@lastone03 “And kids can read body language. They are very perceptive - they know what pleases or displeases a parent.”
Or think they can. I had to chuckle at this comment. This past fall when my DD18 was in the midst of college visits/applications (and not always acting like her usual rational self), she claimed that I obviously didn’t like one of her choices because when one of the many mass mailings from it arrived I placed it on the kitchen counter instead of handing it directly to her, as she says I had done with other colleges’ mass mailings. The truth was, I liked the college just fine–I just happened to have a bunch of things on my hands, or she was across the room, or I just didn’t realize that placing college mail directly into her hands was a thing…
I think the narrative around the Ivy League schools are slowly changing or have changed because as far as I know, there are top schools outside Ivy League which are acknowledged by people in USA and around the world to be just as good if not better. Case in point: MIT, U of Chicago, Stanford, CalTech, and Duke etc. I mean Ivy League will always have its history and be fine schools as long as they have money.
I’ve been on CC since 2004, and the question gets asked as intensely and frequently every year. I thought my best argument was the one I’ve used rhetorically, addressed to obsessed parents rather than students: Your higher education occurred at Directional State University in State Nowheresville. And since graduating, you have become a wildly successful physician/engineer/researcher/financier/fill-in-the-blank. You’re so successful that you live in one of the most expensive cities in an expensive region and can afford private consultants for your children, and the odd reason you’re choosing these private consultants is so that S or D has a chance at Ivy League admission, even though you yourself are the grown-up Poster Child for success in America WHEREVER.
Does this utterly logical and self-evident argument work? Not even vaguely. Yet it can be applied to dozens of parents who have hired me over the last 6 years. The obsession, therefore, is emotional, not rational.
I’ve trotted out comparison charts and oodles of examples of lawyers, doctors, businessmen, politicians, entrepreneurs, and CEO’s – showing similar results from non-Ivy degrees. Perhaps they think the graphics lie?
I’ve also provided evidence that students excel the most in environments where they are personally most happy, which is not necessarily at the most “prestigious” college.
Following up on my own Reply 243, I think there is a blessing in disguise in the slaughter we have seen in the 2018 results especially. Now, there was a similar slaughter for EA/ED cycles particularly, by the Ivies, around 2004, but that one was on a smaller scale. We seem to be on the tail end of the Echo Boom and at a time when ambition is more broadly a factor, and when colleges are encouraging/recruiting new populations into their student bodies. Many of the most ambitious students also live in the most competitive regions and thus have been victims of the slaughter, including at the hands of public universities. Very often, wherever these highly qualified students are ending up is at a 2nd tier U or campus, and they, like parents who went to Directional State, will have to make the most of it. They will have no choice to rely on the brand name of the school; they will have to make a name for themselves, by themselves – there or in graduate or professional school.
The difference between these students and their parents at the same age is probably just a matter of critical mass. If there are enough successful students who come out of their less-preferred college choice, they will become both the example and the spokespeople for students to follow. There will be enough of them to be able to say, “It really doesn’t matter.”
What we have to do is teach kids that they’re not defined by what college they go to. They should focus their energy on discovering who they are and deciding what kind of work they want to do.
99.5% of the workforce run the world largest and most prosperous economy. They do this without ever seeing an “ivy league.” So few people are ivy graduates, that employers have no reason to care. Also, since when is the fruit of hard work dependent on a school with a 95% rejection rate? A BMW costs almost twice as much as a subcompact. Does that make a BMW “better?” The answer is…not at all. It only makes the car different so it can appeal to a certain demographic market segment. In fact, many wealthy people prefer to drive a subcompact anyway because of its practicality and reliability.
The problem with college rankings is that they’re fundamentally flawed. It’s like comparing apples and Snickers bars. Universities are designed around education based on the surrounding economy and employer needs. Sure Harvard might be “ranked” 1, but for Hospitality Management, UNLV is top in the nation…because it’s freakin’ Vegas! It still baffles me how these ivy league schools get into these rankings at all when there’s such an explosion of growth and innovation in flagship and regional universities.
IMO the BMW’s driving experience is simply superior to that of any car at half the price - for me it just is. And that may be a similar thought that many employers have when it comes to considering the college “brand” of potential employees. Without much else to go on that is not directly or indirectly derived from a college experience, brand value surly plays a part.
Not sure how: GPA-directly links to college (not all GPAs created equal), classes taken (and quality of), research conducted (with what profs), internships worked (not all colleges have the same pull), are all directly related to college attended.