How much does going to an ivy matter?

College Search & Selection
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<p>+1 to collegehelp</p>

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<p>i agree with the others on finding a fit for college.</p>

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<p>There is also a regional component to this debate. If you wanted to live in NC, Texas, Michigan, then the State U there would probably offer better connections at a much cheaper price. Rice, William & Mary, Chicago, Pomona, Stanford, Duke are every bit as prestigious as Penn or Dartmouth in their respective regions. The eye of the beholder will vary based on where they are living. Go to an Ivy school b/c the experience, not b/c of what you think others will think.</p>

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<p>Education- Differences between, say, Harvard and Duke will have more to do with the fact that they're different schools than that one is an Ivy and one isn't.</p>

<p>Resources- Ivies have always had bigger budgets than most other schools. Some LACs have similar amounts of money per student but not has much as a whole, so there's not as much available for study abroad, etc.</p>

<p>Job Opportunities- Lots of investment jobs, especially (though not such a benefit in this "economic climate"...seriously, William Safire needs to find a phrase that's not so euphamistic), recruit almost exclusively at Ivy-League schools. It's like NASA recruiting at MIT--sure, there are other gifted kids elsewhere, but not so many, so well-trained, in one place. So if you want a stereotypical rich guy career, you're probably better off coming from an Ivy.</p>

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<p>


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<p>Well, it would be a bit tedious to look at all 535, but let's look at the undergrad alma maters of just the top leadership, shall we?</p>

<p>Speaker of the House: Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Trinity College in DC (now Trinity Washington University)
Majority Leader: Steny Hoyer (D-MD), University of Maryland
Majority Whip: Jim Clybourn (D-SC), South Carolina State
Democratic Caucus Chair: John Larson (D-CT), Central Connecticut State
Democratic Caucus Vice-Chair: Xavier Becerra (D-CA), Stanford
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair: Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Swarthmore</p>

<p>House Minority Leader: John Boehner (R-OH), Xavier of Ohio
Minority Whip: Eric Cantor (R-VA), George Washington
Republican Conference Chair: Mike Pence (R-IN), Indiana U
Conference Vice-Chair: Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Pensacola Christian
RNCC Chair: Pete Sessions (R-TX), Southwestern University</p>

<p>Senate Majority Leader: Harry Reid (D-NV), Utah State
Majority Whip: Dick Durbin (D-IL), Georgetown
Vice Chair, Democratic Caucus: Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Harvard
DSCC Chair: Robert Menendez (D-NJ), Saint Peter's College
Chair, Democratic Steering Committee: Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), Michigan State</p>

<p>Minority Leader: Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Louisville
Deputy Minority Leader: Jon Kyl (R-AZ), University of Arizona
Chair, Republican Conference: Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Vanderbilt
Conference Vice-Chair: John Thune (R-SD), Biola Uinversity
Chair, Policy Committee: John Ensign (R-NV), Oregon State
Chairn, NRSC: John Cornyn (R-TX), Trinity University (San Antonio)</p>

<p>Hmmm . . . Out of 22 top House and Senate leaders, only a single Harvard alum, no other Ivies represented. I guess the message is, if you want to rise high in Congresional politics, DON'T attend an Ivy; instead, attend a local school and dig deep roots in the local community.</p>

<p>I'm not knocking an Ivy education, mind you. As I said before, they're fine schools, every one. But there are lots of other fine schools out there. And the notion that everyone in a position of power or influence is an Ivy Leaguer is just pure hokum.</p>

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<p>to rephrase what collegehelp said,</p>

<p>Going to Stanford/Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame/(insert top college of your choice) matters because of academic quality and campus culture. The prestige associated with colleges such as these does not fall out of the sky. It must be earned and maintained over many years. Some of the differences in quality can be seen in the numbers but other important differences are found in the intangibles. Culture affects how you develop during college. There is a perceptible difference on these campuses, especially when compared to public universities.</p>

<p>Prospective students should not discount the significance and source of prestige although many people engage in self-serving efforts to diminish its significance and turn prestige into a negative. It isn't prestige itself but the reasons for the prestige. The differences become apparent when you spend a lot of time interacting with students and faculty on diverse campuses. </p>

<p>There are a lot of great schools and once you choose, you can be happy there. But, Stanford/Duke/Northwestern/Rice/Vanderbilt/Notre Dame/etc. are special.</p>

<p>It is important to understand where prestige comes from and not rationalize it away.</p>

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<p>I agree somewhat with what Hawkette is saying. Many on CC consider students who desire a prestigious school as being "prestige whores." Being on the faculty of a liberal arts college and having a kid at Harvard, there is a very different feel to the schools and much of the prestige is warranted.</p>

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<p>DocT,
Just so my meaning is clear, I was hoping to communicate that there is a large circle of top colleges that are “special.” </p>

<p>I’m not opposed to the thinking that there are differences in academic/student quality available at American colleges and that this has consequences for the nature of the undergraduate academic experience. But I am opposed to the conceit that implies that such occurs only at a handful of Northeastern colleges. Some Ivy folks believe their own press and think it is unique to them. IMO, it’s not. There are plenty of “special” colleges around the USA, including top LACs and top publics.</p>

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<p>I'm not suggesting that only ivy league schools are special.</p>

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<p>"Presidents, congressman and senators" didn't gain success because they attending ivy's. Those individuals generally came from prestigious and wealthy families. Their wealth and prestige influenced both the college they attended and their long-term success.</p>

<p>It's a common antecedent.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
In the past 100 years, 18 men (yes, all men) have served as President of the United States. Of the 18, 7 attended Ivies as undergrads and 11 didn't.

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<p>Of course if you just looked at the entire US Presidential history, you'd have a much higher Ivy number, but that's besides the point --> last 100 years, 7 out of 18 Ivy undergrads? That's nearly 40%! Pretty damn good number considering that Ivy schools represent way less than .01% of colleges in the US.</p>

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<p>"Being on the faculty of a liberal arts college and having a kid at Harvard, there is a very different feel to the schools and much of the prestige is warranted."</p>

<p>Being on faculty at a Top 25 nationally ranked university and being a graduate of Harvard, it is not.</p>

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<p>bclintock,</p>

<p>I picked four names at random from your list of congressional leaders</p>

<p>Rep. Van Hollen received an undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College, a Masters in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and his J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. </p>

<p>Eric Cantor has a Columbia connection.</p>

<p>If you limit the sample to undergraduate institution you ignore the ivy law graduates and the JFK (Harvard) alumns.</p>

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<p>Thank you G.P.Burdell for your views. It's nice to see someone commenting here who is a faculty member at a top school and actually attended a top school as opposed to the majority of those CC posters who like to think of themselves as experts on the so called schools with "prestige and cache."</p>

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<p>
[quote]
last 100 years, 7 out of 18 Ivy undergrads? That's nearly 40%! Pretty damn good number considering that Ivy schools represent way less than .01% of colleges in the US.

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<p>Sure. Great percentages for Yale (3) and Harvard (2), the only Ivies that can claim more than one President in the last 100 years. With one apiece, Princeton and Columbia are in exactly the same boat as Ohio Central, Amherst, Stanford, the US Military Academy, Texas State-San Marcos, Whittier, Michigan, the US Naval Academy, Eureka, and Georgetown. And the rest of the Ivies can't even claim that much. There's no question that Yale and Harvard have had a disproportionate impact on presidential politics. The rest of the Ivies, not so much; they're just free-riding on Yale and Harvard's glory. But if being in the same sports conference with Yale and Harvard impresses you, fine. Like I said, they're good schools, but you're only fooling yourself if you think going to Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, or Penn somehow puts you closer to the Presidency than going to, say, Stanford, Amherst, Michigan, or a service academy.</p>

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<p>bclintonk, thank you for your thoughtful research. We need more posters like you.</p>

<p>It will be interesting to see whether the Ivy League and other elite institutions will continue to fill the leadership pipeline as those institutions continue to focus on diversity, rather than legacy and wealth. I suspect they will, but the faces and backgrounds will not all be wealthy and white. Maybe Obama is a start. I hope so.</p>

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<p>Wow, a lot of nonsense already in this thread.</p>

<p>Judging a sports conference on the basis of whether they've produced a bunch of presidents or political leaders?</p>

<p>CC is laughable. I thought just posting on my school's forum I saw some crazy talk but it's worse here in the general forums.</p>

<p>Guys-- going to the school that's going to provide you with the opportunity to make the most of your experience is what's important, end of story. For some people it's a 1000 person LAC, for others it's a huge state school sport powerhouse, for others its a technical school, for others its everything in between. The prestige whoring is crazy on here and I think so much is lost when comparing these schools, especially amongst high school students who don't have considerable experience at even one school or parents who haven't been to college in 20 years (there have been HUGE changes in the university as an institution in the last 20-25 years).</p>

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<p>I think that in the end nobody really pays attention to the "ivy league" label. In fact, other than Harvard, Princeton, and Yale most people couldn't tell you what the other ivies are. </p>

<p>All the top 25 schools, with the exception of large publics, are basically the same in terms of the education they provide. As for the large publics with crazy bureaucracies and little faculty attention......well you get what you pay for.</p>

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<p>


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<p>The OP asked whether there's a big advantage to going to an Ivy as an undergrad, as opposed to another top school like Stanford, Duke or Northwestern. The fact that a lot of influential people went to schools other than Ivies for their undergraduate degrees and then went on to Ivies or other top schools for law school, grad school, public policy school, or whatever, only underscores the point that the advantages of going to an Ivy as an undergrad are somewhat overrated. They're good schools, without a doubt. So are a lot of other schools. And top students rise to the top even in less-than-stellar undergrad schools and find their way into top law, business, medical, public policy, and graduate schools. That's what a full examination of the top Congressional leadership would tell you. </p>

<p>For the record, Eric Cantor holds three degrees: Bachelor's from George Washington, J.D. from William & Mary, M.S. in Real Estate Development from Columbia. You don't seriously mean to suggest it's that Columbia M.S. that made his career? I'd say of the three, the Columbia M.S. is probably the least important. He's almost a poster child for the point that you don't need to go to an Ivy as an undergrad to find great success in life.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
With one apiece, Princeton and Columbia are in exactly the same boat as Ohio Central, Amherst, Stanford, the US Military Academy, Texas State-San Marcos, Whittier, Michigan, the US Naval Academy, Eureka, and Georgetown.

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<p>Well, that's partly because you take the 100 year cutoff. </p>

<p>Princeton:
- John F. Kennedy (transferred to Harvard University)
- James Madison
- Woodrow Wilson</p>

<p>UPenn:
William Henry Harrison (had to withdraw for financial reasons when father passed)</p>

<p>
[quote]
He's almost a poster child for the point that you don't need to go to an Ivy as an undergrad to find great success in life.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No one here is claiming anything as ludicrous as "you have to go to an Ivy to be successful". No one here is claiming you have to go to an Ivy to become POTUS. Having said that, it sure can't HURT you to go to an Ivy.</p>