When does an up & coming university finally become “elite”?

PickOne1
Wed, 26 Aug 2015 16:19:37 +0000

All the top 20 schools and even others (surprisingly state flagships in search of OOS tuition or just better students) are heavily recruiting from all areas of the country, and with the competitive admissions at these schools, I would think some students are willing to leave their region to go to a selective or even elite school. This used to actually work as a strategy, and maybe sometimes still does, but I think the internet and other sources make it all more transparent … And if you only have 1500 slots and 50000 applicants, a few less applications from Chicagoland or the NE may be a relief.

The man on the street thing can also get a bit out of hand. You really can’t be elitist to everyone, most people are thrilled if their kids can go to a good state school for a reasonable cost and don’t really like it if you make fun of UC-Boulder (by the way, a beautiful campus with a stellar aerospace engineering program, just a bit costly OOS) or 3rd tier IS option. If they have a friend or friend-of-a-friend with a smart kid, they think whatever school they went to is a good school, especially if they do well in life afterwards.

Honestly, all the national universities and LACs that are ranked in USNWR are premier schools, and I would guess so are the regionals, although there it really does matter if you are in the region or not. To many those are all “elite”, but maybe not to everyone reading a thread that has NE as up-and-coming and trashes Brown and Cornell as being regionals.