<p>why do people try so hard to get into the highest schools?
think HYPMS</p>
<p>Because to some people, prestige does matter. In my opinion, it is more a perception than a reality, but I know others will disagree. To many of us, prestige doesn’t matter. My kids all applied to schools based on what they wanted. Prestige didn’t figure into the equation. However, they did apply to some highly regarded schools, although not the ones you mention.</p>
<p>-HYPS etc. attract students and teachers and visitors at the top of their fields because of great academics… and provide great academic experiences partially because they attract people at the top of their fields.<br>
-Large endowments allow them to provide great financial aid- after factoring in ‘expected family contribution,’ they can cost less than state schools and less prestigious private schools.
-Research opportunities for undergrads
-Unique opportunites like the University Scholars program at UPenn, being able to start grad work as an undergrad at others (forget which, specifically) or having no core/general course requirements at Brown (outside of those required for your major)
-They offer the right majors.</p>
<p>I agree with Shennie. To many prestige does matter. Both our DDs passed on applying to HYPSM though their grades and scores were competitive. They just didn’t want to go there.</p>
<p>because it definitely DOES matter to some people.
to be honest, even though prestige is definitely not a main reason (or even a secondary reason) for choosing schools for me personally, i’m not saying i wouldn’t want to go to a school that’s “known” either…</p>
<p>prestige does matter, it’s just that some people are in denial of it</p>
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<p>Fixed.</p>
<p>It’s not the prestige that matters so much as the things which led to the prestige. Many schools have earned their prestige, and it’s because of what they do, not their name, that these places are desirable.</p>
<p>I’m willing to bet 100$ that student01 is Asian</p>
<p>i’m willing to bet that over 50 percent of CC users are asian lol</p>
<p>Height doesn’t matter either, of course, unless you play basketball. Back when I was young and single, a lot of the women I knew seemed to have other ideas about such things.</p>
<p>When I was picking colleges, I was influenced by the idea that potential employers might be as superficial as some of the girls I pined for. I couldn’t chose to be taller than 5’6", but I could go to a school that made me stand out like I was 6’4".</p>
<p>Ultimately, I married a woman who cared more about who I was than how tall I was. Then again, we did graduate from law school together. (And the thought did occur to me that our children were likely to be taller than I was.)</p>
<p>Height doesn’t matter, but it has been shown that there is a strong correlation between one’s height and the compensation one is paid.</p>
<p>HYPS also have the best financial aid programs.</p>
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<p>Interesting analogy. Both top school grads and tall people have a significant statistical edge in getting elite jobs.</p>
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<p>Has this been demonstrated? Has anyone compared, say, 1500+ SAT CR+M/4.0 UW GPA scorers who attend Harvard against comparable scorers who attend, let’s say, Swarthmore, UC Berkeley, U Chicago, Michigan, Vanderbilt, and UIUC, to take a more or less representative sample, and shown that the 1500+ SAT/4.0 UW GPA kids at Harvard have a “significant statistical edge in getting elite jobs”? If so, I’d like to see citations to the literature. If not, I’m inclined to dismiss such claims as the usual puffery. Sure, Harvard may have (proportionately) more 1500+ SAT/4.0 UW GPA kids than its rivals. But if it starts with a stronger class, you’d expect it to place more of its class in “elite jobs” (whatever those are). If it didn’t, it would be underperforming. But does it place a higher percentage of the elite kids in elite jobs? I’m genuinely agnostic on this question, but I’ve yet to see it adequately demonstrated.</p>
<p>Let’s see… I am 52 years old and have been around the block a few times. I have met people from across the economic and career spectrum. Never once, in all my years, have I ever heard someone say “Ya know, my life would have been better if I had gone to college X rather than college Y.” There are lots of reasons people are dissatisfied with their lives. They may be unhappy with their partner, their career, their job, where they live, etc. But none of these things are based on what college they attended. I know people who wish they had attended a 4 year college when they had the opportunity. I know people who feel that they would have been better served to go to technical school instead of 4 year college. I know people who wish they had majored in something else or chosen a different career. But again, these things don’t directly relate to the college a person attended. </p>
<p>Had I attended a different college, my life would be DIFFERENT. But I can’t see that it would be BETTER. However, we somehow think that if we go to just the RIGHT college, it will make our lives better in the long run. We talk to people who attend those special colleges and they will tell you how wonderful their lives are and so it just proves to us what we already know. What we fail to do, however, is realize that there are millions of people out their who are quite happy with their lives who attended OTHER colleges. </p>
<p>The bottom line? Choose a college that will meet your needs, that has the programs and atmosphere that you want, that you can afford. Once you get there, take advantage of the things that the college has to offer that will help you learn more about yourself and your interests. If you do those things, you will be off to a good start for your future life. The rest will be up to decisions you make completely unrelated to the college you attend.</p>
<p>There have been a couple studies that found those with similar stats who chose less selective colleges had no significant difference in outcomes. A small but significant boost was found for minority students. Studies were done by Princeton and Michigan (profs) several years ago.</p>
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<p>I think that most on this list would be considered top colleges.</p>
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<p>I’m the same age and this is generally true of the people I work with too. But that’s probably because 80% of them went to top schools. I run into people all the time who ask why we don’t recruit at their schools and why so many businesses only hire from the same few schools.</p>
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<p>The names escape me (is it Dale?), but I think you are referring to the studies that have been debunked here over and over–flawed methodology-- and that all the salary studies prove false?</p>
<p>What’s the hottest nightclub in town? Why, it’s the one where the coolest people go! What made it hot? It was because the coolest people started going there. Why do the coolest people go there? Because they heard it was the hottest nightclub in town.</p>
<p>If the club has a good PR program, and can keep on attracting the coolest people, then it really will be the hottest club in town, by definition.</p>
<p>Debunked by whom?? Not according to a long Atlantic Monthly article which quotes them and many others. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2004/10education_easterbrook.aspx[/url]”>http://www.brookings.edu/articles/2004/10education_easterbrook.aspx</a></p>
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I’m willing to bet 100000$ that skateboarder will get his job taken by an Asian</p>
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hmom, you apparently are thinking of a 1998 Princeton University paper by Dale and Krueger. They concluded that attending a more expensive or more selective school does correlate positively with higher subsequent income, even after adjusting for the tendency of these schools to admit students based on characteristics related to earnings capacity.</p>
<p>The correlation with college cost was based on longitudinal studies of students who had attended school in the 1970s, when tuition costs were lower than they are now. So that correlation may or may not hold today. Although they concluded that attending a school with higher average SAT scores had no significant correlation with higher earnings, they did find a positive correlation between earnings and a broader measure of selectivity captured by Barron’s rankings.</p>
<p>According to Forbes magazine, the “Top Colleges for Getting Rich” are indeed, by and large, elite colleges. What Dale and Krueger try to tease out is whether the correlation is to some feature of the college per se, or to the selection of students based on characteristics related to earnings potential. They do conclude that the earnings advantage of attending an elite college is even greater for students from disadvantaged backgrounds.</p>
<p>The Atlantic Monthly article may be citing a later Dale & Krueger study than the one I’m citing (<a href=“http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/409.pdf[/url]”>http://www.irs.princeton.edu/pubs/pdfs/409.pdf</a>).</p>