<p>
Is that you Bill?</p>
<p>say it ain’t so, idad.</p>
<p>I realize this thread has taken various twists and turns. </p>
<p>But going back to post #336, I just wanted to tell you, NorthstarMom, that I really related to your reflections about teaching at the lower tiered colleges in your experience. I have also taught college in my state, at five different colleges. I experienced a lot of what you did. I found that the expectations that were set were quite low. It bothered me because I felt that a college degree should stand for something and more than just getting by. I am a firm believer that if you have low expectations, that is what you will get out of students. I am someone with high expectations of my own work but also when I teach. Often, when you expect more, you can get it. But I definitely related to the descriptions you wrote of teaching in that college because it was similar to some experiences I have had teaching college, even if at a private college. The goal was to get the students to pass, but not necessarily to get them to achieve at a higher level. This was what I felt coming from the college. I set a high standard for my students, however.</p>
<p>I have been reading this thread since it started and I personally think it is a good one. Whether one likes it or not, there is a tendency for people who went to the elite schools to think that others are inferior and people who went to lesser rank schools have a tendency to think that the students from elite schools are snobbish.<br>
People can be successful or not be successful irrespective of where they went to school. But here again, success has to be defined. It entirely depends on the individual. As long as a student is passionate in what he/she is doing and strives to be the best in their field (whatever their field is) that is all that counts. The student will be happy and come out well; somewhere some door will open but they have to continue to work hard (it does not get easier).
When parents choose schools for their kids they look at probabilities for succeeding and the fit of the student to the school. It is just my opinion without going into the details that the probability of a student doing well in the future is higher if they graduate out of the elite schools. Does it mean that students from public schools will not do well - NO. I am indeed mortgaging my future to send our son to a top school. My parents never went to college but they made sacrifices for education when I was in grade school (not in US). I did not ask my son to apply to any elite college but he wanted to apply only to the elite colleges. I was worried that he will not get admissions anywhere and so I requested him to apply to at least one State school and he did and he got admission. He was also admitted to his first choice (EA) elite school. I am proud to say that he showed character by withdrawing from most of the other schools he applied to, so that his friends can have the opportunity to be admitted (his view). He is not getting any scholarship and paying for college is a constant worry for me. But will I tell him - sorry, I cannot pay - No. I will make personal sacrfices and send him. This may not jell with some on the board, but some parents like me work and live to provide the best for the kids. Am I looking for a payback - not directly from my son; it is up to him to decide how to make use of the opportunity.
There is merit in the passionate discussions on both sides. I have seen different types of people in my personal experience - I have seen clueless presentations made by people from the IVIES, I have seen thoughtful presentations from ordinary people and I have also been struck with awe just listening to some students from the elite colleges.</p>
<p>Grandfather Prescott was also a member of Skull and Bones, viewpoint. Apparently was part of the group that stole Geronimo’s skull.</p>
<p>
By this thread I see I need to more carefully consider how I share my opinions about various schools. Being not very attached to my own school (I enjoyed it, but dont care if others hate it), I have always felt that it is no big deal to just throw around my opinions on education if I could support it to my own mind based on research. But it seems some people have a certain intense emotional attachment to their schools so that if you state a negative perception regarding their school, they interpret it as a personal attack.</p>
<p>Why is this? I think people are perceiving the idea that if you or your kids arent in a school that is approved, you or your kids are missing out on something that is really worth having or that perhaps is even critical for the greatest amount of human development. If you are in the elite schools, you by implication are at the apex of human development, or at least have the chance to reach it. But if you arent in these schools, then you must somehow be a lesser quality person, or at least be headed for that rank. And when someone negatively assesses a school, even if the assessment has an objective basis, that assessment is seen as an attack because it indirectly claims that those who are subjects of the school are somehow negatively influenced by the reasons mentioned in the assessment.</p>
<p>You know, I have my hang ups. In fact, I have a lot of hang ups that every single day I am trying hard to overcome. But still, as far as I am able to tell, most people are fantastic things to just sit around and watch and talk to, maybe even get close to. I just met this guy from Bulgaria yesterday, a tattooed boxer guy, newly come to this country to join his wife and kid. I have read about Bulgaria, the problems there, and due to my personal hang-ups had already nixed this guy as a hardened weirdo, probably a racist skinheadish type, or racist in waiting. He just had the hardened ugly look about him. But due to the circumstances that brought us together, I had to talk to the guy. And my goodness what a guy. I mention it because I really dont think anyone here has anything on that guy, despite his rough exterior and lack of educational polish. No flippin school is gonna make one innately better than he or anyone else, not deep down where it really, REALLY matters.</p>
<p>So, when I read boasts from others about how their school is preferred by everybody on earth, it means absolutely nothing to me. In fact, it just makes the boaster seem so small I dont even think much else. What I am interested in is which school offers kids the best chance to hone their skills, gain experience from peers and professors of the highest degree of scholarship, and express their interests. That is all a school is to me. It means absolutely NOTHING about the basic quality of a person. I no more think highly of a Harvard person than I think of someone with little or no education. I have met a Harvard person here whose basic character I think is quite devoid of honor and decency. My friend from Bulgaria, on the other hand, seems to have quite a lot of both virtues. Harvard obviously hasnt done much for the first person, and it may have even harmed them. A school is no stamp of approval upon the value of a person not to me.</p>
<p>But like many parents, I am gonna try to support my kids getting into the best schools they can get into. Dont care a whit about prestige. I just want the kids to have the maximum chance of experiencing growth with scholarly peers and teachers. If a school does not have that to the same extent as another school, then I am gonna think lesser of that school and more highly of the other. Prestige and emotional attachment will have nothing to do with it. And no matter what, I cant possibly think anyone, even at the school I think is best of all, is somehow more worthy than anyone else for having gone to that school.</p>
<p>Id like us to just keep these things in perspective as we talk on this topic. If someone got a great experience at a certain school and they dont think it exists at other schools to the same degree, that is fine. It is no insult on the people at other schools. It is just someones opinion. And if another person thinks another school doesnt offer something to the same extent as other schools, I think that is fine too. This is why different schools exist, to meet different preferences. But I think I will try to be more sensitive when I share my views of schools, if I share them at all.</p>
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</p>
<p>Whoa, there. That’s a fairly powerful assertion. The last two pages or so of this thread, I feel, have swung the pendulum too much the other way, as if to say “Because of examples such as people A, B, and C, if you go to an Ivy, you WILL NOT succeed”. </p>
<p>I beg to differ.</p>
<p>Let’s try an appeal to common sense. I think that luck aside, most posters would agree that success depends most greatly on the motivation level of the individual, regardless of which school he/she attends. I would even go so far as to say that a truly motivated individual can overcome, given time, the vast majority of biases there might be against his/her type of school.</p>
<p>Let me now posit that at any particular school, there will be a bell curve of motivation levels, with some extrememly motivated individuals, some extremely demotivated individuals, and most individuals somewhere towards the center. Fair enough, so far?</p>
<p>Now as I see it (and yes, this is the crux of my argument and the most arguable of my points), the center/mean of the motivation bell curve for HPY, let’s say, will be slightly to the right of (i.e. greater than) that of State U, not because of State U per se, but because of the rigorous admission process to HYP (let’s hope that adcoms are doing their jobs to at least some degree). </p>
<p>Now, while the motivation bell curve CENTER may be higher at HPY, it really doesn’t say anything about the fringes. At HPY, you might find students that may be very lazy people that might have been admitted because of “freak” reasons (they’re just naturally very bright but lazy, they have multi-generation legacy, etc). These people, as lazy as their State U counterparts, would pull the HPY low-fringe just as far left as the low fringe for State U. The highly motivated students at State U(some who might have turned down HPY; others that may just not have made it for whatever reason) should take the State U high-fringe to just as high as the HPY high fringe.</p>
<p>So what are the differences between HPY and State U? First, their centers are separated (how much so is the crux of the debate). Second, by virtue of the fact that there are different centers but same fringes, the bell-curve model would show that there is a greater proportion of extremely motivated students at HPY and a greater proportion of extremely demotivated students at State U than HPY (again, how great the differences are make up the crux of this debate).</p>
<p>This model then (a) confirms what some posters have said about “finding a greater prorportion of students of high caliber at HPY” (b) confirms what others have stated about “being able to find similar caliber students at State U”, (c) confirms studies which show that HPY grads ON AVERAGE earn more than State U grads, (d) confirms studies that show that students that turned down HPY - the motivated ones - earn as much as students that attend HPY, (e) confirms the examples of successes of HPY grads, (f) confirms the examples of successes of State U grads, (g) confirms the examples of failures of HPY grads, and (h) confirms the examples of failures of State U grads.</p>
<p>So are there tangible benefits for the motivated student to pick HPY over State U? After all, if success, all said and done, is proportional to where an individual falls on the motivation bell curve, does it matter if the person falls in the same place on the State U curve or the HPY curve?</p>
<p>The reason HPY might matter is this: if you’re an employer from a top level consulting or I-banking firm who has to reduce stacks and stacks of applications, half your task to is eliminate as many applications as possible before the real process even begins. Thus, it serves your limited time better by focusing most on the school with the higher curve-center. For better or worse, at this point in life, people will judge you based on where your school’s curve centers simply because it’s too inefficient to figure out where you yourself fall on the curve.</p>
<p>Of course, as time continues and you have the opportunity to prove yourself better (or…worse) than where your school curve centers, employers will judge you differently. But for that entry into competitive endeavors like I-banking or consulting, the boost provided by the HPY name does matter. </p>
<p>Many people who pay more to go to HPY do so because they feel (though more subconsciously) that the motivation bell-curve center IS higher for HPY and that companies that recruit know and act on this information.</p>
<p>The question now becomes: how far apart are the centers of the motivation bell-curves? Far enough to justify paying thousands extra for? And in what way do companies see/act on any differences in the motivation bell-curve?</p>
<p>I’ll leave those questions to you. I just thought the assertion that “if you go to HPY, you will fail” as rather unfair. Hope this very long post helps put debate back into the right direction.</p>
<p>Nice, rational post, Drosselmeier.</p>
<p>Drosselmeier, if everybody holds back their opinions, then this isn’t much of a bb, is it?</p>
<p>Express your opinions. Some people will agree, some won’t. Some will misinterpret what you say. That’s the way it goes.</p>
<p>This thread was purposely started to engage people, gather a variety of opinions, and stir uip some emotions. It’s pretty successful too.</p>
<p>We’re not always going to agree. We come from different backgrounds and different experiences. We all bring our baggage to the bb. </p>
<p>I like to see what is inside the poster’s baggage. We can all learn from looking inside the baggage. </p>
<p>The people that walk around on egg shells, are afraid to express their opinions, but are always so prim and proper… those people are boring.</p>
<p>Your posts on this bb so far aren’t boring. Why start down that path?</p>
<p>If one reviews the post here, one will find links to research that shows that it is not the school one attends that makes a difference in one’s income, but who is attending. Further, the data suggest that those who apply and are rejected from top 20 schools (included because many have student stats higher than many Ivy’s) are the most likely to succeed, more so than those who actually attend. The economic argument for attendance is therefore superfluous. (This appears not to be true for URM students, attending a top 20 school appears to make an economic difference in this case). </p>
<p>The issue then is whether a top 20 school is a better emotional and intellectually satisfying fit for some students. And here, the answer may be yes. If fit is important and being in a certain environment is worthwhile, then regardless of the final career, that school is where one should be. As Andrew Abbott says, there is no aim of education, education is the aim. </p>
<p>Stated a little differently, If for students who can attend a top 20 school the only reason for choosing the school is future income, then they will likely achieve that, but would have attending most any school. If it is because of that special four year experience that one feels only a top 20 school is likely to provide, then by all means go.</p>
<p>Drosselmeier wrote:</p>
<p>“But like many parents, I am gonna try to support my kids getting into the best schools they can get into. Dont care a whit about prestige.”</p>
<p>I believe many of us are saying the same thing. Our kids didn’t pick the most selective schools due to prestige or any greater chance of a better life or job, but merely because they wanted to get into the best schools that they could for the actual experience itself of attending, not the prestige. The fit was right because they craved the level of challenge and the degree of motivation overall in the collected student body even though there are kids like that at any college. Prestige was not the driving force for many of our children. There was no equation with a better life or better paying job coming from X top university but the choice had more to do with the right educational environment for their type of learner. </p>
<p>I also agree with much of what CautiousPessimism wrote. Many of us also have been saying that it is the person who is successful in life, not the school from which he/she went that matters so much. A person can make it from anywhere. There are highly intelligent and motivated students at any school. There are slackers at any school. The proportion of types differs with the level of selectivity at a college, just as they differ in HS between the hardest classes and the easiest tracked classes. </p>
<p>In some fields or in some individual cases, a well regarded college may open doors…either via who you meet and opportunities that arise or because on a stack of resumes, the school name may catch an employer’s eyes. It is a given even if that was never the motivation to attend the well known school. For example, I live in a rural state. When I was fresh out of graduate school at Harvard, I know that my resume likely got me the interviews to teach at local colleges even though I was in my low twenties at the time. I knew that if I had still lived in Boston, my resume was a dime a dozen. I didn’t go to Harvard for grad school for this reason whatsoever but now that I did attend, I can see how at times it may be helpful on a resume (whether that is fair, I don’t know but it just exists). I chose the school for other reasons, however. </p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>IDad, I totally agree with all you wrote. </p>
<p>This quote of yours surely sums it up for me:</p>
<p>“Stated a little differently, If for students who can attend a top 20 school the only reason for choosing the school is future income, then they will likely achieve that, but would have attending most any school. If it is because of that special four year experience that one feels only a top 20 school is likely to provide, then by all means go.”</p>
<p>I am behind the curve here, sorry. To Mini, in 222, who said, "Overestimate, however, in that the Yale graduate on a Pell Grant still can’t figure out how to pay for Harvard Med (and is less likely to apply), might feel compelled to go out into the workforce immediately to help his/her family, and is least likely of all to want to go graduate (as opposed to professional school), as foregoing income-earning years for a relatively low income (given education) is just not a good tradeoff. And this remains true whether the intelligent student went to Princeton or Podunk.–</p>
<p>I dunno, parent’s portion of our EFC is probably zero this year, which makes us “poor” (though I’ve written elsewhere here that poor often aren’t that poor, when it comes down to it.) I can’t IMAGINE our kids coming back home after college (they have younger siblings) and working for $10 an hour to help us get by. I mean, that is a really weird thought. Not only would they take debt to go to Harvard Law, they would take debt if they had to to go to an average grad school (provided it was a serious course of study of some type). As others have said, initiative beats $ anytime.</p>
<p>HYPS etc. have better financial aid than many other colleges - so sometimes choosing a “highly selective” college is actually cheaper than a less selective one. (Though not cheaper than the free-ride at MEGA U with 457 students in your “Intro to Biology” section.)</p>
<p>
You know, when I look back on my life and see that I am still standing firmly, I can only conclude I am a very strong guy-- at least in real life. But, cmon, I also know there is another truth about me. The real truth is that there are some things that hit so hard against my insecurities, that I feel fear when people even start getting next to those issues in their speech. I have protected myself against these kinds of things all of my life, building walls here, nixing off certain kinds of people there just to make sure I never even risk having my weaknesses exploited. I have concluded it is no way to live and so I am trying to be free, at least make sure my kids are free. But man it presents some SERIOUS difficulties.</p>
<p>Now this school stuff is nothing at all to me, just like the things that hit hard against me are probably nothing to you. But I dont really want you to go waltzing into my weaknesses like a bull in a china shop, tearing me up just because you have no soreness where I have. And I dont wanna start hammering on things that harm you without first and carefully giving consideration to your weaknesses. For some, this issue may have personal implications the likes of which I cant even imagine. So, I need to be careful.</p>
<p>I used to be enthusiastically anti-abortion. I had come up with this pattern of <strong>cough</strong> logic that I thought led inexorably to my view. And the view really is logical, if you can accept a few widely accepted assumptions about human biology. Well, once at a gathering the topic came up and, thinking I had the goods, I laid out my case for my position. At that level, it is pretty hard to deal against my view, even if there are weaknesses in it, because the view ultimately gets reduced to a bunch of near meaningless ideas that have nothing to do with living and life and pain and suffering. In other words, you gotta start sounding weird to deal with it, which, in short, means you gotta completely overlook the fact that you are talking about tenderhearted people who are just trying to get by the best way they can under some extraordinary circumstances.</p>
<p>So there I was, just running off antiseptically about stuff I can only just think about, when right next to me was this woman sitting bolt-upright, staring straight ahead, pretty much in tears. I had just casually waltzed into her weak place and was just tearing her up, as if she didnt matter. This is just such an amazingly sad thing to see. I am seeing that womans face right now! There I was causing this mess, despite the fact I have some seriously weak places of my own.</p>
<p>So, while I still have my views about things, I dont really hold onto a lot of them in such a way that they just rip others up. I have passion about stuff a lot of stuff. But cmon. There is a time and a way to express passion so that people are built up and not destroyed. This college thing completely caught me off-guard. Just didnt think it could be that big a deal. Im thinking maybe we should walk at least a little bit on egg-shells around people before we just go hammering at what may be their deepest weaknesses.</p>
<p>
As a grad of the university having been adopted by this thread as the prototypical not-elite-school, I should say something.
I did have a senior level class with a very perseverant student who was dumb as a stick. He would demand the professor explain things to him until he understood them - which generally didn’t happen. About 40% of class time was devoted to this one, hard working, persistent dummy.
Presumably this wouldn’t happen at one of the elite schools. Although it may not happen at Wis anymore - it used to be pretty easy to get into for instate students.</p>
<p>Interesting how posters with very few posts have all the anecdotes about the waiters with elite degrees. ■■■■■, ■■■■■ ■■■■■. And tsdad, you were outed already as viewpoint.</p>
<p>NSM-- my comment about ‘artsy’ was for a job in film (not in art). Connections are very important in this sort of field, because the entry level jobs are essentially clerical/secretarial/gofer jobs that do not really even require a college education if you are smart, efficient, and can type.</p>
<p>BUT, if you are to be the right hand to a bigwig, you will meet lots of bigwigs, and you will need savoir faire. Bigwigs should not intimidate you, nor should you lack the skill to handle them. 50% of my largely secretarial job demanded interface with skittish performers whom nearly everyone on this board would know, and putting out the fires they started. (The other 50% demanded problem solving and independent thought.)</p>
<p>When you are introduced to your ‘BS’ entry level job by bigwig <em>people</em>, and when you come bearing an elite degree, it absolutely helps-- because the assumption is that you have been swimming in a big pond for a while now; you have met plenty of power-broker level people-- so you will be in somewhat familiar territory. The chain of connections that led me to the bigwig introduction included a Pulitzer Prize winner and a US Senator. Obviously this gloss didn’t hurt.</p>
<p>P.S. NSM, actually Yale has one of the best fine arts depts in the country. Maybe not so many undergrads, but they have produced a HUGE # of MFAs in the NYC arts scene. Also, upon reflection, many jobs in ‘art’ have nothing to do with MAKING art and would still be helped by Ivy connections-- museums, auction houses, publishing, galleries, etc.</p>
<p>Cautious Pessimism, I agree with your post.</p>
<p>Yes, Cautious Pessimism, nice rational post.</p>