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<p>Did you go to one of these private high schools? How many of these people are admitted because they are just from a good family, a good athlete, etc. What percentage and number of people do you consider graduating with “high honors”? </p>
<p>“Northwesty, I understand that the NE offers a great choice of LACs. I also understand that the has relatively less LACs. But this discussion is not about LACs, it’s about elite universities from the list Pizzagirl provided. There are many many elite universities in that list in the MW and S, in fact more than there from the NE. (Of course, the key assumption is that the elites in S and MW are of the same calibre as the ones in the NE.) Why are kids from the W showing a preference for the NE schools which are fewer in number and farther away?”</p>
<p>This is so obvious I’m surprised you are asking.</p>
<p>The genius kid from Denver has to take a plane ride to get to HYPS. Stanford likely draws a bit more strongly from Denver than the other three for geography reasons. But there’s really not much difference in terms of cost or convenience for that kid between east or west coast. No particular reason that a Denver kid should want to attend S as compared to HYP in terms of geography. And since 3 of the 4 schools are in the NE, you’d expect more Denver kids to flow east rather than west. That is where most of those seats are located.</p>
<p>In case you didn’t notice, the country was settled from east to west. Manifest Destiny and all that. When it was founded, Northwestern Univ was located in…wait for it…the northwest corner of the country!!! Prestigious colleges tend to be old, and therefore tilt towards the east. Vanderbilt (1873), Stanford (1885), Chicago (1890) and Duke (basically 1892) are all relative babies. Despite their youth, they made it up to the top ranks within a 100 years. Getting the bequest of a guilded age robber baron has its advantages.</p>
<p>Many institutions get located in places based on when they were started. The U.S. capital is located in DC. Because it was in the middle of the country at the time the capitol was established. The computer industry is clustered around Palo Alto because it was founded in the mid-1900s. If computers would have been developed in the mid-1800s, it would have been located on the east coast.</p>
<p>Duh.</p>
<p>^This was my exact point in post 820 yesterday afternoon:</p>
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<p>There are people here who would really benefit from a lesson in American history. I don’t think they understand how much of an advantage the original 13 colonies have in terms of having an “edge” on concentration of elite colleges. Harvard was founded in 1636! Yale was 1701 and Princeton was 1746.</p>
<p>Caltech is considered a little more numerical oriented than other top schools. However, they try to balance gender gap a bit by admitting a higher percentage of female applicants and also admit enough URMs who simply don’t show up. </p>
<p>I think Caltech will admit any URM with 2200+ score (my personal guess). However, so do many top schools which are more preferred by URMs when the URMs have a choice. </p>
<p>The culture at Caltech is such that they seem to dissuade people from coming. D went to admitted days and about 10 people told her don’t bother coming because life is too hard while every other school has students trying to convince the kids to show up at their campus.</p>
<p>“alh, Please allow me to rephrase then. Once someone has graduated from an elite college with high academic honors, it is easy enough to succeed in the USA without having to leverage any network. This is what I meant.”</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, for my kid who goes to the elite NE LAC, a big part of their positioning is access to an incredibly strong and tight alum network. But it’s not pitched as a “NE alum network”. It’s pitched as a nationwide and to some extent worldwide. </p>
<p>Any alum magazine from any elite school is going to portray alums doing interesting things all over the world. It would reflect poorly on a school if all they could find were people in their region. It would be embarrassing. Indeed, I think the trend of so many Harvard et al kids going strsight to Wall St will begin to hurt those brands, if they are perceived as narrowing destinies versus expanding them. </p>
<p>My school was founded in 46. As in 1946! The West is a fast moving academic environment as selectivity and prestige are rewriting how many perceive colleges. </p>
<p>“There are people here who would really benefit from a lesson in American history.” </p>
<p>Totally. Including industrial history. If you are into finance, you go to NY; movies to SoCal, computers to NorCal, oil and gas to TX, surfing to HW, skiing to CO, and elite higher education to the northeast.</p>
<h1>879 *Pizzagirl, Yes, the failing school districts in low SES regions (rural and urban, NE and outside) do bother me a lot. We talked a lot about provincialism on this thread. The most pernicious provincialism is letting local funding drive K-12 education which leads to this aforementioned failure. *</h1>
<p>This is the most important post on the thread, imho. I don’t guess it’s something possible to discuss here because of the rules. </p>
<p>In this era of the internet, plenty of professionals who otherwise would have had to have been tethered physically to offices in specific cities can do what they do from anywhere, even a remote hamlet in Montana if that’s what they prefer. I hire freelancers who do work from all over - right now I have one from Washington State, one from Wash DC, one from a small town in rural Illinois. The women whose office is next to mine spends half the year in Florida and half the year up here. I hire on project-basis people from all over the world for short-stint projects. And with my clients, they often work remote as well. Very Wired and Fast Company.</p>
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<p>Perhaps, but the problem is that measuring competence is subjective and depends on the yardstick used to measure it. Further it is relative and depends highly on the environment. Like it or not, we do not measure competence in the same way in South Carolina than Indians do to open their doors to the IIT. Nor in the same way as we measure students in Newton, Mass. </p>
<p>Excellence and brilliance are found in obscure places. The lack of opportunities are tilting the playing field, and colleges in this country have recognized the benefits of looking beyond sterile basic numbers. </p>
<p>By the way, Catalan, why would you discuss APs in this forum if you have no interest in college admissions? Is it safe to assume that your interest is based on a not-so distant future? </p>
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<p>They have higher numerical cut-offs, but I wouldn’t say that they are numerically orientated. I’d say they are more academically oriented–the numbers mean little above these cut-offs.
And where are you getting that they practice affirmative action? This doesn’t seem to be a settled issue; I’ve seen contradictory info on this. They’ve had race marked as “considered” on the common data set since 2002, but I’ve known undergrads who worked in the admissions office since that time who insist there is no affirmative action. </p>
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<p>It also is a lot harder than other top 10 schools; there are no easy paths through Caltech. And the path is also more rigid; a regular Caltech degree may be as substantial in theoretical physics and math as a regular math or physics degree at other elite schools. Don’t jump on me for that statement–they have to take all the major core classes for math and physics over two years, and are forced to take the super-theoretical track whereas at other schools there is a choice. </p>
<p>Xiggi, I was not talking about measuring competence in college admissions. I was talking of measuring competence in professional life post graduation from an elite college, with high academic performance. While I am sure the network formed in an elite college may help in professional life, it is not essential. Competence in the chosen profession seem to work just as well. Hence, my position is that one should go to an elite college for the education and the peer pressure to excel, first and foremost. The network gained along the way is nice but not critical to professional success. </p>
<p>alh, Hope this answers your post about the alumni network as well.</p>
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<p>They proactively recruit women and minorities by flying them in on Caltech’s dime and showing them around campus. I look at it as a goal to ensure they have enough women and minorities not to be considered a school driven by numbers.</p>
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<p>I highly doubt it is any harder than MIT or Stanford based on their graduating GPA averages. </p>
<p>Flying qualified kids in to increase targeted yield is not the same as Affirmative Action. I applaud the effort to increase targeted yield.</p>
<p>Northwesty, would it be correct to synthesize your post as the NE schools offer more sets to better quality education than the S and MW schools, hence people in the S for whom best education is a priority over being local will naturally go to the NE. By that same token, NE folks for whom best education is a priority will stay in the NE, or perhaps go to the S, as there simply are not enough options in the S/MW.</p>
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<p>If what was posted in the first paragraph (maybe by CatalanNumbers?) were indeed true, I would be very pleased as DS would be “all set”. But I am not very sure of this.</p>
<p>I do not think DS has ever mentioned or cared about the “strong and tight alum network.” When we tried to find a hotel for him to stay for his interview trip in NYC, we noticed that there seem to have a floor in a quite large building very closer to the Grand Central, which houses their alum organization. It is likely that many of their alumni live in that city.</p>
<p>Although I’m not sure I asked about alum networks (but rarely know exactly what I’m posting) it seems difficult to me to separate out official networking from already being vetted in a very positive way by the name of the school listed on a resume. There may be the benefit of networking even without seeking it out. imho</p>
<p>Mcat, it was indeed me that posted the first paragraph. I post that based on having very close knowledge of recruiting practices in a few very high paying industries. However, I do not know about all industries, of course. There may be some where network is important. As it is, no one even asks where I went to college or grad school. But people ask what I know about this and that in the particular industry.</p>
<p>I am close to retirement, but I do not think recruiting practices have changed in the industries that I am familiar with as I am involved in recruitment every year.</p>
<p>alh, the name brand and the GPA both matter, but not just to alums. Harvard is Harvard, to everyone, including Yale alums. Networking it drummed up to be more than it is really worth.</p>
<p>^nice clarification</p>
<p>Since you mentioned “a very high paying industry”, my first thought was that it could be finance or consulting industries. </p>
<p>DS once did mention that he might have some shot in that kind of industry because the 1700-era college he attended. This might be the only time he mentioned that his college might give him some edge. He did not choose to go that career path (still at a school - it will be a long time before he sees any real money.) We also told him that he should not rely on the alumni network (as if we really knew anything here - Since we do not, we had better keep our mouth shut.)</p>
<p>I am close to retirement too.</p>