<p>^ Yes, the Ivies aren’t the best for engineering. Cornell is best at agricultural and Columbia’s is overrated. The others just aren’t too good at all. The most notable privates are Stanford, MIT, and Caltech. State schools, including the ones on USNEWS (i.e. UC Berkeley, U Mich, UT Austin, GT, etc.) are good if not better alternatives than the Ivies.</p>
<p>borkbork: The last time I checked, Brown wasn’t all that great (imo, the ranking is way off).</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter how the USNews or other agency ranks Brown, it is a great school, it will produce best people for our society in every angle.</p>
<p>^ Oh no, I’m not saying that Brown is a terrible school, I’m just saying that it’s overrated; that it’s not ZOMG incredible to the extent that it will promise you future success just b/c you got in.</p>
<p>But they really do have great teachers, some of whom are very famous, the colleges atmosphere is VERY liberal. It’s not all easy A’s there, even with the pass/fail system. Organic chem and E+M are even more painful and rigorous there than at other Ivies. I’ll give them credit for that. Sorry if I came on too strong.</p>
<p>Brown really wasn’t my cup of tea. To me, there are better alternatives, especially for engineering.</p>
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Weeeeell we did kinda elect a president like this (cough George W. Bush) but it wasn’t on this basis lol.</p>
<p>going to a good school will help you land a good first job, but after that it’s all about how good you are at what you do. A school with more $$ like the ivies or nyu or top publics have better resources that can help you get a great head-start, but by the time you have been working a few years this doesn’t matter as much as job performance, which is unique to any given job/function.</p>
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<p>Stop instigating a flame war. No, Brown will not produce the “best people for our society in every angle.” That’s a very ignorant statement to make. Great people come from places all over the world. Character determines a person’s worth, not the name on any degree.</p>
<p>Great Post, TexasGirl2011!</p>
<p>Someone gave this link ([Top</a> US Colleges ? Graduate Salary Statistics](<a href=“http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-statistics.asp]Top”>http://www.payscale.com/best-colleges/top-us-colleges-graduate-salary-statistics.asp)). I guess graduates from top schools in this list are mostly working on Wall Street? I don’t know where John Paulson got his degree. A $3 Billion/year pay check (for 2009) can jack up the school ranking…</p>
<p>“Stop instigating a flame war. No, Brown will not produce the “best people for our society in every angle.” That’s a very ignorant statement to make. Great people come from places all over the world. Character determines a person’s worth, not the name on any degree.”
I agree to certain degree, but when i see wall street (most from HYP and Upenn walton business school) ruin the financial world, i despise those people. hahaha</p>
<p>That salary survey simply shows that you can manipulate statistics to prove just about anything. Not exactly sure when someone is considered to be in ‘mid career’…do you ask people after they retire or 20 yrs after graduation…?..LOL. ‘Median’ is also an interesting concept since the number simply represents an equal number of people being above as well as below that number. Obviously, the ‘average’ would be quite a different number due to the high end salaries. It is also no secret that teaching (elementary or high school) salaries tend to be much lower paying jobs than in the private sector. What exactly any of that has to do with the original question, I have no idea.</p>
<p>While it is definitely true that people can be successful without attending a top tier school, there should be little doubt that attending a top tier school helps with just about everything. Better facilities, networking, better professors, and an excellent reputation. The prestige is important. However, that doesn’t mean that the students there can slack off and assume their life is going to be great just because they are attending Harvard - they still have to work.</p>
<p>“…there should be little doubt that attending a top tier school helps with just about everything…”…Actually I do NOT agree. That is really the point being discussed in this thread.</p>
<p>From my job search experience - it’s more about the ties schools have with companies, for example being at a target school for a lot of high reputation companies makes a whole lot easier to network and get interviews with those companies. That indirectly is linked to the prestige of the program that one is graduating from, so those are big factors to consider. As for graduate school, I’m not too sure :P</p>
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Agreed. Students at top schools tend to underestimate the quality of their schools, while students at not-so-great schools tend to overestimate the quality of their schools, both of them from ignorance and lack of comparative experience. I think many of the people saying “Oh, it doesn’t matter” have only attended one extreme or the other (or somewhere in the middle) or haven’t attended college at all yet. I never fully appreciated my undergraduate education until I had experience with a university that really didn’t shape up in virtually any respect (except in my field, obviously).</p>
<p>In many ways, college can be compared to wealth. While it’s certainly possible to work one’s way up from being homeless or poor to being exceedingly wealthy, it’s much easier to do so when one already comes from a somewhat wealthy background; you already have capital and connections. Similarly, it’s possible to do well coming from most colleges, but it’s often easier coming from a top college (or, in the case of fields like dance or theatre, top programs/schools).</p>
<p>*kids are not hysterically trying to get into NC State University, but engineering companies will quickly take anyone who graduates from their engineering program. *</p>
<p>Very good point.</p>
<p>I live near a rather lowish ranked school that has a really good engineering program. I don’t know their exact numbers for placement after graduation, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s close to 100%. Those students have internships and co-ops to major high-tech companies throughout their college years. So, no surprise that many graduate with jobs in hand.</p>
<p>Hysterically or HISTORICALLY??? One means to laugh uncontrollably.</p>
<p>@warblersrule86</p>
<p>top tier universities help a bit, but they are not a sure bet. you still have to do well/intern/etc. to be “successful”. they are definitely overrated in terms of “success”. of my 3 sisters, two are from IVYs and one is from a “little ivy” and nothing is being handed to them, trust me.</p>
<p>similarly, a low tier university is going to make it a bit harder to reach the top, but it is well within the realm.</p>
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No need to put words in my mouth. Nothing is ever a sure bet. What I actually noted was that attending a top university was a surer bet than attending a “low tier university.” </p>
<p>I have, after all, attended both and would be happy to compare them. College A is in the US News top 10; College B is ranked in tier 2.
[ul][<em>]College A has 4 times as many career advisors as College B despite being 1/3 its size.
[</em>]College A has a pre-med advising office, pre-grad advising office, pre-law advising office, and pre-business advising office. College B has a single pre-professional advisor for all undergraduates.
[<em>]College A attracts employers like UBS, Deutsche Bank, and Microsoft to its career fair; College B attracts hospitals and local school districts.
[</em>]College A has an office devoted to undergraduate research, more undergraduate research money each year than gets claimed, and paid summer internships both domestically and abroad. College B has an honors program that encourages independent studies.
[<em>]College A has an office devoted to post-graduate fellowships and ranks in the top 10 for production of Rhodes, Truman, Marshall, Goldwater, Fulbright, and NSF scholars. College B has no fellowship advising and has produced a small fraction of this (e.g. 5 Fulbrights to College A’s 238).<br>
[</em>]College A assigns a faculty mentor to every student. College B has a designated faculty member who handles all undergraduate advising. In my department, that faculty member advises over 300 undergraduates.
[li]College A permits faculty to live on campus and pays for them to take their students to lunch, encouraging faculty-student bonds. College B doesn’t do this.[/ul][/li]I could easily keep going, but you get the idea. I’m always somewhat bemused by posters who say things like, “Ivies are so overrated! It doesn’t matter where you go! I know people at Michigan and Penn State who did X!” Well…sure. Those are top schools. All of the top 50 universities (arguably the top 100) are perfectly respectable universities with a fair amount to offer. Let’s compare Chicago to Florida A&M or South Dakota State and see if you still think there’s no difference.</p>
<p>Judging by some of these posts, I find it amazing that <em>anyone</em> who hasn’t attended an Ivy ever gets a good-paying job. And yet many do. Go figure, LOL.</p>
<p>My nephews attended University of Louisville, and yet both of them now, in their 20s, make tons more than I do at age 59 (with my Tufts MA and my year at Harvard Divinity School). </p>
<p>Then there’s my brother-in-law, who attended Marquette and UMass (PhD in chemistry), then did his post-doc at Purdue, and now is a big successful honcho at a a huge pharmaceuticals company. He has beaucoup chemists under him and jets all over the world to manage them. And I guarantee that his UMass degree has earned him many, many times what my Tufts MA (or my DH’s Harvard PhD) will ever earn <em>us.</em> </p>
<p>Once again…go figure. ;)</p>
<p>^ Exactly. And these instances are pretty common.</p>
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Same here with my sister.</p>
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<p>Agreed! I’ve noticed this too.</p>
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<p>The most selective college or the highest ranked doesn’t always mean they’ll offer you a quality education. All colleges are different and some have specializations so there really shouldn’t be a ranking system. Not all industries follow the USNEWS rankings as the Bible for the best workers. Other things to take into account are the size and location of the college. Once again, make sure your college is reputed, especially in the field that you want to work in. That may give you an edge, but still it isn’t impossible to rise up to the same level from a “tier 2” or “tier 3” school. Obviously going to a college that is on par with a community college isn’t the best choice.</p>
<p>The Ivies ARE overrated. No doubt about that. The opportunities at an Ivy are about the same as any other reputed college. And just because a company chooses to recruit at your school doesn’t mean that you will be chosen over someone (at a less competitive college) who is better qualified. If you are less qualified, the name of your college isn’t going to make a difference. And of course, recruiters will likely go to the places where they are likely to find the highest percentage of competitive applicants, and this place may or may not be on the USNEWS list. Their preferences further vary on past experiences and many, many other things.</p>
<p>It’s a yes and no situation. What matters is the reputation a school has set up for itself in the intended area of study. “Harvard prestige,” however, is bunk. I go to a relatively unheard-of school in Maryland that people in the Ivy Leage would never even consider transferring to, but through my school I have had the opportunity to:</p>
<p>conduct undergraduate research all 4 years of school
work with a famous malariologist and present my work to a Nobel Laureate
graduate with under 20,000 in debt
meet with graduate and medical faculty from schools across the nation
make close bonds with all of my professors to the point where I can say any would write a strong recommendation, even in a class of 350</p>
<p>etc etc etc. It is absolutely what you make of your time in college that appeals to future employers. A lazy mooch with a 2.5 who went to Yale is not going to be hired over a 3.8 student from a 2nd or 3rd tier institution with years of experience in related fields.</p>
<p>The CEO of cox communications (I’m sure there are many other examples, this is just the one my mom always talks about because she works there), a fortune 500 company, didn’t go to harvard, stanford, princeton, or even lowly UPenn, he went to the university of northern iowa.</p>
<p>But even further, you can just look up any non-big-named school and look at their notable alumni. You might be surprised at what you see.</p>