Nothing the OP could post will provide the option of deciding whether to attend Harvard, Williams or Stanford. Even the title is misleading, as it’s not about education…it’s about perceived intelligence via name recognition.
If the OP’s profile doesn’t merit Ivy / Select LAC admission…the whole conversation is a waste. Reality is unnecessary in answering the questions presented, so we should just assume the OP has a strong academic profile and answer accordingly.
@EyeVeee, as I had mentioned earlier in this thread, while Ivy/Stanford may impress the rubes, those in the know understand that those schools also admit kids who are far below what would be the minimum standard for an unhooked applicant (they typically play a sport or won the parentage lottery).
So again, the OP is limited to Oxbridge/MIT if he wants to be perceived as smart by everyone.
They’re really not. You should only apply to a liberal arts college to use it as a platform to a better graduate school. Otherwise if you graduate with a liberal arts degree, good luck finding a job.
The reason they’re not on par with top tier universities is because of engineering/cs related output and research. In the era of artificial intelligence and robotics, liberal arts college look laughable when you compare it to places like MIT, UC Berkeley, CMU, Harvard, Stanford. I find it funny when someone tries to say Williams is equal to Harvard because if you look at the global reputation of Harvard and even their physics or deep learning research that they put out, Williams would be nowhere close. The only liberal arts college that can stand up to a top tier university is Harvey Mudd.
Yes, I agree, liberal arts colleges are as selective as any top university. However, if you look at prestige, they are not even close to be considered equal to top universities. They are just considered lesser to the general public and to employers(unless by chance they graduated from an LAC).
To test this, feel free to ask anyone in India or England to tell you what your liberal arts college is and then ask them about Harvard.
@PurpleTitan I respectfully disagree with your last sentence. If OP ever returns to read all the comments on this thread, I want to put my two cents in:
Any Ivy school, Stanford or MIT would fit the criteria of being perceived as “smart/intelligent”. If OP ends up graduating from an Ivy, he or she will definitely be forever connected and be part of an elite club (literally and figuratively). https://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■/the-ivy-coach-blog/tag/ivy-league-clubs-in-nyc/
Just the fact of getting admitted (hook or not) into one of these schools brings a status of honor and elite standing. Why is that the HS kids who get accepted into multiple Ivies make the news? I never see a write up on Joe or Susie making it into 8 LACs.
@Studious99, the correlation between the SAT and the ACT score rankings of the top 100 schools and the resultant outcomes noted by College Transactions, with the exception of the tech outcomes list which has a regional coorelation, substantiates my point.
@PurpleTitan … As the parent of 2 LAC kids, I agree with your rube comment.
The question that started the post is a perfect example of all that’s wrong with gauntlet kids go through to find a college. That said…the vast majority of Americans would be more impressed with Cornell than CalTech or Williams. They just don’t know any better.
Nearly all people only know what they’re regionally attune to. Family members of ours with high school and college children from Oregon have never heard of Swarthmore. Mention Reed, and they’ll tell you it’s basically an Ivy for only the brightest as they genuflect. Their comment confirms that in certain regions, LAC’s have reputations for excellence. Leave the area, and the aura fades fast and far. WashU, the Clairmont schools, Davidson, CC, NESCAC schools…they generally fade a few hundred miles from home.
I know that you have a personal stake and bias because of that, but I think all of us who know enough Ivy grads have definitely encountered some who did not live up to their alma mater’s reputation, let’s just say.
In the case of MIT and Caltech (and Mudd/Olin/Webb/Cooper Union), it’s not just a matter of getting in, but that anyone who manages to graduate from those places has to possess some combination of intelligence and work ethic that is far above average. In all the Ivies and Stanford (and almost all other schools out there), there are majors where students can “hide” (or can be hidden, in the case of some athletes). At the schools I named, there really isn’t.
Honestly, even some Ivies have a fairly regional/socioeconomically/field-constrained reputation (yes, many people would have heard of Dartmouth, for instance, but whether someone would be impressed if you went there does depend a lot on what circles you run in). Though WashU isn’t a LAC. But honestly, most schools would be like WashU in not being uniformly exalted everywhere in all fields/SES. HSM. Maybe Princeton. Maaaaybe Yale. And Oxbridge. Then when you knock out the Ivies and Stanford because of their much lower standards for certain admits, and you’re left with MIT and Oxbridge.
For the OP, I went to a college that occasionally required me to say “No, not the one in Ohio, the one in Connecticut” and “No, not the women’s school” (although just to confuse everyone, I’m from Wellesley). The common wisdom then was that even if hoi polloi hadn’t heard of Wesleyan, the important people, the grad schools and the employers, had. And it was true. I and my friends went off to top ranked grad schools and jobs. I expect the same is true now.
Also, if you do end up in law school, your undergrad won’t matter much anymore, at least to legal employers. They’ll be focused on your law school.
I’m not sure who, besides employers and grad schools, you envision asking you where you go to college, but let’s assume it comes up in the occasional casual social conversation. Yes, many people will assume you’re smart if you say you went to college in Cambridge (the usual gambit of people being faux humble about having gone to Harvard) . And many people, sometimes the same ones, will assume you’re snotty and insufferable. And in the long run, what will really matter in any relationship of any length will be whether you seem like a smart person, regardless of whether you went to Harvard or Joe’s Garage and Diploma Mill.
But, sigh, if making a smart first impression on random strangers is that important to you, then yes, you’d better go to Harvard. Amherst, Bowdoin and Colby will be better off without you, if attending any of those excellent schools will make you feel lesser than.
“I think all of us who know enough Ivy grads have definitely encountered some who did not live up to their alma mater’s reputation, let’s just say.”
LAC and Ivy peer schools have their fair share of grads who don’t live up to their alma mater’s reputation too, don’t you think?
“Then when you knock out the Ivies and Stanford because of their much lower standards for certain admits, and you’re left with MIT and Oxbridge.”
So you think within the inner circle of highly educated people that the Ivies and Stanford don’t stack up in prestige and academic eliteness against the tippy top LACs and tech schools because they have hooks such as athletes?
LACs, MIT and Cal Tech have athletics, so how do you explain the athletes there ‘bringing their standards down’? Those schools offer ‘easy’ non STEM majors such as Business, Literature, Econ and History. Oxbridge has athletic recruits too!
Do recruited athletes at the Ivies ‘hide’ behind an easy major? Maybe some do, I don’t know for sure but I am of the opinion that if it’s true this is the exception not the rule. But how do you know this for sure to make this blanket statement? Have you studied the rosters of these athletes at these schools to see what they are majoring in? Trust me, recruited D1 athletes have choices and to choose an Ivy over an upper tier D1 program that can offer full rides (and be easier academically) for head count sports says that they value their education.
“In the case of MIT and Caltech (and Mudd/Olin/Webb/Cooper Union), it’s not just a matter of getting in, but that anyone who manages to graduate from those places has to possess some combination of intelligence and work ethic that is far above average.” Wow, just wow…So if one graduates with say an engineering degree from a school such as MIT, Cal Tech or Harvey Mudd they had to have possessed “a combination of intelligence and work ethic that is far above average”. What about a student (let’s add athlete on top that) who graduates with the same degree from an Ancient Eight school? I just have to scratch my head when I read generalizations like your comments. #-o :-?
There are 2.4 million kids that will apply to college in 2017
24000 is 1%
Keep in mind that only half of these are available to your son or daughter.
Rank Slots College ACT
1 230 California Institute of Technology 34-35
2 220 Harvey Mudd College 33-35
2 1111 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 33-35
4 1300 Columbia University 32-35
4 1600 Harvard University 32-35
4 1300 Princeton University 32-35
4 980 Rice University 32-35
4 1500 University of Chicago 32-35
4 1600 Vanderbilt University 32-35
10000 slots
10 1300 Johns Hopkins University 32-34
10 2000 University of Notre Dame 32-34
10 1600 Washington University in St. Louis 32-34
13 1700 Stanford University 31-35
13 1300 Yale University 31-35
15 470 Amherst College 31-34
15 1300 Brown University 31-34
20000 slots
15 1550 Carnegie Mellon University 31-34
15 1750 Duke University 31-34
15 350 Haverford College 31-34
15 2800 Northeastern University 31-34
15 2000 Northwestern University 31-34
15 2500 University of Pennsylvania 31-34
30000 slots
15 550 Williams College 31-34
15 500 Bowdoin College 31-34
25 475 Hamilton College 31-33
26 250 Cooper Union 30-34
26 3300 Cornell University 30-34
26 1100 Dartmouth College 30-34
26 1600 Georgetown University 30-34
30 400 Pomona College 30-34
40000 slots
31 2000 Boston College 30-33
31 1200 Case Western Reserve University 30-33
31 800 Colgate University 30-33
31 3000 Georgia Institute of Technology 30-33
31 400 Grinnell College 30-33
31 1200 Tufts University 30-33
31 3000 University of Southern California 30-33
50000 slots
31 660 Vassar College 30-33
31 450 Washington and Lee University 30-33
40 400 Swarthmore College 29-34
40 6500 University of California—Berkeley 29-34
42 500 Carleton College 29-33
42 350 Claremont McKenna College 29-33
60000 slots
44 1400 Emory University 29-33
44 200 Reed College 29-33
44 7100 University of Michigan—Ann Arbor 29-33
44 3700 University of Virginia 29-33
70000 slots
44 600 Wellesley College 29-33
44 700 Middlebury College 29-33
44 1400 University of Rochester 29-33
44 700 Wesleyan University 29-33
75000 slots
@CALSmom: Look, you may believe what you want to believe, but there are a few points I have to respond to:
“LAC and Ivy peer schools have their fair share of grads who don’t live up to their alma mater’s reputation too, don’t you think?”
Certainly.
“So you think within the inner circle of highly educated people that the Ivies and Stanford don’t stack up in prestige and academic eliteness against the tippy top LACs and tech schools because they have hooks such as athletes?”
Um, no. I’m saying that some people will not make assumptions of intelligence just because you graduated from those schools. That was what the OP was concerned about, remember?
“LACs, MIT and Cal Tech have athletics, so how do you explain the athletes there ‘bringing their standards down’?”
I didn’t include LACs among Oxbridge/MIT, if you noticed. And Caltech explicitly doesn’t lower entrance standards for athletes while MIT barely gives an admissions edge to athletes (and only for crew, it seems).
“Oxbridge has athletic recruits too!”
For undergrad? Ones that they lowered academic standards for? Please give examples if you can find them.
“What about a student (let’s add athlete on top that) who graduates with the same degree from an Ancient Eight school?”
Depends on which one. They’re all at least fairly strong, but not all are at the MIT/Caltech/Mudd level.
"LACs, MIT and Cal Tech have athletics, so how do you explain the athletes there ‘bringing their standards down’? Those schools offer ‘easy’ non STEM majors such as Business, Literature, Econ and History. "
MIT and Caltech are Div 3, except for crew at MIT, which is Div 1. Caltech famously doesn’t give an admission bump for athletes, as the performance of its teams shows. As PurpleTitan noted, MIT treats athletics as just another EC and there is zero evidence that admitted athletes are less qualified, academically.
And MIT economics is easy and a place to hide? What a hoot.
Any thread in which there is a debate about whether people think Stanford and Harvard students are smart and which majors at MIT are guts jumped the shark long ago.
@Greymeer, and then further divide the slots based whether one is a hooked or non hooked applicant and the 75000 slots becomes no more than 20,000 for a non hooked male or female across the 52 schools - the 1%.
@circuitrider - post #85 (I suggested Cornell based on literally no information). Don’t disagree this thread has lost its way (assuming it ever had one).
