<p>Do you mean that the Ivy grad school diploma is still “shiny”?</p>
<p>I’m not sure it is financially always worth it, but it isn’t a big question mark like an Ivy League undergrad diploma in Women’s Studies is. A medical degree from State U is every bit as financially lucrative as a medical degree from Harvard…at a fraction of the cost…but whatever floats your boat.</p>
<p>The one particular kid I am thinking of off the top of my head who is in Ibanking is cute, but its a he, and he doesnt have a southern accent either.</p>
<p>And sure, a school would LOVE to call themselves a public Ivy. It sounds great!</p>
<p>“certain sectors of society are virtually closed to people who do not have the Ivy credential” </p>
<p>debrockman - you need to leave the east coast. Because you’re really living in a bubble.</p>
<p>
But you should hear the way ORMs and Whites scream about the un-fairness of med school admissions over on the studentdoctor website. :eek: It makes our affirmative action threads seem downright tame by comparison. </p>
<p>Those folks are brutal and un-like UG, the admissions data is available from AAMC in very readable form, broken down by race and ethnicity, GPA and MCAT scores. </p>
<p>There are many of the same “stats first, last, and only” folks over there, too. Plus the bunch that thinks elite school students get a break and shouldn’t, and those that think elite school students should get a break and don’t (and every other conceivable conversion of that ;)).</p>
<p>debrockman,</p>
<p>I don’t understand how this comment:</p>
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</p>
<p>reconciles with this comment:</p>
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<p>Aren’t you essentially advocating for the Ivy League colleges to turn into the kind of colleges that your kid doesn’t want to attend. And if smart kids like yours don’t want to attend the kind of college that has ONLY top students, why should they change? </p>
<p>How can you advocate for the Ivy League to accept only the top students (whatever that may mean) and at the same time claim that it if you want your child to retain ‘some semblance of sanity’, they shouldn’t go to a school that accepts only the top students?</p>
<p>I think debrockman is saying that, for some reason, the Ivy League policies that have existed for over a century are NOW!!! going to cause them to lose their prestige and respectability.</p>
<p>Katliamom, FYI, Debrockman is from Indiana, not the East Coast. One of the traits of CC’ers I have noticed is that East Coast parents (I can’t speak for the kids) seldom spend time arguing that schools outside their region are overrated, or that people outside the East have various shortcomings.</p>
<p>The kids on CC may be another story, but I avoid those threads.</p>
<p>yabeyabe, I hear folks from the East Coast trying to defend the elitist traditions of the East Coast all the time. And I live in Indiana…but I’m from Philadelphia. Lived there most of my life. I have never seen another part of the country more entrenched in the stratification of society than the affluent Easterners. It isn’t true anywhere else in America. I have had people on this Board say that U of M isn’t that tough of a school to get into, or that Notre Dame isn’t an exceptional school. Truthfully, that is a ridiculously insular perspective. To a Catholic kid, ND is the holy grail. And it is a first rate school. I know plenty of ND prospectives who could go anywhere they want to go and ND is their school of choice. I think the Ivy League could get back a lot of what they have lost in reputation, but I think it’s going to take some lawsuits by kids to make it happen. I think it is coming.</p>
<p>There are only a handful of public schools that I would put on almost equal footing with an Ivy…that is, graduating from one of those schools could put one at somewhat of a leg up. </p>
<p>Those include:</p>
<p>University of Michigan
University of Virginia
College of William and Mary</p>
<p>I’ve heard other schools referred to as “public ivies” which are “B” Student schools and certainly not on par with the schools above, although I’m sure are great fits for the right kids, and wonderful schools. They just aren’t on par with the Ivies. These include Miami of Ohio, University of Vermont and Penn State. Penn State is a little more selective than the other two, I think. But kids with 3.0s and even below at our high school regularly get into Miami of Ohio and UVM so a kid with a higher GPA can probably get some good scholarship money from either of those schools.</p>
<p>I do believe that where you go to school can make a difference, and that certain schools open doors. However, it can be a great grad school instead of a great college that does this. I imagine that a kid who graduates from Miami of Ohio with a 4.0 and top GRE scores can go to a top grad program.</p>
<p>The west coast has social stratification as well, but perhaps less focused pn academic sheepskins.</p>
<p>What about UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UNC Chapel Hill? They are all excellent schools.</p>
<p>I think the key is defending–I have seen lots of threads started by nonEasterners attacking Eastern schools, which then leads to some strident defense, I haven’t seen their counterpart started by Easterners.</p>
<p>In my experience, the entrenched stratification in rural areas actually exceeded that in urban areas in all regions. Cities tend to attract and create more newly affluent people–entrepeneurs; first generation professionals; etc. Rural areas tend to have more families entrenched because they inherited the largest area bank, farm or mill. </p>
<p>Philadelphia has its “old money” families, but it also has its newly wealthy. And it is a huge Notre Dame hotbed, because of its large Catholic population–Notre Dame traditionally would play Army or Navy in Philly to draw huge crowds.</p>
<p>I suspect there are frats and sororities at IU that have a power in you rnew home far beyond any in your old home. And that rural Indiana has more in common with Central Pennsylvania than with your affluent Indianapolis suburb.</p>
<p>yabe…my problem is that the easterners in Washington and New York power elites still exert way too much control on those two seats of commerce. And they place an absurd amount of value on on Ivy League education which simply is not the be all and end all of American education. And it is in the process of being broken down. Having lived many places in this country, I have a pretty good understanding of how many excellent universities we are blessed with. If you are a top 10% student in any of our first tier schools, you could make it anywhere…and in many cases, those students aren’t even given the opportunity. We have done such ridiculous things with our university selection processes to make them entirely too subjective. The bottom 25% of the class at Harvard can’t touch the top 1/2 of the class at Notre Dame. And if you aren’t poor, but aren’t quite rich, you have to go to debtor’s prison to attend.</p>
<p>Debrockman…does your son want to live on the east coast? Does he want to be an Iber or work in a hedge fund some day?</p>
<p>northeastmom</p>
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<p>I do not disagree with you. Someone had asked me for some schools that fit a certain criteria and I listed Wooster as one example I would personally consider. As you note, there are certainly others that may be similiar. Its just that for us, Wooster would meet a lot of our criteria.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>debrockman- Your son doesn’t have much of a prayer for Vanderbilt. Sorry. Go buy your IU sweatshirt now. (not a bad place- it’s MY alma mater!) What I am seeing is not that your son is suffering in the admissions process because you and your spouse have been TOO successful, but that he is suffering because you have taught him to just give up and complain if everything doesn’t fall nicely into place. I bet that 600 Math kid at Harvard is a scrappy little dude that takes advantage of every opportunity given him.</p>
<p>You would have a field-day with the admission process that let my kid into an Ivy. 
By your criteria, he’s not the best. He got his place over a few 800 math kids, no doubt. P.S. He’s done great.</p>
<p>applicannot</p>
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<p>Your analysis is flawed as you overstate the cost in years 3 and 4 - and you also ignore the use of any tax credits</p>
<p>There are several examples of this that you can view on another thread regarding whether need based aid reduces merit aid</p>
<p>debrockman</p>
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<p>I agree except I think ALL colleges should price all students the same. That would DECREASE the price for everyone. Thats been my premise this entire thread. Alas, some liberals have run amuck and screwed up the process through a forced redistribution of income - charging people who can pay more - more than what is needed so they can subsidize others. Makes absolutely no sense</p>
<p>I’ve lost the thread on this discussion but debrockman, you seem to be claiming that there are occupations that are closed if you aren’t an Ivy alum. I can’t think of any. Lots of hedgies have Ivy backgrounds, but a fair number don’t. I helped start a hedge fund with two Harvard alums and had employees from MIT and Princeton but our best employee by far went to UMass-Amherst. [One exception, there was a hedge fund started by a Harvard basketball player, that only hired Harvard basketball players for a while, although I saw that at some point they’d hired a basketball player from Princeton. That firm has been sold, so I don’t know if they retain the hiring policy.]. There are people at every investment bank I’ve worked with from non-Ivies. The probability of getting a job at various banks and strategy consulting firms is higher for those who attend what are probably regarded of as top 10 or 15 schools (Ivies, MIT, Stanford, Amherst, Williams, …) and these schools have an East Coast bias (Notre Dame probably would not be considered in that top list for this purpose). But, there are people from many schools and backgrounds at these firms. So, no one is banned from being an i-banker or working at McKinsey by having gone to the University of Indiana or UCLA or Vanderbilt (jym626, I also know an i-banker/PE guy who went to Vanderbilt). The non-top-list person may have to demonstrate a bit more to be considered and be selected than they might relative to a graduate of the top school list. But that doesn’t preclude their working in this limited set of industries that give significant preferences to the top list schools.</p>
<p>What occupation do you have in mind that only hires Ivy alums (or top 10-15)?</p>