<p>Great. As long as you’re not claiming that it didn’t bring about a “measurably superior outcome in terms of income or testable knowledge” then I can’t dispute it. What some people like, and are willing to spend money on, will differ from what other people like. If it’s worth it to you to spend two or three times as much as necessary to achieve the same income and testable knowledge, then that’s your thing. Because, as Pizzagirl has said (and I find myself in complete agreement with her on this):</p>
<p>My claim is that attending college with highly accomplished people makes it more likely that you will develop broad interests, especially when it comes to arts and culture. How you’d test this, I don’t know, but I consider this an important element of my own quality of life.</p>
<p>I suspect you’d find that people who attend big-time sports schools are more likely to be interested in sports, especially college sports, later in life. Would that be worth paying more for? For some people, it might be.</p>
<p>Yes. Extremely well said. <em>I</em> know <em>I</em> would not have done as well if I’d gone to school with less accomplished peers. I don’t really care whether there is a measurable difference in the aggregate over umpteen thousand students. It’s important to <em>me</em> and I know my kids well enough to suspect they’re going to be similar to <em>me</em> in that regard.</p>
<p>I value that, too. My point would be that there are many places, and many ways, to find it. I have not the least doubt that is what my D1 is experiencing at her LAC, and others find it at non-Ivy private universities. You can also find it at our better public universities; I did back in my day, and I have no doubt others still do. </p>
<p>If you do the math, you’ll see that the stats of the top quartile of the class at schools like Michigan and UC Berkeley are higher than the bottom quartile at places like Yale–and there are more people in the top quartile at Michigan and Berkeley than in the top 3 quartiles at Yale. So if you want to be around a lot of really smart and accomplished people, you’ll find no shortage of them at the top public universities, and if you’re one of them, chances are they’re the people you’ll naturally gravitate toward. They’ll be in your freshman honors classes and in your honors dorm, they’ll be the people you befriend and socialize with and live with. You don’t necessarily need to pay top dollar for that experience.</p>
<p>I’m not knocking Yale. For my own reasons, I have a soft spot for it.</p>
<p>But I have to say I find the attitude that only at an Ivy can you surround yourself with bright and accomplished people–not expressed by you, Hunt, but by YaleGradandDad in earlier posts–is one I find insufferable.</p>
<p>There’s no way to know what would have happened had you gone to a less-selective school. You can say that your school worked for you, and no one can reasonably refute that - but none of us knows what would have occurred along the road not taken.</p>
It’s perhaps impolite to put it this way, but another element may be how difficult it is to insulate yourself from the people who are not that accomplished and not that interested in intellectual stuff. At highly selective schools it’s easy, because most people are accomplished. It may be relatively easy if a big school has an honors program with a lot of dedicated classes, but that’s not necessarily the case for all schools.</p>
<p>
When they asked Dillinger why he robbed banks, he reportedly said, “Because that’s where the money is.” If you’re looking for bright and accomplished people, you might look for the highest concentrations of such people. That’s not just the Ivies, of course, but it’s not every school in the land, either, especially if it’s the concentration you’re interested in.</p>
<p>There are absolutely many areas in my life where it’s worth it to spend more than what is “necessary.” I spend money on nice restaurants for special occasions even though the only thing that is “necessary” is that my belly gets filled. I spend money on making my home look attractive with the furnishings I choose, even though the only thing that is “necessary” is that I have a basic bed, chair and table. I spend money on vacations even though they aren’t “necessary” by any stretch of the imagination. I buy nice clothing and accessories even though the only thing that is “necessary” is that I’m adequately protected from the elements and don’t break any indecency laws. I know you somehow like to portray it as wasteful to spend “several times what is necessary,” but unless all you spend your money on is literally the bare minimum of food, clothing and shelter, you’re spending beyond what’s strictly necessary. And that’s fine! </p>
<p>YK, plenty of people who talk about “spending more than is necessary” have a heck of a lot of books in their homes - even though most books can be gotten out of a library. Or they enjoy fine wines / spirits - even though alcohol’s not necessary. Or they have high-speed Internet and various electronic gadgets.</p>
<p>Oh please. I know enough bright peers who detested what they saw as the anti-intellectual culture at Mizzou who wound up dropping out and starting over. I think it’s soul-deadening to be a bright student in a not-so-bright atmosphere. (which is NOT saying “omg, if you don’t go to a top 20 school, you’ll be with the dummies,” so don’t put words in my mouth) I agree with Hunt completely - I think the presence of smart students is an important consideration, and I am willing to pay top dollar for a “thick” concentration of such students.</p>
<p>Our kids could have gone completely free to big reputable state schools or almost free to some pretty good private schools. We sent them to highly selective schools where they didn’t get FA because we wanted them to be in environments where they were not in an “honors college” but just average, and sometimes maybe even less than average, within their universe. </p>
<p>Ironically, we sent them to the horrible arrogant Ivy League to make them more humble. :)</p>
<p>Yet again, Pizzagirl, you try to refute my argument by refuting an argument I haven’t made.</p>
<p>I’ve not said it’s wasteful, for those who have the money, or for those who take on debt, to spend money on expensive colleges, provided they do so with their eyes fully open. I spend more than is necessary myself, all the time; I just spent several times what was necessary on lunch - went to Subway and paid $5 for what I could have bought the ingredients for at Aldi and made myself for maybe $2.</p>
<p>My problem is those who loudly and persistently claim, in the absence of any evidence, that there is a significant educational advantage to going to a super-selective college. If that were true, I would do without other things, go into debt myself, and encourage my kids to go into debt to go to the most selective and prestigious colleges they can get into. If there are parents, and students, who want to go to super-selective colleges for reasons other than educational quality (or perceived huge differences in post-college earning capacity), or because their parents like spending money on luxury goods, and have the ability to pay for it - or who are willing to make sacrifices and take on debt to pay for it - then that is their affair. I wouldn’t make the same choice, or encourage my kid to do so, but I’m not being critical of those who do. I am critical, and intend to remain so, of those who make claims that are not supported by the data - that are, in fact, refuted by it. And, incidentally, when I know of data that supports advantages of super-selective colleges - see post 144 above - I’m happy to provide it.</p>
<p>I’m including the first part of this much-discussed quote in order to discuss how environment plays into the four years of learning…in high school. D1 attended a public entry-by-test magnet comprised of highly talented motivated etc etc etc students. The magnet is housed at a large comprehensive high school. In essence this would be the honors program at State U with the contrast settings put on super-maximum. “Yale” et al would be modelled by a highly selective boarding school or private school, the type whose names are bandied about CC as examples of the most rigorous high schools around. </p>
<p>D1 found herself a average-sized fish in her small pond. That pond was stocked to bursting with top-notch classmates, and was carefully tended by teachers who (for the most part) felt it their duty to push these kids intellectually to the wall. It was a tremendous opportunity for her, much more so than her previous school where she was top academic dog. She didn’t need to have the whole school be filled with the best and the brightest, just enough of them to create a critical mass. There are scores of colleges that’ll offer that.</p>
<p>As far as the virtues of lectures vs. small seminar for learning–depends on the student, depends on the subject, depends on the teacher. D1 is a STEM major who’s found that she does much better in her subject area when material is first presented in lecture form, following which she goes off on her own and noodles things out, and then talks with the prof, fellow students, and/or the TA for additional clarification. On the other hand, she took a grad-level seminar last semester which was very much of the “do your reading beforehand so that we can take that as a springboard for further discussion” model, and tremendously enjoyed that.</p>
<p>There are parts of the country where even the top students don’t have Ivy League schools on their radar. It’s not because they haven’t heard of the schools. It’s not because they wouldn’t be competitive in admissions. It’s not because they aren’t concerned about getting a great quality education. Rather, it’s because they live a long way from the northeastern United States and their world doesn’t revolve around the Ivy League. They may have no desire to be that far from home for four years. They may want to go to the state university that educates most of the state’s lawyers, doctors, or businesspeople – people they will work with for years. Most of their personal or career role models, the people they know and admire, attended state universities and nearby private colleges. Their teachers, parents, and classmates aren’t putting pressure on them to apply to Ivy League schools. Many have their first encounter with an Ivy-educated person when one of their college professors walks into the classroom.</p>
<p>My daughter, now in college, is surrounded by highly-motivated, brilliant students who could compete academically at any university in the country. Many of them never considered applying to HYPS and the like, and several turned down offers of admissions from those schools because they decided to go with their heart (and head) and not with prestige. D may have an apathetic or lackluster classmate here or there, but that only describes a very few of them. She is getting a very high quality education, and I don’t wish for a minute that she were anywhere else.</p>
<p>Are they worth the bother? If you want to work with certain NYC firms or be on the Supreme Court, then yes. If you grew up in the backyard of one of them and can’t imagine yourself anywhere else, then probably so. If you can’t abide the thought that there might be one student somewhere in your school that isn’t up to your intellectual standards, then by all means do what it takes to get in.</p>
<p>By the way, I’m not knocking Ivies. They are great schools. I’m knocking the attitude that they get the very top students. They don’t get the best and brightest. Rather, they get a small percentage of the best and brightest. Most of the best and brightest are being educated in other places.</p>
<p>Hunt’s right, IMO.<br>
Look, we talk about the anti-partying kid who won’t feel at home in a school with a heavy drinking culture. The kid not-into-sports who won’t feel at home in a school where social life is all about following the football team, and if that means blowing off classes, so be it. What’s the difference? Why wouldn’t the intellectual / serious-minded kid feel at home in a school where the caliber of the students is appreciably lower than his own, and there isn’t a seriousness of purpose there?</p>
<p>Look, my H employs about 20 people, most of whom were educated at lower (3rd/4th) tier schools if at all. They’re nice people. But I would be frustrated if they were my peers on a college campus. They aren’t intellectually minded, I would run rings around them in any classroom discussion, and I’d be frustrated if my prof had to dumb down the course to their level. If that’s snobby, well, then, fine, I’m snobby, no apologies. It’s a great gift to be smart, and the concentration of smart kids simply isn’t the same everywhere. That’s not to say there aren’t smart kids everywhere - of course there are - but there’s a different concentration of them at different selectivity / tier levels, and I think it makes an important qualitative difference to the experience.</p>
<p>Let’s face it: the less-accomplished kids can hold you back, especially if you have to take classes with them. Those much-vaunted small discussion classes aren’t so great if half of the kids aren’t able to discuss the material at a high level. As I’ve said, you might be able to avoid that problem at some schools (as my kids largely did at a magnet much like what SlithyTove described–they took most of their classes with other magnet kids).</p>
<p>An analogy I’ve mentioned before is a kid who wants to join a competitive soccer team. Does he join the team where all the players are top-notch, the team where he’ll be by far the best player, or a team with a mix of player abilities? It depends on what he wants out of it, I think.</p>
<p>By the way, this is EXACTLY why - even though the folks in Short Hills and Greenwich and New Canaan may object – the Ivies and simlar schools continue to do outreach and send out mailings. Because despite what people in the Northeast think (and I get it! remember, I’m an Northeastern girl!), these schools are just not on the radar screens as much elsewhere as they are in the Northeast or in very select upscale suburbs elsewhere. There’s a lot of naivete on CC to this effect.</p>
<p>To pick up on my last post, I took a look at the website for the University of Maryland’s English Department. Maryland has some pretty good honors programs. Within the English major, there is an honors track, for about 20 students. On this track, 5 of your 12 (or so) English classes will be restricted honors courses–several of those are an individual project. For the rest of your classes, you’ll be taking classes with all other English majors, as well as non-majors in some of the classes. Now, Maryland is a good school, and those students will be smart and accomplished, mostly. But it will not be like being an English major at a highly selective college. Again, it depends on what kind of experience you value.</p>
<p>I would just add that it seems to me that the more “active” the learning environment is, the more important the caliber of your peers would be–it doesn’t matter all that much how accomplished other people are in a big lecture class (unless it affects the rate or depth of teaching).</p>