For example, I’ve gone through a lot of threads like HYPSM vs Rice/Duke/GaTech/Berkley/UMichigan/Cal Tech for engineering and a few for Biomed/BE (and other fields in general, just to see how people think they stack up), and though all of the former colleges rank just as high, if not higher in certain fields than the HYPSM schools, they will chose the HYPSM because of prestige. Now I understand choosing Stanford or MIT over the former schools, because they’re often just as good or better in these engineering fields, but I don’t understand for the love of me why would someone choose HYP over ANY of the former schools (maybe UMichigan and Rice, but that’s it). Sure, their endowment per students are a bit lower, but for the most part they offer better opportunities and focus more in those (engineering) fields.
Do employers really look at prestige that much? All things being equal, will a STEM employer really choose someone who went to HYP (I understand Stanford and MIT) over the former schools? Aren’t ALL of those schools nationally recognized as some fantastic STEM schools?
The vibe I get is that most people choose the HYPSM schools over the former not because they’re better, that they’re offer better job opportunities, or that they’ll necessarily even look good on a job application; a lot of the time it’s literally just so they can say "I went to Harvard/Yale/Princeton/Stanford/MIT to their friends and relatives. (though I would say that MIT isn’t as nationally recognized as the former 4).
Well, according to this it doesn’t, which doesn’t make it any less of a school and is beyond the point (btw, $839,000 per student is still a TON OF MONEY).
@ClarinetDad16 is correct; According to the link, it does. Rice is #16 on the list; all of the schools ranked higher, other than Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, are not Ivy League schools. The next Ivy, Dartmouth, comes in at #18.
Anyway, yes, some people do choose colleges based on prestige.
One good reason to choose HYPS is that a lot of students change majors. GaTech may be better than Yale in 4/5 fields but Yale is probably better than GaTech in 20+. Another reason is that in today’s global economy the HYPSM have worldwide name recognition.
@skieurope@ClarinetDad16 Oh, I’m so sorry. I misread your comment as “Rice has a higher endowment per student than all the schools except HYP”. I guess that’s what happens when you speed read. My bad.
And also, a lot of students choose their college for overall experience and not just “field” - recognizing that 1) undergraduate degrees are breadth-based degrees, and most of your classes and experiences will actually be outside of your major department; and 2) many undergraduate change their major and so going to a good all-around school that you like for a variety of reasons is important.
And for reference, though I referenced STEM (because I will be majoring there), my statement IS NOT restricted to only STEM majors. I see this often in almost all majors. The schools are also not restricted to the one’s I mentioned (in general, people don’t talk about Columbia as much as Harvard, though the difference in quality of education and all round quality is negligible).
And even if you bring up the argument the HYPSM are better “all round” institutions, the difference in quality is, again, negligible (accept when it comes to Technical schools like GA Tech, or other public schools not named Berkeley. Even then, besides its Engineering and Business fields, I wouldn’t put MIT in the top 15 of anything else). The gap between overall undergrad quality (since I know little to nothing of Grad) between the HYPSM and your Rice/Duke/NWern/Columbia/UPenn, etc. is minuscule.
Some people want to become the next CEO and to do that they pick some prestigious school with good networking. Most people just want a job in a certain field. You can almost anywhere to help to that depending on the field. In most cases the employer doesn’t care much about prestige. They want experience.
@IssacTheFuture, purely anecdotal but in my/our case, we went the other way. My younger D is a Junior at GTech studying MechE. I am a MechE product of IITB, followed this with an MBA from HBS. I prepared the college list for my D to apply to. She actually applied for ChemE but changed to MechE in her 2nd year. There were no Ivies in her list, not even Cornell. The only privates I was ready to spend premium dollars were MIT and Stanford and she did not make it to either. Other than that, she got admitted to UCB, UMich, Purdue, and others.
Since I work for a well known VC firm now in the Bay area and have worked for premier Management Consulting firms in the past, I can assure you that there is no advantage in studying Eng at any of the Ivies if you plan to stay in the Eng field or even pursue higher studies, compared to say GTech or UMich or UWisc. And yes, I now live in Manhattan, so I am fairly familiar with the Wall Street types.
There’s a thread on the Parents Forum about pay and elite colleges. STEM fields are the least sensitive to the college type, so students in those fields are less likely to gain from going to the elites. However, my own personal experience in the tech world is that the elite schools grads end to stick together and VCs love to fund startups founded by elites (which makes sense because the big money is more prestige-oriented and networking-driven). All of the elite people I worked with on a team of 100-200 people were really good. The true Ivy Leaguers seemed different. The MIT folks I worked with were focused on solving problems and making cool stuff. The Stanford grads had the most geeky fun. BTW, I just checked on Wiki and found that the guy with the most “gravitas” in the whole company, on the technical side, was from a small, private LAC in Michigan!
Anyway, if any of those elite schools are viable for you then I wouldn’t hesitate to take one.
Remember, this is UNDERGRAD…whether it’s the #1 ranked school in quality or the #50 school, unless the student is a prodigy, the profs will know way more than enough to challenge the student. Its like one car can go 150 mph and another only 120 mph…if the speed limit is 70, what difference does the faster car make?