Very good points, Bluebayou. Washington was known for Professor Barry Commoner et al a generation ago. USC was known for, well…Frank Gifford and O.J. Simpson et al.
Yep, USC was known for Student Body Right…
If this were true, then Alabama would be heading toward elite status.
Yeah – Better-dressed people piling into a Chevy don’t change the ride to a Cadillac.
They’d probably climb faster if they jettisoned their Greek baggage.
Are any state public unis ever really elite? Prestige is not the same thing as elitism, to me. Just asking …
'Bama is a fine top 100 flagship U that seems to be experimenting with merit scholarships to lure other states high achievers to their campus. If the state of Alabama can keep these folks in state and starting up businesses and providing high end talent to local industry, that will be great. Alabama has a big endowment for a state school.
If they can turn their merit program into an something that brings in high achievers in droves, they can move up into the higher tier flagships and can likely bring in full-pay or near full-pay OOS and international students.
If they can use their undergraduate and graduate talent to bring in research grants, also a good plan.
Is it a top 40 school ? No. Right now, it is an alternative for middle to upper middle class kids who have a high EFC or expensive in-state options or don’t want to be in the arctic of their home state or want to experience life outside of a 200 mile radius,. People on CC seem to be happy with the experience and the cost.
In 10 or 20 years, not sure … maybe top 60 with OSU, UMd, etc.
Most people don’t need a Cadillac, a Chevy is just fine. If you can afford the Cadillac, enjoy the ride. Chevy will get you to a job and a future, and if you can get a good deal on one (scholarship money, etc) rather than have a huge car loan, you can have the Cadillac later (nicer house, parents not living in your basement, etc).
"Are any state public unis ever really elite? Prestige is not the same thing as elitism, to me. Just asking..."
Once you’re into your major, I think so. At that point, you might as well be comparing graduate program rankings. So schools like Berkeley, Michigan, Wisconsin and Illinois, which are highly ranked in so many grad programs, are essentially that strong academically, once students enter their majors.
:
- The classes become much smaller, approaching class sizes at the elite privates
- There is intermingling with grad students, which benefits the undergrads
- Professors are typically much more available due to the smaller classes (not the case when you are a freshman and your smallest class has 200 students in it)
What about, say, Olin? It’s tiny, hardly anyone has heard of it, and yet I personally know two kids headed there this year, one turned down MIT for it and one turned down Caltech for it.
Is it moving toward elite when kids turn down elites to attend?
I don’t know much about LACs, but looking at the USNWR rankings:
Really elite 1-10 (your parents friends and employers will always be impressed)
Elite 11-20 (… will be impressed but not very impressed)
I know these are great schools, you must be smart 21-30 (you are special but still human)
I might know these are great schools 31-40 (you are smart)
These are good public flagships or schools I have heard of 41-50 (you are smarter than average)
51+ yawn, I think that is a good school … or good flagship … might have some good programs (you are well qualified)
81+ OK flagships and 2nd tier state schools and a few OK privates (you are more qualified than some)
100+ still a good school, but not amazing you are going there
I think the list ends in like the 150s, after which it is not clear if it is better to be a ranked regional or non-ranked national.
There are then like 2000 other schools that may be good, I dunno.
We could define elite as where the 1%ers will send their smart kids (likely small and high profile), graduates of Andover go there
We could define elite as where the high status seeking kids and parents want to go (add Berkeley, UMich, UVa, maybe UCLA)
We could define elite as where the really smart kids go
We could define elite as coddling schools where 1% send their kids that are not brilliant
We could define elite as where top professors want to go to be part of the top of the research and publication crowd
My kid might well be at NEU if the FA package had been better, she’d have turned down a much “eliter” school (with no loans in FA) to be there because she really liked it a lot.
But their FA was far from the worst she was offered. They meet 100% need as of last year or the year before, as they define it of course. In her case the pre-loan net cost was 5th out of the 11 she had to choose from, and NEU did better than some much higher ranked universities.
I think part of what moves an up and comer toward “elite” is superior financial aid and they seem to be heading that way. When they have no need for merit scholarships anymore than you know you’ve really arrived, maybe…
While I don’t think Alabama has become an elite university, it has moved onto the radar screen of a lot more elite students. I think Berkeley and U.Va. are viewed as pretty elite in general, and so is Michigan.
Assuming you have two equally qualified candidates, one middle class in need of FA, one not in need of FA but without 250K in the bank.
Why is it immediately obvious that the middle class FA candidate should get the 30K grant money ? The formulas are by no means linear, you can move out of FA eligibility in high cost areas on the coasts without really driving a Bentley.
Basically, this is a call that alumni contributors and university administrators make, it’s their money. I guess you can then judge the “eliteness” of the outcome.
"Most people don't need a Cadillac, a Chevy is just fine. If you can afford the Cadillac, enjoy the ride. Chevy will get you to a job and a future, and if you can get a good deal on one (scholarship money, etc) rather than have a huge car loan, you can have the Cadillac later (nicer house, parents not living in your basement, etc)."
Just to be clear, the cars in my analogy were meant to represent academic quality… not the schools themselves.
The point was, improving the students won’t necessarily improve the quality of the teaching.
I find this discussion so interesting. I wish I had time to write down all my thoughts …
I was trying to draw a distinction between elite and prestige at public unis because, while I think going to my state flagship confers a level of prestige – oh, BTW, I’m talking about UTexas – I don’t consider it elite. I know too many kids who get in and have to take remedial courses or just can’t hang and drop out for me to consider it truly elite. A truly elite school wouldn’t have the mandates on who it admits. And, because someone brought up 'Bama, personally, I think it’s far from elite status. Yes, it’s attracting a higher level of student thanks to generous scholarships, but, to me, the more prestigious schools (UVA, UNC, UT) aren’t having to use money to basically bribe smarter kids into going there. Don’t hate me for just putting that out there.
Also, if you look at the rankings of my kids’ schools, one is a top 10 LAC and the other is 20-30 uni, but everyone is impressed with the name of the uni, while most have never heard of the “better” LAC. For me, what people do/don’t know doesn’t confer “eliteness” on a college, but clearly the uni has greater prestige. Everyone has heard of it, largely because of its basketball team.
I liked the Chevy analogy. Most students in America are attending Chevy type schools and are doing just fine, although probably still look enviously at peers in the Cadillac schools.
Better students are more likely to complain about poor teaching … they are not scratching their heads, they are wondering why they have to self-study every single topic.
Quality of teaching really does not correlate well with the prestige of a school or the faculty, but maybe that is besides the point. I do remember a really good teacher at Hofstra in the 80s who beat all the instructors at much higher ranked schools in terms of explaining concepts well. The students were still having trouble, but he was really good at teaching.
One major factor is that elite schools really drive down class sizes. No professor, no matter how engaging or how tuned in to student needs or able to explain things, really functions well in an 800 person lecture hall. This does limit the “eliteness” of large flagships, especially if they are cash starved by their state legislators. Probably explains why 1% prefer to pay more for smaller schools with lower student to faculty ratios.
^^ right – take the USNews ranking:
There are big-name state schools with strong academic reputations that are ranked below some “up and coming” private schools – and even a few up-and-coming state schools – with far less academic cache.
You are right in stating that overall academic prestige does not correlate to the USNews ranking. Cal-Berkeley is ranked below WUSTL, for instance; Illinois is ranked below Northeastern; Minnesota is ranked below UCSB.
LACs just fly under the radar for many people. Perhaps because of their size, perhaps because they don’t have grad or professional schools doing big newsworthy research things.
And they don’t have football or basketball teams on TV
Right. I just think because people hear the uni’s name and are impressed, it doesn’t mean his school is any better than his brother’s, a school few people in my parts even know. And the uni is ranked lower on their respective lists, but it elicits the ooohs and aaahs.