^^Go Butler 
The problem with “elite” schools can be seen in this thread, and that is there are various ways to say a school is ‘elite’. USNWR rankings seem all great and good, but when you look at the reality, their rankings can be gamed, and also questioned, what they say is elite may not mean anything. when I see battles over where Harvard and Princeton and the rest of the ivies lie, I have to kind of laugh, because all of them are fantasic schools with fantastic teachers, networking opportunities and so forth, so in reality, do those rankings mean anything?
Elite schools often are correlated with huge endowments, for obvious reasons if a school is seen as elite, they tend to get a lot of donations (not saying it is right, but giving money to Harvard or Princeton would likely gather a lot more attention then some school trying to build itself, though I could argue helping build up a school rather than giving money to Harvard or Princeton is a better thing to do).
Elite schools often have, not surprising, elite alumni, who have done a lot of famous things (think HYP, for example, or MIT)
Elite schools that have that reputation often tend to attract students out there on the bell curve, not surprisingly. So Juilliard, for example, in the music world, because it has such a name in the music world that literally stretches all around the world, to places you wouldn’t believe, gets a ton of applications, and they can cherry pick, and end up with a 6-7% admittance rate and a yield that is easily 90 some odd percent of that. In a sense, it is a self fulfilling prophesy, they get the name ‘elite’, so everyone wants to go there, and they can cherry pick, and they do, and it means their average numbers are impressive.
The problem with that is obvious, that if you look at the program overall or a particular area, it may not be elite.Juilliard attracts really top level music students, but in terms of teachers, they don’t necessarily have all golden fleece, and on a particular instrument, for example, the best teachers may not be at Juilliard (and I am using that as an example simply because I know it somewhat well), so going there because it is ‘elite’ may not make sense.
Elite schools, too, in some research focused areas, might not be good for UG, the way some music schools are not good for UG, because they put the emphasis on the grad programs, not UG. So you may want to get exposure to research as an UG, but the elite school may not allow that, whereas a school not considered elite, may have great opportunities in that.
My problem with the elite stuff is it often comes down to marketing, schools trying to ‘make themselves elite’ through hype and marketing rather than in reality making their school into an academic powerhouse. NYU to me is a pretty good example, having one there, I saw the changes happen after I graduated. When I went there, it was much like what my impressions of Northeastern were (my sister had been an administrator there up until not all that long ago,and note I said were, I don’t know what is true today, my impression is it has changed, but know little beyond that). When I was there (NYU) the med school, the dental school and the business school (grad) were top programs, as was the law school, but the UG was not an ‘elite’ school, it was mostly a good school that was mostly NYC region (among other things, it didn’t have that many dorms, so many kids commuted, even though it was a big school). Basically, they went on a major spree to go upscale, they bought a lot of real estate (thanks to hyper increasing the endowment), built a lot of dorms, and then started bringing in rock star faculty and such…and in the process, also started going more upscale, they cut down the financial aid as the cost of the school rocketed, and sold themselves as an Ivy league like school, and over time it basically became what it is today, which has the aura of being elite (because their standards went very high), enough so that they can attract a lot of people willing to fork over 60+ k a year to go there, or go into debt to do it. Personally, while I have little attraction to the ‘elite’ label, my experience of the ivy leagues is that I think they are elite, if for the fact that they are elite enough that they can give decent financial aid to allow the best and brightest and accomplished to go there, unlike let’s say NYU that primarily seems to spend its endowment money on making themselves look more awesome (there was a recent thing about that, where they spent something like 10 million to buy a brownstone to attract a rock star professor to the school).
I guess I am old fashioned, to me elite should be measured what comes out of the school, what their alumni do, in terms of creating things or furthering society or maybe helping us all be a little more human (I am more impressed by someone who comes out of my self defined elite school who discovers a fundamental principle of the universe, discovers how cancer works, who founds a charity that helps people, than someone who figures out another way to manipulate the stock market to get rich; fortunately, for all those going to elite schools who want to be the next Gordon Gecko or partner at Goldman Sachs, there are the other types, too). I could care less what USNWR says, I could care less how much money kids graduating from the school make in of itself, it is what they do with their lives that matters more and how the school shapes it. In some ways, I am a lot more impressed with the school my wife graduated from with her masters, or the NYU I went to, in that they seemed to want to try and really educate as many people as they could, rather than worry about being elite, both schools made an effort to allow kids who were working their way through, by having classes at convenient times and so forth, to allow this to happen, and more than a few of the kids were often first generation of their family getting degrees…but like I said, I am old fashioned and my ideas I guess are a bit different than what the norm is these days. I think MIT is an elite school because it attracts a lot of really bright kids, and what they have created and continue to create a lot of new, exciting things, MIT markets itself, but quite frankly, probably doesn’t.
Don’t know too much about private schools, so I’ll just speak on the public schools I do know of. This is kind of how I think of it as far as prestige goes with schools in the same tier being roughly comparable.
Tier 1
UCLA
UofM
Berkeley
UVA
Tier 2
UNC
UCSD
UT-Austin
Tier 3
UIUC
UW-Madison
UCI
UCSB
UCD
UDub
I do also agree that selectivity is a good indicator of prestige. You’d be hard to argue that a school with a >20% acceptance rate isn’t at least somewhat prestigious. Although US News’ ranking system is a bit flawed, I think it gives people a fairly good idea of how prestigious/elite a university is.
prezbucky, “The point was, improving the students won’t necessarily improve the quality of the teaching.” ha ha ha
Gather a group of the best teachers in US universities and form a university. It won’t be elite! Teaching has nothing to do with the extent to which a school is considered elite. If you want to find the best teachers, go to a community college or to a 4 year small lAC where faculty don’t conduct research. They are evaluated on the basis of their teaching skills only. None of the schools will be considered elite by anybody. Elite schools are the ones that contribute the most new knowledge to the world (given their size). Teaching quality is a low priority. That is ok. they may not have outstanding “teachers” but they probably have outstanding “professors”. They are two very different things.
This illustration is depicted in a polarized manner to make the point: Schools with less strong students benefit from good teachers. Good teachers can help enthuse otherwise less then engaged students. They can help translate difficult concepts into easier ones. They can spoon material to the student in easy to digest chunks. When that doesn’t work they can puree. Good teachers deliver well organized interesting power point driven lectures making it easy for students to take notes about.
Professors are people who are experts in their field of study. They are usually active in research. They are busy with research, grantsmanship, presenting their work, editing journals or being peer reviewers for journals, publishing, working on task forces, and they may teach a class. College students who work with them are often introduced to state of the art (world changing) research. Courses are likely to be taught at a high level with little tolerance for the high school like conduct of poor students. The professor may not be that great at reducing complex concept into easily chewable bite sized pieces. The Professor is more likely to expect that students can be independent; can seek out information; are active participants (rather than passive recipient) of their education. Outstanding students will usually benefit more from having Professors then “good teachers”. They don’t need the pablum which pales in comparison to the value of scholarship for them. Can a Professor be a “good teacher”. Sure, rarely.
This whole discussion elides the distinction between academic prestige and social prestige. They aren’t the same thing.
“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)”
This is sooooo regional in nature. On CV it’s always assumed that everyone genuflects at the mention of the USNWR top schools, but in reality it’s concentrated in affluent pockets.
So, there are people who only know the big sports teams, but I bet most people who are outside of really small towns have heard of
Top 10 (maybe sans U Chicago and maybe Duke (but they have BBall)
Top 20 (maybe sans NW, WashU, Rice)
Top 30 (maybe only Uva, UM)
Top 40 - not so much
- all 50 states flagship Us unless they have a stupid name (better to be U of State than State U, etc), or at least the 4 or 5 states near them (on east coast, everyone knows Rutgers and Penn State, UMd, UDel, Cornell or NYU maybe as state school in NY :->, UMass, UVt, UMaine, etc) maybe not in prestige order, but most people would think you are good student if you go to the flagship in your state or neighboring state.
The smaller schools with less name recognition … you got to tell them or hope they have a friend of a friend (and maybe that is not “elite” enough).
So since state schools have name recognition in that most people learned the 50 states in elementary school and the schools are big, maybe there are 70-80 “elite” schools for those who know little about colleges.
If people have a bit more interest, UMich, UVa, etc would start to stand out from the other 50.
So maybe elite are the name recognition schools, which ties back to the up-and-coming. If you go to an up-and-coming school, you are more likely to have either people be unimpressed or never have heard of it.
Harvard, I think people know,NW/NE etc maybe not so much.
@lostacount your professor vs teacher reasoning makes perfect sense to me. Most high achievers can self-study and just want a professor to be somewhat interesting and tied into current topics in that field. Most lower students need someone to help them understand the material, possibly including some things they should have learned in 9th or 10th grade.
I disagree. I think that quality of teaching should be one of the main ingredients – along with research prowess, faculty awards, etc. – in determining academic prestige. What goal is there larger than to educate the students? Is that not the main goal of any university? You might say that goal is equal to doing great research and making the world a better place through that research; but they are also making the world a better place by delivering a great education to students. That, to me, must be considered a large part of academic prestige.
So, yes: great teachers improve the academic prestige of a school. Or they should.
I am aware that it would be difficult to come up with a valid/reliable way, other than perhaps student surveys, to find out who the best teachers are. Being published or winning an award makes one a valuable faculty member, not necessarily an effective teacher.
Teaching quality is pretty subjective. Do we count on student ratings (they might like easy As or great handouts or someone who can tell a good tale) ? Do we count on high grades (so is it exemplary teaching or grade inflation)? Do we count on success in future classes (even harder to track, and what about the quality of students argument) ?
I think this also depends on your interests and majors. If you want to become a theoretical physicist, do you want a physics 1 professor who teaches you force vectors or one who launches into a long tale of some theoretical work he or a colleague has done) ? Do you want a professor who spends his time on teaching or one who has a great lab with undergrads and some fascinating work ?
If you are studying medieval history, maybe teaching in a traditional manner is more appropriate, or maybe not …
Ideally, a class would also have some intellectual debate or discussions or someway to avoid just being talked to for a few hours.
I think this discussion may have a better relationship to “fit” than “elite”-ness. LACs are known for better teaching, research universities more for professors who research and teach classes on the side. Some people want to be taught, some really want to be subjected to lots of ideas which they then weave into their own understanding and opinions. Both are fine, and if your school and professors matches your learning style, you will be very happy with your education, especially if your employers are impressed with your school (and you, after 4 years of being part of that culture).
Judging by the attention paid to Northeastern on this thread, I have to conclude it is certainly a school people are paying attention to - the first step in being “elite.”
But, overall, this whole discussion is silly – what is “elite”? Nobel Prize winners? Salaries for graduating seniors? Ability to attract full pay kids? There are many great northeastern schools – Williams, Amherst, Penn - that the Average Joe in Colorado has never heard of. Does that mean it’s not elite?
“Top 10 (maybe sans U Chicago and maybe Duke (but they have BBall)
Top 20 (maybe sans NW, WashU, Rice)
Top 30 (maybe only Uva, UM)
Top 40 - not so much”
You really aren’t listening here. THIS IS ALL REGIONAL. I guarantee I’ll walk into any everyday Radio Shack or dry cleaner or Hallmark store in the Chicagoland metro area, ask the store clerk what the top universities are - and they will tell me Northwestern and Notre Dame and Michigan well before they tell me Brown or Dartmouth or Cornell, which they’ve barely heard of. I did just that recently because I’m always interested in what people think and one young woman said U of Colorado at Boulder - well, her sister went there so she thinks it’s fabulous and one of the best schools in the country. She wouldn’t know most of the top 10 if she tripped over them. U of Chicago’s 20 miles away and she doesn’t know what it is. So what? That doesn’t reflect on any of these schools’ qualities IN THE LEAST.
This is why focusing on what the average person thinks / knows is a completely pointless exercise - because they aren’t knowledgeable, they don’t care, they base their knowledge on a friend-of-a-friend or sports prominence. It’s unimportant, except to insecure people.
“The smaller schools with less name recognition … you got to tell them or hope they have a friend of a friend (and maybe that is not “elite” enough).”
You don’t need to “hope” anything. My daughter went to a top 10 LAC. I bet 98% of people in this country have never heard of it, despite having a very prominent female alum who may be POTUS in the near future. Oh well! It hardly reflects on the school’s quality at all.
That ^^^^
The only school I didn’t mention in my list was Northwestern and only because it is confusing with Northeastern.
Otherwise, I’d say it is just order, NW >> Cornell in Chicagoland.
I should have said, if you go to an up-and-coming school and care about Eliteness, then you have to hope that they have a friend of a friend who went there.
If you don’t care, that is fine, but why would you be reading this thread …
LACs are tiny and many are in tiny towns somewhere in America. More people know the Boston schools. If HC becomes POTUS, more people might remember Wellesey, but then again there is Wesyleyan and a bunch of state Ws which I think is all male or was all male or maybe I am confusing it with Haverford. Hard to bump into a random alumni of a school with few grads.
I will agree that the Northeast is very preoccupied with the Ivy League, partly because very few of the states really have a stellar flagship, partly because the elite has always sent their kids to private schools, of which there are many. The midwest has really good state flagships, so I doubt most people would sell their grandmother into slavery to get them into an Ivy League school at twice the price (but the northeasterners can’t afford said midwestern state schools OOS tuition). Cali is a completely different world, their own premier privates and some stellar UCs.
You’re right, of course: quality is more important than fame. And we’d all hope that prestige would be based mainly on academic quality… and that academic prestige would lead to fame, and not vice-versa.
Of course, it doesn’t always work that way – sometimes schools become famous, among the general public, for things other than academic quality/prestige – so we use our various talents and obsessions to figure out which schools possess the qualities that we think make a school academically elite.
" More people know the Boston schools."
Not outside Boston / the northeast they don’t. Which is my entire point. You just think they do, because you live in the northeast and so you assume what’s known there = what’s known everywhere.
“I will agree that the Northeast is very preoccupied with the Ivy League, partly because very few of the states really have a stellar flagship, partly because the elite has always sent their kids to private schools, of which there are many. The midwest has really good state flagships, so I doubt most people would sell their grandmother into slavery to get them into an Ivy League school at twice the price (but the northeasterners can’t afford said midwestern state schools OOS tuition). Cali is a completely different world, their own premier privates and some stellar UCs.”
Right! So trying to come up with a nationwide list is meaningless.
“I should have said, if you go to an up-and-coming school and care about Eliteness, then you have to hope that they have a friend of a friend who went there.”
Eliteness among the massness and eliteness among those-who-know-better are two entirely different things. I’d like my kids’ schools to be seen as reasonably elite among-those-who-know-better, among the cognoscenti. I don’t see why I would care one whit if Joe Average has heard of them or thinks they are elite.
A solid (even if unspectacular) academic reputation plus:
The admissions are based on unquantifiable things like “sculpting the freshman class we want” and parades of eager students all with ACT scores over 31, plus maybe a couple celebrities are willing to support that level of hubris.
Rushing a social organization is one thing, but when getting into a college is less a meritocracy and more a variant of the “who’s most popular” high school game, that’s something else.
That something else is spelled e-l-i-t-e,
I grew up in a small town in the midwest and my parents still live there. I have spent the last 30 years living in suburban DC and can not find much difference in the schools that people know of outside of regional differences.
I am sure the average Chicagoland student would be ashamed to go to Brown and would be afraid that it would be confused with a certain package delivery company. They may not specifically choose it over Northwestern, but I bet they would get on the plane if they get admitted there and not at NW/UC/etc. I am guessing many choose Harvard over that Chicago school.
When there are hundreds of thousands of students, most or all highly accomplished, from all over the world clamoring to get into 20 schools with 1500 students admitted a year (total number of openings is thus 28,500 + 6000 at UCB), you got to pick something. Having 1500 premeds would make a horrifying student population, as would 1500 majority or URM or athletes or student council presidents or researchers or whatever. The big state schools with 30,000 students could possibly tolerate a weird year with 1000 art history majors and put those student council presidents into club president spots or something, but I bet, they don’t do that either. Flagships might be more about self-selection, but to be honest, sometimes that shows … like 1000 students in intro to comp sci or in the sort of vague student experience (other than football games which involves a really orchestrated attempt at putting together a top team) that one can often get there or in the engineering and pre-med weed out campaigns.
SATs are a lousy form of grading people since the content is too easy and you are also seeing massive correlation to multiple choice test taking skills rather than any real academic prowess. High schools vary from stellar hyper-competitive to tiny places where ability to do calc in 12th grade is really special. People lie about EC difficulty.
I think Pizzagirl is right about the regional nature of perceptions of eliteness.
However, I don’t think she is quite as right about it now as she was five years ago.