<p>What makes HYP different from the rest of top schools. Now and then, even from Stanford and MIT? Lots of posters put them in special category for variety of topics without reason and no one objects that.</p>
<p>A common positive stereotype (… just on CC)?</p>
<p>flatland - You’ll probably get a variety of responses. Mine is that graduating from these schools confers a certain status. That said, graduating from HYP etc. doesn’t make anyone a better person, or a more successful person, or a happier person, etcetera.</p>
<p>HYP is a bad shorthand for a number of schools that are similar in size, selectivity, types of students, and resources. I’d add Chicago, Stanford, Duke, Columbia to their numbers (and probably some more I can’t remember right now). For the sciences, I’d definitely add Caltech and MIT.</p>
<p>There are a lot of good schools. A few have recognition well beyond the US borders and people outside of academia take notice. Alumni networks are very strong. My sense is that a very limited number of schools make available opportunities with much higher probability than others. They also tend to cause the already ambitious students to set their sights higher.</p>
<p>My perception is that HYP do these things well and are recognized around the world by people outside of academia. I think Stanford for engineering and perhaps science, MIT and Caltech for engineering and science would fall in the same category. [I’m not saying that they are not superb in other fields, but am thinking about the alumni networks and recognition outside of academia].</p>
<p>Having attended and/or taught at three of these, I’ve benefited from the positive effects. I think that at each step, the probability of good things happening is better, especially if you want to do something out of the normal linear progression. I’ve shifted what I do a couple of times and I am confident that my affiliations have increased the ease with which I’ve been able to shift at high levels.</p>
<p>For example, I decided to take a year off after my first year of grad school and was looking for a job in a field that was different from my own but related to it and interviewed with one firm, and one of the two principals were grilling me about what I knew and what skills I had until one turned to the other and said, “He’s Princeton magna, Jerry” and Jerry then turned and said, “OK, so why do you want to work here?” Similarly, I switched fields after getting my PhD from Harvard and I am confident that the location made the switch easier. I later left academia and joined an investment bank and then a family’s investment firm. Both moves came directly as a result of contacts made as a professor at Harvard. Having Harvard boldly emblazoned on my current firm’s resume and being an expert in what we do means that the red carpet is rolled out at times when we go to places like Australia, Malaysia, Peru, Japan, China. </p>
<p>I’m not sure I’d put Duke, Columbia or Chicago in the group that does what I think distinguishes HYP (and likely SMC). [Chicago might have some of the effects in economics in some countries.] They are all terrific schools with great students, but I don’t think they have the same effects on either horizons or improving the lottery of opportunities that become available. Same with Dartmouth, Penn, Brown, etc. Dartmouth, Amherst and Williams seem to have terrific alumni networks, but I don’t think they have the recognition that I see at HYP. Prestige is in the eyes of the beholder and alumni networks are what they are.</p>
<p>My son was playing chess in Costa Rica with a boy his age. His father asked my son where he was going to go to college. My son had not yet applied and listed a number of high-end schools. The father was a lawyer, who said, “Go to Harvard. If you go there, you are set for life.” This is of course not true, but it illustrates the perception that people have.</p>
<p>And, none of these special benefits – horizon-raising, contacts, alumni networks, improving the lottery of available opportunities – will help at all if the individual isn’t proactive and aggressive in taking advantage of the great opportunities he/she has available.</p>
<p>I wasn’t thinking in name recognition, not being a brand-name person myself. I was thinking in terms of educational value. Despite my own Harvard connections, I’d definitely put the other schools I listed on a par with it in terms of educational value. As far as I am concerned, that’s the only metric that really ought to matter. I would not choose a grad program over another one just because someone in Costa Rica has heard of it.</p>
<p>“They also tend to cause the already ambitious students to set their sights higher.”</p>
<p>IMHO, that’s it in a nutshell. It’s not just sky’s-the-limit, it’s there IS no limit. How high can you take a college a cappella group? Probably a 6-continent world tour, paid for by gigs in places like the Sydney Opera House. There are three groups that do that regularly, two at Harvard and one at Yale.</p>
<p>I’ve mentioned this before, but the Harvard College handbook outlines the rules student groups have to follow. One rule is that student clubs may not invite foreign heads of state to campus without first alerting a central office that handles protocol. The rule is necessary because student clubs make those invitations all the time, and the leaders often say yes. This kind of possibility just never crossed my mind when I was at Bryn Mawr/Haverford. I led a Jewish feminist club there, and it wouldn’t have occurred to us to invite Yitzhak Rabin to come and speak to our group. It’s strange even to imagine it. We just didn’t think that way. At Harvard, we did.</p>
<p>Agreed, marite. I’m not commenting on educational value, because I think what distinguishes these schools is separate from direct educational value. The Costa Rican story was merely one of many examples of greater name recognition. But, that is part of what makes HYP different – as are alumni networks, horizons, etc. </p>
<p>I wouldn’t choose any academic program based solely on the advice of a Costa Rican lawyer (except maybe of schools with Costa Rica), and that was just a cute story. But, I am trying to explain what makes HYP (SMC) different. I’m confident that, independent of the quality of the work, in terms of getting calls to do business around the world, the brand name carries a lot of value. Also, getting the best opportunities.</p>
<p>What I am also trying to say is that HYPSMC don’t do it for you, you have to take advantage of the higher probabilities of good options at each stage. They may not be there because of better educational quality, but my observation suggests that the better lottery of opportunities are definitely there.</p>
<p>Everyone’s right so far.</p>
<p>From a branding perspective, the HYP brands stand for (1) very smart, (2) accomplished, (3) probably intellectual, or at least comfortable with intellectuals, (4) good social skills, and (5) either part of the Establishment, or comfortable with it, and with lots of points of contact. Is all of that true of every HYP graduate? Of course not! But, on the whole, it’s a pretty good indicator. Are HYP the only brands that stand for those things? Of course not! But they stand for that package of those things perhaps a little more perfectly than any other American university affiliation. The degree of difference varies, of course – Stanford comes awfully close – and each different institution has slightly different nuances.</p>
<p>In terms of the actual academic experience, marite is right that there are probably 10-15 institutions where there is no meaningful difference, and Hanna is right that the meaningful difference, such as it is, resides in a sense of limitless possibility. And also in the uniform high quality of one’s fellow students. Penn, Duke, Cornell, Amherst, Berkeley, etc. will have many students who are “just as good” as the students at Harvard, and Harvard will have some duds, too, but I believe that the median student at Harvard is going to be noticeably more impressive than the median student at those schools. (And the median student at Harvard is NOT likely to be more impressive than the counterparts at Yale, Princeton, Stanford.)</p>
<p>MIT and Cal Tech, because of their non-liberal-arts focus, are in a slightly different category. One expects students there to be less well-rounded, less integrated into the current power structure, but perhaps more skilled in a particular fields.</p>
<p>Not counting the educational experience during school, to me, HYP - being a Y myself - is mostly a social and personal validation scheme. Successful people come from all over. If you go to HYP and have the ability and the drive and the luck - not counting already being rich - then you’d be successful no matter what, no matter where you went to school. Your path might be different but then if you ran your life over and over and over - like a weird Groundhog Day - it would run down many different paths. HYP gives you some of an edge, gives you sometimes a foot in the door, but life is up to you not your degree. </p>
<p>So the degree itself for many people is a way of saying to others and to themselves that they’re special. As one of my daughters notes, most of the HYP graduates she knows are housewives. This may sound extremely cynical but don’t under-estimate the importance of self-validation. Feeling good about yourself in life is not always that easy. </p>
<p>In other words, some people like to portray HYP as a golden ticket to a better, different life. It really isn’t. The ticket is you, your skills, your abilities and your desire. HYP is a stamp on that ticket that has less and less value as life progresses, except to the extent it matters to you. If you want a golden ticket, you need to have chosen your parents better.</p>
<p>As a grad of H, who also went to grad school for a year at Stanford, and has spent time at several other colleges, including recruiting at Y, P, what makes HPY different is the student body. HPY selects students who are not only smart (something that is typical for top schools), but also tend to be type A people who love immersing themselves into ECs, not just academics. They tend to thrive and be happy with busy schedules – including lots of time with ECs that have little connection with their majors or career plans – that other students would consider far too intense and not fun at all. The students don’t have such full schedules to impress future grad schools or employers, but because they genuinely like doing such things. Even in old age, the alum tend to be very busy with many activities.</p>
<p>Stanford and Brown students tend to be more laid back.</p>
<p>NSM, I think this bright young lady agrees with you on the statement of
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<p>[Country</a> Day grad to head for Stanford full swing | Cincinnati.com | Cincinnati.Com](<a href=“Cincinnati News, Sports and Things to Do | Cincinnati Enquirer”>Cincinnati News, Sports and Things to Do | Cincinnati Enquirer)</p>
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<p>I don’t think type ‘A’ has much to do with EC activities, but I can’t say they are totally unrelated either. I’m in consulting where if you are not type ‘A’ you’re in the wrong occupation. We do consider ECs and I have seen many cases where the difference between two analysts up for promotion to consultant got down to who had the more substantial EC activities as the tie-breaker.</p>
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<p>This is what someone who has taught at two top state universities and Harvard told me. The top students at these state universities are every bit as good as the top students at Harvard; below the top 5-10%, however, the quality of the students drops down faster at the states schools than at Harvard. The comparison would hold as well for Y&P. </p>
<p>Still, there are areas where some state schools, even not at the top, have an edge over HYP. Arizona State University and Northern Illinois University have stronger programs in Southeast Asian studies than HYP. Carleton is stronger than Harvard in South Asian studies. UIUC is better than Harvard in Comp Sci. Duke has been luring tenured anthropology away from Harvard, and, given the hiring freeze, Harvard is not going to make good its losses. For Southern history, UNC-Chapel Hill is better than HYP. For Western history, UC-Boulder is better. And the list goes on.</p>
<p>There are fields and subfields where all sorts of institutions have an edge over HYP, and few if any fields where HYP stand 1-2-3. Contrary to some popular imagination, they are not the best at everything, or even the best at everything they think is important. Their academic superiority, at the undergraduate level, rests on two interdependent pillars: They are AMONG the best at ALMOST everything they think is important, and at more things than anyone else. And they attract more of the best students than anyone else (not ALL of the best students, just more in one place).</p>
<p>Take a look at the current makeup of the Supreme Court. Only two current justices, Ginsburg and Stevens, did not attend HYP in either undergrad or law school, and Ginsburg attended Columbia Law.</p>
<p>Now look at the last the last four presidents, Obama, Bush Jr., Clinton, and Bush Sr. All of these men attended HYP. </p>
<p>About 12% of Congressmen hold degrees from ivy league schools.</p>
<p>My point is that these schools have a history of producing our country’s leaders.</p>
<p>I think a lot has to do with the size of their endowments, the “star” quality of their faculty and that their graduates have historically made up the majority of the US intelligentsia.</p>
<p>No one should be fooled by Justice Ginsburg’s Columbia law degree. She attended Harvard Law School for two years, and transferred to Columbia for her third year because her fiance (Marty Ginsburg) was a year ahead of her, and had graduated and was taking a job in New York City. They were either already married, or they got married then. Under current practice, she would have received her degree from Harvard.</p>
<p>The law school hierarchy is both better defined and more rigid than the hierarchy of undergraduate institutions. The undergraduate alma maters of the Presidents and Supreme Court Justices are (somewhat) more varied than the sources of their professional degrees.</p>
<p>Well, gee, I’m glad *that *was cleared up…:)</p>
<p>When it comes to Supreme Court justices, heaven help a president who tries to foist someone on the country who hasn’t graduated from a top law school! GWB’s choice of Harriett Miers to fill the Supreme Court vacancy may have been flawed on many levels, but the fact, in and of itself, that she graduated from SMU Law School made that nomination a complete non-starter in the eyes of many.</p>
<p>Actually, it turns out the story is quite colorful and impressive:</p>
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[From Ginsburg’s official biography]</p>
<p>Note that, although the article doesn’t say it, Ginsburg’s first child was born right after she finished her first year of law school. The “preschool” daughter referred to above was an infant.</p>