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

Torveaux
Wed, 26 Aug 2015 17:53:24 +0000

Some interesting opinions…I think of elite schools as those who employers seek for their top employees. Some of this is regional, some is national. The only ranking that really matters is the one that helps the graduate get the jobs they entered the school for in the first place. Almost impossible to rate as it really depends upon the goal.

I have had the good fortune to live in many parts of this country. Pizzagirl is absolutely right on the regional point. People tend to skew toward their regional or ‘super-regional’ academic powerhouses. There will always be the Ivy types that are as famous for being historic monuments as they are for producing quality graduates. People know them for their age (see similar results with sports powerhouses as well).

State schools are really in a sense bi-polar. They are schools within schools. Parts of many flagship schools are filled with some of the most elite students. Texas and TAMU both have some pretty high stat students. If you took the top 2000 freshman from each of their classes and compared them with the freshman at the Ivies, you would have a hard time telling them apart (except perhaps for income). The same could be said for nearly every Big10 school and many other flagships as well. The difference is that those schools also educate many less elite students.