<p>One other thing to consider is that not all “less selective” universities have similar distributions of student abilities and motivations.</p>
<p>A large state university in a small population state with few state universities may have a “wide” distribution of student abilities and motivations, while a smaller school or a state university in a large population state with many state universities may have a “narrow” distribution of student abilities and motivations. A student outside the center of the distribution (however that is measured) may be more likely to find similar (in ability and motivation) fellow students and appropriate courses and degree programs at the “wide” school than the “narrow” school.</p>
<p>I have been trying to hold down a real job, so missed a lot of fun. I didn’t know Pizzagirl had a fan club. Is there a website we could join, or is it very exclusive?</p>
<p>“At highly selective / elite colleges, there also tends to be a wide variety of backgrounds (ethnic, region of the country / world). That’s personally something that I like / value when looking at schools for my kids. That is one disadvantage, in <em>my</em> opinion, of even the most elite state u’s (Michigan, Berkeley, etc.) - they still will draw predominantly (and understandably) from the state.”</p>
<p>You’re quite mistaken if you think that type of diversity is inherently more characteristic of highly selective/elite colleges compared to many public flagships. True, the highest percentage of students at a public flagship will be from that particular state, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t sizable numbers of international students from a broad range of countries, students from other US states/regions, and from diverse ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds.</p>
<p>@420 (Teachers teaching to the mean)
That would be my intuition/expectation, too. The question is, does evidence confirm it?</p>
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<p>But that isn’t inconsistent with annasdad’s points, either.
I only read it once, quickly, but the authors seem to be saying that certain employers don’t care much about college treatment effects, only about selection/signaling effects. The mere fact that a student was capable enough to be admitted already signals to employers that s/he has desirable qualities. Once that is done, getting a high GPA at one of these schools adds no incremental value. At a less selective college, to produce anything approaching the same signaling effect, you need a high GPA. But in neither case do the employers in the study seem to care much about the academic learning outcomes, per se.</p>
<p>This evidence would seem to negate the claim that an “elite” school’s superior facilities, distinguished faculty, etc., significantly influences employment outcomes. It says nothing one way or another about the effect of these resources on learning outcomes. If anything, it suggests a mechanism that would account for super-selective schools being more lax in some ways (the kind of effects Deresiewicz observes). Very hard academic work may be disincentivized at these schools, to the extent students already have proven themselves for certain employment markets.</p>
<p>Very hard academic work (in terms of choosing more rigorous course options when there is a choice) may be disincentivized at (not necessarily by) many schools (whether high or low selectivity), due to the (real or perceived) importance of GPA in many post-graduation activities, whether it be employment, medical school, law school, etc…</p>
<p>For example, at Berkeley, most students taking lower division math courses would rather compete for space in the regular courses with lectures in the hundreds of students. The honors courses of 25-30 students hardly ever fill up. Seems that most students place less value on learning more in a small class than they do with just getting through the requirement with the least perceived risk to their GPA.</p>
<p>I appreciate all that data and metadata and discussions of means and the rest of that. At the end of the day, I (or some other senior engineer in the hiring process) is going to ask:</p>
<p>Know Java?
Know Linux?..or Solaris?
Know Oracle?
Data Warehousing?..Mining?
Active Clearance?</p>
<p>When I speed-read through the resume, I am going to look for:</p>
<p>B.A. or B.S. or M.S. or M.Eng and the major next to it.</p>
<p>I am not looking at GPA, not guessing how long it took them to finish their degree, not looking at the extra-curriculars. I need to evaluate them and get them on the contract BEFORE that other competitor does.</p>
<p>And 10 years ago, it would have been a different list, (HTML and VB and C++ and DB2). And 10 years before that, different again (C and Pascal and assembler and dBase and VMS). Another 10 years, COBOL and CICS and IMS and MVS. </p>
<p>And 10 years from now, a different list, for certain. Hope your new hires can adapt; assuming you’re still around, of course.</p>
<p>Staying on top of the “latest” is the #1 key to staying in the software world…not degrees. As long as the new hires adapt, that is all we care about. The degrees help as far as the max that we can bill them (Masters degree holders can be billed higher, etc).</p>
<p>I posted this because on this site, way too much is made of school name, GPA, AP credits and all of that. I know for areas in business/management is means more because those recruiters will ask “which B-School did you attend”. That thought process is not in every job area.</p>
<p>Coming back from a discussion about one specific market segment (not everyone needs to know SAP or how to write code to be successful) to a discussion of the relationship between “prestige” schools and future earnings (for the record I do NOT feel this is the reason one should select an “elite” school", but I acknowledge that some do, and that is their right) there IS “juried research” demonstrating that **there is “a significant economic return to attending an elite private institution, and some evidence suggests that this premium has increased over time”. ** <a href=“http://www.terry.uga.edu/~mustard/courses/e8420/Ehrenberg-JHR.pdf[/url]”>http://www.terry.uga.edu/~mustard/courses/e8420/Ehrenberg-JHR.pdf</a>
Does it Pay to Attend an Elite Private College?
Cross-Cohort Evidence on the Effects of College Type on Earnings</p>
<p>Please someone feel free to tell AD this, since he claims not to read my posts.</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl: even small, not-incredibly-selective colleges have students from all over the world these days. My son’s future roommate at his LAC is from mainland China and there are kids from Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Germany and France in his entering class (to name just a few that I know of so far). And if you ask some of my professor friends who teach at state flagships, you will find them say they have an increasing (almost overwhelming) number of international students every year (and I say “overwhelming” because they often come without the requisite writing skills that U.S. students have, thus creating teaching challenges).</p>
<p>"…I really wouldn’t call it grade inflation. Grades at the most selective schools can’t be based on the Bell Curve because their population isn’t based on the Bell Curve. Everything must be pushed up the curve to fit the “typical student”.</p>
<p>csdad, you are conflating intellect and selectivity. As has been amply demonstrated, “selectivity” at the Ivy level involves much more than just academic prowess. If the most “selective” universities in the U.S. only used test scores and GPAs to evaluate potential candidates–or taking it a step further, an IQ test–the makeup of most entering classes would look much different from how it does today. What differentiates Ivy/“elite” college admissions in 2012 is hard work in high school and a well-rounded resume involving (often) almost super-human outside activities. I think it is important to always remember that–in any Ivy League freshman class are a preponderance of kids who have worked their butts off in high school and “have what it takes” to earn their spot there. But “what it takes” is not superior intellect or potential. Not everyone has peaked by age 17.</p>
<p>There is no one post saying this, but if you add up all the posts asserting Ivy or selective school inferiority in one aspect or another, you can cover pretty much the whole educational spectrum. Here is just a sampling from this thread:</p>
<h1>287 The “best schools” are lacking in innovative thinking and idealism.</h1>
<h1>289 Ivys are just a name.</h1>
<h1>302 When you are buying a selective school education you are not buying “anything except prestige.”</h1>
<h1>306 These emperors (selective schools) have no clothes.</h1>
<h1>309 Ivys are inferior in improvement in students’ ability to communicate, think critically, and analyze complex information</h1>
<h1>309 Ivys are inferior in “student-faculty interaction,…the quality of campus student support services, and other things that research has found to help students learn and graduate.”</h1>
<h1>315 Ivys are inferior in prioritizing undergraduate teaching</h1>
<p>One of the few college fuctions in which no one bothers to assert Ivy inferiority is athletics, which, ironically, is the one area where they really are inferior to many other universities.</p>
<p>I’ve been enjoying this thread and just wanted to say that I, too, am a member of the Pizza Girl Fan Club. Do we get together sometime for deep-dish?</p>
<p>Sally…yes the most selective schools factor in much more than test scores for admission, but for “unhooked” applicants there is still an SAT/ACT threshold that they must meet. The SAT correlates highly with IQ. My D has a 130 IQ (I know this because I tested her), has good work habits, etc. & is an “average student” (GPA after freshman year is slightly over a 3.2) at a selective college. My guess is that the average IQ at the 30 most selective colleges in the country is 15 pts. (one standard deviation) higher than a typical state school.</p>
<p>^ So where does that list still leave room for your local state university to under-achieve even more dramatically? Or is it the case that most research universities are about equally unexceptional?</p>
<p>Can we even agree that although the Ivy emperor has no clothes, at least s/he looks pretty good naked?</p>
<p>Annasdad, yes, I have been to NIU. Where did I say there wasn’t racial diversity? I said that to me, part of diversity is also “region of the country,” not just region of the world and ethnicity. It would be kind of hard to argue that the bulk of students at NIU don’t come from Illinois. They had darn well better, as that’s the whole purpose of NIU - to serve the students of Illinois. Obviously every school over indexes in its backyard, but that’s something I personally value, and indeed the only drawback to NU for my son was that I wanted him to experience a different part of the country. Your mileage may vary, of course.</p>