<p>re:Kenyon, it's true that some "less prestigious" colleges (compared to Ivies) have some of the best writing programs, and probably attract many kids going that way. As an editor fielding proposals and articles from writers of all backgrounds, it's been notable to me --as I said before-- that prestigious degrees and the ability to deliver a polished, creative magazine article have no relationship. Therefore, like virtually all magazine acquisition editors I've ever met here in NYC, I view the source of a degree as virtually irrelevant. Magazine acquisition editors give not a hoot where your degree comes from rather only your ability to deliver the story, polished, on-target, accurate, and on time. I think sometimes parents may forget that college is just one point in the passage. There are plenty of chances thereafter for talent to rise to the top --and the prestigious degree without the talent may not help too much.</p>
<p>but Marite, that supports what I was saying. If "social relevance" is taken to mean relevant to society in an important way, U. Chicago comes out close to the top, and possibly ahead of H. The only way H clearly wins and U. Chicago is a non-starter is if "social relevance" is taken to mean things like cache and name recognition by the general public, or relevant to the people who populate the society pages.</p>
<p>Texas:</p>
<p>I misinterpreted what you were trying to say. We are in agreement. </p>
<p>On another front, this is the end of the article, and it made me laugh:
[quote]
In the nineteen-eighties, when Harvard was accused of enforcing a secret quota on Asian admissions, its defense was that once you adjusted for the preferences given to the children of alumni and for the preferences given to athletes, Asians really werent being discriminated against. But you could sense Harvards exasperation that the issue was being raised at all. If Harvard had too many Asians, it wouldnt be Harvard, just as Harvard wouldnt be Harvard with too many Jews or pansies or parlor pinks or shy types or short people with big ears.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>S, who does not have an athletic bone in his body, is short but does not have big ears, chose Harvard over MIT because he did not want to be surrounded by people just like himself (in his case math/science nerds). So Harvard's enrolment management strategy paid off for him. As for his ever becoming a wealthy alum, I have grave doubts.</p>
<p>Wisteria: the proportionate difference of 80% and 40% would be explained, I would think, by the fact that the public colleges in NYC would be drawing their students almost entirely from that city, while Columbia's student body, even back then, would draw from the entire country.</p>
<p>My ethnically Jewish dad attended columbia in the 40's. He was from NYC, and won a Pulitzer Scholarship (one of 10 awarded in the city) to attend C for free. However, he had to live at home, which made it feel like a commuter school to him. He ended up dropping out, joining the army, then coming back to finish up in an accelerated program to get his degree. Never felt attached to it, like he did with Cornell, where he got his grad degree (and finally got to feel like a real college student). Often wonder what he'd think of his grandson (whom he never met, he died when i was 14) attending Columbia!</p>
<p>
[quote]
while Columbia's student body, even back then, would draw from the entire country.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, the articles on the Columbia social history site I linked above is that Columbia did not attempt to become a truly national school and to do outreach to the rest of the country until AFTER it decided there were too many Jewish students enrolled. Indeed, Columbia did not become primarily a residential college until long after Harvard and Yale did so. At the turn ot the 20th century, it still saw itself as a university for the son's of New York's wealthy families who were still living at home with those families and there was some considerable internal resistance to the idea of going into the dormitory business. The national outreach efforts of Columbia (and Harvard for that matter) were seen as an important response to what were perceived as alarming numbers of Jewish students enrolling in the 1920s. (Indeed, even efforts to recruit from suburbs of New York City were perceived as an early part of the solution to the Jewish enrollment problem.)</p>
<p>It is interesting to note from reading some of the background documents on the Columbia University social history site I linked above that the whole concept of a residential college with dorms provided for and supervised by university administration is relatively new. At Harvard and many other colleges that drew large numbers of students from places too far away to commute, there were a large number of students living in off-campus informal boarding house arrangements rather than in university-provided and supervised housing.</p>
<p>Wisteria:
Fascinating stuff.
I had always thought of Harvard as a college that the national elite sent its sons to, hence the continuing controversy over whether to list the Confederates alumni in Memorial Hall. Did Harvard make a bigger push to attract students from different regions to dilute the Jewish presence later on?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Did Harvard make a bigger push to attract students from different regions to dilute the Jewish presence later on?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Yes, notably under President Conant in the 1930s. Apparently the overt and explicit quotas imposed by President Lowell in the 1920s were no longer acceptable--at least for public consumption, and this more indirect route seemed more graceful and politically correct at the time. (Of course, I would also imagine that during the Depression, Harvard and all colleges must have had the need to do greater outreach just to find sufficient numbers of tuition-paying qualified students.)</p>
<p>Conant's anti-semitism is well-documented. Wouldn't his championing of SATs have undermined his efforts to keep out Jews, though?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Wouldn't his championing of SATs have undermined his efforts to keep out Jews, though?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>His championing of SATs was part of a strategy to level the playing fields so that graduates of midwestern high schools could compete for admission to Harvard. The SATs were a general, broad-based test (as opposed to Harvard's specialized and arcane admissions tests, which had required specialized preparation typically available only in prep schools and New England public schools.) </p>
<p>And of course, the SATs were not the only basis for admission to Harvard. They were combined with a subjective admissions process that called for assessments of character, based on recommendations, interviews, etc.</p>
<p>But adopting the SAT to replace their old specialized and arcane tests greatly opened the doors to a wide national pool. Conant also sent recruiters out to beat the bushes and there were Harvard National Scholars designated as part of that outreach campaign.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If Harvard had too many Asians, it wouldnt be Harvard, just as Harvard wouldnt be Harvard with too many Jews or pansies or parlor pinks or shy types or short people with big ears.
[/quote]
and just as Harvard wouldn't be Harvard if it had too many math/science nerds..... (and MIT wouldn't be MIT with too few)</p>
<p>Very interesting. </p>
<p>More family lore: My Dad's fellowship was actually received after he finished his PhD and was a Sheldon travelling fellowship. It was enough so that he married my mother and they spent their first year of marriage in Europe, ostensibly so he could meet and work with professors in his field over there, which he did, though it had been made clear to him by Harvard that they didn't really require anything of him. By scrimping, they both lived off of his stipend, though they did later discover that the cheap restaurant in Paris they frequented served horse meat, rather than what they thought was beef.</p>
<p>I was told growing up that at the time Harvard had only one visibly Jewish professor -- in a chair endowed by the Jewish community. I'm sure there were more. But there was also a professor who had changed his last name, married a non-Jew, and become an active member of the Episcopalian Church. According to my mother, the other faculty laughed behind his back and still considered him Jewish. </p>
<p>Harvard at one time may not have been as much of a national university in the sense it is today.My parents grew up in Boston and went to Boston Latin schools -- real public meritocracies. Those were feeder schools to Harvard and Radcliffe in larger numbers than they are now. I believe that at the time my parents went, Harvard took many Boston students who lived at home, so that they would not have to build more dormitories. My mother has fond memories of riding the trolley to Radcliffe and Harvard with what seemed like her whole Jewish neighborhood.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I believe that at the time my parents went, Harvard took many Boston students who lived at home, so that they would not have to build more dormitories.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Indeed, the practice continued well past your parents' time, sac. At least as late as circa 1970, signficant numbers of local students, generally poor students from Boston, were admitted on condition that they would not be offered on-campus housing. Students from more affluent families, even those who lived nearby (closer than the poor Boston students) were offered housing. (I have friends who grew up in a nearby suburb who were offered--and accepted on-campus housing--but who were later mortified to learn that many of their working-class Boston classmates had not been offered on-campus housing, but had been admitted with the explicit stipulation that they commute. This was back around 1970. Harvard has, fortunately, abandoned this practice, so all students have the same opportunity to participate in the full residential experience.)</p>
<p>Sac:</p>
<p>When I was growing up in Paris, horsemeat was still on the menu. If you wanted to buy meat on Mondays, the only butchers open were those that sold horsemeat.</p>
<p>I went to Wellesley in the late 1960s, in the days when almost all elite colleges were single-sex, and looking back I am convinced the college had some sort of quota or gentlewoman's agreement restricting the number of Jewish girls admitted. There were simply far too few at the college, considering its location and the then-highly competitive admissions process. In addition, I noticed right away that Jewish freshmen were housed together, never with non-Jewish roommates. (Incredibly, the few African-American freshman were given singles -- the only freshman of whom this was true.) It would be great if, someday, elite colleges truly came clean about their bigoted histories.</p>
<p>A poignant description of the life of commuter students in the 1930s at Harvard:</p>
<p>
[quote]
Living in a more rigidly structured society, poor students in the 1930s were unable to find this kind of solace. Then, undergraduates from modest backgrounds typically economized by attending college as "day students"--living at home and commuting to Harvard and its classes. Of course, this meant that they missed out on much of the undergraduate experience, insofar as that depended on residing on-campus. Little-noticed because of their small numbers and their exclusion from Harvard social life, marked by their commuter status, they were once referred to as "the untouchables," according to a 1941 issue of Life magazine.</p>
<p>Harry Katseff '35 was a Depression commuter. A chemistry concentrator, he lived in the old West End of Boston and would commute in to Harvard each morning at nine. He stayed until his chemistry lab ended at five or six in the afternoon and then took off to Charlestown, where he worked in a cigar shop until midnight, then returned home to study until he fell asleep, only to start all over again the next day. "A drab existence," he sighs, apologizing for knowing so little of Harvard. "You asked me about my college life. What college life? That was my college life."</p>
<p>Katseff met his one Harvard friend due to the alphabetical seating arrangement in his chemistry class. The friend convinced him to go to his twenty-fifth class reunion, the only one he's attended. That week Katseff lived on campus for the first time. "In Lowell House I looked around," he recalls, "and I couldn't believe it was the same university I went to."</p>
<p>A member of the class of 1933, who requested anonymity, earned spending money by tutoring the wealthier students, but never became friendly with them. Thinking back to that time, he says, "I took notes for people, I even wrote term papers for all the rich kids who couldn't be bothered to go to classes because they were too busy skiing. They were always polite to my face, they always paid me fairly, but nobody ever invited me back to their rooms. I only heard stories about the rooms and the skiing."<br>
He remembers that commuter students were "second class citizens" who would eat lunch every day in the basement of Phillips Brooks House: "We would descend into 'the Black Hole of Calcutta,' where we had a place to hang our coats and hats. For five cents we could get a cup of milk or cocoa. But we talked to nobody and knew nobody." Asked if he has any good memories of college, the alumnus looks away. "I got through," he says, "and that's what counts."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Source: <a href="http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/suppmat/v7n5mar.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.ntlf.com/html/lib/suppmat/v7n5mar.htm</a></p>
<p>As to the social life of commuters, my mother certainly didn't suffer. As she has told me many times, she was voted most popular freshman girl at Radcliffe by the boys in the Jewish fraternities at Harvard. She remembers a constant round of dances and dates (who always brought chocolates) -- not all of them with my father, who was busy working jobs and supporting a widowed mother while going to school. The wealthier boys took her out in a car, the poorer ones sat in the living room and visited. She made her dates while on the trolley going to and from college because they all lived in the same neighborhoods. I don't imagine it ever occurred to her that she was missing something by not being included in residential life.</p>
<p>
[quote]
She made her dates while on the trolley going to and from college because they all lived in the same neighborhoods.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It sounds like one's experience as a commuter can be very different, depending on whether one has friends to commute with and time to spend on campus after class.</p>
<p>I can imagine that, especially in the Depression years, social life might have been very bleak for a young man who had to commute alone and hold down an offcampus job while going to Harvard.</p>
<p>Most students at our local community college don't seem to have time to make much of a connection there--they commute to school alone in their cars, go to class, then immediately go off to work. But a few do seem to manage to find time for the few extracurricular activities offered there--mostly performing arts like putting on plays and concerts--and it makes an enormous amount of difference to their feeling of connectedness.</p>
<p>I agree with you about the different experiences. Coming from Boston Latin with a host of classmates would have made it much more social and, given the brutal workload at Girls Latin, and the fact that it was all girls, early college seemed like a fancy dress ball for my mother. In a sense, she brought her community with her. But expectations were also very different then. The idea of living at college, having her own room, mingling with the Cabots and Lodges, would have seemed beyond strange. Her grandmother shared her bed, and her mother sewed all her clothes for her even in college. I never heard how my father felt about it, however. I expect that being at Harvard in the 1930s while also working was not nearly as much fun for him. (Although one of his jobs was at a candy store that only hired Harvard men because the owner required them to pass a test identifying the different fillings by the squiggles he put on top of the chocolate. I admired my father's ability to pick out caramels from any box of chocolate long before I knew anything else about his experiences at Harvard.) Still, I believe while they took pride in having gone to Harvard. They expected anti-Semitism. In their case, unlike those of their parents and grandparents, it was not life-threatening.</p>
<p>
[quote]
mingling with the Cabots and Lodges, would have seemed beyond strange.
[/quote]
LOL! In one of my classes, there was a Cabot Lodge offspring. She seemed to be spending most of her class-time trying to figure out which place setting to put on her bridal registry. She eventually chose one that, according to a classmate, cost $200 per setting (1970 prices). it was indeed a weird experience.</p>
<p>The article cites a study by Krueger and Dale that is said to show that for an individual who would be admitted to an Ivy or elite LAC, it really doesn't matter in terms of later economic success whether he or she attends the elite school or instead enrolls in a good state university. Why, then, should I pay to send my child to an elite school when he or she could go to state university for far less or to a less elite private school with substantial merit aid? For those of us who can afford an elite school, but not without making real economic sacrifices, this is a serious question. </p>
<p>My attempts to answer the question in favor of the elite school aren't entirely convincing. It is possible, though not required, to obtain a liberal arts type education at non-elite schools. I guess at state university, even with an honors program, the student is not as likely to be surrounded primarily by equally adept and motivated students - in other words the peer motivation will be better at the elite school. But doesn't the Krueger and Dale study negate this argument? Perhaps the elite schools, or the LACs anyway, offer more opportunities for meaningful participation in a wider range of extracurricular activities - music, sports, journalism, etc. But I really don't know. Maybe the only real difference is that at the elite schools the student has a very nice four years - better buildings, better equipment, better teachers, smaller classes, more talented peers, better entertainment, etc. - even if it doesn't end up conveying any economic advantage. Its more enjoyable to drive a Lexus than a Subaru - but is it important for any other reason?</p>