evil that they want to kill freedom of speech in principle. I dont know what they are afraid of here, but I suspect they have something in mind that is worth being afraid of.</p>
<p>Do you happen to know what it is? Maybe this resolution is just a Trojan Horse to allow neo-nazis to come on campus and freely curse Jews, blacks and every other non-white group. If that is the case, then I am hostile to the resolution too. I believe in freedom of speech. But people have tender hearts and ought not be ridiculed and destroyed in their own home.</p>
<p>Eagle - I guess I was arguing a sub-bullet point. Not per se about lifetime advantage. The thread had gotten to the point where I thought people were trying to say that there is no difference between top schools and mid-tier schools, other than the incomes and bloodlines of the students, and I just can’t agree with that.</p>
<p>I really do not know if meta-thinking is a life-long advantage. And I am not sure it can be taught exactly, more like teased out of those who have the raw ability. </p>
<p>Service careers? They are a lifelong advantage if you believe in right or wrong and your belief that you are living in a righteous path helps you sleep better. Otherwise they are just something that the rest of us ought to be glad someone is motivated to take on.</p>
<p>Thanks for the discretion on my kidlets too.</p>