Why are people always invoking Michigan in these comparisons? It’s one of the top public school in the country and a very attractive choice for smart OOS students. Not all state flagships are like this. You can likely find talented students in all of them, but probably a significantly smaller percentage.
Of course, the gifted student who happens to have teachers who are not gifted or who do not write LoRs in the way that impresses colleges (and such characteristics may not be obvious from the point of view of students choosing whom to ask for a LoR from) will not be noticed by college admission readers looking for gifted students that way.
LORs often depend upon personal relationships of teachers, students and parents. It’s harder to get meaningful LORs for a shy gifted kid in a school of 5,000 than for an outgoing gifted kid in a school of 500. It also depends upon how well LORvwriting person can write, how passionate they are, what time constraints they have and how many letters they have to write. Teachers often have their own biases as well, based on gender, race, affluence, political affiliations, religion etc. There are many reasons LORs have limited value.
LOR’s are experts in giftedness? Some yes, and other’s no. That is subjective and influenced by other factors as their ability to convey it. Its not consistent and it can be based on favoritism, bias and politics as so can be the reader. Standardized tests results can be heavily influenced by the ability to study/ be coached for the exam. Grades are inconsistent across schools and even within the school itself. Who is brighter the child who aces every exam and just knows it with little effort or the one who studies eight hours a day to obtain similiar grades in the same class? Its not so simplistic. Even the gifted do not excel in everything. You can be a math genius or a prodigy in piano but can’t do xyz very well.
@epiphany “One way of many to sift for it is by LOR. Teachers who are gifted, for example, recognize giftedness in students, and they will talk about it in those recs.”
I’m guessing that many “teachers who are gifted” are found at the private schools that rich people send their kids to? And they can vouch that their student whose standardized test scores are lower than 25% of the students at a state flagship like Michigan is actually very gifted and belongs in an elite private university where the “intellectually gifted” go and not at Michigan, where “academically accomplished” students might bring him down to their ungifted level.
“I said that the proportion of the intellectually gifted is evidently greater at private elite universities than the proportion at public flagships.”
Not if you, for example, walk around the College of Engineering at UIUC, or Michigan. Moreover, I disagree with you about the proportion of gifted kids at places like Dartmouth. SATs and GPAs cannot separate gifted kids from high achievers. In fact, gifted kids often get lower GPAs than high achievers. ECs rarely demonstrate intellectual giftedness either. So, do you widely identify giftedness at Dartmouth because you are already convinced that the majority of them are gifted? No matter how well trained you are, when you are depending on behavioral cues to identify giftedness, it becomes very difficult to get around bias.
It is true that there are likely a larger number of people who have better writing style at Dartmouth versus, say, UMN. However, that does not mean that you can claim that there are a higher proportion of people who can write original poetry or prose.
Finally, “proportion” has no meaning, really. Students don’t randomly associate with other students. Kids who are into creative writing will find each other, and a flagship which has 300 of these will provide them with the opportunity to interact with 300 top writers. Dartmouth may have 100, which is a much higher proportion, but fewer top writers with which to interact.
However, the proportions are not all that skewed. If we take, say, SATs. The top 25% of SAT takers are UIUC have SATs above 1480. Dartmouth’s average SAT is 1497. That is the average of the top 25% of UIUC plus the top 40% of the mid 50% range, or another 20% of the student body. That would mean that the top 45% of students at UIUC are an equivalent student body to Dartmouth. This means that UIUC has a population of over 15,000 students of the same caliber as the 6,350 students of Dartmouth. UIUC is hardly unique in this.
So we’re not talking about some small number of gifted kids drowning in a sea of mediocrity at flagships compared to being the majority at Ivies. We’re talking about gifted kids being a bit more than twice as common at Ivies than at Flagships, in the most extreme cases. Since kids like this tend to find each other, the numbers favor flagships over Ivies.
“Elite” refers to ranking, and ranking is driven by money. Rich people send their kids to “elite” schools, because these are the schools to which they know that other rich parents are sending their kids. Since rich people can often get in much more easily than anybody else, a benefit which is not usually provided to the wealthy at flagships (at least not to the same extent), they will prefer the “rich people schools”.
Again, “elite” colleges are excellent colleges, and provide amazing education. However, they are not shining lights of enlightenment, compared to the dark pits of ignorance that are the public colleges. They are, at most, somewhat better, objectively.
Foe engineering, once you eliminate MIT and CT, there are a mixture of excellent public and private universities at the same level. For liberal arts, (and most other areas), it’s not even close.
While I think the NYT writer nailed it, I think there is a subsidiary driver.
If a student wants the learning environment a small school offers, they’ll be looking at LACS. (No talk of Michigan!) And you will note that most have the same price tag. Barring a school that offers merit, the “rich” family will pay full sticker price. So many consider lots of things as well as academics- food, environment, who classmates are, prestige.
It’s like telling folks they will pay $75,000 for whatever car they buy. For someone who wants an electric vehicle, that top of the line Tesla starts to become alluring!
On the subject of caliber of student attending public flagship versus “elite” private:
In my experience at both and I am obviously generalizing hugely, the typical student at public has “grit”. She does not have wealthy parents and works for everything, has a couple of side gigs, rarely asks the parents for handouts, seizes every opportunity that comes. I see that “type” consistently at my child’s public. I admire it immensely.
At the private the typical student is simply more coddled. They may have great ambition but when the going gets tough financially they have parents that can and will step in. The private supplies them with every resource imaginable. They succeed because of their environment, not in spite of it.
If I was to bet on which type will be more “successful” in life my money is on the kid that overcomes obstacles.
Obviously I am doing a disservice to the many talented and ambitious strivers that do attend privates but I am speaking in generalities across large populations.
I think there is a conflation in this thread between “private” and “elite.” I do not think those are synonymous. There are academically elite public colleges like Michigan and Berkeley, and a lot of really poor quality private colleges. “Elite” does not have to do with how much the education costs a full-pay kid; it has to do with the quality of the students, professors, and resources.
I think it is quite fair to say that there is a substantial difference between the quality of education at academically elite colleges (which include a number of very impressive public and private colleges alike) and less illustrious institutions.
I will share one story that illustrates this point. Two freshmen were talking over December break. At their different colleges- one an elite college, one not- the two boys each had taken an introductory course with the exact same title and a similar course description. The one at the elite college had read primary sources, the professor had shared additional information based on his experiences in the field, the class had debated issues, and the student had written several challenging papers. The one at the non-elite university had read only a textbook that referred to the primary source the other student had read, the class was a lecture with the professor repeating the content from the textbook, there was no class discussion, and the student wrote no papers but just took a few tests.
It was like they were attending college on different planets.
^I think that’s an over-generalization. My daughter is at a non-elite college and I’m very impressed at the level of intellectual engagement. She has to write lots of papers. She has an independent study class this semester and is doing several challenging photography projects. Next year, she will get to curate an exhibit in the student art gallery. She’s in the honors programs and has taken several small classes that delve into interesting issues. We are very satisfied with the education she’s getting.
I think the whole premise of the thread is pretty silly. And using Michigan as an example of a public college is also pretty ridiculous. If you compare SUNY Binghamton and Tufts the 25th/75th percentiles are about 50 points higher at Tufts. Tufts reports that of those who had a rank 80% were in the top 10% and 94% in the top quarter of their high school classes. Binghamton didn’t report that number but said 63% had a 3.75 GPA or better.
Eons ago I took a German 1 class at Harvard. We were reading an unabridged mystery novel at the end of the course. I took a course with the same title at the Pasadena Community College as a refresher before going to Germany. We covered about the same amount of grammar, but no novel. I actually liked the textbook better at PCC it was much more practical in the vocabulary it covered. 
There were a handful of dummies at Harvard, but most people, even then, were well above average and many were brilliant. What I liked best was just happening to sit down to lunch with people who were smart, but studying completely different things. The math major explaining her senior thesis, a guy who went on to become famous for his staging of operas, a young woman who was already publishing children’s books as a sophomore… I know by the numbers there are more bright kids than at smaller schools, but in the meantime your dorm may be party central. No question you can get an elite education at most big state universities, you may just have to work harder for it. Obviously honors programs and majors with quotas may help.
I think the non-elite schools have gotten better and better as those glut of PhDs have to go somewhere!
Let’s compare Tufts and Binghamton!
According to data on the NY Times website from the study of which colleges have more from the top 1% than bottom 60%:
Tufts: Median Family income - $224,800! Share of students from top .1% (note: not top 1%, but top .1%) – 2.4%. Share of students from the top 1% – 19%! Share of students from the top 5% – 50%! Share of students from the bottom 20% – 2.9%
Binghamton: Median Family income - $117,800. Share of students from top .1% - (too small to be discernible). Share of students from the top 1% – 1.1%. Share of students from the top 5% – 15%. Share of students from the bottom 20% – 5.9%
Now I understand what elite and non-elite really means. At “elite” colleges, there are much fewer of those middle class and poor students and significantly more very rich students. I’m sure that’s just because the students at elite colleges are much, much smarter.
Some comments are really objective and neutral while others merely insist that grass is always greener on their own side. More than college choices, these threads provide a window to human psychology.
People like to conflate private elite colleges with public elite universities, it really is an apples to oranges comparison. They don’t compare well as most elite private’s are undergrad colleges where elite public’s are universities with multiple colleges. There are significant size differences and multiple other aspects that just don’t compare well (usually in the elite private’s favor). Comparing Princeton to UMich is a waste of time. When comparing schools ,best to keep in the private vs private (or public vs public) lane.
One of the daughters of the parents involved in this whole admissions scandal was supposedly an Instagram influencer and really into makeup and fashion…couldn’t her parents have used their wealth to help her start a business or makeup line? From what I read, she didn’t seem that interested in academics, she was more interested in being at college to socialize and party. Maybe it would’ve been a better use of her talent and her parent’s money to do something like that instead of taking up space at a University when she wasn’t qualified to get in in the first place??
Here is a story you might want to hear to help you understand the why. I was sitting next to a young man and his girlfriend on a plane and we started chatting about where he stayed during his vacation. He had stated that he stayed at his fathers house in Cabo and had eaten breakfast at the clubhouse. I know the place and mentioned how nice the development was (the houses started at around $2 million). He went on to say that his breakfast was $200 and I asked him if it was worth it? He replied the service was excellent the food was excellent, and the $200 price tag was meant to keep people like me and him (his father was very wealthy but he was not) out of the restaurant. I laughed and said that sounds about right.
@natty1988 Olivia Jade did have her own make up line through Sephora and assorted other endorsement contracts. She also generates income via Instagram and YouTube. She lost her Sephora contract when the scandal hit. She has an estimated net worth of $500,000.
@gwnorth Well if she wasn’t qualified for USC she could’ve focused on that! College is not the be all and the end all…
@observer12 my kid who attended Tufts thought there were way too many rich kids from private schools too. 
He was looking for a good school for International Relations.
Another consideration is geographic diversity. 90% of Binghamton’s students are from New York. Tufts has 21% from MA, 13% from NY and 11% from CA.
OTOH Binghampton has a lot more racial diversity. With about 56% whites vs 71% for Tufts. (Tufts has a slightly larger portion of African Americans 6.1% vs 5.2%, but loses in most of the other categories.
If you are interested in comparing colleges collegefactual.com has a bunch of pie charts.