<p>^ @360 I would give my kid approximately the same advice.</p>
<p>However, annasdad, I believe all you have demonstrated in your many citations of certain evidence, is that there is no clear, direct correlation between selectivity (/prestige) and certain specific, measurable learning outcomes, according to the researchers you cite. Other factors (academic rigor & “engagement”) are what matter. Apparently there is little or no evidence to prove that the Ivy League colleges perform significantly better or worse than other schools by these measures.</p>
<p>Polite conventions of debate aside, I would imagine most people fall back on their personal biases to place the burden of proof on one side or another. Some will simply assume that highly selective colleges must be more rigorous (and ask for proof to the contrary). Others will make different assumptions. Me? I assume that highly selective colleges, as a class, do tend to be more rigorous (if we’re comparing across identical subjects). However, I’d still like to see data from more schools on the NSSE questions (especially those related to academic rigor & engagement).</p>
<p>Meanwhile, as I posted above, a summary of “Academically Adrift” findings is available.
Excerpts
“… educational practices associated with academic rigor improved student performance, while collegiate experiences associated with social engagement did not.”</p>
<p>"Students attending certain institutions… demonstrate significantly higher gains … even after we control for students’ individual characteristics. " </p>
<p>"… We focused on one institutional variable that past sociological research has shown can have a strong relationship to learning: peer composition. In particular, we measured the selectivity of entering freshmen at an institution and examined the extent to which this measure of peer characteristics was associated with variation in rates of learning over and above a student’s own individual characteristics. [Finding:] Institutional differences associated with student selectivity are related to increased growth in CLA performance over four years of college." (emphasis added ; caveats/qualifications follow, noting significant variations within schools.)</p>
<p>Sure, Ivy League or other top schools are not for everyone. I don’t think I’ve read anyone asserting that they are. And for all those kids who don’t aspire to the high-end schools there are many wonderful other choices.</p>
<p>But it’s clear they are a good option, perhaps the best option, for some. But no! The Anti-Ivy crowd here on CC will expend enormous amounts of time and energy endlessly citing their few favorite studies and endlessly repeating their same tiresome arguments in an attempt to prove that not only are those schools not the best for everybody (which is certainly true), but that they are actually inferior to your local state U in pretty much every way (which is total nonsense). And furthermore, anyone who pursues the high-end path is merely a shallow prestige whore since prestige is the only thing these schools offer (both also total nonsense).</p>
<p>For the Anti-Ivy League it’s not sufficient to show that other schools can be a good choice; they insist that everyone also believe that the Ivys are actually a bad choice. As hard as it is for some crusaders to this site to comprehend, an Ivy League diploma is not everybody’s wrong or inferior choice. In fact it sometimes is the best choice.</p>
<p>Ivies can be amazing springboards for a career for some people.</p>
<p>They can also be equivalent or worse than state colleges/LACs for other people.</p>
<p>Everyone is different, and every college/university has unique advantages. The “right” college for someone depends on priorities, personal development/maturity, and a million other factors. </p>
<p>I think the tl;dr of this thread should be: Ivies can be awesome, but they aren’t the best choice for everyone.</p>
<p>If William Deresciewicz is to be believed, it’s almost impossible to get kicked out of Yale, once you get in. The very high graduation rates of the über-selective schools support this.</p>
<p>Hmmm … I haven’t seen any posts where anybody claims that Ivy schools are “inferion to your local state U in pretty much every way.” Can you point to some?</p>
<p>That’s a fair summary, although I’d change “Ivy League colleges” in the last sentence to “the most highly selective colleges,” which is a superset of the Ivy League. For all I know, the Ivy League schools themselves may be superior performers and perhaps are being pulled down by non-Ivy schools with like selectivity numbers. I don’t think that’s the case, but it could be.</p>
<p>However, the different schools may teach at different paces, or at different levels of depth. For example, MIT teaches calculus at a faster pace than most other schools do. A state flagship’s introductory CS sequence for CS majors is three courses long, versus five courses at a mid-level state university in the same state.</p>
<p>Of course, a sharp student at the less selective school can somewhat make up for the slower pace by taking higher course loads, although s/he may not have the opportunity to take some courses (e.g. what would be honors courses at more selective schools, or advanced elective courses in majors popular at more selective schools but not less selective schools) that are not offered at less selective schools due to lack of interest there.</p>
<p>Oh, don’t be coy, annasdad - you’ve loved to portray the student body at Ivies and other selective universities as being “upper middle class children of privilege” who are only so shallow as to be there because they chased prestige dreams that their upper middle class parents whispered in their ears from the time they were babies. For some reason, the existence of upper middle class people who can send their children wherever they like, AND who are fortunate enough to have children who are qualified for / able to get into the nation’s more elite schools, seems to really rub you the wrong way.</p>
<p>Well, you have not been able to buy Yugos new in the US for decades. Nor are any new cars sold in the US especially awful, although a few have nothing particularly attractive about them. Fortunately, there are some very good cars that cost a lot less than BMWs do.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the college market is expanding at the bottom end (especially the for-profit colleges).</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone is “anti-Ivy”. I think you have more and more folks who think like “don’t be over $120,000 in debt just to attend an Ivy”, especially if you plan on majoring in Anthropology.</p>
<p>I live in the DC area and yeah, I do contracting work for defense agencies. You have folks down here making a ton of money (esepcially if they are independent contractors) who are 2+2 grads…started at a community college and finished at one of the schools under the University of Maryland System. They are working side-by-side with the Ivy grads as well as the psuedo-Ivies like Carnegie Mellon, Georgia Tech, Cal-Berkeley and Stanford.</p>
<p>Many folks who are not “all out” with Ivies are looking at the practical side…not because of dislike.</p>
<p>I don’t believe I’ve ever said any such thing. Can you cite a post where I have?</p>
<p>Now are you going to ignore this question like you continue to ignore the 30+ years of scholarly research that supports the limited positions I have taken?</p>
<p>(@369) NSSE data is available for some highly selective colleges, such as Claremont McKenna and Middlebury (both of which out-perform the average level of challenge for their institutional type, which in turn is higher than the average for other institutional types).</p>
<p>The Academically Adrift summary I cited above states that “Institutional differences associated with student selectivity are related to increased growth in CLA performance over four years of college.” Not having read the full report, I would want to understand how great are these differences and how they are “associated” with selectivity. While there may not be any evidence that the 8 Ivy League colleges are significantly more (or less) rigorous/engaging than other schools, it does sound like the AA authors found evidence that more selective schools, as a class, tend to perform better on the CLA (even after adjusting for differences in student ability). For all I know, there may be a point of diminishing returns somewhere on the curve, possibly below the Ivy level of selectivity.</p>
<p>This discussion is really getting out of hand. I could not agree more with tk21, coureur, and others who point out the advantages of selective schools. Yes the lectures may be similar, but the pace, rigor, and level of class discussion IS different. And globaltraveler, my son really wanted to go to UMD - but got more fin. aid at an ivy so chose to go to an ivy instead.</p>
<p>No one would tell a brilliant musician to go to mid-level music program instead of a conservatory. No one would suggest an amazing athlete devote his/her energies to a club team when he/she could participate on a Div. 1 team. So why should exceptionally gifted students be chastised for pursuing an intellectually stimulating education? Perhaps we should just ignore Annasdad and get back to the original meaning of the thread, because we are not going to convince him to change his views.</p>
<p>Just as an anecdote, my son sat in on classes at various schools where he was accepted. Although the profs were equally skilled at all of the schools, the pace, level of class discussion, and depth of exploration were strikingly different.</p>
<p>You seem to have misspelled “math”. See, when I spell it correctly, it’s not replaced by asterisks. :rolleyes:</p>
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<p>Maybe. Could also be that the academic caliber and financial security of the students means they’re less likely to get kicked out. </p>
<p>I like to reread the Deresciewicz article every once in awhile. I find it infuriates me more every time, but not in the way that the author intended. This is the guy who blames his elite education for his inability to talk to the plumber, who castigates Yale and its ilk for accomodating their students rather than (like Cleveland State) nearly flunking a student who turns in a paper an hour late because she was late coming off of a waitressing shift. He’s the one saying that going to an elite school prevents students from taking chances in life or pursuing less than stellar professional goals, that the students feel entitled to high grades and superior positions in life. Also, that many politicians without the common touch or with a little too much of it come from Yale. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Whatever. He does like Jane Austen, so he can’t be all bad. :)</p>
<p>I agree. I do want to point out that Ivies are by NO means the only place to have great educational environments. LACs tend to be very good at this as well, as well as (in some cases) honors colleges within state flagships.</p>
<p>Comparing LACs and Ivies/other highly selective universities can be an apples/oranges discussion at times. Both have unique (and powerful) advantages.</p>
<p>Nobody is “chastising” anybody for anything. But there’s no evidence to support the position that higher prestige colleges provide more “intellectually stimulating” educations than do less prestigious places.</p>
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<p>Nor does annasdad labor under any misconceptions that he is going to change the views of those who are firmly committed to the mythology that prestige correlates with educational excellence, in spite of the lack of evidence that it does.</p>
:rolleyes:</p>