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<p>@@ Newsflash: Friendships flourish for 4 years at any residential college campus where the students are reasonably satisfied with the experience. And that’s the case whether the students are top students or average students. There’s nothing magical or mystical about Duke in this regard. Stop imagining that your friendships are magically deeper at Duke or that your love for your alma mater is greater than anyone else’s love for his / her alma mater.</p>
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<p>You didn’t answer my question. Do journalism students at NU who say they go to Medill say that because they think they are superior to the other schools within NU and/or feel they want to disassociate themselves with NU – or are they just mentioning the name of the j-school?</p>
<p>And do you, or do you not, look down at students who pursue nursing, audiology, elementary education, agriculture, etc. compared to students who desire to go into i-banking, mgt consulting, engineering, law or medicine?</p>
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No one I have ever met who has graduated from Northwestern has ever said that they went to “Medill”, “Weinberg”, “McCormick”, etc. They all say that they went to “Northwestern”, as they should. By the way, stop jumping down my throat every time I say something. I think I actually agree with most of your thoughts but you constantly seem to misconstrue my remarks.</p>
<p>Northwestern, WashU, Chicago, Dartmouth, Duke, etc. all have a unified student body and have a “true sense of community” since the name of the institution they attend supersedes any specialty program they might be enrolled in in their minds and in the minds of others. I DO NOT BELIEVE Duke is all that more special in this regard compared to these schools. However, I do believe Duke and Northwestern are superior to Michigan and Penn, where students in Ross, Wharton, UM Engineering, dual degree programs at Penn, etc. think they are superior to their peers.</p>
<p>Students enrolled in the Wharton program disassociate themselves from Penn when speaking to others because they think they want to emphasize the fact that they aren’t “regular” Penn students and that they should be considered in the same regard as Harvard, Yale and Princeton students. Whether you buy this or not is your prerogative.</p>
<p>I DO NOT look down on students who pursue audiology, nursing, agriculture, etc. but I feel that it would be in their interest to not attend schools like Michigan and Penn where they would be treated as “second class” citizens. They deserve better than that.</p>
<p>You can’t deny that you will feel more a part of the “mainstream” student body if you attend an elite private school and pursue banking, consulting, law, engineering or medicine. Although pursuing elementary education is a noble cause, if you attend an Ivy with this career path in mind, there is a good chance you will be alienated by your peers and will feel intense pressure to “conform”.</p>
<p>lesdiablesbleus what is your UMich background that leads you to believe the student body is disjointed? How long did you study there?</p>
<p>I never studied at UofM. My father studied psychology there as an undergrad and my cousin went to law school there. I also lived in Michigan for some time and have plenty of friends who study there. This is their opinion of the school by the way.</p>
<p>Looks like you’ve got a pretty insecure group of friends. To say that the Michigan community is just a collection of rival colleges and majors is really a stretch. Half of my Arabic class was Ross students – I didn’t know this until maybe the last month of class. It is generally acknowledged that the engineering kids do higher level math, physics, chem, etc. that most LSA kids would never consider. By the same token, almost all engineering kids I know have looked me in the eye and said “I could never read as many books and write as many papers as you LSA people.” People at UMich find their niche and basically ignore the rest. If you’re friends are bitter that they didn’t get into Ross or couldn’t cut it in engineering, that may be the source of their unusual insecurity. Until you’ve sat in a class here and seen the divisions that seem to be the backbone of your argument, I would suggest you concede defeat here; there are too many wolverines here who actually know what they’re talking about.</p>
<p>Within any school where either some programs feature competitive application processes for current students (Ross vs LSA) or some majors are perceived as more difficult or more work than others (Engineering vs humanities most places), there’s going to be some sense of “division”. But I’ve never heard of it being burdensome, unbearably elitist, or superseding the pride students have for there university as a whole. At UM, Ross students proudly say they went to Ross just like engineering or LSA students. </p>
<p>I’m not sure if kids at Wharton will signify that they went there, unprompted, over Penn. I think people on CC tend to divorce the two (misguidedly IMHO) more than any Penn student I’ve met.</p>
<p>Look! What have we? Another ring of fire…</p>
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<p>LOL THANKS FOR THE LAUGH GUYS :)</p>
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I see that someone else remembers everyone’s favorite Duke ■■■■■. Is there a connection? I wonder…</p>
<p>Lol - it seems this thread is turning into a ■■■■■ fingerpointing fest?</p>
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<p>Oh, is that your experience at Duke? That it’s more mainstream to pursue those handful of careers and that you’ll feel alienated if you don’t “conform”?</p>
<p>^ lesdiablesbleus is officially a brainwashed loser if he believes that nonsense.</p>
<p>I think the OP got more than she bargained for!
Michigan is a fine place to spend four years, and a terrific launching pad for the future. A great resource, in state or out.
The cost situation from the student’s point of view in the USA is an odd one. I’ve worked with two undergraduates from California here at the University of Chicago who wished they were at Berkeley, but the cost difference was just too large. I’m guessing their family incomes were less than $60,000. And the U of C isn’t regarded as particularly generous among private elites.
Oxford and Cambridge leave money on the table, charging much less than the wealthy are willing to pay. And under-financed as a result, vis a vis American elites.
I would consider schools like Rice and some top schools that offer merit aid, if full freight is too much for your parents to swallow. I would also apply to your need-only dreams. Your parents may see their way clear if you have an acceptance in hand.</p>
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Don’t put words in my mouth. Things might be a different at NU but most elite privates have a vast majority of students pursuing those careers. After seeing all your peers walk around in suits during interview season, you definitely start thinking, “What am I missing out on?” Times have changed but nearly NO ONE I met during freshman year in college had plans of being a banker or a consultant, but senior exit surveys at schools like Duke, Penn, Dartmouth, Harvard, etc. show that 40-50% of students enter these career paths. Don’t tell me that all of these students who changed their minds about what they wanted to after graduation during college from something like education/academia to finance did so after an introspective and intense career exploration process but did it to please parents, conform with friends and fulfill some artificially created notion of “being successful” that was formed during college.</p>
<p>Stop pretending like the world is rosy and everyone lives in la la land where everyone is able to pursue their dreams and passions without financial and prestige considerations. You seem to me like a disillusioned consultant who got into the field due to the same “mainstream brainwashing” that I’m talking about here and now you’re advising every kid from CC to do whatever their heart desires since you don’t want them to be bound by the same restrictions you were (money, prestige, need for validation, etc.).</p>
<p>This isn’t about me, but since you asked: 1) I didn’t go into consulting right after NU (though I had offers), 2) if that is the prevailing mindset at Duke, it sounds extremely unattractive.</p>
<p>My peers at NU spanned the whole range of interests and careers – from traditional big law, medicine, engineering and banking to one who is an award-winning costume designer on Broadway, one who owns and operates a yoga studio in Toronto, one who was at a senior level with the Peace Corps, and some who are now at-home moms. Never once did anyone think that those other choices were something to look down upon or that they weren’t “successful” because they weren’t lawyers/doctors/bankers. </p>
<p>If you think you’re missing out on something by not being an I-banker, please go ahead and be one, and the best of wishes to you for future success. </p>
<p>But don’t engage in fiction that at Michigan and Penn “alternative” paths are looked down on, when it’s very clear you’re working within a framework in which someone feels out of place for not being in an approved career. That’s your projection. </p>
<p>BTW, I HAD no restrictions of the kind you hypothesize. I was full pay and my kids (rising seniors) will be full pay. I love my job and get to interact with tons of smart people and travel all over the world. So you’ll forgive me for recognizing that smart people come from all over and Duke doesn’t hold the monopoly and your anti Michugan screed just makes you look small. And I have no dog in the Michigan fight one way or the other, but I have real world experience you as a college sop don’t.</p>
<p>^^^Well said, Pizzagirl!</p>
<p>“You can’t deny that you will feel more a part of the “mainstream” student body if you attend an elite private school and pursue banking, consulting, law, engineering or medicine. Although pursuing elementary education is a noble cause, if you attend an Ivy with this career path in mind, there is a good chance you will be alienated by your peers and will feel intense pressure to “conform”.”</p>
<p>Well, UChicago is generally considered an “elite private school” (as much so as Duke, at any rate), and the so-called mainstream here sounds nothing like what you describe - thankfully. Duke is a fine institution, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you are exaggerating for effect.</p>
<p>To return to the OP’s original question, if I were instate in Michigan, I would attend the University of Michigan without hesitation . In terms of value for money (unless a student is very low income and qualifies for a full ride at an elite private), it is pretty much unbeatable. Even without considering cost, it is competitive with the best privates, and Ann Arbor surpasses every college town I have ever visited (with honourable mention going to Madison).</p>
<p>Let me see if I’ve understood the distinction between a non-elite school such as Michigan and an elite school such as Duke:</p>
<p>At a non-elite school such as Michigan or Penn, students who pursue careers such as nursing will be looked down upon by the other students - as evidenced by the fact that a Wharton student says “I went to Wharton,” which must mean that he or she is trying to disassociate himself or herself from the looooooosers in the nursing school.</p>
<p>But at an elite school like Duke, there’s no such feeling. The students who pursue other careers won’t be looked down upon by others at all – just pressured to conform! And I quote: "there is a good chance you will be alienated by your peers and will feel intense pressure to “conform.”</p>
<p>So voila, it’s a unified student body after all, once those people who dared to think outside the law/med/banking box were schooled in the error of their ways! </p>
<p>I think the only “pressure to conform,” lesdiablesbleues, is that you come from a background where exploring anything outside those traditional careers-that-make-a-lot-of-money was rather discouraged for you. I somehow suspect it’s not REALLY that all your fellow Dukies are pressuring you to become an i-banker (etc), but that someone at home is.</p>
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<p>Is that how the “elites” at Duke behave? Well, so much for diversity, then. Seems rather pointless to assemble a student body from all 50 states and umpteen countries and all different races, socioecon backgrounds, life experiences, etc. if the prevailing mentality is that if you don’t pursue one of a few chosen careers, you’ll be alienated, out of the mainstream, and will feel pressure to conform. </p>
<p>Is this REALLY what you have to say about your Duke experience?</p>