I am starting to wonder if the Big 10 schools have now surpassed the Ivies in terms of quality of education and future job prospects. My daughters go to one of the top private schools in Cleveland and, whereas most of the tops students 25 years ago went to the Ivies, now most of the top students are choosing to go to Big 10 schools. I think that private schools have priced out professionals and don’t seem to want the top students from the best private schools.
My husband and I see the same thing in our professional life. I am an attorney and he is a cardiologist and so many of our colleagues and friends are sending their kids to Big 10 schools and loving it.
Is this just me or are others seeing this same trend?
My NMF daughter applied to two Big Ten schools and two Ivies. She was accepted into the Engineering Schools and Honors Colleges at the Big Ten schools and will likely not get accepted into the Ivy so they won’t even be an option.
Huh? The Ivies and other elite universities are way harder to get in now compared to 25 years ago so sometimes kids go to their Big Ten school because they don’t get in to elite schools. In our Chicago area school, most kids use places like tOSU, Indiana, UIUC and Iowa as safeties. I’m not knocking the schools. I know one can get a good education at all of them. But they aren’t more “popular” because they are better. They are more popular because elite universities acceptance rates are around 10% for regular decision candidates. Plus, many middle class families cannot afford a private university and most of the Big Ten schools are way less expensive (minus NU and Michigan OOS).
OP, why are you posting in multiple forums with the same question? And I agree with @tpike12. Ivies and elite universities have acceptance rates lower than 15%.
We also lived in the Cleveland area and saw the same from DD’s high school, almost all the kids in the top 10% went to big public flagships (mostly out of state but a number to OSU as well).
Not sure in talking to friends in the northeast though that the same trend is seen there.
Certainly for some degrees, especially in STEM, the public flagships are outranking the Ivies. There is only one Ivy in the top ten for undergraduate engineering (Cornell). (Not that rankings are the be it and end all).
Totally anecdotally, the multinational company my dh works for, does most of their hiring from the public flagships. They’ve found the quality of students ready for the workplace to be higher.
@momofsenior1 “the quality of students ready for the workplace to be higher”??? Than Ivy League students or kids from places like Northwestern or Duke? Yikes. Not true. Maybe equally ready but not more ready. Sorry.
Obviously there are students from all over that are career ready. Dh’s company has had such good luck at the public flagships though that at this point, they recruit more heavily from those schools. (Engineering fields BTW).
As an aside, lots of the privates don’t have the same emphasis and supports for co-ops in engineering. Engineering co-ops and internships are one of the things companies look for the most on the resume of a new hire. That may be part of the difference.
@momofsenior1 It wasn’t clear that the OP is talking exclusively about engineering programs. Obviously, a Big Ten school with an engineering program graduates engineers who are ready for those jobs. Yet, I’m also sure that engineering students at private schools with engineering programs also graduate kids who are prepared. Are you saying that Cornell or a Duke or a Harvey Mudd engineering students don’t get co-ops or internships? I’m sure that’s not true. Your husband is interviewing kids from Big Ten programs and elite university programs and finding the Big 10 school kids are more ready? I don’t see why that would be the case.
The OP is saying that the education is “better” at Big Ten schools and that they are replacing Ivies because she/he has seen more kids going to Big Ten schools. Plain and simple, more kids end up at their safeties because elite acceptance rates are so low. I’m sure any student who is competitive for an Ivy but didn’t end up being the one out of 10 admitted that they would shine at a Big Ten school and do very well.
In terms of selectivity, the only Big 10 school that compares to the Ivies is Northwestern. In terms of quality of education and job prospects, it comes down to major and of course, the academic record of the graduate. A STEM major graduating from Purdue with a high GPA is probably going to have better employment options than an English Lit major coming out of Dartmouth.
My experience in OH is the same as the OP. Top kids, accepted at Ivies, choosing public flagships. Sure, some are following the money, but others truly felt like they were getting a better education there.
I can speak for Cornell that they don’t have as well of a developed co-op program than most of the state publics we toured. Yes, they offer co-ops. but students aren’t eligible to even apply until the end of sophomore year and there is much less flexibility in co-op lengths. They also have higher GPA thresholds to meet for co-oping. When we were students there, hardly anyone co-oped and all my dh’s internships were through family connections, not the university’s career center.
@momofsenior1 You know multiple kids accepted to Ivies who chose a Big Ten school regardless of the cost difference? I doubt it. Again, I doubt that Cornell engineers have fewer opportunities than a Big Ten school. Now, if a student likes the Big Ten better, likes the school spirit, likes that it’s closer to home, likes that they won’t have any loans, and thinks it may be less stressful or likes the overall vibe better at the Big Ten, I get that. They are not going there because it’s academically better. They just aren’t. Again, the OP is asking if these Big Ten schools are now better academically than an Ivy. I’m sorry but that’s not a reason that kids would choose tOSU over any Ivy.
At least one of those (GO BLUE!) is considered a “public Ivy:”
The original Public Ivies as Moll listed them in 1985:
College of William & Mary (Williamsburg, Virginia)
Miami University (Oxford, Ohio)
University of California (nine campuses as of 1985)[7]
University of Michigan (Ann Arbor)
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
University of Texas at Austin
University of Vermont (Burlington)
University of Virginia (Charlottesville)
Getting popcorn. This thread is going to devolve quickly into another useless discussion about better/best/rankings. An absolutely stellar education can be had outside a handful of schools. It’s about time we all let these utterly useless comparisons go.
I also think you’d be hard pressed to say that kids are getting worse academics at places like U of Michigan. I would stack them against any Ivy in multiple disciplines any day.
And so would Choate CC. More than one kid in our son’s class chose a school like U-M over an Ivy acceptance. Our son chose a service academy over higher ranked schools. Not everyone is blinded by the term “Ivy League.”
Ivies have the “prestige “, connections, resources - but are the academics really better than all other schools? Are those students graduating more educated? IMO - no.
State universities have become the favorite of companies recruiting new hires because their big student populations and focus on teaching practical skills gives the companies more bang for their recruiting buck.
Under pressure to cut costs and streamline their hiring efforts, recruiting managers find it’s more efficient to focus on fewer large schools and forge deeper relationships with them, according to a Wall Street Journal survey of top corporate recruiters whose companies last year hired 43,000 new graduates. Big state schools Pennsylvania State University, Texas A&M University and University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign were the top three picks among recruiters surveyed.
We are an average suburban HS - last year one kid did turned down Princeton for Penn State honors. This year we had one turn down Cornell for Penn State honors. Don’t know the why of it.
I don’t want anyone to think that Ivies are the perfect fit for all kids who can get in. Of course, Michigan is an awesome school. I’m just not understanding why someone would say the education itself is better at “a Big Ten school” versus other elite universities (not necessarily ivies). We have a niece at UIUC and I’m 100% sure she’s not getting the education that the kids are we know at NU or Duke or Vandy. She’s lost in the crowd. Obviously, it’s up to the student to make college what it can be. And, again, I’m trying to answer the question that the OP asked - why are kids going to Big Ten schools instead of Ivies/elite universities? (1) Hard to get into elite universities (2) strength in programs not offered at some Ivies/elite universities like business or in some cases engineering, (3) cost.