In the conventional sense, it generally connotes money, e.g., moneyed elite, privileged elite, elite pricetag, etc. And certainly any “elite” college worth its salt is going to take strides to make sure its typical incoming student can pay its tuition.
If you’re basing the ratings on graduate programs and research, I’d probably agree with the above. If you’re basing the ratings more on the undergraduate experience, I’d say the US News rankings, where Cal, USC and UCLA are all clumped in the #20-#24 range, makes more sense. The largest classes at USC top out at around 200 students. At Cal and UCLA, you have freshman classes of 700+ students. You might as well be watching the lectures on TV.
The problem is none of these rankings have a good way to directly measure teaching quality. That’s why I think that while the rankings are fun to look at, I wouldn’t take them all that seriously as a way to measure educational quality.
I went to grad school at USC in the 80s, and as much as I’d like to think of it as an elite school first and foremost, I still can’t help but think of it as a football school. I’d think that’s how most other people think of it, too.
@VANDEMORY1342
"one must admit that USC are buying these students to enroll. The “prestigious” schools don’t have to, and give minimal merit aid if at all. "
Does that mean Vanderbilt and Wash U. must leave the “prestigious” category? Or were never in it?
If a school is really “elite”, it should not have to lock down as much as half of its’ class in Early Decision. I think that’s obvious when you compare the top colleges that do ED with the ones who don’t (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford do not having binding ED - and neither do Berkeley, UCLA, USC, Michigan). An “elite” college should trust that the students they admit would enroll because they are offering a great education and not worry about them being lured away by an even more “elite” school. An “elite” college should be need-blind in admissions and financial aid should meet the need of all students.
And the only students who can be “bought” with a merit scholarship are those whose families are too affluent to qualify for financial aid but not so rich that $50,000/year is pocket change. And if you prefer a college where those students would be replaced by students from the .01% to whom money is irrelevant, you should certainly call it “buying” students. But the alternative to “buying” students is simply admitting more very rich students instead of moderately affluent students because you are certain they will attend your college regardless of sticker price.
@simba9
“I went to grad school at USC in the 80s, and as much as I’d like to think of it as an elite school first and foremost, I still can’t help but think of it as a football school. I’d think that’s how most other people think of it, too.”
This is true, especially for people who only remember USC in the 1980s. That was a long time ago. Today, most California students see it as just as difficult to be admitted to as Berkeley and UCLA. At good California public schools, getting into Michigan is much easier than USC. Outside of California, USC has a football team like UCLA, Berkeley and Stanford do. Students don’t think of it as a football school anymore than Michigan is. For some students, the school spirit of big time football is part of the appeal. For others, it is just something that exists as they pursue their own interests in the arts or sciences or business.
I do agree that USC is not “prestigious” yet but then, neither was U. Chicago in the 1980s. Someone mentioned Northeastern and that is where some of the smartest students from my kid’s high school are going and many more got rejected from. It doesn’t matter what Northeastern was like 30 years ago. Right now it is a popular school for good students. And whether you believe it is not as “elite” as other colleges because you remember the 1980s is not relevant to them.
"one must admit that USC are buying these students to enroll. The “prestigious” schools don’t have to, and give minimal merit aid if at all. "
Obviously, each of the public ivies benefits greatly by being able to provide a substantial discount/scholarship to in-state students. The yield on in-state offers at public ivies often is triple the yield on OOS offers. Because in-state at a public ivy is a great price/prestige deal. 75% of UCB’s enrollment is in-state. Each of those kids gets a $27k discount/scholarship (before FA).
Many of those in-state students obviously would not enroll at UCB if they were not offered the in-state discount. Just like many kids at Harvard wouldn’t enroll if they didn’t get big FA awards. Or like many USC students wouldn’t enroll if they didn’t get merit awards.
A pretty good measure of eliteness (if you could get the data) would be to look at yield data for offers to kids whose families would be full pay. Harvard has huge FA (going to an impressive 60% of students). But it is equally impressive that 40% of Harvard students are full payors – no FA, no in-state discount, no merit…
If they can do it, people will pay up for an elite school.
I find it ironic that some posts are trying to conflate the elite-ness of LACs by looking at how many grads work for Goldman Sachs. GS is known as the Wall Street firm without a soul, for being a cut throat, win at all costs, misogynist place. And not all that diverse. We’re sending our kids to LACs for the collaborative, inclusive, caring, do good culture. But then we’re measuring them by how many end up at Goldman?
USC is an excellent school, no doubt about it, but not “elite” in IMO.
D18 may qualify for merit aid (no FA), but we, her GC and everyone within her peer network would choose Cal or UCLA well before USC, if any of them were lucky enough to be accepted to all 3 and had to choose. It’s not close for our family. And as I said, I have multiple friends and relatives with kids at both schools. That’s where I’ll be putting my dollars.
Nonetheless, if D18 does end up attending USC, then it will be considered elite. =))
Why has this thread devolved into a meaningless discussion of California schools?
Sush – UCB in-state is about $30k (tuition room board). That’s a great deal that few would turn down.
Question #1 for you. Assume your kid landed a big merit schollie at USC. Would you pick UCB over USC at $30k net price?
Question #2. Suppose UCB was, instead, $58k for you (which is the full OOS price). Would you be willing to pay that (assuming finances made that possible)? Or would your college search look different than it does now at tha price point?
Not for the academics and those who really knew colleges. UChicago may not have been considered as elite as the Ivies or peers like MIT/Caltech/Stanford, etc…but it was elite…especially in the academic sense. And that rep goes back decades before the 1980’s.
In contrast, USC was known not only as a football school, but one for academically mediocre rich kids till the end of the '90s at least.
There’s a reason why it used to be popularly known…especially among Californians as the “University for Spoiled Children” or in the case of some Chinese-American communities there the “University for Stupid Chinese”. UChicago was never regarded that poorly even at its founding back in 1891…especially among those who mattered…the academics and potential employers.
@ChoatieMom I have no idea. This is the 1st ranking thread that I’ve been involved and hopefully the last. It’s like playing tic-tac-toe. No one wins.
@northwesty We’re getting the thread off track.
Question #1. Yes, UCB (and UCLA) hands down.
Question #2. Tough question, because it’s a hypothetical. Technically, the high CA income and property rates that I have paid over the years probably make UCB/UCLA that full OOS price. 
The thing is, we live in the Silicon Valley, so there’s a humongous network of Cal (and of course, Stanford) alums. But I’d concede, the college decision might look different if we were OOS.
Or the University of Second Choice (to UCLA). But as competition has risen, so has USC’s reputation.
@observer12
@northwesty
Aren’t 40% of all of the students at top schools full pay. Tbh I know GTown, and Emory have the worst fin aid for top tier schools but they still have no problem getting high caliber students.
Of course Vandy and WUSTL belong. They are southern elite ( Missouri has southern culture lol) along with Rice, Emory, Duke, and Davidson.
Location plays a factor especially if they are the best in their state/region.
Vandy doesn’t have a lot of merit outside of the Cornellius scholarship, unlike USC, which I feel is trying to adopt Vandy’s model. I do know that Emory Scholars all chose Emory over HYPS. I can say the same for Vandy scholars. I don’t think you could say the same for USC scholars. Of course I’m not sure and I only have anecdotal evidence but two USC scholars from my highschool were waitlisted at Vandy and Emory.
But again we focus on inputs too much mainly because it’s easier to compare. However USC, even with it’s large size, is hard pressed to be able to enroll students that can win awards for medical advancement in Ebola. They’re grads a still a step below UCB, WUSTL, and Emory.
In January 2017 the NY Times ran an article “Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60.” It had many illuminating charts and graphs (you can google it easily). One of the most interesting was “Where today’s 25-year-olds went to college, grouped by their parents’ income”.
What it showed that among the top .01% students were twice as likely to go to the “Ivy Plus” (very top) colleges than the students from the top 1%. So if you are very very rich instead of just moderately rich, your child is twice as likely to end up in those most prestigious schools. Is that because the children of the super rich are twice as likely as the moderately rich ones to be admitted? Are they twice as likely to be more meritorious? Or are students at the low end of the top 1% far more likely to be lured away by merit scholarships than the students of the .01% to whom $50k is a rounding error. (I’m guessing it’s a little of both, where students in the .01% get a boost in admissions over affluent students in the 1% because they attend connected privates or have big donor parents, so they are twice as likely to be admitted.)
That article also listed the colleges who had more students from the top 1% than they had from the bottom 60%. The 10 schools with the most rich versus middle class/poor students were Washington U (21.7% in top 1% versus only 6% from bottom 60%!), Colorado College, Washington & Lee, Colby, Trinity (CT), Bucknell, Colgate, Kenyon, Middlebury, and Tufts. In addition to those, Dartmouth, Princeton, Yale, U Penn and Brown also had more students from the top 1% than from the bottom 60%. Harvard and Stanford, to their credit, did not.
But colleges that had at least twice as many students from the bottom 60% than the top 1% included U. Chicago, Berkeley, MIT, Vassar, Swarthmore, Cornell. And those are the same colleges that accepted many of the most outstanding students from my child’s public high school who were rejected from the elite schools that have more students from the 1% (and especially the .01% than the bottom 60%.) I don’t believe that it is because MIT and U. Chicago have lower standards than Brown and U Penn and Yale. But for the average unconnected public school students, admissions is on a more level playing field and there are fewer children of the .01% there.
And back in the early '90s, there was a much bigger perception gap between UCLA and UCB regarding academic eliteness among some Californians.
Most Californian relatives and their neighbors regarded UCLA as a football/rah rah sports school with respectable though less intense academics. In short, a school for academically above-average and above students who wanted a more academically laid back campus culture compared to UCB.
Because it should have remained a meaningless discussion of all US schools?
USC themselves acknowledges the old “University of Spoiled Children” and “University of Second Choice” labels. They aren’t running away from their past - at least to the parents of admitted students. They are up front about what they used to be and how they have worked very hard to change that image. Unlike the REAL “Universities of Spoiled Children” that I listed above, with more students from the top 1% than the bottom 60%, University of Southern California is closer to U. of Chicago in the % of students from the 1% (USC has 13.9%, Chicago has 10%) than it is to Wash U. (21.7) and Vanderbilt & Middlebury (both 22.8). And the number of students from the bottom 60% (those from families earning less than $65,000/year) is enormous compared to those colleges. USC has 21.9% from the bottom 60% while Wash U. has 6.1% and Vanderbilt and Middlebury 14-15%. That is a lot of financial aid that USC is spending to make it possible for students other than the 1% to attend. Same with U. of Chicago, which has 10% from the top 1% and 24.5% from the bottom 60%. MIT only has 5.7% from the top 1% and 23.4% from the bottom 60%.
Depending on ED to give full-pay students an extra boost doesn’t make you elite. If you are truly elite, you want the best students you can get regardless of ability to pay and make an effort to recruit them and you don’t have a disproportionate number of students whose families can easily afford $70,000/year.
Outside of California, people think UCLA is just as much of a football (and basketball) school as USC. Outside of California, people don’t realize that very smart in-state students now see the difference between Berkeley and UCLA as people on the east coast see Harvard and Yale. Sure, some will argue that Harvard is far superior, but most students know they are both excellent schools and choose the one whose vibe they prefer.
Not those who matter in the greater scheme of things, the academics who determine who will be admitted to academic graduate programs and employers.
Also, UCLA’s academics even 20-30 years ago were regarded as far more elite you’re implying. And it’s moreso now…especially considering many of their academic departments can more than old their own/give the Ivies/peer elites a great run for their money.
USC…not nearly as much yet.
I also don’t agree with “outside of CA people think” in terms of sports.
If someone has even the foggiest clue about college sports history, then they would know UCLA is/was known as a basketball school (Wooden years), not football, and USC is/was known for football (John Robinson/Pete Carroll), not basketball.
As an out-of-state parent (DD17 is attending UCLA), I don’t view USC and UCLA/UCB as interchangeable in reputation. But even if they were equal in “elite-ness,” USC is hard sell.
USC offers a state flagship experience but at a private school price. This the worst possible combination for non-Ivy private schools. If reputations were equal, full-pay families with high-stats kids most often find themselves choosing between public research universities and private small liberal arts colleges for fit reasons – not money reasons.
If your family is full-pay, and your kid is high-stats who wants a flagship experience AND a private school vibe, you would probably choose Duke or Vanderbilt or Notre Dame over USC if elite reputation is what you are after.