<p>PizzaGirl: This is precisely where I differ.
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<p>A good modeling school can turn an average girl into a highly sought after model. A real beautiful girl might not need a modeling school to get a contract.</p>
<p>Similarly Harvard can open doors into politics for an average student, a well connected Clinton/Bush student doesn’t need Harvard degree to enter politics.</p>
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<p>Yes. I have not been living under a rock. Doesn’t change anything I said. </p>
<p>If you took a student who actually attended and graduated from Harvard but gave him a diploma from the University of Idaho, he would still have to ‘prove’ himself to an employer and to casual acquaintances more than he would if he had a diploma from Harvard. It could be this very need to prove himself that might give him a long term advantage in terms of financial success, which IMO depends far more on effort than on pedigree.</p>
<p>I have never said that prestige is always a good thing to have. I like the analogy made by coureur to wealth. Some people might resent you for your wealth, and your wealth might stop you from doing certain things. But generally people like having wealth.</p>
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<p>POIH, could MIT turn an average-at-math-and-science student into a highly sought after engineer? </p>
<p>Or does it turn already-very-bright-at-math-and-science students into highly sought after engineers?</p>
<p>IOW, if you took my (history-oriented) son and put him in class next to your daughter who is clearly highly accomplished in math and science, would MIT have the same effect on both?</p>
<p>^^^your son may become better looking at MIT, if he wasn’t already.</p>
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<p>Yes, if MIT accept an average-at-math-and-science student then it will certainly enhance the student skill and make the student highly sought after.</p>
<p>I think that is what the problem with most people thinking. If everyone is born geniuses then there is no need for schools and colleges.</p>
<p>A top school or college enhance the skill of the students. If a student gets acceptance at MIT and chose to go to community college.
4 years at MIT would have enhanced the skills of the student and made him a sought after engineer.</p>
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<p>If your son is interested in math-science then certainly MIT will enhance his skills. Now the degree of change vary from student to student and include effort on the part of the student also.</p>
<p>But the effect of the college/school should be visible.</p>
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<p>Well I would hope so. MIT does stand for Model In Training…right? ;)</p>
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<p>Huh. I wonder why they don’t accept a lot of average-at-math-and-science students, then. You’d think it would add to diversity.</p>
<p>Post #46, Best post tonight. Took me a second to get it (I am a bit slow tonight).</p>
<p>Anyone else reading this thread feel like they are watching a rerun of “Pygmalion”?</p>
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<p>Reminds me of this old Dove ad:
[YouTube</a> - Dove - Evolution Commercial (higher quality)](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U]YouTube”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hibyAJOSW8U)</p>
<p>Yes, but can a good modeling school make me into a 20 year old, again? :D</p>
<p>Pizzagirl hits the nail on the head, IMHO.</p>
<p>DS chose Caltech/MIT over P-ton, Yale, etc. Very few people in our area ever heard of Caltech. His HS Principal wondered why he chose a UC school, and his uncle said he heard great things about CalPoly, but never heard of Caltech. Prestige? no way.</p>
<p>Do I think he learned a lot? I couldn’t even understand the title of his courses. Did his UG school influence him to strive for a PhD? probably. Would any bright kid with interest in science benefit in this environment? of course. Will he become better looking? Well, he dresses beter, but I don’t think a modeling agency will be ringing his number. Would HYPS have motivated him into politics? unlikely.</p>
<p>Anyway, interesting thread.</p>
<p>sorry bookworm, it doesn’t matter if ignorant people have not heard of Caltech or confuse it with CalPoly. Caltech has uber-prestige. In the tech world, far more prestige than HYP.</p>
<p>well, since we’re gettin’ our ban on, how about adding the words ‘top’, ‘quirky’ and ‘state’ (as in ‘state school’)'?? lol</p>
<p>Well, that was interesting. I had been regretting my overly cute title, but at least Ghostt liked it. Perhaps “The over/inappropriate/ambiguous uses of prestigious” would have been a better title.</p>
<p>There appeared to be a few different definitions of prestige being used, though the discussion seems to have converged (or, at least, stopped). The dictionary definition:</p>
<p>“widespread respect and admiration felt for someone or something on the basis of a perception of their achievements or quality” (from [definition</a> of prestige from Oxford Dictionaries Online](<a href=“Oxford Languages | The Home of Language Data”>Oxford Languages | The Home of Language Data))</p>
<p>leaves open the question of what achievements or quality are being discussed. Saying that a university is prestigious (by this definition) still requires some context - the university could be prestigious in sports (as some posters pointed out). </p>
<p>The major responses seemed to be that prestigious means (to some people in the forum):</p>
<p>1) generous (in one deliberate outlier)
2) attending a prestigious institution would provoke “gets gasps of admiration from lots of others”
3) well-known (for something, I guess)
4) exclusive, or rather, not being prestigious means being less selective and more inclusive
5) good (especially if universally recognized as such) - so similar to the dictionary definition, except that the definition deals only with perception, not necessarily reality.
6) “reputation or influence arising from success”, with the example from the poster that graduation from such an institution would lead to the assumption of competence (until shown otherwise)
7) “proven reputation that people don’t question.” (perhaps the same as 6, where reputation is that graduates are competent?)
(and others - running out of steam here).</p>
<p>Both 6 and 7 appear to be stronger statements in some ways than the definition as they include historical justification for the reputation. For some reason I can’t find where #7 came from at the moment. Reputation is value neutral - it still needs to be a reputation for something.</p>
<p>By the way, I don’t know how to interpret the comment to me that</p>
<p>“Just because an institute is part of a league doesn’t make it prestigious and may be that’s the reason you now resent the word ‘PRESTIGIOUS’.”</p>
<p>I said that I had developed an aversion to the term from reading all of the posts where it was used in ways that I thought were ambiguous or off-topic. </p>
<p>Also, a comment was made that “All quantitative metrics for ‘strength in major’ are designed to measure prestige.” I disagree, and for reasons a little different from those of another poster. For me strength in major can be estimated by looking at the number of faculty, research interests of faculty, breadth and depth of course offerings, how often courses are offered, class sizes, facilities, graduation rate, placement success for graduates, etc. These all relate to quality, and most are available from web sites or available with a little digging, so don’t need to come from popularity contest rankings. Rankings may validate personal research, and a quality program is more likely to be or become prestigious, but I don’t see them as identical things.</p>
<p>Prior to starting this thread, I’d reached the point of reacting to statements such as “University A is prestigious” about the same way I’d react to “University A is blue”, i.e. what do they mean by that?, including the multiple possible interpretations: is this a color or an emotional state? I’d like to believe that posters in the forum truly are using prestige in a careful and well-informed way. My facetious “banning” of the term would have forced posters to explain themselves, but perhaps the problem lies with me.</p>
<p>The problem with the notion of “prestige” is that there is a significant component of it that is in the eye of the beholder. While having prestige is certainly not a disadvantage it is also not the guaranteed advantage that so many CCers take as a given. I agree that there are far too many discussions about prestige that only serve to obscure other critical factors. Also, as mentioned, prestige can be ethereal depending on what community is the target of the desired impression. The prestige of schools vary greatly from one place to another. In many instances a degree from UF is just as venerable as any other on the planet for those working or hiring in FL. In a different context, not so much. </p>
<p>I do think this can be very confusing for students and parents both, especially to those very early in the process. I gather this to be the emphasis of the OP’s frustration with CC’s obsession with prestige.</p>
<p>I think there are also schools that have what I’ll call historical social prestige, esp among certain classes / camps, that don’t necessarily always correspond to academic prestige or the tippy-toppest scores, GPA’s, selectivity, etc. But that social prestige was plenty, because the camp I’m talking about valued social prestige, not SAT scores.</p>
<p>I vote for banning “lol”…most of the time it doesn’t refer to something funny.</p>
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<p>Can you give an example? I’m genuinely curious. </p>
<p>Unless you regard sports prestige = social prestige, off the top of my head I can’t think of a nationally-known college that has high social prestige but mediocre academic stats. (Although I can think of examples of the reverse - schools with high stats but not much prestige).</p>
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<p>:p LOL… ;)</p>