<p>I personally feel like it depends on your major. By the way, does it really matter what school you go to for nursing?</p>
<p>Not necessarily overrated, but perhaps idolized a bit. Plenty of comparable schools that aren’t Ivy’s (Georgetown Stanford, MIT, Duke, etc.) are overlooked by Ivy hopefuls simply because they aren’t Ivy’s. The academics at the schools are great though and deserve their reputation as some of the best in the world, no denying that.</p>
<p>Schools do not matter for many medical careers such as doctors and nurses. As long as you go to a school with a great accredited nursing program, you shouldn’t have a problem finding work. Personally, I wouldn’t go to an Ivy for nursing.</p>
<p>One parameter to look at when considering a nursing school is the percent of graduates who pass the state licencing exam. There are many colleges outside the Ivy’s and the highly ranked universities that educate very good nurses. One consideration though is what you will do in the future. If you are planning a career in academics and research and perhaps aiming for a faculty position at a highly ranked program, then where you attend may make a difference. I am not certain of this, but it is worth looking into. Another one may be if you change your mind and wish to major in something else. Then your degree is from the university.
Regardless, you do not need an Ivy education to be a great nurse or have an academic career in nursing. There are many state universities with excellent nursing programs. </p>
<p>The ivy league originally started as an athletic conference and happens to contain 8 of the best schools in the country. There are plenty of schools of equal caliber (e.g. Duke, Stanford, MIT) but no other athletic conference (e.g. ACC, PAC12, ECAC) has the same collection that the ivy league does.</p>
<p>If you are a full pay student with the stats to get into one of these top schools, I think you would be foolish to turn it down, but I also certainly don’t think it’s a good idea to financially cripple yourself to attend these schools. They are certainly not worth it in that regard, and I definitely wouldn’t feel the need to do it for nursing. Are you talking about getting a BSN? Not all the ivies even offer that.</p>
<p><a href=“Ivy League - WikiCU, the Columbia University wiki encyclopedia”>http://www.wikicu.com/Ivy_League</a>
The link may offer a glimpse of perspective from one of the ivy league schools. The “Ivy Should-be’s” paragraph is particularly interesting whether you agree or not.</p>
<p>Quality of education: yes, supremely overrated.
Quality of network: quite possibly <em>underrated</em>, if being an Important Grown Up is high on your list. </p>
<p>Simply because of the opportunities that these schools and their peers offer.</p>
<p>If you don’t have the money on hand, and don’t qualify for grants for some reason, it’s a bad deal.</p>
<p>The only kids who really should worry about this would be borderline candidates, anyone below that it just does not matter, anyone who got in shouldn’t care if they have the money.</p>
<p>I know it has helped me get various jobs having gone to an Ivy League school, especially because my undergrad GPA wasn’t stellar.</p>
<p>Quality of education overrated? I didn’t think so, except for a handful of my classes where I thought they’d be the same at the state school. Some of the classes were amazing.
Quality of network: I agree, it is underrated by those not “in the system”. And it doesn’t matter if you want to be a VIP or not, it helps a LOT at various companies, big and small, to have an Ivy League school on your resume.</p>
<p>Back to quality of education: think of it this way. If you are in an honors program at a random state school, you’ll have to deal with a lot of kids that you never had to in high school. When you are at an Ivy League school, you’ve got a huge set of kids that are similar to those in your honors and AP classes. It is like a sports team. Is the coaching the issue, or the quality of the teammates? IMHO, it’s both, so go to an Ivy League school or a top similar quality school (MIT, Stanford, several others) if you can. </p>
<p>If you go to State U., you’ll have to deal with kids who just managed to squeak in with 900 CR & M. Not to be a prig, but didn’t you work hard in HS to avoid that, to end up with your peers?</p>
<p>In my line of work, medicine, the Ivy League is grossly overrated. In my geographic location, the easiest association you can make about the physicans is that they most likely spent their childhood within the surrounding states. I don’t know any physician who is an Ivy graduate and only one graduated from Stanford UG. There is no correlation between the UG, medical school or residency a physician attended and their abilities as practitioners. Furthermore, these physicians do not aspire to send their children to Ivy League schools. They seem to want to have their children attended their alma mater, state flagship or one of their state’s football rivals. </p>
<p>When I trained in the Northeast, there was an Ivy obsession that rivaled CC. The physicians enrolled their children in primary and secondary schools that boasted high rates of Ivy matriculation. In fact, there was even an arms race at the secondary school level. Again, the greatest correlation was that practicing physicians in those areas most likely grew up in those areas. Beyond that, the prestigious research institutions were more likely to be staffed by physicians who trained, at some point, in one of the Ivies.</p>
<p>I have fortunately moved away from the NE to learn that there exist a cheaper and more enjoyable life at non Ivy schools. An Ivy league education, IMHO, is overrated for every profession except investment banking. </p>
<p>^^agree. And even in investment banking only 2 or 3 schools from this athletic league along with Stanford carry any significant sway…</p>
<p>Frugal doc. If you want to be a practicing physician it probably does not matter which of the outstanding colleges you go to. Those that end up with faculty positions at places like Harvard medical school usually come from similar schools-not just any old competitive college. That may be because the stronger students get into Harvard and choose academic careers or it may be because medical schools like having te credential on their boards.</p>
<p>Sockittoum, faculty positions are more closely tied to research. Hard core researchers typically have MD/PhD or have participated in a lot of research throughout their education. Again, Ivy schools do not matter for this either. Instead, medical schools that are in the top tier of research fundings matter much more. That is only because they provide easier access to research opportunities. </p>
<p>One of my former colleagues from medical school is a Harvard attending. She received her MD/PhD from a non Ivy. In fact, our school is ranked in the 50s. It didn’t matter, she is at Harvard because of her abilities to raise research funding. </p>
<p>I trained at Johns Hopkins. I don’t remember any of my classmates from Ivy med schools and don’t know if any went to Ivy UG (we just didn’t talk about it). Those who went into academics just loved research. That’s it. Trust me, we did tons of research at Johns Hopkins, but folks were not chosen to be attendings because of where they came from.</p>
<p>Agreed that the in-class education is as good as any and better than most. The power of the connections/networking is misunderstood by a lot of people. It’s not just, ‘So and so’s father can get you an internship at Goldman Sachs’ . In the sciences, for example, if you want to work in a lab as an undergrad doing interesting research with a leader in that field, that opportunity is available. You have to pursue it, of course - but I believe the potential for an incredible education is more available at some of the Ivies than at most other colleges.</p>
<p>Yes, the Ivys are very overrated, in fact, they don’t even matter, not at all, and yes, those lofty high-hanging grapes are very very sour.</p>
<p>“There is no correlation between the UG, medical school or residency a physician attended[,] and [his] abilit[y] as [a] practitioner[].”</p>
<p>I find it hard to believe, frugaldoctor, that you’ve been a researcher. I say this because you promote a massively generic conclusion, using pseudo-statistical language, without any citation of objective information. I guess that’s called salesmanship.</p>
<p>I have been a researcher, but I researched objective data. A physician’s abilities are highly subjective and thus almost impossible to conduct a study that would be valid in any peer review journal. I think the biggest salesmanship has been perpetrated by Ivy League marketers that promoted the superiority of Ivy League education. What we are asking for is the proof. There is no doubt they are prestigious!</p>
<p>Btw, the correlation statement: that’s what I get for typing an answer after a watching Six Sigma video LOL.</p>
<p>Hmmm… “overrated” I don’t know. </p>
<p>Since you are talking about research and subjective/objective data my kid is a freshmen at Yale and just finished a paper for his Philosophy of Science class (PHIL 269). The paper has to do with “interpreting probabilistic claims in science” according to dearest son. It is about the “Raven’s Paradox” and he uses the Bayesian Appraoch as well as the Frequentist Approach, as well as principles of mathematical logic, set theory and things such as the “Clopper-Pearson Method” to prove his position.</p>
<p>I know nothing about this stuff and can only marginally understand the paper.</p>
<p>My point is that I don’t think there are too many schools where freshmen are doing this and there won’t be too many schools where just about every kid loves this kind of rigor. It makes for a very unique environment and for most of the kids who are there it is a perfect 'fit".</p>
<p>Archer1415, you’re massively unfamiliar with medicine. Medical schools are “flatter” than colleges. The quality of a residency is dependent to a large extent to which it’s affiliated with a large urban setting where a resident can learn about a wide variety of unique cases. In some fields of medicine, the doctors who are considered the world-class / standard-setters / best-in-the-field experts went to “average” state schools or are affiliated with non-Ivy-or-similar medical schools. You may not like it, but that’s how it is. Medicine does not have the tiers that other graduate schools such as law and b-school have. </p>
<p>They are overrated</p>
<p>Hardly matters what school you went to for nursing. My mom got an associate’s degree from a small local college about 25-30 years ago in nursing, works at a great hospital with a great salary and pretty good benefits, as far as I know. While most of her salary likely comes from experience in the field, she tells me that new nurses show up and it absolutely does not matter at all where they went. Go to your cheapest option that you will enjoy yourself if you plan on doing nursing. It’s kind of trivial, and a bit humorous to go to a place like Harvard for…nursing. If she could do that, I’m sure one would do great going to a state university for their BS in nursing.</p>
<p>Nothing against people who decide to do so, but it is a bit of a stretch, in my opinion. Many people become nurses because they like to help people, and its a very stable income and high-demand field. While the job itself is somewhat stagnant (what is driving me away from it), in terms of you are pretty much a nurse and that’s all you are, you won’t go anywhere, try new things, outside of switching departments inside your hospital. But there are several advanced degree options like nurse practitioner, nurse anesthetist, etc. that make great salaries for those looking to further their nursing education. </p>
<p>I’ve probably gotten off topic, but again there is no real need to go to a “prestigious” university for nursing when most of what is important in nursing comes from actual on-the-job training.</p>