Even then, it ranks ONE thing, institutional reputation, and doesn’t rank non-doctoral granting institutions in the same mix. There’s nothing about class size, teaching style, outcomes, placement etc. What I care about in assessing an engineering program is how well prepared a student will be to immediately join a team as a functional participant. The rankings speak nothing to that.
1 Like
This was the gamble our oldest made. The university they chose to attend for undergrad is very academically selective overall for undergraduate admissions and with a strong national and global reputation, but it’s not particularly highly ranked in their specific major. They could have opted instead to attend another university that was of comparative selectiveness for admission to their specific major (or maybe slightly less), with a comparably rigorous program (maybe a bit more), but is also the top ranked university nationally and highly ranked globally in their field.
They chose their undergrad university over this other one for a variety of fit factors, the predominant one being size (it’s smaller) and campus feel. They are hoping however to attend the other university for grad school.
In the last published round of graduate admits in their program, this other university admitted 12 students from it’s own undergrad and 2 from our student’s university. I don’t know what kind of an acceptance rate that represents but our student is likely to be in the top 5% of graduates in their program at their school so is presumably a competitive applicant. Would they have been an equally competitive applicant had they attended the other school? Quite possibly but we had no way of knowing that at the time they were making their choice of universities to apply to for undergrad. Time will tell if they made the right choice.
2 Likes
Climbing the corporate ladder* to become CEO probably depends a lot on political and sales (of oneself) skills, which are not necessarily strongly selected for in college admissions. The most selective colleges may have weak or indirect selection for these things (with interviews, essays, and recommendations), but not strong enough to cause them to dominate the CEO ranks.
*As opposed to “inheriting” the role in a family business or some such.
1 Like
In the US and in STEM, a few universities (e.g. MIT and Caltech) actively discourage, and even automatically reject, their own undergrads for their PhD programs. The rational is that they want their undergrads to be exposed to other schools’ thoughts on the same subject. Richard Feynman was famously told to go elsewhere for his PhD.
2 Likes
It may be more than a few universities on a department by department basis (as opposed to a university-wide policy). For example, the UCB chemical engineering department mostly discourages its own undergraduates from staying for PhD study: CBE Grad FAQ | College of Chemistry
I think this is almost universally true for Ph.D. programs, but not really for terminal MAs – with the MA, the program is more about career training and less about shaping the next generation of scholars, and only in the latter case does intellectual cross-pollination become important. I know a lot of people who went on to get an MA at their BA-granting institutions, but usually they were pursuing terminal degrees in professional programs. So perhaps the grad program gwnorth is referring to is an MA program, not a Ph.D. program.
Yes, the practice is only for PhD programs, but I think it is far from universal, at least not to nearly the same extent as the schools I mentioned.
Might depend on discipline. In my discipline, unless you are going (for example) from Harvard undergrad to Harvard Ph.D., it’s almost unheard of to stay at your undergrad institution for your Ph.D.
3 Likes
It may be. At MIT or Caltech, a student’s advisor will explicitly tell the student not to apply to the school’s (or department’s) PhD program, even if it’s the world’s best.
Yeah, and it occurs to me that the Harvard undergrad/Harvard grad examples I’m thinking of are of earlier generations – so I don’t think that it really happens anymore even in the most elite schools in my discipline.
This year a math kid at P was offered to come back. He is choosing to go to H.
For my kids, fit was about feel:
- Did the classes feel like an intellectual fit
- Did the students they interacted seem like a social fit
- Did the campus feel like a place they could spend 4 years.
Schools without the right major were dropped before the visits started
5 Likes
Your abbreviated “snippet” seems to skip crucial context and details embedded further in the article while focusing on the sensational headline.
The article states, “Of the 2023 Fortune 100 CEOs, only 11.8% attended an Ivy as undergrads”.
USNWR states, “ Only 0.4 percent of undergraduates attend one of the Ivy League schools.”
That means Ivy undergraduates are over represented by a staggering 29.5 times relative to size amongst the Fortune 100 CEO sample. So while it does suggest that any background can lead to a CEO role it confirms that the most frequent and well traveled path to such roles includes an undergraduate Ivy degree.
While an exact number is hard to identify there are 3,000+ 4 year colleges in the US and only 8 of them (Ivy League) produce 11.8% of Fortune 100 CEOs. Seems to validate the value of attending one of these schools.
Is it really “stunning” that not all or most CEOs come from 8 schools? I think not. What is stunning is that a cohort of .4% of undergraduates is so dramatically and statistically significantly over represented.
3 Likes
Most of the world is far less concerned about fit than American parents. Students attend their provincial university and they make it work. There is a lot to be said for flexibility when one is young-my kid would have been equally happy at Columbia and Williams, and was accepted to uni on 3 continents, any of which she would have attended. Both schools have a lot ( although different things) to offer. True almost everywhere.
Hence the suggestion to consider an affordable merit-award university like Alabama-everyone will weigh the tradeoffs differently but it could work for many people regardless and it may not have been considered.
3 Likes
Probably most American parents and students do not go much beyond cost and academic programs in college fit and college selection, because cost is a major limitation for them. Hence the large number of college students commuting to the local community college of regional state university. Other fit factors like prestige, social environment, etc. are unaffordable luxuries for many. But such parents and students are barely represented on these forums compared to high income parents with high achieving students.
2 Likes
In fact in most of the world, bachelors-equivalent study is much more like our graduate/professional system. You apply for a specific course (roughly equivalent to our majors) to get a specific degree, you are admitted by the faculty in that course based on the academic criteria for that course (plus maybe some subject-specific entrance exams and sometimes interviews), and you generally have little if any flexibility to change courses.
There are some exceptions–like the 4-year Scottish system is not as flexible as ours, but you can start with up to like 3 courses before narrowing it down to 2 and then 1, within limits. But the “liberal arts and sciences” college form (represented by LACs, and the many universities that use that model for their colleges) which makes up many of our “top” colleges is very rare in most of the world.
And there are pros and cons either way. And some things are basically both pros and cons depending on perspective.
Like, these colleges offer a lot of variety and so some may “fit” you better than others. And then different aid offers may layer on top of that (including lower in-state tuition and such).
But conversely, applicants from their perspective also offer a lot of variety, they typically see some academically-qualified applicants as “fitting” their college better than others, and they will use admissions, and in some cases aid offers, to try to get the students they think fit them the best.
These are indeed alien concepts to most global universities. For that matter, they are alien concepts to, say, most US PhD programs, which similarly only really care about your academic qualifications for that specific field of study.
But for good or ill, the “top” US colleges are mostly operated on this unusual form.
Yes, I think it is fair to say our system starts converging more and more toward the “normal” system in most of the world once you are looking outside of selective private colleges, and the public colleges which compete with private colleges for “out of state” students. And the colleges outside of those limits are, of course, a very large part of our overall college system.
What is really distinct is that in, say, England, basically ALL of their “top” universities are a form of public university. Prestige-wise, obviously an Oxford or Cambridge ranks alongside our top private universities, but the way they are structured financially is actually more similar to, say, Berkeley, Michigan, or UVA. Including tuition levels for UK students being much lower than for non-UK students.
Add to that the observation in my other post–that undergraduate studies at “Oxbridge”, and the associated admissions, is actually much more like graduate studies in the US–and you get a pretty different system of “top” universities.
And actually, for some US HS students who might be competitive for the “top” private colleges and their public university “peers”, it is entirely possible the English system would “fit” them better. And in fact they tend to get quite a few US students at the “top” English universities (who pay a lot more than UK students, but often less than they might pay in the US).
But it is definitely different, and you have to be careful to make sure you are comfortable with the differences.
And then for the vast majority of US HS students, maybe neither the “top” English universities nor the “top” US colleges will be a practical option. But that is fine, because we have a very robust college system outside of those narrow limits.
1 Like
For the U.S. audience, it’s important to note that the meaning of public school (for secondary education), and public/private Universities, is either opposite in one case, or at least drastically different in England as far as the underlying figures.
A “public” school in England is actually a privately funded school, but “public” in the sense that it is open to “anyone” regardless of location, denomination, etc. Then there are the “state” schools.
As far as colleges/universities, there are no “state” colleges, and merely a handful are “private” (and you’d likely never heard of them!). Thus, almost all universities in England (incl. OxBridge) are considered “public” in the sense, that they do receive some block grants for research and students from the government’s “Office for Students”:
2 Likes
And in Canada, and across Europe and Asia (at least in the countries I’m familiar with).
2 Likes
Indeed. Our robust private college/university system is really rather unique.
3 Likes