@1stTimeThruMom Are A’s plentiful because the cohort it so talented? It seems your average Harvard student will have a 3.5+ at almost any state school, maybe higher.
@MaineLonghorn Back to the question posed by @privatebanker - how do you define elite — or non-elite? There are thousands of colleges in the US, but US News, Niche, Princeton Review, et al only list at most 400 or so.
@RayManta You win for most generalizations in a single post.
@1stTimeThruMom I don’t. I frankly think it’s a silly discussion. I had top stats and was perfectly happy to attend UT.
@epiphany Re “efficient work and creative ideas come more naturally to the gifted…” In fact, many truly gifted people also have learning disabilities. The old stereotype of the “absent minded professor” often matches today’s description of 2e, twice exceptional, and
Aspie. In those cases, the work will be creative, but the output is not efficient as generally understood. Instead, the work output might be the result of a brilliant, hyper focused ADHD person who was able to focus non-stop on a challenging problem, working through the night, over and over again.
Elite is a subjective word but to help you define it, you need to look at a set of characteristics that the “elite” school displays, that they have in common with other “elite” schools, and that separate them from “other” schools. Use whatever characteristics you want, but most of us will use statistics about the cohort at the school, admissions and personal preference to help define it.
@CU123 I can’t speak to the reasons why this is the case.
I think some of you are not getting this. Among other credentials, I specialize both in recognizing giftedness and in recognizing and Rx’ing (educationally, strategically) LD. I’ve had many years of experience in both, in addition to being a teacher, in addition to being a college counselor – so you are preaching to the choir here.
However, the fact that someone is brilliant, creative, and LD does NOT necessarily qualify that student for an elite school education, where his or peers will most likely be without pronounced LD and will be performing at a higher level due to not having obstacles with cognitive processing and efficient performance. The curriculum will not be geared for him or her. We’re talking about elite schools here (subject of thread), not every private school. And we are also not talking about the opportunity for students with LD or even those significantly on the Spectrum to be admitted to an excellent college and thrive there.
Sigh.
@CU123 Let us check if indeed, the faculty at CS Princeton who did their PhDs at a public university were hired “a decade or more after they got their PhD”.
Hired out of grad school: Sanjov Arora (UCB), David August (UIUC), Edward Felton (UW), Adam Finklesten (UW),
Hired after a 2-3 years post doc: Arvind Narayanan (UT Austin)
Poached after 3 years faculty position: Barbara Engelhardt (UBC)
Hired after 4 years in industry: Thomas Funkhouser (UBC)
Hired after 5.5 years in industry: Jennifer Rexford (Michigan)
Hired after extensive experience: Ben Rafael (UCSD).
So ONE faculty member was hired after more than 10 years after his PhD. However, he was hired four years after his PhD by who? Brown University.
@MWolf The direct hires in CS were from Stanford and MIT, everyone else had to work somewhat else before Princeton but I guess it wasn’t a full decade. You got me there.
BTW, your examples go back to 1993 (almost three decades to find 4 examples, and they did there undergrad at CalTech and MIT). I will give you this that grad schools at public universities operate a lot more like private universities and produce quality products. You still have to look at the majority of profs not the exceptions.
I politely request 30 minutes of my life back LOL.
But I just went through the Princeton Econ department. Pretty well thought of department, imho.
So many one off international schools hard to note all. Probably 10 left off and none I’ve really ever heard of on cc x vs y debates.
So here are the basic findings for undergrad educations of these noted scholars.
3 Ecole Polytechnique
2 U of San Paolo
2 Harvard (one from the late 60s)
2 Princeton
1 Michigan
1 UT
1 Kalamazoo
1 Macalaster
1 UCSD
1 Cal
1 BU
1 Queens
1 Cambridge
1 Oxford
1 U king somebody III in Spain
1 U Madrid
1 Dartmouth
1 MIT bs after ug school abroad
4 HPYSM out of the 30 or so reviewed. Roughly half from overseas.
@MWolf Facts are not welcome in any CC discussion about the almighty elite schools. 
Skipped 13 pages, sorry, but answering the question anyway:
“Why rich people prefer elite schools when most others doesn’t see any wort in it?”
IMO, for at least a portion of the people being discussed ,you have it completely reversed.
Some others “don’t see the worth in it” because they can’t easily afford it.
It’s a classic example of “sour grapes”.
https://www.umass.edu/aesop/content.php?n=10&i=1
IMO.
For the others, some actually know that, based on a particular kid’s objectives and abilities, there really won’t be any additional worth to it.
Many others think the elite schools might be better somehow, but there is no guarantee and they dont really know. So since they can afford it, and don’t have anything better to invest their money in than the future well-being of their kids, they roll the dice and spend the money, in case maybe it might help.
Though there are no guarantees.
Hope that helps.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: This thread is becoming a debate. If it continues, the thread will be closed.
Here is an interesting site that provides some insight into the claims about competition 4 campus spots. It does debunk the idea that the competition to get into college has increased markedly over time. It’s not the case for the lions share of schools. but it is the case that these days everyone views themselves as being Harvard worth. And thus that care about having that bumper sticker, there are few impediments to applying. After all, we or our kids are all "gifted"right? https://highereddatastories.blogspot.com/2019/03/varsity-blues-and-real-admissions-data.html
Man, now I remember why I didn’t look at this thread for a week.
Anyway, I agree with @websensation that those of us who went to elite privates are less likely to put them on a pedestal.
So sure, the proportions of the most academically stellar or gifted kids or whatever is different at different schools (though you also have to factor in honors colleges and elite scholarship programs, which have higher concentrations of the better academic students). Whether that is better or not or worth paying a ton more for or not, however, is debatable and depends on the kid (and the school and the program). For instance, the alums of the elite scholarship programs like the Morehead-Cain at UNC and McDermott at UTD seem to do just as well after graduation as Ivy/equivalent grads. Morehead-Cain actually produces more Rhodes Scholars per capita than any of HYPSM (and it’s not even close). Plus, most of us don’t plan on dying right after undergrad. A top student in the UTD business honors program is now in some quantitative master’s program at Stanford. I get the feeling that he’s not going to somehow have an inferior network compared to someone who went to Stanford for undergrad. And he’d almost certainly be paying less than a full-pay undergrad at Stanford (UTD almost certainly was a full-ride or close for him and 2 years of Stanford costs less than 4 years of Stanford).
Honors colleges differ too. Some have more amazing perks than others.
“Finally, “proportion” has no meaning, really. Students don’t randomly associate with other students.”
Thank you, @MWolf.
I was getting annoyed at folks who seemed to think that humans are atoms that randomly bounce around (and randomly absorb brilliance from “the gifted” through osmosis from their bouncing?)
@CU123: “For liberal arts, (and most other areas), it’s not even close”
It’s tough to say, but I wouldn’t be so certain. The reason I say that is because quite a few publics have highly-rated liberal arts departments and profs, and generally nothing stops a brilliant kid in honors at a public from taking grad seminars with giants in their field (often there is space enough for undergrads).
@MWolf and @gardenstategal:
NCF in FL. It’s its own funky little animal, but if you can fit in to that culture, can find topics they offer that interest you, and are a self-motivated type, IMO, it’s one of the best educations you can get. And it’s public. Free for NMS.