<p>phuriku said–
I think it’s better to enjoy your 4 years of undergraduate study at a non-prestigious university</p>
<p>Part of ‘enjoy’ is being ‘successful’ - getting good grades, really understanding the material, doing internships, conducting original research, studying abroad, and learning other ways of doing things, etc. In this way it seems that education at a less prestigious school can be actually better than one at a more prestigious school.</p>
<p>In this way, then, it is better to be 1st in Naples, than 2nd in Rome.</p>
<p>I mean what does success mean? I think people are more likely to succeed if they go to a better school where they get to learn alot. That better ranked schools are sometimes better schools.</p>
<p>My uncle went to Temple, he’s now a very succesful doctor. But I have one family member that went to Penn, shes lives in NYC for the past 30 years at the same job and she makes a lot less money than my Temple-educated uncle. Also, I have an aunt that went to Cornell, and she couldn’t find a job for 5 years after she graduated. So are you screwed if you don’t go to a top 20 school, not at all.</p>
<p>Overall rankings are irrelevant. Rankings by major is what really matters.</p>
<p>Cal Berkeley for example is obviously top 5 (or even top 3) in most engineering subjects and that is exactly what engineering recruiters care about (not if the university’s overall undergraduate ranking is # 21 or whatever).</p>
<p>BobbyJan, you can’t assume that a more prestigious school will give you a better education. The job market for professors at EVERY school is so so so so so competitive that getting a tenure-track position ANYWHERE is akin to being elected pope.</p>
<p>My mom graduated from an <em>Ivy League school</em> and she maintains that the best course she ever took was a continuing ed class at Baruch College, led by a Baruch professor (Baruch is a public school in NYC). Granted, the other students in this class were highly motivated to learn (who else would take a continuing ed class in Art History?), but admissions was not limited (as long as you paid, you could join) and the class was still dependent on the professor to make the class good.</p>
<p>I was flipping through the course catalog of Iona College, a college that is, quite literally, down the street from me and a college that is popular among those who graduate from the local public schools. Iona’s claim to fame is the fact that it was included in the Princeton Review’s Best Northeastern Colleges, and USNWR ranks it #38 under “Universities-Masters” in the northeast. Last year, they accepted all but 10 Early Action applicants. (In other words, it’s a school that lies in a different universe from most of the ones that are mentioned on these threads).</p>
<p>Anyway, even Iona offers classes in Shakespeare and Milton, and reading these works at Iona College will not make them any less interesting, valuable, or difficult than if one were to read them at Harvard or Stanford.</p>
<p>Ridiculous. Short-sighted. A statement made, no doubt, by an admissions officer at a top 20 school. I know for a FACT that after your first or second job, no one cares where you went to college–they care about what you have done with your education. If you go to grad school, employers care more about that school than your undergrad school…I hate stupid, myopic statements like this.</p>
<p>what you say makes sense. But I still believe that in some professions, especially government jobs, “where you went to college” matters expecially in a job where most people don’t have to attend grad school. Like working for the CIA and the FBI where they only hire the smartest of the smartest. They will never hire anyone from a community college over someone from a university because it would endanger the safety of the nation. Also, according to a CC thread where people vote for “what matters most when selecting a college”, there are almost same number of people voted for prestige as there are those voted for the academic quality of the school. So I am very surprised that there haven’t been many pro-responses yet from CC.</p>
<p>Major rank is completely irrelevant at the tp 10 schools. Cal kids just don’;t get this. The best jobs go to the elite undergrad schools and LACs. Haas is good, for example, but it doesn’t get as many elite recruiters as schools such as Dartmouth or Brown that don’t even have business schools.</p>
<p>but even the government can figure out which programs rank highest at which schools, and will therefore look for applicants for certain positions at certain schools, depending on the education needed to do best perform the job - that’s going to vary from major to major, and school to school</p>
<p>you’re right if you mean LACs aren’t on aggregate, well known internationally. But their approach to an undergraduate education is getting more attention internationally nowadays.</p>
<p>Don’t be like some inane poster on a Grad thread that concluded China’s world ranking of universities with the ignorance of the LACs quality internationally, when the ranking was only talking about grad schools. The top LACs get a lot of international students, from Europe, and yes, increasingly the Asian countries as well. Just look at their webpages on their student enrollment stats.</p>
<p>But I’ll concede, as of now, if you want prestige that really works well on its own, at least for that first job, AND especially if people are going back to their home countries, for example, ivy-crazed China, it’s still better to pick the really famous US research unis. That said, are the LACs (or the good ones, at least) little or unknown internationally? Absolutely, unequivocally NO. Being a Chinese myself, I really do not understand where all this nonsense about LACs in general being useless or unknown comes from. And for some reason on CC, it’s often an Asian (and a Chinese to boot) who perpetuates that extremist view. Myopic parents seeking to narrow their children’s minds as well? Don’t let that continue. You owe it to yourself to do your research and be open minded about the conclusions and the implications that arise from that.</p>
<p>"If you don’t go to a top twenty school (US News), your life is screwed. "</p>
<p>What the hell! well **** me then…lol. my life is screwed cuz i ONLY go to a top 50 school…lol. I don’t understand what you want us to claim or disclaim. The ranking on school has nothing to do with success. Umm, friends da got into harvard, couldn’t afford it and went to a state school. he’s now the chairman of the health dept of the city and a VERY affluent and successful doctor, who probably makes more money than many doctors who graduated from harvard AND he didn’t have to pay off those “TOP 20” Student Loans.</p>
<p>This I SERIOUSLY doubt. Admissions officers are not normally this short-sighted. Or so delusional about the importance of the education their employers offer. </p>
<p>They turn down a lot of people who aren’t going to get into any of the other 19 “Top 20s” either, and I cannot believe they think those poor, pathetic souls have nothing to live for. They turn away thousands knowing that some large number of those thousands are going to have fantastic college careers–and fulfilling lives–getting a degree elsewhere.</p>
<p>This is the most ludicrous statement I have heard…really, if anyone is even considering this idea with any kind of seriousness they need a major readjustment of their values. You will be fine. Really. Your life is not screwed…even if you don’t go to college at all! There are a trillion possibilities as to how a human being can live its life, and to limit yourself to one possibility would be a tragic waste of potential. Life is an adventure! It’s not an opportunity to torture yourself because you didn’t live up to certain expectations.</p>
<p>A little clarification: it says he went to Julliard, the most prestigious music performance school in the world. It’s not a “top twenty school”…but it’s acceptance rate is half of that of Harvard’s (iirc). And then NYU for BS and MA. A quick Wiki search shows he then studied at Columbia before dropping out, and receiving his PhD from NYU 30 years later. </p>
<p>Amazing though. Music major? Ivy dropout? Proof that life is what you make out of it?</p>
<p>Ultra Cal, if you look at business school recruiting lists after Wharton, they are impressive but not spectacular. Many level two consulting firms and banks (places like Bear Sterns and Deloitte) rather than the true elites (McKinsey and Goldman, etc) that recruit heavily from the Ivies. Major ranks mean nothing if you want to get the best jobs.</p>
<p>The regional lens through which this evaluation is made will determine all. In the NE, and especially around Wall Street and the Boston consulting firms, Dartmouth, Brown et al will have a stronger history, network, profile, etc. than Cal. In the Silicon Valley or generally in the Western markets, the reverse would be true, perhaps even including for jobs with the offices of highest-tier investment banks and consulting firms in SF and LA.</p>