Yale among the Ivies

posterX
Tue, 29 Jan 2008 16:12:13 +0000

adf8, I work in the “industry.” I also have friends and relatives (from a very large family) who attended all of these schools, plus several who even attended two or three of them.

Frrph, in terms of some people not considering science “the best”, I suspect the reason is because scientists and engineers just generally aren’t as well regarded, culturally speaking, as leaders in arts, architecture, drama/entertainment, business, industry, politics, law, government, advocacy, nonprofits, etc. Yale is dominant in all of these areas as well as science, which is part of the problem. Even though both are incredible, many students will still have a preference towards the fields that carry more prestige. In other words, it is kind of like the comparison you might make between a $1,000,000 custom-built Ferrari and a $3,000,000 custom-built, custom-designed car from one of the smaller Italian shops. Or the comparison between a $20,000 hotel room at the Four Seasons Dubai and a $50,000 hotel room at the Burj Dubai. Most people would see both as “the best”, and both are of the highest possible quality, even to the point of being absurdly good, but obviously there would still be people biased towards the one with more cachet.