<p>Many students vie for the spot at a top university. Why so important that is there is a need that parents are on CC debating points. I have mulled over this question and come to realize few points. </p>
<p>The knowledge gained by reading a book is probably same irrespective of wherever a student attends a college. However, greater percentages of an elite colleges student have an edge over non elite colleges students through the opportunities that exist outside the classroom. These opportunities could be intangible and tangibles. Opportunities could exist for students attending non elite college. But these are few and far in between as non elite colleges lack the resources. Most important at an elite college better and greater numbers of opportunities are available to more number of students at a higher percentage basis. </p>
<li> Elite college provides need based blind opportunities for poor kids to attend the top university. However, the elite college cherry picks the best students who are in need of aid. Paying customers are happy too to come and associate with these students as both benefit from a diversified class interaction. Mutually exclusive benefits.</li>
<li> Through better endowments, university attracts qualified professors who have already achieved a success somewhere else. The elite university just cherry pick these super professors to train there students. These professors know so many other people in their field that they provide more and better opportunities to students.</li>
<li> Opportunities outside the classroom such as get to know and chance to network with the rich, powerful, influential people from all walks of life. Students are better prepared in terms of decision making process. This allows kids to make contacts early on while still in college.</li>
<li> Rich (parents and class mates who will inherit money) people provide better professional growth to qualified people with whom they have associated or heard from their own kids. Word of mouth helps in this case. As business owners/managers hire better qualified people because of word of mouth. </li>
<li> If rich people want someone to trust with their money and want them to run companies they generally provide the person they know, than choosing an unknown person that they have no clue about. This is a very positive intangible benefits that non elite school can not give it to masses (on a higher percentage for the student body).</li>
<li> Alumni networks provide better networking opportunities.</li>
<li> If elite colleges admitted let us say all the smart kids and no rich kid, result will be disastrous as all these opportunities will cease to exist in future the university ranking will plummet.</li>
</ol>
<p>I would put it another way, businessguy: everyone wants to be part of the elite… getting into HYP, and the like, is sort of like getting a pass into the aristocracy. And since HYP also happen to be intellectual powerhouses, it’s a politically-correct aristocracy ;)</p>
<p>Your analysis may be correct but it’s pretty cynical. Elite U’s also have:</p>
<p>1) world class museums, archives, rare book collections which students can use either with a faculty member or on their own;</p>
<p>2)State of the art laboratories with teams of grad students, professors, and post-doc’s who can help undergrads with research, introduce them to a range of disciplines, give them access to other professors doing work in allied fields;</p>
<p>3)hundreds of EC’s on campus ranging from literary magazines to political organizations of every stripe to dozens of performing arts groups. Opportunities exist for kids who can participate at a professional or near-professional level, or just for the hobbyist or casual fan.</p>
<p>4)Active and committed alums in a broad range of professions who are ready to take a phone call from a student at the drop of a hat to answer a question about fellowships, job opportunities, how to do anthropological research in Nepal, why anti-malarial drugs are effective in certain populations but not others, etc.</p>
<p>Maybe this is all about increasing social status, but sometimes students actually leverage the resident wisdom and resources of the university for the good of society.</p>
<p>Dunno. I’d sign mine up for that peer group–even if I knew the whole peer group started as EFC=0. Wouldn’t matter. The electricity shared among those curious brains would be the real prize of attending elite schools–primary through teritary.</p>
<p>I’d guess that there would be little difference in earning power for those grads who started as EFC=0. Thats me. My FIL was a classic EFC=0 to top 1/2 of 1/2% of income earners, a true Horatio Alger story.</p>
<p>“HYP were prestigious long before rankings were even heard of.”</p>
<p>Actually, they were MORE prestigious before rankings. Now they are (supposedly) being put on the same scale as everyone else. 75 years ago, I doubt there was ANYONE who asked, “so how good are their academics?”</p>
<p>^^LOL, I was at Niagara Falls last week, and overheard someone discussing whether it should really be one of the “Seven Wonders of the Natural World” or perhaps in a top-50 category.</p>
<p>That is why HYP cherry pick up real motivated students so they can groom them. These students in turn are ready to work their butoff. I mean elite college are not looking for mere book worms. They want real smart people with drive and motivation to succeed. </p>
<p>One thing I forgot it would also be disatrous to give admission only to rich people. If there is no discussion in the class, it is pretty boring.</p>
<p>A student who comes from a super rich family has rarely hunger to go for the kill. They are generally distracted with other things. It is poor student who does not have anything strive very hard to achieve what he/she does not have.</p>
<p>stockmarket give me a fricking break. You wanna say the only fire in the belly worth counting is the desire for money go ahead. Until you’ve grown up rich with expectations of excellence that is.</p>
<p>There is all kind of striving in the world that makes people go fast. And hunger for the kill is not the only motivator.</p>
<p>Try anxiety. Try desire to please. Try family values. Try innate ability. Try human nature.</p>
<p>stockmarket…we all suffer from the tendancy to generalize–but honey…you are driving off-road with some of your generalizations !</p>
<p>Who is the most iconic entreprenuer of our age? A rich boy. Bill Gates. Harvard tried to ‘groom’ him but he quit. Oh well.</p>
<p>There are thousands of ‘Bill Gates’ in every field–and always have been. Hermann Melville started life as a rich boy whose family lost everything. </p>
<p>Poverty is not a precursor of ambition. If anything, poverty often sucks the ambition right out of a person–thus our social desire to provide funds to alleviate poverty for students. </p>
<p>Going for the kill is not a precursor of success. Passion is.</p>
<p>One of the reasons my kids wanted to attend highly selective schools had to do with being amongst others who shared their motivation, drive, and passion. It makes for a very stimulating environment. They crave challenges and like to be with others who are high achievers who have an inner motivation. Being with students who don’t care as much about school or in classes that are too easy bothers them. I never heard my kids discuss going to schools with earning power as part of the equation. They love the opportunities afforded them at school, the people they meet, the challenges in and out of the classroom. The level of the school and the level of the student body impacts their enjoyment of the learning experience and the sense of having a good fit that matches their own drive and ambitions. The choice to attend a very selective university had nothing to do with level of potential earnings, but did have to do with realizing their personal potential.</p>
<p>Soozie, very well spoken. I do have a hesitation about your use of the word “share.” My D always remarks about the diverse motivations, drives and passions of her fellow students. We often think of diversity in relation to racial or socioeconomic considerations. It seems that many of the elite schools are less interested in those and more interested in diversity of interests and passions. Some students at the elite schools may be interested in professional careers, some may want to go for the kill with economic success, many others seems to have less easily defined and often more weird interests.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m going to go right ahead and say it, ADVERTISING. And it isn’t just at the level of HYPSCM.</p>
<p>I have a student who moved to NYC from California to attend…Nassau Community College! She commutes from Manhattan (Hunter, Pace, Baruch, Brooklyn + Manhattan Community College + Privates) because while in CA she read in NYT (so she says) that Nassau is the best with best placement into elite four year colleges. Somebody in PR department did her homework!</p>
<p>My kids wanted to go for all above reasons, and did. I think the social group is more of a benefit than the academics. I can tell you that the course I would give on creative non-fiction is much better than the one D’s good guy friend took at Brown. They read Harper’s Magazine! Gosh, I have my Composition I students doing better than that, and our classes are capped at 25. Student-to-student learning is where the institution falls short.</p>
<p>The very sad truth is that some people really believe that an Ivy league education equates to future riches in some sort of quid pro quo. Almost every point made by the OP relates to “richness” and potential future opportunities associated with increased earning power due to proximity to “richness”. And if I read into what Mini said this type of perceived upstairs/downstairs, rich man/poor man is also what everyone also wants to level with merit based and need blind admissions when their darling doesn’t get in. It’s quite the giggle. As is so very often pointed out if you cut to the chase and discuss quality of the academics there are few who could argue that the Ivy’s stand alone to the exclusion of all other institutions especially if you stack up the entire Ivy League.</p>
<p>I agree with Soozievt. My son chose his current college because he felt that he had finally found someplace where the kids have the same goals as he does. The students at this selective school are highly motivated and love the challenges they face.</p>
<p>I have not really participated in this thread because the title contains so much definitional vagueness. How does one define elite? Please, not just “Ivies” or HYPSM. To me, elite colleges are far more numerous and diverse than that.</p>
<p>What makes them tick? Different strokes for different folks. M is not like H or Y or S.</p>
<p>Why do so many high school students want to attend them? It could be due to prestige, reputation, ranking, marketing, or some totally different reason. </p>
<p>My S’s list contained only mid-sized universities because he did not want to be at a large university but wanted more selection of courses than would be available at LACs. Many of the elite institutions of higher learning fall in that category and thus appeared on his list.</p>
<p>edad…I’m not positive what you meant in your post. When I said that my kids craved being with other students who shared their drive and motivation, it didn’t necessarily mean sharing the same interests, etc. In fact, I know they wanted to be in diverse populations which very selective universities tend to have as they draw from a wide geographical area and have students of various races and nationalities. So, they did want that. My D who attends Brown truly loves the level of motivation and drive that her fellow students have and that they are pursuing their interests in interesting ways. She is like that too and part of going to a very selective of school is that the learning environment may have other students who have a similar level of motivation and drive. It doesn’t mean that those who attend less selective schools don’t have that but I think the concentration of a certain kind of student exists more in schools that are harder to get into and appeal to those craving certain types of challenges. A lot of the learning environment is affected by who is in your classes and so forth. My D is always telling me of the exciting things her friends are doing at school and over the summers and it just is a very different type of kid than she went to high school with generally speaking (there is overlap and I don’t like generalizations but this is an observation). Even my own mom will question why does my kid “HAVE” to do this or that extra thing she takes on or do all these things over the summer, etc. and what she does not get is that my kid is craving to do these things and it is typical of her peers at her college, even though the kids my mom knows or even her other grandchildren don’t do these same sorts of things. My D takes on way more than what is required…not to get ahead but because she just really wants to do this stuff and I find that the kids she goes to school with are like this too. So, I can see why she loves her school…the kids are diverse but they have this inner motivation and drive that is a commonality…they seek to do things because they are genuinely interested in these endeavors, rather than just doing requirements, etc. and they are heavily engaged in more than academics. </p>
<p>momofthreeboys…I don’t think the reason to go to a very selective school is because the “quality of academics” is better. I think you can get a fine education at many types of schools and a lot of it is what you put into it personally. So, it is not like “elite = better academics”…not in my view. But the academic experience may be different. The work may be more challenging for a certain level of student and then the challenges of the peer group add a certain level of stimulation. I have taught at five colleges. I have seen the work of students at those schools and I don’t think my kid would ENJOY it. So, I don’t think one school’s academics are “better” but they may be a much better “fit” for the student. That’s why my kid picked the schools on her list. They fit her as a person and as a learner, but not because they offer better educations and so forth. </p>
<p>EDad…one of my kids is in a specialized degree program and so in her case, being with other kids at her level of talent where she was going to be very challenged and not be the ‘star’ and learn new things, rather than rely on what she brought to school, mattered to her. She is pursuing her field of passion and so in that case, finding students who share that passion and that level of talent and challenge also mattered. Neither of my kids enjoy classes that are easy for them or where they are the “best.” They really love now being in schools that have top students who are talented and that is a big part of their experience…the education in and out of the classroom, collaborating with these other kids. As well, certain opportunities have arisen at their schools and I can’t say what would have happened had they attended another school but I just know that one thing has led to another where they are now. I just returned from NYC where one of my kids goes to school and saw her in perform in a professional job and one thing she said to me was she can’t imagine had she not been at his school as various opportunities have arisen for her by the fact that she went to school there (this job was not at school and it was paid but came about through people at her school). I’m sure there is more than one place where my kids could thrive but they truly wanted selective schools as that was the best setting where they could thrive. Prestige was not what they cared about. Earnings has never come up. But the experiences they each are having are beyond what they ever could have hoped college would be. For me, that is priceless. It could be that way at less elite schools. These schools fit them. They really wanted to attend them and now that they have been there a while, they are beyond happy at these schools and it has been more than they dreamt it could be. Now, other students may want to attend for other reasons. I’m just talking of my own children who did end up at very selective schools and programs.</p>