The op seems to think that every post is directed at or to him. Seems what he didn’t learn in college or law school was humility. I am thrilled, THRILLED that I don’t have to field responses from him but am free to talk to other posters here who are equally ducking from the vast amount of wind being blown. What exactly was the purpose of such a thread than to brag about where one went to school? There is a brag thread for that.
How many people can one block?
I find it interesting that you automatically assume that the posters you have blocked are trying to start an argument with you. Are they not allowed to add to the discussion?
PG and Jym626 both on your do-not-disturb list (or whatever it’s called). My wife just went on a business trip, I won’t watch any of “our” TV shows without her, so I guess I’m going to have to do some investigating. Or, maybe I’ll walk the dogs 
^^^awww (for not watching your shows without her). This is more fun than walking the dogs.
For what it’s worth, Davidson kicks Furman’s butt on the prestige scale all day long, and also Steph Curry went there, so everyone in the Bay Area knows where it is…
Ixnay, and apparently he has bragged about having blocked Demosthenes and DrGoogle as well. I consider it a membership in an elite club. We have rigorous standards to get into this high ranking position. Oh wait… all it takes is to dare to disagree with the stuffed shirt. Thats a virtual guaranteed admission. C’mon in. the water’s fine!!
So did you turn down Duke (or equivalent) for Davidson?
If you did, then I can see why you may regret your undergrad experience. If Duke/equivalent wasn’t an option for you, then I don’t understand what there is to regret. I mean, I don’t regret not winning the lottery. You regret not slacking off (which likely would have meant no HLS)? You regret not attending ECU?
In any case, if you’re prestige-hunting, most LACs are a poor way to go. The truth of the matter is that most people haven’t heard of most LACs outside their immediate region and maybe the top handful.
Back then Davidson did his laundry. What’s not to like?
There is a limit of 5 people on one’s blocked list.
It definitely is an impressive accomplishment. Statistically (assuming relatively random chance), it might be a more elite honor than admittance to a US News top school ;
http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0310/features/zen.shtml
I didn’t read every post on this thread, but I feel at least part of the above speech is relevant to this discussion. I guess the takeaway message is that leaning can be just for learning’s sake. In that sense, choosing a college based on its rigor instead of ranking is a legit approach. However, note how the professor “assured” his audience their future is “secured” no matter what before moving on to his “main theme”? If a college is boasting its rigor but is not really taken seriously by its peer institutions and future employers, then that might be the reason why it’s ranked significantly lower than colleges of “similar rigor”.
They may be highly ranked, but here are the reactions of the “person on the street” in our neck of the woods (Midwest, not Illinois):
- University of Chicago - They think it is a state school in Illinois
- Swarthmore - Never heard of it...
- Harvey Mudd - "What? Harvard Med?"
If my kid moves back to her home state, the rankings mean squat to an awful lot of employers here. So… for her the reason to go isn’t prestige (none of those schools are really well known by large swaths of the general public, especially when you get out of their geographic region). Her reason for going was purely (as she says) to “get as close to being a polymath as possible.” Not everyone cares about the prestige factor.
There is only one more spot open, unless it is taken already.
Davidson grads have to take their laundry to cleaners who never heard of Davidson.
If Davidson is not taken seriously (NOT true), it certainly didn’t hurt his ability to get into the “let-me-brag-about-it-and-please-ask- me-which-law-school-I-attended” school. Clearly the issue is that less people are familiar with the name of his undergrad, and the name-dropping seems to be the key issue in this thread, not the rigor or quality of the education. So, why not start a thread with a veiled topic when the goal is to brag about the name law school. really, there is another thread for that.
Someone really would brag about where they went to professional school 20 years ago? Really?
Community colleges have no prestige and are non selective, but can offer rigorous course work for transfer aspirants. Some students start there because they did not do well in high school and are looking for another chance to do well. Others got shut out of suitable four year schools, perhaps due to cost.
I think it’s a fallacy that employers don’t value or understand rigor and/or significantly prefer prestige.
I hired actuaries many years ago. What we considered prestigious in no way correlated to a general listing of “prestigious” colleges. And it didn’t matter. Actuaries can study lots of different things to become an actuary, but the academic rigor of various college’s programs in applied math, statistics, various engineering disciplines, etc. was more important to us than whether the guy down at the bagel store is impressed with where you go.
Similarly when I hired engineers- and particularly specialty engineering backgrounds- rigor was much more important to us than overall reputation.
Do you think that Boeing, GE, Siemens, DE Shaw, UTC spend millions of dollars recruiting entry level employees and make decisions about where to go based on US News? Do you think that someone at Bridgewater is saying, “boy, I see that XYZ college has just moved up 8 places in a magazine’s ranking… we gotta go there” without doing ANY research on the rigor of various programs and departments?
Small companies which recruit locally- sure. If I’m a 40 person CPA firm in Albany NY I’m not doing a study to determine that U Texas has one of the more rigorous accounting programs in the US. If I’m hiring three entry level CPA I’m going to look at Albany, Binghamton and maybe Buffalo and call it a day.
But large corporations? They care about rigor. They care about the difficulty of getting honors (I’ve yanked schools from my company’s recruiting calendar when we’ve learned that 40 or 50% of students in a particular department get “honors” designations, and if a student’s GPA is below the bar, he or she can get a professor to nominate them instead). They care about the number and rigor of courses taken OUTSIDE the major (nobody wants an engineer who can’t write a coherent email).
OP- I’m sure your college experience paid off in more ways than you know.
The students would be less competitive, right? That would be a benefit for me. I suspect that admissions is just the beginning of the cutthroatiness at elite colleges.
Because then the student might really be a happy alumnus.