<p>For me, that would not be an indifferent matter. I’d prefer small discussion classes with an excellent (but obscure) professor over big lectures by a renowned (but less engaged) professor. Not that I wouldn’t get anything out of the lectures.</p>
<p>Renowned may or may not mean less engaged, though.</p>
<p>It’s really the name of the Ivies that are important to you- I was always told by my dad, who hires people all the time, that he’s much more likely to hire someone from an Ivy League school rather than not. I mean of course, there are other aspects to it, but coming from an Ivy League really catches employers eyes.</p>
<p>That truly depends on the student’s desires and requirements for the school that “fits” them best. For me, all of the attributes I wanted out of a university, including small class sizes, resources, and financial aid opportunities, were fulfilled by the Ivy Leagues. For others, what the Ivies have to offer may not suffice or be satisfactory. Although from the looks of CC, it may be hard to convince one that it’s not all about the name or the prestige, it truly isn’t, and finding that one school where you can see yourself happiest and developing the most should be the goal of every college bound high school student. Every school, including the Ivies, has its positive attributes as well as areas in which it is lacking, but what the Ivy League schools can definitely offer is a world-class education and abundant resources not comparable at many other schools.</p>
<p>I don’t really get the big concern over TFs teaching undergrads. Our son at an Ivy developed great friendships with several of his TFs and ended up following one to his current job. He learned a ton from TFs. </p>
<p>TFs can be fabulous scholars and teachers just on the brink of amazing academic careers. It can be a huge opportunity to get to know them well.</p>
<p>That’s fine, but if you’re satisfied with TAs, then don’t argue the superiority of the high-prestige places based on the name brand PhDs.</p>
<p>My son’s favorite teacher at Penn was an Adjunct. He taught a class almost every semester and is a noted newspaper columnist.</p>
<p>I’m not going to play into the whole “elitist” vs “joe” argument here, and I don’t think society should view a piece of paper you get after 4 years that way. What really matters is how the student develops, gains skills, and makes connections in any situation. After all, we can’t control the world we live in, but we can learn to adapt to any condition. Although Ivies do give great opportunities to all of their students, the ones who really try in state colleges can get even better chances. It’s up to the student, not the institution.</p>
<p>Are the Ivies really worth all the bother? </p>
<p>Short Answer: No
Reason: because I didn’t get into an Ivy and I’m just going to make the best out of my education regardless. </p>
<p>It’s still nice to get into an Ivy League though. I’ve talked to a lot of Ivy kids and they often seem to genuinely have that extra spark of enthusiasm for their school that others rarely have, which is a good motivator to do well. It’s probably a combination of a well manicured campus with excellent professors and excellent grad students and TAs, as well as being surrounded by some of the brightest kids in the country, who are often just fun and interesting people to be surrounded with if you’re also a one of them. </p>
<p>The stress high schoolers put themselves through that lead to those really paranoid posts about, ‘oh, what if Harvard sees that I quit a certain sport to join a certain club,’ or, ‘Are my chances at Princeton ruined because of a B freshman year?’ . Why don’t you guys still work hard, but instead of obsessing over finding some formula for getting into the Ivy League, follow your heart, and pursue academic passions. If you’re willing to work for a 4.0, that means there are at least some areas of study you really enjoy. You don’t need the extra stress. The most successful students I’ve seen avoid it by focusing on medium term goals and short term goals in their academics and by participating in activities they enjoy. Eventually, as you actually apply to colleges it’ll become apparent if a place like Harvard is right for you. Often that depends on whether or not you’ve been lucky enough to find that one subject or set of subjects, or extracurricular activity you spend all or most of your free time with because you can’t get enough of it.</p>
<p>If you’re truly interested in a certain subject like math, the Ivies are also usually good places to meet people who have really distinguished themselves, which can be very inspiring, but that doesn’t make them heaven on earth.</p>
<p>Didn’t attend an Ivy, so can’t say if it’s worth the “bother” but Ivy graduates appear to have a disproportionate influence in public affairs. It’s a small sample, admittedly, but every president since the first Bush has graduated from an Ivy, and all current members of the US Supreme Court have at least one Ivy degree.</p>
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<p>It’s certainly true that Ivy law schools are heavily represented on the Supreme Court, but if you look at the undergrad alma maters of the most influential people in Washington, it’s more varied. Former President Bill Clinton and current Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia are Georgetown grads. Justices Stephen Breyer and Anthony Kennedy got their undergrad degrees from Stanford. Justice Clarence Thomas is a Holy Cross alum.</p>
<p>Vice President Joe Biden is a U Delaware grad. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a Wellesley alum. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar went to Colorado College. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano are alums of Santa Clara. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is a Tulane alum. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu got his bachelors degree at U Rochester. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood is a graduate of Bradley University. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is a Hamilton alum. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sibelius is a graduate of Trinity Washington University. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis is an alum of Cal Poly-Pomona. </p>
<p>Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is a graduate of Utah State. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is an alum of Louisville. House Speaker John Boehner is a Xavier alum. House Majority Leader Eric Cantot is a George Washington alum. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is a graduate of Trinity Washington University.</p>
<p>It’s a mixed bag, really.</p>
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<p>Correlation does not imply causation. Going to any Ivy did not make these people more influential. They probably got into Ivies in the first place because their families were already influential. Legacy admissions are common in the Ivies.</p>
<p>Law is a different beast. Being an Ivy doesn’t mean it’s the best law school. Yale, Harvard, and Stanford are the best law schools in the country. NYU and UChicago are better than Penn and Cornell while Berkeley, Michigan, and Virginia are better than Cornell.</p>
<p>^ But there are schools that are perceived as “best” law schools and attending those really makes a difference when you are looking at jobs and clerkships. Whether you like the methodology of USNWR or not, that “best” tier for college is heavily Ivy influenced when looking at large research universities. You could never argue that the Ivy’s are better than a particular small LAC any more than you can argue cherries are better than peaches.</p>
<p>The arguments about class size and TA’s does not appear relevant to the fact that I (and many of my classmates) thought that much of the learning and development of those years occurred outside of the classroom. Being surrounded with so many highly talented and selectively chosen classmates made a big difference compared to the experience of being a big fish in a small pond which I suspect would be more akin to being at an honors program at State U. Living and learning for four years with other highly motivated students enhances your education and I’ll never believe that a motivated student will learn just as much anywhere if surrounded by apathetic or lackluster classmates. Yes it matters what you bring to the table but annasdad’s sources suggest that is only what matters and this defies comprehension. Had it made no difference in my graduate school plans or subsequent career earnings (probably did and probably didn’t, respectively), I undoubtedly thought the Ivy was worth it.</p>
<p>More specifically to an off-topic comment above:</p>
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<p>There will be no more STEM majors in the new colleges as it is an important part of the residential college system that each be a microcosm of the university as a whole. The only thing they are remedying is adding dorm space to allow an expansion of the freshman class. The distance to Science Hill was never a big deal to me and my only accommodation was buying a good pair of winter boots. Even including the far reaches of campus, Yale is compact compared to schools like Stanford where so many use a bike to get around.</p>
<p>^ well, I guess if a STEM student really wanted to be near Science Hill, he/she could always switch colleges, right?</p>
<p>Stanford students use bikes because a) the weather always allows it, and b) the campus has few steep hills. Most students are relatively close to their classes, White Plaza/center of campus, etc. (though many choose to bike anyway). The few parts of campus that make it seem “big” (golf course, medical school/hospitals, arboretum, athletics, the lake) aren’t really common destinations for students; the core campus is about the same size.</p>
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<p>So the Ivies have a lock on “highly motivated” students and the rest are “lackluster”? This is the type of hubris that gives the Ivies a bad name in the first place.</p>
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<p>I don’t believe anyone said that, so I think that’s a bit of a straw man going on there. Anyway, no one with any common sense, or no one above high school, elevates “the Ivies” as being super-de-duper-even-more-magically-special than top schools that happen not to be a part of that particular athletic league. There are a lot of great schools; Ivies are 8 of those great schools.</p>
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Yalegradanddad, does that make you delusional? [Delusion</a> - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delusion]Delusion”>Delusion - Wikipedia)</p>
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For my kids, this was the biggest appeal of highly selective schools (including, but not limited to, Ivies). They had both been to CTY in the summer, and that experience made it pretty clear to them that they wanted to attend a college with highly accomplished kids–ideally, with nothing but highly accomplished kids. Not everybody values that so much, of course.</p>
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<p>I’ll ask the same question I’ve asked before, yet to receive an answer: then why doesn’t the data (30 years of multiple studies looking for just such an effect - conducted by experienced educational researchers (many of whom have degrees from super-selective colleges), reported in juried professional journals, and not refuted - show that to be the case?</p>
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<p>Straw man - that’s not what the sources cited by annasdad (who does not claim ownership thereof) say. What they say is:</p>
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<p>– Pascarella and Terenzini, 641</p>
<p>The source goes on to point out that after adjusting for the characteristics of the students enrolled, the degree of net change that students experience at various categories of institutions is essentially the same.</p>
<p>That’s not the same as “it matters what you bring to the table but annasdad’s sources suggest that is only what matters.” In fact, the same source makes the point that they are not saying that all institutions affect learning in an equal degree. They go on to point that there are a number of factors - that I’ve quoted before, several times, and that for anyone interested, I’d be happy to PM - that do distinguish institutions that have a statistically significant better impact on learning - but selectivity is not one of them. What matters more than anything else is what the student does when the student gets to college, and the percentage of students who engage in high-educational-payoff activities on a regular does vary from instiitution to institution. Many of those factors, BTW, are those measured by the NSSE - which, interestingly enough, virtually all the super-selective institutions either refuse to administer or refuse to release their results - does anyone wonder why?</p>
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What “defies comprehension” is how the same tired old argument (that selectivity matters), with copious data to show it’s not valid, continues to get made over and over and over again.</p>
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It’s because for many of us, our personal experience, and that of our own children, tells us that there is a lot of benefit in being around highly accomplished peers. Maybe the truth is that it didn’t bring about a measurably superior outcome in terms of income or testable knowledge, but that we simply really, really liked it. Other people probably like other things.</p>