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<p>unh, why? Why should we care? </p>
<p>Isn’t this like the woman who thinks her average-looking husband is stunningly handsome? </p>
<p>seriously PG: what benefit is there to pulling off their blinders and educating these folks? Does it help others in some way I’m not grasping?</p>
<p>Nope. It only increases the chances that they may actually visit the Midwest or South and thus spoil my vacations. </p>
<p>“If any ‘good’ comes of this thread, it is to say to stressed out parents that they can take a deep breath and narrow the search without harming their loved Ss and Ds and perhaps assure our NEastern friends that have never lived anywhere else that there is intellectual life outside the geographically small states.” --momofthreeboys</p>
<p>Wait, so tell me again how it’s the Northeastern folks who allegedly need an education because they don’t believe there is “life” outside their region, when all the Southerners are posting here about the fact most Southerners have no desire whatsoever to leave the South–which I suppose is because no other place could possibly compare, or should I say it’s because they don’t believe there’s life outside their region? </p>
<p>I would love for someone to convince me that my local state school, TCNJ, offers the same opportunities and education as Harvard or Stanford, such that my kids should stick around home. Some of you keep setting up this imaginary NE person who thinks their schools are all that, but believes schools in other regions are inferior. NO, we think our state schools are mediocre so we go to your state’s elite school, whether public or private. We’ll gladly go to Duke, UNC, Washington & Lee, William & Mary, UVA, Northwestern, WashU, University of Chicago, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, University of Michigan, Tulane, Vanderbilt, Rice, Emory, etc. etc.
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<p>No one is trying to convince you that TCNJ (or Rider, or Montclair State for that matter) offers the same opportunities as Harvard or Stanford. That’s a red herring. </p>
<p>But if on a scale of 1-100, if Harvard is 90 and TCNJ is 20, you might be well served to understand that in other parts of the country, Harvard might only get you 80 and the state flagship gives you 75. Or in the south, Harvard might only get you 60 and the state flagship gives you 75. </p>
<p>I am as at a party last year in Chicago. I listen to two dads talking about colleges. </p>
<p>Dad1: I would never let my kid attend one of those Uppity East Coast schools. </p>
<p>Dad2: My daughter just started at Duke. (lol)</p>
<p>Dad1: I don’t mean a school like Duke, I mean those Fancy Ivy League schools. </p>
<p>Dad1 attempted to extricate himself from the hole he dug with his first comment with an even more insulting second comment, as if Duke is nothing like an Ivy. Lol</p>
<p>To me it is funny that people often have such strong opinions about places they have never been, and know nothing about.</p>
<p>Wow, I never would have known that unless you all educated me. What a hard concept to grasp…I’m really struggling. </p>
<p>We get it. Frankly, it seems that people outside the NE are the ones who don’t get it and need to be educated that it’s different here. We respond rationally to our local conditions just like folks in other regions respond to their local conditions. But somehow our response is suspect and theirs isn’t. Is that because the schools we sometimes choose instead of Montclair State or the SUNY’s are the Ivies and traditional elite ones, so there’s an assumption of snobbery or prestige-seeking? Yes, indeed, the Southerners and Midwesterners are so much more reasonable. They know they can just stay close home and do fine, but those NE folks go crazy for schools they think are national universities but are really just regional places but they’re too stupid to know that. They really should accept that Towson is just as good as UPenn.</p>
<p>Ease up. You’re beatin the hell out of that strawman, and I need it for an argument somewhere else on the Internet. </p>
<h1>306 ^well I generally prefer to discuss and evaluate colleges based on “fit” rather than “prestige” I think maybe what you are most concerned about is" fit" also.??</h1>
<p>^ Do you think all the non-NE folks who stay close to home and go to their local state U’s do so because of fit? Wasn’t it because those ARE the prestigious places for them (not HYP) and the schools which will afford the best connections (see PG’s 304)? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Again, it’s those NE people who are over-concerned with prestige…</p>
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<p>Why would anyone try to convince you of that? TCNJ is a “public LAC.” Harvard and Stanford are research universities. Apples to oranges.</p>
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<p>Not Towson, but maybe UMCP’s honors program.</p>
<p>“Those NE folks go crazy for schools they think are national universities but are really just regional places but they’re too stupid to know that. They really should accept that Towson is just as good as UPenn.”</p>
<p>Why do you keep saying this? No one is trying to say that all places are the same. We are trying to say that the brand power of elite schools is not as national as some people may think. Those are two entirely different things. I think you “know” me well enough to know that I’ll never argue that TCNJ = Harvard or Towson = Penn. </p>
<p>“Is that because the schools we sometimes choose instead of Montclair State or the SUNY’s are the Ivies and traditional elite ones, so there’s an assumption of snobbery or prestige-seeking?”</p>
<p>No, it’s that you automatically assume “your” schools are the national definition of prestigious schools. You aren’t really understanding that (for example) the smart midwestern kid who goes to Michigan gets 95% of the prestige points that the smart northeastern kid who goes to Harvard gets. That the DIFFERENTIAL between “top” and “lower down” isn’t at the levels that it is in your region. </p>
<p>TheGFG, I also just want to remind you that I AM FROM THE NORTHEAST. My birth certificate says New Jersey on it, and no one who listens to me speak will mistake me for a midwesterner :-).</p>
<p>Look, part of what I absorbed growing up in the Northeast was that indeed – the Northeast is more sophisticated than the rest of the country. I heard that loud and clear, and to some extent I still do believe it. Remember that New Yorker cartoon where everything west of the Hudson is flat and empty til you get to California? That’s part of the mindset. I lived it and I get it.</p>
<p>But part of being sophisticated is understanding that not everything is as you know it. Maybe it’s wrong on my part, but I almost <em>expect</em> people on the northeast to be more sophisticated about knowing how things work in other parts of the country because else what’s the point of living in the most sophisticated part of the country if you’re not knowledgeable?</p>
<p>“Those NE folks go crazy for schools they think are national universities but are really just regional places but they’re too stupid to know that. They really should accept that Towson is just as good as UPenn.”</p>
<p>Let me try to unpack this.
“Those NE folks go crazy for schools that happen to BE really excellent schools, but they often think the brand power of those schools is national in scope and they’re often surprised that the rest of the country doesn’t venerate them the way they do. Of course Towson’s not as good as Penn, but that’s a separate topic.” </p>
<p>Let me try to unpack this: Neither I nor anyone from the NE that I know thinks the way you keep claiming we think. Those of us who actually care enough to think about this subject at all, do indeed grasp the regional differences in the perception of schools. We really do. But our educational landscape is different, so we respond differently than Texans and Californians etc. Our way of chasing the NE elites is no more crass and unenlightened than that of the Texan who thinks UT is the greatest and wants to attend. However, we get criticized but the Texans do not. I know you get the quality differences, but not everyone who is posting does. So if we want to choose a top notch educational experience with brand appeal which is located IN OUR REGION, then HYP fit the bill. They are respected here, and are also known across the country. So even if the Texans think UT is better than HYP, those schools will still serve a person well in Texas if he happens to move there. The same cannot be said of Montclair. </p>
<p>Well, I don’t think it’s any more sophisticated to think that UT is the be-all-end-all either. </p>
<p>At this point in my life, I’ve lived all over the country. I now live in the one area I never thought I would live in, and I have to say that this area, the south, because of the scrutiny they’ve been placed under for decades, has a LOT of self awareness, and a great sense of humor about itself. I would also say that the rest of country is very mistaken about the south, in many ways. There is an episode of Weeds that portrays Durham, the town where Duke is located, which is near Raliegh and Chapel Hill, as a town full of hay seed rednecks. You won’t find any hayseed rednecks there…at all. But, you will find unbelievable numbers of rednecks in Western MA and rural NH. </p>
<p>We like our stereotypes in this country. But we aren’t always right. </p>
<p>I think a lot of NE or Urban northerners, just in general, would buy into the idea that there are more rednecks in NC than in MA. Having spent time in both? You will find more rednecks near Amherst and UMass Amherst and Smith than near Duke or UNC or NCState or UNC Asheville.</p>
<p>That is all.</p>
<p>I’ve not lived in the south but I agree w your post in general, poet girl. </p>