<p>Interesting observation, csdad.</p>
<p>As an aside, my sibling went to an ivy and he’s a jerk. Should we generalize from an n of 1?</p>
<p>Wanting to be around intellectual peers for college has zero to do with thinking that non-intellectual peers aren’t worthy of normal decent courtesy and respect and warmth. Zero. Annasdad, you couldn’t meet two more down to earth kids than my own two - whose lives wouldn’t be worth living if they were rude or condescending to the janitor or to anyone else. You desperately want to believe that kids in really good schools have fatal flaws since it makes you feel better about your situation. Well, unless you can find data to back up your assertion that kids who seek out other smart kids are ruder on average to janitors, you don’t have a leg to stand on. Where’s your quantitative proof? Other than the dislike you have for elite schools and the people who go there or send kids there. (and what did NU ever do to you? You’ve clearly got a bone to pick)</p>
<p>This discussion’s going crazy! Are we seriously generalizing students’ MORALITY based on their schools?</p>
<p>Okay, here’s an analogy: statistics show that poorer countries, thus less educated, have “happier” citizens compared to the developed countries. The residents of these poor countries also happen to be very open to foreigners and strangers, as we’ve noticed in the history of colonizations in the past few decades. Developed countries, however, are known for a lot of social issues such as suicide, depression, and peer harassment among others. Here’s another point: under-developed countries reportedly have lower “average IQ”, while countries in Europe and East Asia show otherwise. See the correlation between this case and the case of colleges? So can we conclude that people from first-world countries are intellectuals and jerks, while those from third-world countries are foolish and convivial?</p>
<p>Give me a break.</p>
<p>Well, I should have realized I was creating a monster when I used the word “insulating.” I don’t take it back though, because (of course) I meant in the classroom. There certainly are annoying, obnoxious, unintellectual, and even stupid people at Ivy Leage schools. But the concentration of highly-motivated, highly accomplished, intellectually curious students is very high there. I didn’t encounter any
“flashy-but-shallow social snobs, party animals, and defiantly anti-intellectual jock types” in my English seminars or creative writing classes. There may have been some in the survey courses I took, but you couldn’t really tell in those (those sorts of folks don’t come to section).</p>
<p>And I’ll say this: for highly-accomplished students who come from smaller towns where there are no magnet high schools, and where even honors and AP classes include plenty of unmotivated students, it is exhilarating to be in a school where there is nobody to hold you back, and the teacher doesn’t have to slow down to explain things over and over. Is that arrogant? Maybe, but it’s true.</p>
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<p>One would think that would be just as true in college as it is in high school - the exhilaration of being at a place where it’s ok and even cool to be smart and it’s ok and even cool to have intellectual interests. </p>
<p>I think a lot of this discussion has to do with overall ability to acknowledge that some things that one might not own / possess / have access to might be better than those things that one owns / possesses / has access to. </p>
<p>I mean, if I stacked my kids’ nice-but-not-New-Trier public high school against a public magnet school, I could quite easily acknowledge - the teachers are probably better / more qualified, the student body is more intellectually gifted, the resources are greater, and that overall such a school likely provides greater opportunity than the one my kids attended, which manifests itself, among other things, in “better” college acceptances, awards won, and so forth. It’s no skin off my back to say those things, and I don’t feel any need to lash out and therefore pretend that kids / families who choose to send their kids to such schools must be uppity snobs who think they are too good to associate with the hoi polloi and anyway, they’re mostly nasty people who strew trash in front of the janitor just to watch him bend over so who would want to be with them anyway. That’s called sour grapes. I wonder why such an attitude isn’t universal.</p>
<p>There are “intellectual” and “non-intellectual” people everywhere, just as there are people who are nice and those who are not. Some of the smartest and most intellectually curious people I know went to “lesser” colleges or didn’t go to college at all. No one is going to associate or be friends with every possible student at any college, no matter its size. Just as we do in our adult social worlds, students find people who are like-minded in terms of interests (literature, music, travel, politics, etc.) and world views.</p>
<p>I really think how kids are raised makes the biggest difference in how they treat others. I remember an incident with some particularly pushy parents at a children’s museum where the kids were able to play with faux construction tools on a child-friendly work site. While I was encouraging my son to let the other kids have a turn first, there were parents saying “now Alex, you get in there and make sure you get to use the backhoe first. Just go in front of that kid.” These are the same people who are always obnoxious at high-school orientation events, brag about their kids constantly, and make excuses (or hire lawyers) for them when they screw up. They are the most extreme example of the “every kid gets a trophy” mindset. Their kids are just more special. Are all kids at the Ivies or “elite” colleges like this? No, of course not. But there are plenty who are, because that is all they have ever known, and they have been groomed from a young age to expect that only the “best” is good enough for them.</p>
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<p>Sure, but there are plenty of those kids at “lesser” schools as well - who were raised with that mindset but just didn’t have the chops for “better” schools. The attitude is still the attitude. It’s like being a snob - you can be a snob with a Birkin handbag that costs $10K, or a snob with a Dooney & Bourke handbag that costs $200. The attitude is the thing, not the “thing” itself.</p>
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<p>Exactly my experience when I entered the honors program at the University of Michigan as an undergrad, Hunt. I had the opportunity to hit the ground running and never looked back. My only point is that this is not exclusive to the Ivies.</p>
<p>One of the reasons kids at Ivies do so well in the workplace later on is that they had the connections to succeed in elite, selective arenas before they walked in the door. It’s not just a consequence of their educations.</p>
<p>That said, I think the Ivies are fun, the same fun of owning a brand name purse, and even more fun if you get that purse at a tremendous discount, which many folks do at Ivies.</p>
<p>One of my kids was at an Ivy affiliate with half her classes there, one was at a top LAC, and I attended a lackluster state school. I honestly can’t see much difference in the quality of the education, though the pedagogy was different at each institution. My kids had more fun and more bells and whistles. I found an amazing mentor and was more supported to succeed in my career. It was dumb luck for me.</p>
<p>All three of us ended up in grad programs at the same school. Just happened that way.</p>
<p>Would I say the hooplah for an Ivy is worth it? Sure, because it really is fun. But since the admissions numbers are getting so prohibitive, go into it with an open attitude and value education wherever you end up.</p>
<p>Education happens in only one place: in the head of the student. The process is the same wherever you are. Snazzy peers are fun, but certainly not necessary.</p>
<p>Pizzagirl: Cross-posted with the handbag analogy. I think one can enjoy a Birkin bag without being a snob, just because it’s fun. Certainly unless one is in very rarified circles no one is even going to know it’s a Birkin bag.</p>
<p>Of course, I don’t own anything like that, but fun and a snob are not the same things.</p>
<p>And yes, to the degree that elite labels promote snobbery, they are odious. </p>
<p>But one can be a snob about anything, even anti-intellectualism or one’s abs or the fact that a favorite food is sushi.</p>
<p>I have met many kids from Ivies who are not snobs. I’m sure some are.</p>
<p>All this said, I must say there are some departments in my field that I have found weak at two of the Ivies that I have direct experience of through my kids’ friends. I wouldn’t want to single them out here, but attending an Ivy is certainly not a guarantee of a superior education in these cases.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone on this thread has ever said that such an experience is exclusive to the Ivies, and I think most on here would expand that to include other top schools, honors programs at places like Michigan, and so forth - anywhere where there is a thick concentration of similar intellectual peers. I think the discussion is over how easy it is to motivate oneself based on the composition of the pool around you. What I have said, and I believe Hunt will agree with me, is that for <em>us</em> and <em>ours,</em> we prefer having that “thick” concentration, which is likely better accomplished <em>for us</em> at schools where everyone’s at a pretty high level of selectivity. I don’t know that it’s necessarily a good or bad thing to be like that - I have some pretty accomplished peers who went to less-selective schools and had the ability to put their heads down, ignore the presence of the less-intellectual peers academically and get a lot out of it - but some of us are that way, and I for one am not going to apologize for it, any more than a high school student who wants to take an honors class should want to apologize for it.</p>
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<p>I don’t think the Ivies are “more fun,” though, than other similar elite schools, though. I don’t get why some of them have special sparkles that are supposed to elevate them above similar elite schools. I sure don’t see it in my real life and I think that’s a northeast provincialism. I think there is a whole host of schools that fall into that elite tier with sufficient “thickness” of smart kids and excellent resources - for lack of a better marker, I’d say top 20 or 25 USNWR generally correlates with it (on both the uni and LAC list), but it’s not some kind of absolute where 20 makes the cut and 21 doesn’t, or that there’s some awful fall-out in quality by the time you get to 30.</p>
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<p>Yes and no. Without even knowing about your children’s nice public high school, I can say that D1’s public magnet had worse resources. It didn’t generate “better” college acceptances. It certainly did generate an overall happier kid during high school, glad/relieved to be with her academic/intellectual tribe. And it meant that she hit the ground running at college. </p>
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<p>Hmmm, someone needs to see [Free</a> to Be, You and Me - Ladies First - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSuQZx_0q_Y]Free”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSuQZx_0q_Y) 
:D</p>
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<p>I think a kid who is generally comfortable that he / she has found his / her tribe will do better in general. It’s one thing if you have no choice but to go to a school where your tribe is thin - you have to make the most of what you have in life, sometimes, and that’s how it goes. But if you have a choice, I don’t see why not try to maximize the chances of finding a critical mass of that tribe. That’s a part of fit. </p>
<p>Plenty of kids look for tribes defined all different ways - for some, it’s stridently intellectual, for others it’s pre-professional, for others it’s quirky, for others it’s a critical mass of similar political views, for others it’s an interest in debating political views, for others it might be a religious / ethnic critical mass. Some STEM kids want such a critical mass of similar interests that they want a STEM-focused college such as MIT or Caltech; others want a university in which there are multiple areas of learning (Cornell being a great example). Neither is better or worse, just different. Not sure why wanting a critical mass of an intellectual-peer tribe is any different.</p>
<p>Even I’m not a big enough Ivy snob to deny that there are plenty of high-achieving intellectual kids at Michigan, especially in the honors program.</p>
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The same could be said for any state flagship school. What separates the Ivies IMHO is the uniformly accomplished student bodies that these universities enroll and the type of financial resources and undergraduate focus that these 8 schools have. Only a few non-Ivies can truly match them.</p>
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Well, I don’t know about that. Based on its selectivity, Michigan has a notably higher concentration of high-achieving students than a lot of other flagships. Also, not all honors programs are created equal in terms of whether you can take most of your classes with like-minded students.</p>
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<p>Well, this is high school, not college. I was responding to your comparison of what was on offer at your children’s high school versus what might be available at a public magnet. Fit was a vitally important issue, and it wasn’t one that you mentioned. That’s why I called it out. I think that fit is a much more elusive quality, and more of a luxury/matter of luck, for high school than for college. Especially finding critical mass of intellectual-peer tribe in high school.</p>
<p>Hey, do we have a winner yet??? It’s only been 15 pages…</p>
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<p>I’m sure, observing their mother’s behavior here, that your children are Sweetness and Light personified.</p>
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<p>Do they also follow their mother’s example in her propensity to raise straw man after straw man when she has no reasonable argument? Because I never said, nor do I believe, that “kids who seek out other smart kids are ruder on average to janitors.”</p>
<p>I could, incidentally, respond in kind and question your underlying motives for your arguments. But I’m much too polite to do any such thing.</p>