I was thinking that before I became immersed in the college search, I would not have recognized the names of most of the colleges that are so highly sought after here on CC. Of course, I knew the Ivies. I knew of MIT and Stanford and UCLA. I knew that Notre Dame had great football but knew little else about it or its prestige. I would not have been able to tell you the difference between Swarthmore and Skidmore. Someone told me her son was accepted to Pamona and I assumed it was probably a community college in Pamona New Jersey. I thought of NYU as a safety school because it was decades ago when I went to college.
The thing is that I have occasionally participated in hiring decisions for my small company and outside of a very few colleges, none of the names meant anything to me. I have talked to others involved in hiring and have heard the same thing. Admittedly, none of us are hiring for wall street banks or fortune 500 companies. They know and respect our state flagship and a short list of famous names. They also had some of the same lingering completely outdated biases that I did. I had to explain to my parents that BU, Northeastern and others were no longer safety schools or consolation prizes. I still don’t think they quite “get it.”
Now, when I hear that someone has been accepted to Grinnell or Pomona, I know enough to think “wow!”. But most of the world seems to have no idea.
I"m not sure what the point of all this is. Its just that every now and then I am reminded of the strange bubble we are in.
Would I be correct in guessing that the colleges with most visibility would be:
The state flagship (and second flagship, if any).
Local or regional state (non-flagship) and private schools.
The local community college.
A few high profile distant schools (e.g. HYPSM).
State flagships in nearby states.
Schools of particular special interest if there are enough students with that interest (e.g. if there are many LDS members, BYU will have visibility; if there are many interested in the military, the academies will have visibility).
Schools with high profile football or basketball teams, but many will know them only for those sports, rather than for their academic characteristics.
Its somewhat hard to recreate the mindset I had before I knew anything. I thought of the state flagship as the place f for kids without money to get a good education. I assumed that there were many high achieving students there but a large intellectual spread. I also assumed that all state flagships were similar – many high achieving students and many slackers. I admired the Ivies and was awed by MIT. I remember having heard good things about UCLA. I would have placed Harvard and Yale above the rest, but would not have made any distinction between Princeton and Dartmouth. I assumed all other colleges were simply, “not Ivies.” NYU, Brandeis, Boston University and other schools like them were schools for decent but not exceptional students (as they were in my day - 100 years ago) and I would have placed all the schools I hadn’t heard of in that category. Colgate was a toothpaste. I wasn’t looking down on these schools. I just had no idea.
Admittedly, I am not, and never was, a hiring professional. But I did look at resumes and participate in some hiring decisions. As far as I could tell, people were impressed with the Ivie’s, a very few others, and their own alma maters.
Let me tell you, when Cornell accepted me with 3.0 gpa, I had no respect for Ivies. Was shocked to discover Cornell was an Ivy after one semester. Same thing when UCLA and NYU law school accepted me with 2.9 gpa.
I’ve done a lot of resume screening in my career and while a school name would get a second look, with further scrutiny, a person’s relevant work experience far outweighed the school’s name.
I’ve also coordinated student clinical rotations for aspiring physicians and mid levels. I’ve been privy to the work ethic and intellectual curiosity of students from state schools, unheard of colleges and somewhat elite universities. I’ve come to the conclusion that the quality of the student isn’t tied to the name of the university, it really is the individual and what they want from their time with their preceptor. I’ve found that the best students are humble, ask good questions, have good decision making skills and have high emotional IQ (which is key in dealing with patients). I don’t think any one type of school can claim they are the best at teaching these qualities
@websensation did you go to college in the 80s? Were you full pay or close to it? If yes to either question, that might explain it. The standards for HS students today is so different than when we parents were applying to college. It’s much more competitive and more kids are applying to colleges compared to when we went to HS.
Heck, when I was in HS, my state flagship was a shoo-in, a super safety. Now, not so much! I know kids who have been turned down with nearly perfect GPA and high test scores for a state school.
I have a lot of fiends that still cling the past and can not see colleges as they are today. Their kids are applying to totally wrong set of schools and there is a lot of grief right now. A lot of “I told you so” this week.
I think the prestige, name of school and “tippy top” reputation is much more prevalent in the Northeast. Harvard, Yale etc. “The lower Ivies” are not well known in my area. Outside of the North east, in our area the names that come to mind for prestige are Notre Dame, Northwestern, Wash U and Stanford.
All these other names thrown out on this sight mean nothing in our area.
" Its just that every now and then I am reminded of the strange bubble we are in."
Just a guess, but this sounds like the New England / Upper Atlantic Coast bubble. It’s definitely a bubble, but it’s not necessarily the sole and single experience of the “real world”. Brace yourself, but there are differing opinions, experience and knowledge that happens… outside NE. I know, it’s a shocker.
I will say from personal experience where I went to school has gotten me more respect in the workplace and probably did help me with getting my first job. i do some interviewing at my company for openings, and for us experience does matter the most, but we are hiring people with 20 to 30 years experience.
In my “ real world” both at home and at work where most people have a long family history of college education and are professionals people are VERY aware of schools that have prestige and not just HYPS.
When my kids were relatively young I had to explain to them that despite what they saw on a regular basis most people in this country are not college educated ( just like I had to tell then that most people aren’t Jewish…quire shocking to them since their public grade school was about 85 percent Jewish)
I strangely had heard of a lot of schools because I went to a private college prep school in the lates 70s/early 80s, but I had no idea Stanford was in California (until senior year of college) – I thought it sounded like an East Coast school, where Vanderbilt was exactly (until my son applied there). I vaguely knew the difference between Skidmore and Swarthmore based on who from my high school got in (have a child at Skidmore now.)
@CALSmom Got the first part right. Late 80s. I was from a poor family, recent immigrants then. Got a near full ride. Had to borrow some from Pell Grant for living expenses. I can tell you then UVA was a safety for smart kids. Had a close friend who got into early to Harvard, MIT, Yale, Princeton and CalTech. Those were the only schools he applied to. Got almost all As at MIT. I knew Swarthmore and Brown were good schools because several uncoordinated but talented kids went there.
Most people in the real world where I live, unless they have kids in or through HS/college and are caught up with HS rankings/prestige, seem to divide colleges in to tiers:
Harvard is tops, MIT is tops in STEM (Stanford’s made it in to this league as well in recent decades).
Good schools (with UMich, Northwestern, Princeton, UVa, WashU, UChicago, Yale, UPenn, UNC all thrown in here and not much differentiation between them; a few may include some LACs but hardly any and almost never).
Average flagship
Open admissions
X. Never heard of them: Would fit somewhere around 3-4. Would include most LACs.
Opinion of LACs is that they are for rich kids.
Opinion of USC/BU is that they are for rich kids who couldn’t get in to an average flagship.
Disclaimer: the above isn’t my opinion.
BTW, I have seen that there is a correlation between the quality of a quantitative PhD program and quality of applicant. This makes sense as quantitative PhD programs are all funded.
When my friend told me her son was going to Pamona, I remember feeling sorry. I always thought he was such a bright kid and here he was headed off to some random school in New Jersey. I assumed something had gone wrong. Of course, I was good about it, as everyone should be when told where someone is going to college. I congratulated them and said how wonderful that was. But deep down I was shocked. When I got home and looked it up, I was shocked again!
I assume people in academia know far more then I did and hiring professionals at major corporations. But I certainly knew nothing. Ah, the good old days.
@gallentjill sorry but it’s Pomona I think it has single digit acceptance rate, maybe 6%
Even people in SoCal confuse Pomona with Cal Poly Pomona (that one’s a CSU). The Claremont consortium schools have gained a lot of attention but many parents and students in CA still don’t have it high on their college list…many haven’t heard of them or think it’s too small, too expensive
Pomona sounds like a fruit. It’s harder to get in here than Berkeley or Duke imo. Drove to their campus to show my kid he should consider it but surprisingly he wanted a bigger school. Has a small town in Connecticut feel to it even though it’s in Southern CA.
I have to credit Gilmore Girls for having inspired my kid’s desire to apply to at least one reach school.
@websensation taking my kid to Pomona over spring break. He has no clue about the school, just knows it’s very selective and located in the Inland Empire (because I told him). Now that’s real world, lol!
I’m from the east coast and must admit that I had never heard about the Claremont colleges until I moved out to CA in the mid 1990s. I knew many of the LACs and consortia back east, including Swarthmore/Bryn Mawr/Haverford/Penn, the Five College Consortium, the Seven Sisters schools, etc.
While I was familiar with schools like Williams, Bard, Sarah Lawrence, Vassar, etc., I had never heard anything about places like Davidson, Grinnell, Kenyon, Occidental, etc. Even my DH, a college professor at a high-ranking public research university, had no idea how selective a school Pomona was until I showed him the stats. (He was, however, very familiar with schools like Swarthmore, Williams, and Amherst).
I have to think that a lot of it is regional – I know people back east that don’t know the UCs from the Cal States and people from out west that don’t know Penn State from U Penn.
