It all depends on the major. If I got into tier 1 public engineering school (UC Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, Texas, Purdue, PSU, etc.) for a honors program w/ full scholarship, then I would definitely pick state school over ivy league school.
However, I’d pick Harvard business school over any tier 1 public schools even with a full scholarship.
Totally agree. These pro-Ivy suggestions always fail to take in to account individual student needs and instead rely upon generalizations. Can one school really be called “the best school” for someone if it means cramming a square peg in a round hole?
Are students coming from Ivy schools really better off in life than strong students coming from non-Ivy schools? How do we classify “better off in life” anyhow? What does “better off in life” really mean, and how does it relate to the real-world?
I think we need to remember that not every kid wants to be a finance guru on Wall street, or work for an elitist law firm in NYC. Ivy schools are great for preparing kids for these types of jobs.
However HBS is not an undergrad institution so not pertinent to these discussions.
It all comes back to money. The prestige of the school is immaterial if your parents tell you they cannot afford what the Ivy thinks you can afford.
If your parents can afford the Ivy full pay, I do not know why you wouldn’t go there, as noted below.
As for square pegs and round holes, you DO realize that you should think about where you want to go to college BEFORE you apply? I am really sick and tired of people going on about “fit” when if there is a question of fit, the student should have found out about it before dropping the dough to apply. And therefore “fit” should be moot at this point.
If the question was “where should I apply?” that is different. We must assume if the student went through the trouble of applying and writing the essays and getting the recommendations and so on for both a full ride scholarship at a state school and for an Ivy, they already found out if it would be a fit or not. To the best of their ability.
Sure there are people who can’t afford to travel to even a few campuses, but there are college fairs and other opportunities to find out about life on campus. And those are EXACTLY the people who should not be throwing away $75 to apply to Harvard, if they aren’t sure if they’d go there or not.
Three examples:
Money is the only issue, because both schools must be a fit or student would not have applied, and Ivies, especially HYP, have enough name recognition that if all things are equal, might as well go there.
(a corollary - note that if the family situation changes desperately, like if the SEC catches up with your rich family or your mom or dad bags out with the dough to parts unknown, then you have to shift gears. My son knows that - if our situation changes, he will likely have to switch to a much cheaper school.)
Threads like this always create arguments and hurt feelings for some reason. There are always people who insist that a student is just as well off going to a flagship state school as to an Ivy League school. Assuming said Ivy League school has the degree the student wants (because they don’t always and even don’t often), sorry, but that’s just not true. A higher degree of student (with some exceptions) is admitted to Ivy League schools, and everyone and their brother knows it. Doesn’t mean that there aren’t some fine students in non-Ivy League schools, even some schools that aren’t considered elite, and it doesn’t mean that those students couldn’t have been accepted to an Ivy League school had they applied, but all things being equal, a degree from Harvard DOES carry more weight than a degree from Michigan State University. How much more is debatable, but the fact that it DOES carry more weight is not. Most people do not like the idea of elitism, but it exists, and the Ivy League schools are the epitome of that.
Are there academic reasons to NOT go to an Ivy League school and to choose another college? Of course. An Ivy League education isn’t a fit for everyone, even if they are accepted to one of the eight.
At the same time, there are people who believe that an Ivy League education is the ONLY thing that matters and that everyone else is gearing up for a second-tier education and second-tier future jobs. That attitude isn’t correct either.
Finally, when considering cost vs. elite education, there are many things to take into account when talking about cost:
Does the Ivy League education actually cost more? My daughter considered a couple of the Ivy League schools and ultimately picked Vassar, and all three of those colleges cost less per year for us based on our income (which isn’t bad by the way) than even discounted prices at the better state schools in our state. Merit scholarships could have made it cheaper, but those aren’t guaranteed. The Ivy League schools and most elite colleges in this country typically provide VERY good financial assistance based on need.
If you happen to be very wealthy (let’s say $500,000+ income a year), does the cost matter? You will have to pay full price to those IVY League schools, and if you or your kid is a great student, you or they could likely go for MUCH less than that to say Ohio State University. Does the cost savings mean anything in that case? If you can afford $60,000 a year for 4 years, then is the Ivy League school a better choice? I say yes, especially if the kid wants to go there.
As I couldn’t get into an Ivy, I’ll take my full-ride at the state school.
Looking at these comments, you have to be specific.
One thing that the Ivies cannot offer is intellectual diversity. That is, everybody at an Ivy is smart. Yet in the work world not everybody is smart. Right!?
What I suggest is that, from a purely academic standpoint, the Ivies definitely offer much more than most state universities (except the likes of Cal-Berkeley, U.Michigan, UNC-CH, etc…) The price paid for that is not merely in dollars, it is in not understanding more ordinary people. For some people this is a price worth paying, but it does have its negative consequences.
@FCCDAD
It sounds to me like this is a hypothetical question. I could be wrong, though. On other threads OP asks about MIT and Harvard.
It would definitely be a good idea if OP would clarify the situation. @imsocool22 Hint, hint, HINT!!! :-w
@NROTCgrad. The OP has been deferred from Harvard in the early round…and as most people know…almost every Tom Dick and Harry is deferred from Harvard (basically meaningless) and say very little about applicant’s potential for other top schools like MIT, Stanford, Yale…
…and since it appears the OP is a potential STEM/engineering/CS candidate according to OP’s other posts…there is no reason why this applicant can’t thrive at a better engineering/CS schools that are top state flagships than many of the ivys mentioned in this thread…
…I believe the OP is doing the right thing in examining his/her other potential options that may be more realistic in the months to come…
It depends on the career goals and schools, if it’s between Brown and Berkeley(full ride) for CS, then Berkeley for sure. If it’s Harvard vs Arizona State and you want to do investment banking/consulting/top law firm, then Harvard for sure.
A friend in undergrad took the full ride plus at our state flagship. He was the “Outstanding Undergraduate” in his department, got his (2) B.S. degrees debt-free, then went to Harvard (also debt-free, he worked as a graduate Research Assistant and Teaching Assistant) for his Ph.D. He is now a Professor. For him, the full ride at a public school was definitely no disadvantage. But only one student can be Outstanding Undergraduate, so it’s not something to bet on.
Another friend went to JHU for undergrad, where he got a great education, but he thought the undergrads were all treated like second class citizens. He got his engineering B.S., and then couldn’t find any work. So he decided to go back to school, and he says it was basically the JHU name on his degree that got him into his Ph.D. grad program (at a public school). For him, the elite undergrad provided an important advantage that he actually needed. We have no idea what he might have ended up doing if he had instead gone to our state flagship and then still couldn’t find work.
Most people do not go on to Ph.D. programs, of course. And no one knows what the economy will be like 4 or 5 years from now.
There is no right answer to the question.
Very true. Basically the Ivies are for highly ambitious people. I chose the word “ambitious” not “competitive” nor “brilliant.” Competitive people simply like winning, ambitious people want to go as high as possible and are looking for any and all opportunities to do so. Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates each entered Harvard, but did not graduate because their ambition called them to bigger opportunities.
In sum, if you are not highly ambitious, yet are highly intelligent, you can learn just as much – get just as good an education – at a flagship university as you can at an Ivy. Elite colleges do not necessarily provide better educations. They are not places, generally, where students learn for the sake of learning. They do offer amazing networking opportunities for super ambitious people to meet other super ambitious people. The same super ambitious people can still achieve great things via a state university; they just won’t get the head start that Ivies provide.
Sometimes this topic makes me think of the following Grook by Piet Hein:
"
Whenever you’re called on to make up your mind,
and you’re hampered by not having any,
the best way to solve the dilemma, you’ll find,
is simply by spinning a penny.
No – not so that chance shall decide the affair
while you’re passively standing there moping;
but the moment the penny is up in the air,
you suddenly know what you’re hoping. "
I have an older brother who had a full ride to the state flagship university where he did well and obtained a degree in chemistry. He went on to get his PhD at Cal - Berkeley, did his Post-Doc at Harvard and his first academic appointment was on the faculty a Princeton. Although his UG degree was not from an Ivy, he was/is brilliant as well as ambitious. His humble beginnings did not hamper his career trajectory whatsoever.
That said, my D is a senior and may well be facing this dilemma of Ivy vs full ride public. I don’t have the money to pay for an Ivy education, but my older brother is already putting pressure on me (before Ivy admission decisions are known) to let her go Ivy if she gets into one. While my D would LOVE an Ivy education, she also is practical. She knows she will go on to graduate or professional school after UG and is not interested in $100,000+ in student loans for her UG degree. To that end, she has worked hard in high school to get excellent grades, do well on standardized tests and has been busy submitting merit scholarship applications. When all the results are in and the dust has settled, it will be her decision. She knows how much money we have saved and “there ain’t no more”. It will be interesting to see if she opts for a free ride to a state school and save her 529 money for graduate school or spend it all to go to a selective private school for her UG and take out loans for graduate/professional school.
For engineering, full ride to the state flagship trumps full pay/debt at MIT or Stanford, especially if the flagship is exceptionally strong (Illinois, UT Austin, Michigan, Berkeley, and so on)
@CoMoMom - Perhaps you really mean this, but I do find that just about everyone who says they can’t afford an Ivy League education doesn’t know what they are talking about. If you make less than ~$120,000 a year, you really MAY be able to afford an Ivy League education.
@stepay, if you make $200K/year and live in a high-cost locale, you very likely can not send half your after-tax income off to pay for a private school education at full-pay (or at least, don’t want to).