<p>^ um, the majority of dropouts dont drop out for those reasons, but simply because they cant deal w/ the workload and instead drop out onto the streets and die or some other waste of time. Citing a few outliers does not make the argument convincing.</p>
<p>And if the costs were too high for college, what do you think they are doing now? Flipping burgers I'm guessing.</p>
<p>"And if the costs were too high for college, what do you think they are doing now? Flipping burgers I'm guessing."</p>
<p>Living at home/relative and attending UCxx, or another in state university.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>And if the costs were too high for college, what do you think they are doing now? Flipping burgers I'm guessing.<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Reread my post. I didn't say that the costs were too high; I said that the "opportunity costs" were too high. Big difference. In other words, for all the time Mark Zuckerberg might have spent taking chemistry, or accounting, or literature classes he would not have been founding and growing Facebook - and the costs of that in terms of lost opportunity would have been huge.</p>
<p>Opportunity</a> cost - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</p>
<p>Duke is the only school that even has a chance.</p>
<p>Its campus was modeled after Princeton.
It's in a crappy city like Yale.
Its filled with midatlantic kids like Penn.</p>
<p>We're forgetiing its also ranked higher than every ivy than HYPP. Ask any ivy student if they had to go to school in the South which one they would pick.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Or what about QB phenom Vince Young (Texas graduate). He made waves when it was reported that his Wonderlic score was a whopping 6 (out of 50) -- one of the lowest scores ever reported -- and a score of 10 is supposed to mark the literacy level:
Vince Young - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Wonderlic Test - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The story of Vince Young scoring a 6 on the Wonderlic was an unconfirmed rumor that is probably false. He took it again and scored a 16 (the same as Dan Marino).</p>
<p>ESPN</a> - Teams won't get test results until after combine - NFL</p>
<p>
[quote]
The story of Vince Young scoring a 6 on the Wonderlic was an unconfirmed rumor that is probably false. He took it again and scored a 16 (the same as Dan Marino).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Sounds pretty fishy to me -- sounds like a huge PR machine in overdrive doing major damage control. Vince Young is a potential franchise player - 1st round draft pick, etc. When you stand to gain (or lose) tens of millions of dollars -- you are going protect your investment.</p>
<p>His "agent" said that the 6 was false. I don't buy it. Where did the rumored 6 come from in the first place? Where there is smoke, there is generally fire. At any rate, a 16 is nothing to write home about either.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The fact of the matter is the absolute best football players in the country just are not the best academic minds in the country. Period. There is no debating this. Those elite athletes who are gifted enough to play on Sundays have unique talents, no question -- but let's face it -- academic achievement ain't one of those talents.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>A few rare talents can combine athletic excellent with academic excellent.</p>
<p>Take Byron White. He was a star football player at Colorado, eventually being inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. He also won a Rhodes Scholarship. After the Rhodes, he then played in the NFL, leading the league in rushing for 2 years. He then left the NFL for the military during WW2, and after the war, went to Yale Law. He eventually became a Supreme Court Justice.</p>
<p>Or take Alan Page, graduate of the University of Minnesota, who became a 9-time NFL Pro Bowler, won the MVP award, won 2 Defensive Players of the Year awards, was named to the All-Decade team, and has been inducted into the NFL Hall of Fame. He's now a justice on the Minnesota Supreme Court. </p>
<p>The_prestige, I think a better example you could have used is Bill Bradley. Ok, sure, he's not a football player, he's a basketball player. Nevertheless, he led Princeton to the #3 ranking, won the basketball Olympic Gold Medal as captain of the team, won the Sullivan Award (for the top amateur athlete of the year) then won the Rhodes Scholarship, then became an NBA All-Star and won 2 NBA championships with the Knicks and was elected to the Basketball Hall of Fame. Then of course he became a US Senator and ran for President in 2000 (losing the primary to Gore). </p>
<p>The point is, a few rare people can combine academic excellence with athletic excellence.</p>
<p>sakky, your examples are all well noted, however, it also underscores the state of professional sports today:</p>
<p>1) all of these examples are from players from "yesterdays" game. Today, its a different level of elite athleticism that is required to excel at the game. How would those star athletes from yesteryear match up with the exceptional athletes from today? I'm sure that they'd be able to hold their own, but the game (esp. the physical contact sports like football) is just a more physical, more violent game now. The top athletes are bigger, stronger, faster. They train to Olympic standards both on and off season. They have the best strength conditioners. They have the best facilities. They have the best nutritionists. They have the best equipment. They even "juice" up. Is that fair? Who said sports was fair? No expense is spared for the modern gladiator / athlete. I'm sure that some of best athletes from history could keep up with today's best, but not all of them.</p>
<p>2) Now that said, that is not to say that there are rare examples of combining both exceptional intelligence and extraordinary physical skill / prowess -- however, the fact remains the examples are few and far between, and the fact that we are familiar with these rare names and stories only serves to strengthen this point.</p>
<p>the_prestige,
If you know where I am coming from, then it is frustrating to read your posts which frequently misrepresent the comparisons I have been making. For example, re the darker side of college sports that you refer to, I don’t believe that the recruiting practices at colleges like Florida State or Oklahoma State are what I am defending. This is a red herring that you not so subtly and frequently try to force into this discussion. It is a false comparison. </p>
<p>Or your comments about numbers for athletic event attendance. These comparisons have relevance as an indication of the athletic scene at a college and how this might affect the social scene at a college. No one (certainly not me) has made any claims that this will determine one’s success in a job interview. Another false reference. </p>
<p>I am highlighting the college choice that top students are making between the Ivy colleges and other top colleges. The comparison is the academic elite vs the academic elite and then how do they compare on various non-academic metrics, one of which is athletic life. In making these comparisons, I see these colleges in groups, eg,</p>
<p>Group 1: HYP vs Stanford and Duke</p>
<p>Group 2. non-HYP Ivies vs Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown</p>
<p>Group 3: non-HYP Ivies vs the top publics of UC Berkeley, U Virginia, UCLA, U Michigan and U North Carolina</p>
<p>Perhaps you have a different view as you might prioritize some other aspect of undergraduate life as more important to you. That’s fine and I am not arguing that the colleges with good athletic scenes are the best for all students. But for those who do care, when the facts are reviewed for both athletic achievement (both broadly and in major sports) and for the athletic scene that the schools can provide, there are clear differences. </p>
<p>And please, let’s stop with the attempts to delegitimize these colleges with descriptions of these colleges as manic sports factories with illiterate athletes whose presence imperils the academic quality of the institution. These colleges are all very legitimate academic peers to the Ivies and compare very well on a number of metrics. </p>
<p>slipper,
My comments are not that, for an individual student, a school MUST have a great athletic scene in order to have a good undergraduate experience. Dartmouth is probably as good an example of this as anywhere in the country as that school’s bond with its undergraduates is nothing short of outstanding while its athletic program, well,…stinks. My point has been that for students who’d like the academic excellence AND the great athletic life, then places like Dartmouth and the Ivies might be less attractive options than colleges like Stanford, Duke, Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, etc. </p>
<p>tokenadult,
Here is one vote against your move to consolidate the various threads. Many posters created threads with narrow or relatively narrow topics, but now this is lost in this comprehensive thread. The flow of a discussion is disrupted and frankly, who wants to bother to read 25 pages of posts. Fewer and fewer will bother to participate and only the die-hards will remain. I hope that you will reconsider and unwind this move and also allow future threads to run on their own.</p>
<p>out of the group of school you list on the "vs" side there are only a handful of schools that are truly academic peers to all the Ivies:</p>
<ul>
<li>Stanford</li>
<li>Duke</li>
<li>Northwestern</li>
<li>Rice</li>
</ul>
<p>Vanderbilt, ND, Georgetown, UC Berkeley, U Virginia, UCLA, U Michigan and U North Carolina -- while great schools -- are a notch below. So while these schools may offer a prolific sports scene, I don't agree that the academics are at a HYPSM / Ivy level. But don't take my word for it, let's take an objective ranking -- all of those "notch below" schools (from Vandy to UNC) are ranked below all of the Ivies by USNWR (2008).</p>
<p>Next, I haven't heard a response to my previous post comparing Rice / Vandy / NU to the Ivies vis a vis the latest Directors Cup rankings:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/5155959-post310.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/5155959-post310.html</a></p>
<p>To summarize:
Princeton - no. 70 (higher than NU, Rice and Vandy)
Brown - no. 81 (tied with Northwestern, higher than Rice and Vandy)
Harvard / Dartmouth / Penn - no. 103 (higher than Vandy / two spots below Rice)</p>
<p>So its not clear that out of the list of schools that are true head-to-head academic peers to the Ivies (i.e. Stanford / Duke / NU / Rice): that either Rice or NU is definitively superior to the Ivies from an athletic perspective. In fact, I don't see how Rice is being considered at all for its sports. The Ivies have had much more prolific sports accomplishments. Just this year, Brown's Womens Rowing Team took home the National Championship and had the honor of visiting the White House:
BROWN:</a> 2007 NCAA Division I Rowing Championship
By contrast, Rice's only national championship in its history was back in 1993 (in baseball). To illustrate my point, since that year that Rice won its sole championship (in any sport), Princeton alone has racked up 5 NCAA National Championships in Men's Lacrosse. So, I don't see Rice as offering anything special -- in fact, from what I can gather, its sports profile is weaker than the Ivies.</p>
<p>So, really, that leaves Stanford and Duke. That's it. Two schools that have nothing to do with one another and are on opposite ends of the coasts. Finally, Duke's most famous sports program, its basketball program, hasn't been the powerhouse that it once was and more recently, Coach K has under fire to produce -- something which has raised more than a few eyebrows. There is an excellent article about the situation at Duke in this month's ESPN the Magazine (i'll try to find a link -- though you may have to be an ESPN Insider)</p>
<p>Stanford is really the only school that from a top to bottom basis that offers a truly prolific athletic profile AND competes at the Ivy level in academics. So, in sum, Stanford and Duke. That's about it.</p>
<p>NU's women's lacrosse team won the national championship a few years ago. Rice has a great baseball team as well.</p>
<p>the _prestige, how is NU a better school than is UC Berkeley?</p>
<p>Cal is a step below when it comes to undergrad. Less resources per student, far less spending per student, lower placement rates into top grad school, less recruiters on campus.</p>
<p>Less resources per student - do you have the figures? Not that I'm doubting you but I'd like to see the fugures myself. </p>
<p>far less spending per student - any proof for this too?</p>
<p>*lower placement rates into top grad school *- what exactly is this? I remember sakky provided one for HBS, and it showed that there were more Berkeley grads that have been admitted and graduated from HBS than NU grads have.
Do you have any figures other than what sakky has provided?</p>
<p>less recruiters on campus - again, do you have proof for this? The businessweek, for example, ranked Berkeley number one in employment.</p>
<p>I think they belong to same tier. NU has the advantage in the East/Northeast but Berkeley has in the West. But overall, they're about equall.</p>
<p>
[quote]
lower placement rates into top grad school
[/quote]
</p>
<p>WSJ Top Feeder College Ranking:</p>
<p>No. 21 -- Northwestern
No. 41 -- Univ. of Cal., Berkeley</p>
<p>Warning, very rough calculations (since I'm dividing total endowment over undergraduates)</p>
<p>UC Berkely: $3.5billion/~23,000 undergrads= ~$152,174 per undergraduate.</p>
<p>NU: $6.6 billion*/~7,800 undergrads = ~$846,154 per undergraduate</p>
<p>*Though most sites still list NU's endowment as 5.9, it recently sold part of its royalties for $700 million.</p>
<p>
[quote]
lower placement rates into top grad school - what exactly is this? I remember sakky provided one for HBS, and it showed that there were more Berkeley grads that have been admitted and graduated from HBS than NU grads have.
Do you have any figures other than what sakky has provided?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know the statistics you're referring to, but it sounds like they were raw placement numbers. Now, if they were, and I'm no expert here, wouldn't it make sense that a school with 3 times as many undergraduates would have numerically more students placed?</p>
<p>the_prestige,
I make a division in the Ivy colleges. In the minds of most college observers, HYP are among the very top group of schools in the country along with MIT and Stanford and IMO, Duke. Thus, my first group.</p>
<p>The non-HYP Ivies are certainly terrific colleges with terrific students, but IMO benefit greatly from their association with HYP and the Ivy brand. Were they without this affiliation, I strongly suspect that their appeal to a great many college applicants would be a lot less. Furthermore, the further one goes from the NE, the less their brand power. Colleges like Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Georgetown may not be as prestigious in the NE and around Wall Street (though this is debatable for NW), they likely have as much or more prestige in their home regions vs the non-HYP Ivies. Qualitatively, these are all excellent colleges with outstanding student bodies. Re Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Georgetown, I guess we see these schools differently as I consider all of them, like Northwestern and Rice, to be academic peers to the non-HYP Ivies with similar levels of student quality. I think it is more of a stretch to include USC and Wake Forest (which is why I have not pushed them more into this conversation) and the major publics. Thus, my second group.</p>
<p>The major publics suffer from less consistent student body quality and larger class sizes and would lose to the non-HYP Ivies on most quantitative measures. But the breadth and quality of undergraduate academic offerings at these publics and significantly lower cost (especially for IS students) make them an attractive choice for some students, many of whom are very strong. Hence, my third group. </p>
<p>Re your Directors Cup comparisons for the Fall season, the results are similar to the standings after Fall, 2006, probably due to the timing of the sports that various colleges do and don't participate in. Here are the final standings for the full year of athletics from last year:</p>
<p>1 Stanford
11 Duke
22 Notre Dame
30 Northwestern
33 Vanderbilt
55 Cornell
63 Princeton
64 Harvard
77 U Penn
83 Columbia
90 Brown
96 Yale
102 Rice
124 Dartmouth</p>
<p>Re Rice and as noted earlier, its sports scene is most similar to the Ivies in terms of its quality and national relevance. One big exception, however, is their baseball team which continues as one of the premier programs in the country. For a major sport in which nearly 300 Division I teams participate and which has high national visibility including many weeks of live coverage on ESPN, that is impressive. By contrast, for the women's national rowing competition won by Brown that you cited, only 86 colleges participated.</p>
<p>Re Northwestern, their women's teams have been terrific including being two-time defending national champions in lacrosse. Not necessarily that major a sport (only 84 colleges with the vast majority in the NE), but certainly as strong as Brown's rowing championship. </p>
<p>Also, re athletic quality, do you plan to acknowledge or give any credit to the strong showing in men's and women's basketball for several of the USNWR Top 30? I would hope that you would recognize achievement when it happens, even if it occurs at colleges outside of the Ivy League (and which aren't named Stanford or Duke). Here again are those colleges that are achieving at a high level in a nationally relevant sports with hundreds of other colleges:</p>
<pre><code>MEN'S DIVISION I BASKETBALL (341 colleges compete)
Sagarin ratings (as of January 1, 2008)
</code></pre>
<p>1 U North Carolina
3 Duke
18 UCLA
14 Georgetown
24 Stanford
28 Vanderbilt
32 USC
48 Notre Dame
44 UC Berkeley</p>
<pre><code>WOMEN'S DIVISION I BASKETBALL (328 colleges compete)
National Rankings voted by Coaches (as of January 2, 2008)
</code></pre>
<p>2 Stanford
4 U North Carolina
10 UC Berkeley
13 Duke
14 Notre Dame</p>
<p>Beyond the issues of athletic performance, most important to me is the contrast in the undergraduate student experience at the major athletic events (football, basketball, baseball) at these colleges. I think you would find very few observers who would equate an Ivy football game to those at Stanford, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, and Notre Dame (and maybe even Duke). Likewise in basketball (men and women) for Stanford, Duke, Vanderbilt. Same for Stanford, Rice and Vanderbilt in baseball. If the comparison is which school provides the better experience in sports like rowing or squash or fencing, then the Ivies are better. But I doubt that many students attend these events and they are afterthoughts (if that) in the athletic/social life of a college. </p>
<p>And the athletic scenes have relevance to the campus in bad times as well as good. For example, Notre Dame may just have had a historically poor football season (or Duke had a subpar basketball season last winter), but these games are still major events on these campuses (80,000+ at ND football games and capacity crowds near 10,000 for every Duke basketball game). That is a big difference in what is available at the Ivy colleges. Compare this to the average home attendance for football games at the Ivies this past fall was:</p>
<p>19,400 Yale (including the impressive 57,000+ that attended the season-ending Harvard game)
12,755 Harvard
11,090 U Penn
10,215 Princeton
8697 Cornell
5223 Dartmouth
5139 Brown
4576 Columbia</p>
<p>
[quote]
Cal is a step below when it comes to undergrad.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Ummm, yeaaah...undergrad engineering and business at Cal is really a step below Northwestern, Rice, Duke, Georgetown, WUSTL...Okay...:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Speaking of sports, Cal leads the Director's Cup so far this year:
<a href="http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/nacda/sports/directorscup/auto_pdf/DIRandSDec20.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/nacda/sports/directorscup/auto_pdf/DIRandSDec20.pdf</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
The non-HYP Ivies are certainly terrific colleges with terrific students, but IMO benefit greatly from their association with HYP and the Ivy brand. Were they without this affiliation, I strongly suspect that their appeal to a great many college applicants would be a lot less. Furthermore, the further one goes from the NE, the less their brand power. Colleges like Northwestern, Rice, Vanderbilt, Notre Dame and Georgetown may not be as prestigious in the NE and around Wall Street (though this is debatable for NW), they likely have as much or more prestige in their home regions vs the non-HYP Ivies.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But the fact of the matter is, whether it is perception or reality or both (I happen to think both), its really a moot point. Because the numbers back up reality and the yield numbers back up perception. So like it or not, the non-HYP Ivies are more prestigious than the "Tier II" schools you cited. And as this continues over time, perception becomes reality as these schools attract higher quality student bodies year in and year out.</p>
<p>But be that as it may, that is neither here nor there as it relates to the current discussion (plenty of "prestige" related threads on CC to take this issue further). You suggest that the non-HYP Ivies benefit from an intangible factor for being associated with the Ivy League, but even if you are right, the fact of the matter is, they are all great schools. Doesn't matter if you are correct or not, because the fact remains these are 8 of the best universities in the US. Period. There is no arguing with the numbers. So while hypothetical exercises are nice, its not quantifiable. Now, if one of the Ivies happened to be extremely poor in terms of yield, student bodies, academics, etc. but happened to receive a boost THEN it might be worth discussing, but as it is, it just looks like sour grapes and envy.</p>
<p>
[quote]
1 Stanford
11 Duke
22 Notre Dame
30 Northwestern
33 Vanderbilt
55 Cornell
63 Princeton
64 Harvard
77 U Penn
83 Columbia
90 Brown
96 Yale
102 Rice
124 Dartmouth
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm sorry, but the full year rankings you posted completely undermine your arguments for Rice. It ranked below 7 out of the 8 Ivy schools last year. There are the numbers plain to see. How can you even argue that Rice is a better sports school? Its sports program is much, much weaker than most of the Ivy schools. I don't see how you can argue otherwise. You mention its baseball team, but as I said previously, its only national title came in baseball 15 years ago. Meanwhile, a number of Ivy schools have racked up a bunch of national titles in numerous sports. Its just conveniently selecting a certain sport that serves your purpose. If we are going to take an objective measuring stick such as the Directors Cup, then so be it. I accept that standard. So then if we accept that standard, then we must accept that Rice < the Ivies. Period. </p>
<p>Finally, and again, we will have to agree to disagree, but I'd rather go to a school that has some parity when watching its football team compete vs. going to a school in a high profile, nationally covered conference (Big 10, SEC, PAC-10, etc.) only to see my team get pummeled nearly every weekend. That's not my idea of "fun". When's the last time Georgetown, Vandy, Rice, NU or Duke won anything significant in football? Duke's football team is an absolute joke. But that's not their fault, it just happens to compete in a conference that fields nationally ranked teams (with high profile recruits). </p>
<p>So in sum, again, your Tier II schools (Vandy, ND, G-town, etc.) are not academic peers to the Ivies. Advantage: Ivies. What does that leave us? NU, Rice, Stanford and Duke. NU's sports program is similar to the Ivies in terms of size and scope. Rice's is decidedly weaker. So one is a wash and one should simply drop from the discussion. What does that leave you? Two schools.</p>
<p>Stanford and Duke I can accept as two unique schools that really offer top tier academics and a prolific sports scene (although as I mentioned, Duke's football team isn't anything to brag about). That's really it. It comes down to personal preference at this point. If you want to be in the South and you are into sports, I can't think of a better school than Duke. Likewise for being on the West Coast and Stanford. Then again, you really aren't saying anything new here, after all Stanford is a recognized part of HYPSM -- and likewise, everyone knows Duke is a great school as well. So I'm not sure what you have really accomplished here.</p>
<p>Finally those who have chosen to enroll into Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Cornell, Penn -- I'm pretty certain that they are all on balance pretty happy with their choices -- and to drive the point home further, if you asked any of them to give up their spot for a spot at Vanderbilt, Notre Dame, Georgetown, Northtwestern or Rice, how many would raise their hands? I don't suspect that many would. But according to you, they'd all be leaving in droves. How many people buy that thinking?</p>
<p>You've got it backwards prestige. The point being made, from my perspective, is ask the reverse at the athletics's heavy schools, and see how many would opt to leave for the Ivies. You make a compelling and well reasoned argument. Unfortunately, you're arguing the wrong points. There are merits to having sports be a significant part of campus culture, something you don't find at the Ivie's (regardless of how good their programs are (they're really good overall)).</p>
<p>I'll use NU to illustrate my point: You say it's athletics program is of equivalent scope to the ivies. I'd probably agree (though the director's cup rankings disagree, and I'd put money down that the Wildcats football team would thrash any of the Ivies). But sports/ the Big Ten atmospehere is a major part of the school's identity (yah, we get wrecked. That's half the fun.) You absolutely cannot tell me that's true of the Ivie.</p>