Why top ranked colleges are the only legitimate colleges nowadays..few exceptions

[bernie12]

<p>Slithey: That’s exactly where I stand. Even at top 20s, you must “seek” a good education. It just costs a lot more to do that seeking and therefore we need to just pretend and convince ourselves that it is providing it to us and that somehow. Now that it has all of our money, it tries extra hard to make sure that the great teaching and mentoring just falls into our hand. Yeah…right. As high as the frequency of awesome things happening to me while here, I certainly had to earn it. It did not come merely w/the place being a top 20. If anything, the place just gave me more things to pursue than I or many cannot afford (I am on full fin. aid and scholarship). </p>

<p>Here is an example of how students, even at Harvard have gotten to the point where they nearly scoff or approach w/cynicism the idea of someone actually attending a place (or even claiming they attend such a place) that emphasizes good UG education and instead claims that Harvard is mostly for the great socialization: [The</a> Importance of “Undergraduate Education” at Surviving Harvard](<a href=“http://survivingharvard.com/2008/03/16/the-importance-of-undergraduate-education/]The”>The Importance of “Undergraduate Education” at Surviving Harvard)</p>

<p>(the piece had a certain smugness seeming to claim that awesome socialization and innovation does not occur at elite schools like MIT and that somehow Harvard is so special (as in far superior to its immediate surrounding peers regardless of UG academic inadequacies) so that they don’t need “stinkin’ awesome undergrad. academics when my roommmate may come up w/the next great invention” as if ideas and creativity cannot be fostered by learning in the classroom (also, as if this stuff does not happen at places like MIT, Caltech, Princeton, and other places). Princeton, Yale, and Stanford, among some, do indeed have Harvard quality students (and not just some, most are. Just b/c they did not and perhaps could not invent facebook or microsoft/w/e, does not mean they are below Harvard quality. By that measure, most students at Harvard are not Harvard quality) so I don’t know where that crap came from. </p>

<p>However, the irony about this piece is that it recognizes that among most elites, this notion of truly solid or far better than normal UG education is overblown (It is lipservice. The only thing they have going is that the course content is tougher, that doesn’t mean the profs. teaching it care anymore about students than those at a “mid/low tier” school or that students are actually learning it) and even if not, it is not why people attend. People are clearly attending moreso for the socialization and namebrand associated w/them not because they provide a “transformative academic experience meant to push one beyond their perceived limits.” Only a few will seek that. And one not seeking it would be surprised if they accidentally stumble upon (possibly surprised in a bad way: “This course is much more than what I bargained for, I can’t afford a B”. Potentially transformative experience for a few students, a nightmare to most)</p>

[polarscribe]

<p>None of the schools the OP mentioned even have a program or professor researching in my field. (Not a single private college in the country does.)</p>

<p>I suppose he thinks that means my field is irrelevant and useless, though.</p>

[bernie12]

<p>yes, polarscribe: Unfortunately your research likely doesn’t help you become one of the prevailing types described in this article: [The</a> Disadvantages of an Elite Education: an article by William Deresiewicz about how universities should exist to make minds, not careers | The American Scholar](<a href=“http://www.theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/]The”>The American Scholar: The Disadvantages of an Elite Education - <a href='https://theamericanscholar.org/author/william-deresiewicz/'>William Deresiewicz</a>)</p>

<p>Thus, to the likes of the OP you and your field of research are useless and you are wasting your time and money.</p>

<p>What is so unfortunate, and kind of scary, is that, though those at elite institutions may be offended by the article if they read it (they may rush and angrily proclaim: “That is an inappropriate over-generalization, I know plenty of people who…”). When you really reflect and think about it, there is some (if not a lot of) truth to it despite its clear bias. I can’t say that it isn’t true to a huge extent b/c it is, and while many think it’s good or is okay, I’m not sure it is (at least not as common as it is). My only thing is that this article singles out elite schools. Most schools are becoming this way now-a-days, though admittedly, elsewhere the pre-prof. fervor is not as intense.</p>

[kwu]

<p>

@Pizzagirl

Osprey, the parents on this forum don’t need a college student with zero real-world experience purporting to tell us how life runs and what employers value.

</p>

<p>Employers won’t give a damn about your “real experience” if you try to shove it down their throats with such scornful smugness. Your boomer sense of entitlement is showing …</p>

<p>[Lawsuit</a> of the Day: Ex-Kasowitz Associate With ‘Superior Legal Mind’ Sues the Firm for $77 Million Above the Law: A Legal Web Site ? News, Commentary, and Opinions on Law Firms, Lawyers, Law School, Law Suits, Judges and Courts](<a href=“http://abovethelaw.com/2011/08/lawsuit-of-the-day-ex-kasowitz-associate-with-superior-legal-mind-sues-the-firm-for-77-million/]Lawsuit”>Lawsuit of the Day: Ex-Kasowitz Associate With 'Superior Legal Mind' Sues the Firm for $77 Million - Above the Law)</p>

<p>

@annasdad

He attended Johns Hopkins? Really?</p>

<p>Just dropped my respect for that school a ton.

</p>

<p>Osprey is not posting as a representative of the eleven schools that make up the Johns Hopkins University system. Ultimately, the loss of your esteem won’t threaten JHU’s preeminent national and international standing, but to judge an entire institution adversely based on the opinions of one individual demonstrates… a peculiar train of thought.</p>

<p>–</p>

<p>There is a disturbing trend of age discrimination underlying many of the posts in this thread that reveals the same sort of “close-mindedness” for which Osprey is being criticized. Arguably, an undergraduate, even at his or her young age, will have a clearer perspective on the challenges and crises that are facing today’s college graduates than those who graduated from college in the 60s and 70s, when culture, priorities, and prospects were different. To dismiss the thoughts of Osprey without due consideration, as badly expressed as these thoughts may be, is an act of hateful ignorance and intellectual violence that should not be tolerated.</p>

[lookingforward]

<p>Arguably, an undergraduate, even at his or her young age, will have a clearer perspective on the challenges and crises that are facing today’s college graduates than those who graduated from college in the 60s and 70s</p>

<p>What else? They have a clearer perspective on job hunting because they will soon enter the workforce? Parenting- becase they are closer in age to a first-time parent? Maybe even better thinkers because they are nearer their degrees than some of us? </p>

<p>Sorry, that’s a strike. OP made a tactical error in purporting to know the real scoop. He relied on secondary info, has an incomplete view. It’s “age discrimination” if we indict all youth because of their age. “Hateful ignorance and intellectual violence?” You really see it as that extreme? I’ll admit some are sparring with OP. But, he could have rethought his certainty.</p>

<p>Btw- as for real world and whether an UG has a clearer perspective, please understand a college kid is just a few years away from high school, while we and our friends have faced real world challenges for a number of years. No “reverse age disrimination” or rush to judgment, ok?</p>

[phantasmagoric]

<p>bernie12, if osprey is so wrong, why do you spend so much time trying to prove that your alma mater deserves to be on his arbitrary list of schools? Especially with claims like</p>

<p>

Most undergrads. here will get a more nurturing and rigorous education than at Berkeley (and some others you have up there) except in engineering and CS maybe merely because we don’t have engineering.

[Nurturing? Maybe. Rigorous? Doubt it. Berkeley scares students away because of its rigor across most disciplines.]</p>

<p>

Berkeley is too damned big to put it above us.

[Does size matter? Columbia is huge; should it therefore be placed lower? Harvard is much larger than Stanford, Yale, and Princeton. Is it necessarily worse?]</p>

<p>

Berkeley and some of the others seem stuck on their traditional lecture format for those courses.

[Did you consider that only the traditional lectures are recorded and put online? That’s the policy at Stanford and MIT, as well.]</p>

<p>IIRC, Berkeley was rated high on lists of ‘best teaching quality’ and so on, and their faculty is rivaled only by Stanford’s and Harvard’s, who are also known to have pretty high-quality teaching (yes, even Harvard, though people like to bag on it because everyone will jump at the opportunity to criticize the #1 school). For many students, being exposed to top faculty is what matters the most. And in fact, it’s well-known in modern pedagogy that actual teaching quality (defined as how well they “present” material) is largely useless, especially in lectures - students learn best in interactive environments anyway. That might be why osprey included Berkeley and not Emory, especially since Emory is often booted from these kinds of lists. But really, does it matter what osprey thinks? He’s shown the extent of his knowledge in the OP.</p>

[mrlaurencenguyen]

<p>It’s pretty funny how we all generally disagree with the OP, but are arguing with each other over specific schools. Seriously, if you just dive into whatever school you are accepted into and genuinely love, some stupid US News rankings shouldn’t even matter to you.</p>

[osprey099]

<p>

Clearly, on the nature/nurture question, the OP believes in nurture. The school is all, creating an educated human being. Most of us will give a little credit to the college, but we’ll give far more to the nature side. It’s the student who is the one who must take the initiative, do the work, seek out the opportunities and take advantage of them. That’s true at any school. If the OP wants to wait for a top 20 school to sprinkle its magic fairy dust over his/her head, she/he might be waiting a long time.

</p>

<p>I never explicitly or implicitly mentioned “the school is all.” I’m sure everybody realizes that it’s ultimately up to the individual’s efforts to be successful but what I am trying to say is that top colleges can help you get there in ways that mid/lower/state U cannot. As you and some of your friends mentioned already, top colleges have more resources and offer students more opportunities to get involved. State schools and less prestigious private schools simply cannot do the same for the vast majority of their students. State schools are too large and cannot provide their resources to all of their students and smaller private schools, due to lack of prestige, do not have enough resources to begin with. Take my school, JHU, for example. It is known for it’s natural sciences, especially medicine, BME, and public health. The JHU SOM receives a TON of money from the NIH. University of Maryland SOM, however, does not receive nearly as much as JHU SOM. </p>

<p>“A total of 257 grants went to researchers at the Johns Hopkins University and 96 to projects at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.”
—> [JHU</a> Economic Stimulus Funding Website](<a href=“http://web.jhu.edu/economic_stimulus/news.html]JHU”>http://web.jhu.edu/economic_stimulus/news.html)</p>

<p>Now before you “educate” me and tell me that the SOM is unrelated with undergrad, let me tell you that almost every single pre-med at JHU, this number is about 300-350, does some type of research during their undergrad years. This may range from one summer to the entire 4 years. Well, where do these students research at? JHU SOM! Although it does not cost the lab PI’s a dime to accept undergrad students to their labs, it is still a hassle to have a 18-21 year old kid running around your lab having no previous experience with lab work. So why do the PI’s accept them? Well, there are a lot of PI’s that don’t. But for every PI that doesn’t like undergrad research assistants, there is a PI that might want an extra work horse in the lab. So how does NIH funding go into play here, you may ask? Well, the more NIH funding, the longer active labs can stay in “business”, so to say. Also, with more money, more labs can be opened up to freshly graduated MD/PhD kids. Thus, a plethora of opportunities exists for research here at JHU. I cannot say the same for University of Maryland College Park. The SOM is not even close to College Park. It’s actually closer to Hopkins than Hopkins SOM is… but that’s not the point.</p>

<p>The above example shows how THE COLLEGE can play into your future success. I’m sure other top colleges will have similar resources, maybe not in medicine but in other areas. For instance, UPenn will probably have internship opportunities at Wharton for their undergrads. CMU, Caltech, MIT might have ties with computer engineering companies or something the like. Harvard and Yale might have ties with wall street/internship opportunities there. I am not exactly sure what these other top colleges offer simply because I don’t attend them but I am sure that they offer something in the ballpark of what I mentioned above. </p>

<p>Other than top colleges’ resources, they also have a student body made up of the nation’s best students. I think we can generally agree that SAT/GPA averages at these top colleges are always higher than SAT/GPA averages at all other colleges. So essentially, you are competing against the nation’s best when you take classes at these top colleges. Ask yourselves this: Would you want to take a biochemistry exam in a class full of kids with 2200+/3.8+ or in a class full of kids with 1900+/3.3+? I think even a 3 year old can answer that. So students at these top colleges are going to be extremely motivated to work hard and beat out their peers because everyone is extremely hard working. Can you honestly tell me that the vast majority of kids at state U/middle/low tier schools are hard working? You are only kidding yourself if you do.</p>

<p>This is how a top college helps the student in his/her future aspirations. If you ask me, future success = 50% student, 50% college</p>

[osprey099]

<p>

What else? They have a clearer perspective on job hunting because they will soon enter the workforce? Parenting- becase they are closer in age to a first-time parent? Maybe even better thinkers because they are nearer their degrees than some of us?

</p>

<p>We have a clearer perspective on issues that are closely related to high school, college, grad school, and maybe early employment. Just because you are currently following your son/daughter’s journey through the above mentioned obstacles doesn’t mean you are currently HAVING that experience. Ultimately, the ones who are currently in hs, college, grad school, early employment will have the clearest perspective on issues pertaining to these areas.</p>

[osprey099]

<p>

You have no experience or true insight to back this stuff up.

</p>

<p>And you do?</p>

<p>Isn’t it all subjective in the first place? After all, nobody in these forums without the “Admissions_” heading is an adcom. Your “list” will be no better than mine. It will just be a list based on your subjective opinions.</p>

[osprey099]

<p>

I don’t know what you have against state schools (and you may not have noticed, but you have one on your list), since you don’t attend one. Kids from my son’s high school routinely receive acceptances from top schools but then choose to attend our flagship state university. Apart from the obvious cost issues, they may want to stay closer to home, seek a more genuinely diverse environment, or have other reasons for making their decisions. But you are too closed-minded to recognize that some people may not think exactly the way you do. No wonder you hate college.

</p>

<p>I actually have nothing against state schools. In fact, I respect state schools a lot and almost went to, not a state school, but a middle tier private school on almost a full ride. I have everything against those people who go to state schools believing state schools are somehow equal to or better than top colleges. This is what ticks me off. This simply isn’t true. Read what I posted in 2-3 posts before this one and you will see the obvious benefits of top colleges. I do realize that I had Berkeley on my “list.” I am perfectly fine with state schools like Berkeley, Mich, UCLA, UNC, and UVA making strides to become a “top college.” This should be the goal for all colleges. However, what I am trying to imply is that it is very difficult for these public state schools to get there. They simply lack the funding, resources, and reputation. Thus, most state/mid/low tier schools are not comparable with the top colleges.</p>

[osprey099]

<p>

None of the schools the OP mentioned even have a program or professor researching in my field. (Not a single private college in the country does.)</p>

<p>I suppose he thinks that means my field is irrelevant and useless, though.

</p>

<p>This just means that whatever you are researching on is only done at your institution or in a limited number of institutions in the world. I don’t understand why you would think that I would deem your field “irrelevant and useless.”</p>

[osprey099]

<p>

wait why is Purdue an exception…lol

</p>

<p>Because it has a very strong Engineering program and so does GT. GT should be in there as well.</p>

[osprey099]

<p>

Oopsie, OP, you forgot to include Rochester as one of your acceptable exceptions. Rochester is where the author of “The Five Year Party” sent his daughter.

</p>

<p>I said there were exceptions. I never said Rochester was one of the exceptions. The professor sent his kid there b/c he thought that Rochester wasn’t a party school and that he would get his money’s worth. </p>

<p>Also, whether a school is or is not on my list does not really matter. The list is the result of my subjective opinion and you may have a very similar or very different list than mine.</p>

[osprey099]

<p>

It’s pretty funny how we all generally disagree with the OP, but are arguing with each other over specific schools. Seriously, if you just dive into whatever school you are accepted into and genuinely love, some stupid US News rankings shouldn’t even matter to you.

</p>

<p>You clearly have something against top colleges and that is ok. You have an established mindset and you will accept anything that validates your beliefs and reject anything that derails it. Why shouldn’t the US News Ranking matter? After all, the only reason that it’s still in business is that the vast majority of people use it as a comparison guide.</p>

[ucbalumnus]

<p>

@osprey099

We have a clearer perspective on issues that are closely related to high school, college, grad school, and maybe early employment.

</p>

<p>Given all of the questions on these forums from high school and college students about “what courses should I take?”, “should I major in biology for pre-med?”, etc. it appears that high school and college students do not really have that clear a perspective.</p>

<p>And, in terms of employment, things are a lot more clear when you are looking at it from the employer’s point of view than from the applicant’s point of view (employment decisions tend to be very opaque to the applicant, unless s/he has inside information).</p>

[bluebayou]

<p>annasdad:</p>

<p>The correct spelling is Bawlamer. :)</p>

<p>To all, OP is a student at Hopkins.</p>

[barrons]

<p>Funny that the top research schools are nearly all State U’s. They win the battle for Fed funding with most privates. State Us are 8 of the Top 10 in total research money.</p>

<p>Also an updated article on school versus individual student characteristics and income comes down very much on the student–not 50-50.</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/563.pdf[/url]”>http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/563.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

[osprey099]

<p>

Funny that the top research schools are nearly all State U’s. They win the battle for Fed funding with most privates. State Us are 8 of the Top 10 in total research money.

</p>

<p>Source?</p>

<p>My link above showed that JHU receives 2.5 times more grant awards than U Maryland. Idk the case for other schools but your assertion is not backed by anything but your subjective opinion.</p>

[osprey099]

<p>

Given all of the questions on these forums from high school and college students about “what courses should I take?”, “should I major in biology for pre-med?”, etc. it appears that high school and college students do not really have that clear a perspective.

</p>

<p>When hs kids ask “what courses should I take?”, they are asking college kids who have just finished high school and understand the ins and outs of the CURRENT system. College kids asking “should I major in biology?” are asking med school students who are much more knowledgable than you parents regarding the system. The posters are not exclusively asking you parents who have already graduates 30-40 years ago. As I said earlier, you may have gained insight into the system from your talks with your kid(s) but you have not experienced the CURRENT system YOURSELF so you do NOT have a clear perspective on it.</p>