<p>Oops. Dmd77 just brought up MIT. I guess we are really talking about top universities.</p>
<p>Just by reading this thread, it reassures me that I’ll succeed in life without going to Ivy League. However, let me pause to shed a tear that I will be lacking in the snobbery that some of the Ivy educated parents on here continue to expell. <em>tear</em></p>
<p>All of the “top schools” I went to were filled with self involved, snobby, spoiled people who could not see outside of their blinders enough to view the world around them. I’d rather go to a school which may not be top 20 but is filled with quirky people who turn down heavier hitters because they want to. And that’s what undergrad is all about. Care about the brand name for grad school rather than waste the money in undergrad.</p>
<p>“There were some real gems but they were the exception. Due to the level of the students, the coursework goes down some notches. The level of discussion goes down a LOT of notches”</p>
<p>YES! I’ve had some wonderful students, but they stand out dramatically in a room of their peers. While I can always get my students to discuss the topic at hand, the complexity of ideas is lacking. Sometimes one of the gems makes a comment that is met by either stony silence or complete misunderstanding by his/her peers, and it becomes my job to point out the virtue of the statement. In a top tier school, all the students would immediately recognize the statement for what it is - and pounce on it excitedly.</p>
<p>silverclover: That’s the conclusion I’ve come to. There are some very nice “elite” people on here, but they do seem sometimes to have “blinders” on, as you say. I think the “name” of the grad school will “pay off” more in the end. After all, grad school is “professional” school, so that’s where you want the best for a career payoff.</p>
<p>Silverclover, I know that we may come across as “snobby” when really we are endorsing the type of education that we chose.</p>
<p>Hereshoping states: “I think the “name” of the grad school will “pay off” more in the end. After all, grad school is “professional” school, so that’s where you want the best for a career payoff.”</p>
<p>I am not sure you understand the point that some of us have made. The undergrad name doesn’t matter to us or our children in terms of a career payoff. The college name or education was not meant to be the ticket to a job. It was worthy in and of itself, to become educated at a school where one would be happy to attend and thrive (many places fit that description, not just Ivies or elite colleges). My kids didn’t pick their colleges thinking of which college would have the better career payoff. They didn’t examine any data about how many graduates get work, etc. They picked colleges that met their criteria and that was not one of their criteria. I won’t list all their criteria. Here are a couple…location, size, level of challenge, the department or program in their intended field of study (if they have the major at all), the feel of the school from visiting, the availability of a ski team, and much more. They did want to go to “good colleges” that were challenging/selective as they like that kind of learning environment which is why they chose the most challenging courses in high school and accelerated in high school as they wanted the appropriate challenge that fit them.They would hate the easy tracked classes at our high school. They hated health class because it wasn’t tracked and was not stimulating and the other students misbehaved and could care less and didn’t do the homework or discuss anything in class. That’s about it. None of their college choice had to do with career payoffs from X college compared to Y college.</p>
<p>I agree with what MomWaitingforNew wrote about Ivies and colleges of that sort about getting a liberal arts education. It is not about the college necessarily dovetailing to a certain job upon graduation. Actually, my kid who goes to an Ivy chose it because she wanted a liberal arts education. She is interested in architecture and PURPOSELY picked her school which is not a five year BArch (terminal degree program) and is not the best dept. in her field by far, because she wanted the broader liberal arts background and will have to go to grad school for a MArch degree to ever get a job in her field. She had the option of applying to BArch programs and decided against it. So, she actually went AGAINST the schools that would have gotten her a job after graduation in her field. She won’t be able to practice her field unless she goes to grad school. </p>
<p>My other D, on the other hand, is going into a field that has NO grad schools (musical theater). Some do a BA liberal arts school and go into her field. She wanted a professional degree program (terminal degree) and entered a specialized degree…BFA in musical theater. She chose, however, to do her BFA at NYU/Tisch, in part (just ONE of her criteria) because this particular BFA program has a liberal arts component (not all do or have as much of a one) AND because the coursework outside her program within the larger university was at a selective university where she felt the level would match her, whereas some other top BFA programs (highly selective, single digit admit rates), exist in less selective university settings and where the rigor of the courses and the level of the general student population was not as good a match for the type of learner that she is. It is not about being snobby or about incomes or potential jobs, but about the FIT for their individualized college criteria.</p>
<p>
I think that the high ends are populated at both Wis and Harvard, but the low end is not populated at Harvard. No dummies at H.</p>
<p>Doesn’t exist! (Except at Columbia.) Our kid at an Ivy says that the academic adviser advises taking whatever floats your boat, and the two common criteria among students for picking classes are what sounds interesting and what’s not gonna be too hard. As the CHOOSING THE RIGHT COLLEGE guide by ISI–which I would recommend to ALL–says, to get a well-rounded education at an Ivy League school requires some real proaction on the part of the student. It is very easily missed!!</p>
<p>dstark, your HS analogy is a good one, & I agree-- smart in = smart out, generally. This once more points up the importance of fit and of knowing one’s self, though, because some kids will respond better in a certain environment.</p>
<p>My D went to public Jr High & HS & was fine, but my S went to private middle school. This was because my S who has ADD really needed that extra private school ‘tending’ you describe, whereas my D did not. Now that he’s matured and is less in need of the tending, he’s moving on to public HS.</p>
<p>Similarly, in college, at one end of the spectrum there will be the “Good Will Huntings” who can nail everything no matter where they go, but there will also be the kids who would respond very differently in different environments. For them its a matter of picking the best environment for that individual kid.</p>
<p>For college my kids’ needs seem to be reversed. My steady D-- the one who shoots to the top 20%-- needed the ‘elitest’ place she could get into, to buoy her up by making top 20% a little higher.</p>
<p>My S is different. His achilles heel is biological, but he puts forth his personal 100% no matter what the other kids are doing and he loves the big wide world. If there was a big State U with an open curriculum, he’d probably thrive there. (Unfortunately, the open curriculum is important for the ADD.)</p>
<p>hereshoping, some of us did not intend to go to grad school, so we went ahead and shot the moon for undergrad. ;)</p>
<p>This thread was about a lot of stuff, but on the last page or so it started being about getting educated. Kids need a core curriculum, else they graduate not knowing who George Washington is. (Hyperbole, of course, but my point is quite real.) Selective schools w/core curricula: Columbia, Chicago, Claremont McKenna, Grove City… (Starts to thin out real quickly after that!)</p>
<p>“The undergrad name doesn’t matter to us or our children in terms of career payoff.” Come now. Many posters here have been saying exactly that. Some have put bows and ribbons on it, but the meaning is the same, nonetheless. ;)</p>
<p>Particularly for something so narrow as Musical Theatre in NYC. No career aspirations there, not at all ;)</p>
<p>hereshoping, but believe me in 1978 in California, nobody had ever heard of Brown! Most people thought Rhode Island was an island too. It was NOT a “name” pick for me; I stumbled into the name!</p>
<p>filler, if you are curious about the open curriculum and why it can be great for real-life skills, read my post 334. </p>
<p>But yes, I am sure there are huge gaps in my core knowledge!</p>
<p>In fact, some of the gaps that I had filled in while in college have become gaps again-- over the decades I have forgotten a $***load of what I learned. But what I never forgot was the general approach, and the inherent rewards of following intellecutally exciting paths. I have also never forgotten that mistakes can become opportunities. This has been a bigger ‘lifetime’ boon than any academic information I picked up.</p>
<p>Okay call me stupid but… (since this never made sense to me)</p>
<p>If Ivy students are so great and smart, why do they fear big State U’s so much? I mean, if you really are a “big fish” shouldn’t they thrive and accomplish just as much at a State U? Since people will not hold your hand in the workforce, isn’t having to fight among the masses and clearing your own path a better experience than having some counselor hold your hand through four years and professors come up to you? I mean no boss goes up to people and walks them through their job all the time. No one just hands you a job (mostly). Sorry, that always perplexed me.</p>
<p>"Doesn’t exist! (Except at Columbia.) "</p>
<p>Brown is the only Ivy that does not have distributive requirements. Note: distributive requirements are different from a “core curriculum” where the students have to take specific classes. Most colleges that have distributive requirements have more general coursework. For example, College A may require one foreign language to intermediate level, one quantitative, one lab science, one social science, one literature, and one fine/performing art. College B may require four courses in the humanities, four in the natural sciences, and four in the social sciences. It depends on the school.</p>
<p>Of course you can graduate from an Ivy (or any other school) with huge gaps in your knowledge. There is absolutely no way any student can learn everything. </p>
<p>I don’t understand why people are getting so upset about the idea that some universities are more geared toward giving their students careers. These colleges exist, and they can be excellent schools. They merely have a different philosophy.</p>
<p>“If Ivy students are so great and smart, why do they fear big State U’s so much?”</p>
<p>I don’t think there is fear factor in terms of accomplishment. I think there is a fear about less challenging curriculum.</p>
<p>“…than having some counselor hold your hand through four years and professors come up to you?”</p>
<p>here again you are confusing guidance with holding hand</p>
<p>Um, Ovidia, no Ivy student/alum fears the state schools. We all work for, or with, alumni who have gone to Podunk U., Harvard, and everything in between. Our best friends, whom we consider to be our equals, may not have even graduated from college. As several have pointed out, career and personal success have little to do with the name on the degree and everything to do with work ethic, creativity, and luck. Neither kind of success is dependent on intelligence, for that matter.</p>
<p>Eng_dude commented:
“Particularly for something so narrow as Musical Theatre in NYC. No career aspirations there, not at all”</p>
<p>I never said my kids don’t have career aspirations. I said that the picking of the college was not tied to which name of a college would have the better career payoff. They picked schools that met their interest areas. For instance, D1 wanted liberal arts, liked the open curriculum, wanted a good ski race team to be available, wanted the college to have her possible college major (architecture but NOT a BArch professional degree program, just the pre-architecture liberal arts major), and a challenging learning environment, and to be near a city and have less than about 6000 students, and so forth. She cared about the fit a lot. She is a top student who is heavily engaged in ECs and wanted a school with kids like that. </p>
<p>I already mentioned that my other child did not pick a liberal arts setting because her intended major, musical theater, doesn’t exist in hardly any BA degree programs. There are also no graduate degree programs (MFA) in musical theater. Some who go into musical theater do not even go to college and just train and audition. Some go to liberal arts colleges and take straight theater courses/majors and participate in MT as an EC. My D wanted a BFA program which is not a liberal arts degree but a professional training program and a terminal degree. Both my children have career aspirations. One wasn’t ready to commit to a major at age 17. She had many interests and wanted a broad liberal arts degree. Also, her area of possible interest, architecture, is not one you study before college (at least not at our HS) and so she could not be certain she was ready to commit to a five year BArch program. She also did not want to have 2/3’s fo her coursework in one major and decided for her as a BArch program would be. She truly wanted a liberal arts BA. My other D, on the other hand, has wanted to go into musical theater since she was in nursery school and has been immersed in that field since that time. She could confidently state that she KNEW she wanted to go into this field and was very passionate and driven in this field. Musical Theater is her life and is inextricable to the core of her being. She wanted to do a BFA program (conservatory style program) in her field. </p>
<p>I never said my children didn’t have career aspirations. They picked colleges that fit their educational goals. One wanted breadth of study…many interests and also a school that had a BA in architectural studies. One wanted a specialized BFA degree where she could train in her field, MT, and she chose a BFA program that was in a larger university, not a separate conservatory. NYU has a MT conservatory (CAP21) within a perfroming arts school (Tisch) within a university. Unlike some BFA programs, NYU also requires some liberal arts, though a significant portion of her coursework is in the BFA program. But she WANTED some liberal arts as she is a very good student who craves education of the mind, not just training in singing, dancing and acting. She likes other things and also is a gifted writer. She chose NYU because besides having excellent training in her intended major (the BFA in MT program), it also had liberal arts as part of the program AND those courses were in a more challenging university than many of the other top MT BFA programs in the country. The BFA programs are ALL very selective even if the universities they are located in are not. But NYU was different because the BFA AND the university itself are selective and challenging, which is what she wanted. That is how she picked it. </p>
<p>So, yes, my kids had career aspirations. Most people do unless they are so rich that they never plan to work a day in their lives. But their choice of college had to do with the college fitting what they wanted in a college and PART of that was the curriculum (and the rigor of it)…for one kid, that was challenging liberal arts, open curriculum with an architectural studies major (and a plus was the cross registration with RISD where she does take classes as well) and for the other, she wanted a BFA in MT (which is considered one of the best ways of training in her field). So, they picked the colleges around the education they’d get there. BUT they didn’t pick the NAME of the college as a ticket to a better job than if they had gone to a school with a different name. THAT was my point. They did not think “if I go to Brown or if I go to NYU, I will get a better job or make more money than if I go to Lehigh or go to Penn State” (schools on each of my kid’s lists respectively). They picked their schools because they liked THESE schools in terms of fit for what they wanted to do WHILE at college. They fit them better than the other ones they got into even though those places were fine colleges and they’d be happy to attend if they had not had a choice. </p>
<p>But yes, both have career aspirations. They could go into these careers, however, even if they went to less selective colleges.</p>