Banning the word 'prestigious'

Parents Forum
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<p><rant on=""></rant></p>

<p>My youngest is heading off to college next year, so I doubt that I will be haunting the collegeconfidential forums for much longer, but I have developed a strong aversion to the words 'prestige' and 'prestigious', and especially one sentence contributions to a discussion of the form ...</p>

<p>'XXX is more prestigious' .</p>

<p>I can't see that this adds anything to the discussion. I always wonder what the poster means by the phrase, what data they have to back up the comment, and what the pros (and cons) of a school, department, program, ??? being prestigious are? What is even worse is the statement</p>

<p>'XXX is more prestigious than YYY'</p>

<p>as this typically leads to a boring argument that hijacks the thread or, at least, decreases the signal to noise in the discussion. I realize that this is a favorite ploy of trolls, but it also appears to an 'honest' contribution the majority of the time.</p>

<p>Having a program be recognized by an employer or graduate school is probably a good (or even necessary) thing, but the obsession with prestige (== ranking?) implies to me that people have way too much time on their hands. The oft stated claim (by admissions officers?) that "once your standardized test scores are within a certain range, the actual scores are less important", seems to me to make even more sense when deciding between programs. </p>

<p>I also have a strong prejudice that what you get out a program is most strongly determined by what you put into it. Things get more complicated at the graduate school level, where networking of various sorts can be important, but any undergraduate program that has enough courses, facilities, research opportunities, and faculty committed to teaching should be sufficient for an excellent undergraduate education. Perhaps the above list is not that common, but it is also not necessarily implied by a program being "prestigious" either.</p>

<p>If we ban the word from the forums, perhaps posters would be forced to explain what they mean more clearly (assuming that there is any thought or content behind the statement :-) ).</p>

<p>I assume that something similar to this thread has appeared many times before in the forums, though I didn't find anything immediately, and this is clearly tilting at windmills. However, consider this my parting shot. There is so much good information presented in these forums, but the obsession with prestige makes teasing out the good stuff painful sometimes. Guess that my cognitive filters aren't up to the task.</p>

<p><rant off=""></rant></p>

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<p>It’s a fact that some colleges are more prestigious than others. The anti-prestige attitude is at least as prevalent on CC as the “prestige whore” attitude.</p>

<p>Yes, it is a problem if someone is selecting their university solely based on prestige. It is true that there are superior programs at overall less prestigious universities. But a lot of people go to the extreme and claim that any consideration of prestige is ridiculous and ignorant.</p>

<p>Saying, “Harvard is prestigious,” doesn’t seem like a problem to me. Saying, “Harvard is more prestigious than Tufts,” doesn’t seem like a problem to me. Saying, “Harvard is more prestigious than Tufts so you should go there,” does seem like a problem to me.</p>

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<p>Prestige is meaningless unless it’s “among whom.” Too many posters on CC define prestige as what their fellow high school seniors think – when hs seniors are generally not knowledgeable of much of anything and are NOT the definers of what’s prestigious. Some 17 yo, who has lived his life in the same place, who has no real-world experience, who takes USNWR as being gospel when no one in real life does, is just not an accurate determiner of what’s prestigious. They know what’s popular, which is different.</p>

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<p>I don’t support banning a term that is used so often and is truly an important consideration. I think it would be foolish to do so. What I hope CC does, is make folks aware of the limitations of prestige in picking a college and what it means in various contexts. One of my favorite posters, Mini, who is a Williams grad who lives on the west coast often points out that in his environment, that very presitigious LAC (in my NE world) is virtually unknown. And even here, my kids all started their college search knowing the Big East and other big sports schools better than what most consider prestigious.</p>

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<p>I personally don’t see any problem with using the word prestigious, and there is nothing wrong in using it as a criteria when selecting a college. If it’s not something that’s important to you, then so be it, but not everyone needs to have the same thinking. I have more of an issue when people try to use “fit” as a disguise to chase after prestige. I would challenge anyone here who isn’t after the highest academic “fit” for their kid, within a boundary of financial affordability.</p>

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<p>So, what does prestige mean to you (post #2) and why is it important? My problem with the use of the word is when there is an expectation that everyone understands what is implied and why it is relevant. </p>

<p>When and how does saying “Harvard is prestigious” add to a discussion (this is an honest question by the way)? </p>

<p>What utility is there is saying that “Harvard is more prestigious than Tufts,” or in what context is this useful information? Or example, when a poster says "“Harvard is more prestigious than Tufts,” this does seem to be a shorthand for “Harvard is more prestigious than Tufts so you should go there.” Why else makes the statement?</p>

<p>Perhaps I am just too long out of the game (or in a different game). Saying you have an advanced degree from MIT or Stanford or Courant (NYU) adds (some) cachet, and may lead to questions like “who did you work with” and do you know so-and-so before the topic is dropped entirely. Saying that you went to MIT or Stanford undergraduate usually does not lead to any follow-on questions.</p>

<p>I was quite happy when one of my children got into a “prestigious” university (I guess - it was an Ivy), but I also understood and generally approved of his reasons for wanting to attend. And he very much enjoyed his time and got a good education. Whether it was any better than the education I received at a large state school (many years ago) is debatable, and irrelevant. Different times and different personalities.</p>

<p>Again, my problem is with the overuse of the word and concept without indicating how it impacts the discussion at hand.</p>

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<p>Your kid wanted to go to the Ivy because it was more prestigious. He could have received similar education somewhere else, like at a less prestigious school, unless of course if he got a better FA at the Ivy than at a big state U.</p>

<p>The problem with a thread or post like this is when it is your kid who chose a prestigious school it is all because of the fit, but when someone else is doing it, it is because they are prestigious whores.</p>

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<p>BTW - I was being facetious when proposing banning anything. I also am not proposing “policing” the boards, requiring posters to define their terms. This was a rant, and meant to be hyperbole. Guess that most of the discussions are not for me (any more), but the role of prestige as a general concept in most of the discussions just seems peculiar.</p>

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<p>Boring arguments and hijacked threads? On the internet? Surely such a thing has never happened.</p>

<p>“Prestigious” is an adjective much like “wealthy.” Both are relative terms and sometimes imply traits or self-regard that some find distasteful. But both can be useful and enlightening to a conversation. Simply use them when they are appropriate and add something to the discourse.</p>

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<p>Using the word “prestigious” is just a shorthand way of saying that when people hear that you attended XYZ college, they know it is safe to assume that you most likely received a good education. So they will not need to go through the rigamarole of trying to understand how you have been educated before they hire you. They see UChicago, then the education criterion gets a check mark. They see Unheardof U, they will probably want to find out more about your level of knowledge/intelligence/preparation to do the job.</p>

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<p>Not true, by the way, at least not the way he explained it us. You can believe what you wish. Unless of course, your definition of “prestige” included his reasoning. Again, if prestige translates to something more quantitative like “quality of student body”, “ability to satisfy full financial need”, “happiness of students”, “strength in major” (again based on something quantitative), and many others, fine, but why not just state these rather than something that seems to translate to “school that has traditionally been hardest to get into”? It may have been hardest to get into because it is desirable for reasons XXX, YYY, and ZZZ, but why not mention these?</p>

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<p>I think there is nothing wrong with wanting a certain level of prestige. I think the problem comes in when people a) assume levels of prestige are somehow universal (in the midwest, Big 10 schools could be said to be prestigious – in Texas, UT/Austin and SMU trump a heck of a lot – and as mini indicates, few people in his neck of the woods know Williams, b) assume that prestige is synonymous with “known by the masses” (there are some very prestigious colleges that <em>aren’t</em> known by the masses) and c) try to cut the prestige layers very thin – e.g., arguing that Stanford has more prestige than Columbia or Duke has more prestige than Georgetown or whatever.</p>

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<p>Agreed. Each school also has its own strength.</p>

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Very good post overall.</p>

<p>One quibble: I disagree with your distinction between “prestige” and “popularity”. The opinion of HS kids is a very accurate metric of prestige among HS kids. There isn’t any normative weight given to any particular group who might be asked to quantify prestige.</p>

<p>The first line of your post sums things up perfectly: prestige can be measured by any group. It’s still prestige even if it doesn’t represent anything important.

All quantitative metrics for “strength in major” are designed to measure prestige. You can look at either USNews or NRC grad/program rankings. Both measure academic prestige.</p>

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<p>I disagree. Wealth is countable. Prestige is not.</p>

<p>I can rather easily verify that I am wealthier today than I was 20 years ago. To say that someone is “wealthier” today is a convenient shorthand for a more precise statement, such as “Today her net worth is over $5 million; 20 years ago, it was less than $10K.”</p>

<p>How would one objectively verify that College X is more or less prestigious than it was 20 years ago? What would be a less abstract, more precise way to express, “Today that university is more prestigious than it was 20 years ago”?</p>

<p>“Prestige”, if it has any useful meaning at all in discussions about colleges, is more like “beauty” than “wealth”. You can’t count beauty. If you are comparing very beautiful Person A to very ugly Person B, then you can claim uncontroversially that Person A is more beautiful than person B. But within some set of very beautiful people, it can be difficult to claim without controversy that one is more beautiful than another. And even if two people could agree that one is marginally more beautiful than another, that probably would not be a good basis to select the one over the other for any important role or task.</p>

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<p>I’d rather ban prejudice.</p>

<p>Some people claim that they are not going after prestige but their decisions are still based on some kind of rankings, classifications.</p>

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<p>A USNWR graduate program ranking is basically an opinion poll. We do not really know what it measures.</p>

<p>Some of the other graduate program rankings are data-driven. They are based on objective measurement of outcomes such as publications or bibliographic citations per professor. They do not measure “prestige”.</p>

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That’s true. I forgot that ARWU had field and subject rankings now.</p>

<p>EDIT: There was another ranking a few years ago that I haven’t heard about since… something about research productivity in the title, maybe? Anyone know what I’m talking about?</p>

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<p>Prestige to me means “reputation or influence arising from success”. I consider an institute prestigious when the prospective employers or people in academia or anyone who is educated don’t have to ask follow up question about why this institute.</p>

<p>Prestige is not something that is attained by association, so for me HMSPY is prestigious while Brown just by being a part of a league is not prestigious.</p>

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<p>When I read this thread, I was surprised by the suggestion of banning the word prestigious. But I was reminded of another word that is heavily used in CC discussion boards and elsewhere these days. For whatever reason, while “prestigious” does not bother me, the word “elite” in reference to colleges (e.g., “could you suggest some elite New England LACS” or “admission rates drop at elites”) often evokes a negative reaction. Not suggesting the word be banned, or to put down schools referred to as elite, but the word itself is overused/misused in my opinion.</p>