<p>I would venture to say that the undergraduate at one of those top LACs gets a better education than the corresponding Ivy student.</p>
<p>yes, you will get a fantastic education and can coast a bit on pure name recognition. but the ivies ARE overrated in the sense that just because you go to harvard etc does not mean that you will have a wildly successful life/career. a lot of people assume that getting into a yale or a princeton means that they will be set for life. not so.</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure Harvard and Princeton got rid of early before this year's deadline had passed.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I would venture to say that the undergraduate at one of those top LACs gets a better education than the corresponding Ivy student.
[/quote]
I wouldn't generalize to that extent, especially for specialized interests. Three Ivies fit my interests (Brown, Penn, and Yale). Out of all the LACs, only Bryn Mawr comes close as a fit. As a male, that wasn't an option! Different strokes for different folks. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>You know, I can't stand people that say, "Harvard is not overrated, the rest are." I hope you realize that Harvard is, if anything, the DEFINITION of overrated. Harvard spends all of its money and attention on its graduate programs. That's why you constantly see Harvard in the news and why Harvard has such a tremendous reputation. If a researcher discovers a cure for cancer or something, people will care and hear way more about that (obviously) than about undergraduates. So yes, Harvard's graduate programs are terrific and account for its world renown, but it's undergrad, while certainly not "bad" by any stretch of the imagination, isn't as amazing as people make it out to be. And you certainly don't get to interact with Nobel Prize winners...more like their TAs. Let me put it this way, Nobel Prize winners don't become Nobel Prize winners by focusing on teaching.</p>
<p>The biggest complaints about undergrad education in my circle of friends/acquaintances have come from my Harvard friends. A good friend of mine is also a professor at Harvard. When I asked for his advice during my college search, he told me to apply to Brown and Bowdoin--places he said he wishes he could work because of the academic atmosphere.</p>
<p>i think its interesting that people think that all top kids want to go to Ivies. yes they are prestigious. but MANY 'ivy-caliber' students opt out of even applying to ivies because they don't want to be in a cut-throat atmosphere.</p>
<p>so even though i would agree that the ivies to get a considerable amount of freedom so far as picking students go, don't count out that those LAC's may have equal (or maybe slightly less on account of less name recognition) of the same freedom.</p>
<p>I think a mistake that many high school/everyday person makes is that they think going to an ivy league institution automatically guarantees a successful career and monetary reward upon graduation. There are many people (~10%) who are unemployed following graduation from all ivy league schools, this is especially the case for the lower ivies such as cornell, this includes engineering majors as well. You need good grades from ivies to get that great job, just graduating is not enough. Of course the HYP is significantly better than others, but there is no safety net as some people might think.</p>
<p>Net Jet and the trust fund are the safety net......not all IVY grads take jobs.</p>
<p>Amherst, class of 2010
75th percentile Math: 760
75th percentile Verbal: 770</p>
<p>Of the 252 studenst who were accepted and matriculated and whose schools provided a rank, 86% of them (217 students) were in the top 10% of their graduating class.</p>
<p>18% of those students who provided rank were the valedictorians of their high school classes.</p>
<p>There are other great LACs, such as Williams, Pomona, and Swarthmore, who are undoubtedly comparable. To think that the Ivies are far and away better than all other schools is simply wrong.</p>
<p>However, that does not necessarily mean that the Ivies are overrated. Perhaps other schools of the same caliber are underrated.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks that an Ivy education is a guarantee for $$ and success in life in general is incredibly naive, and didn't probably come from a college educated background themselves. They've bought into a myth. The Ivies educate, sure, but guarantees? No.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Of course the HYP is significantly better than others, but there is no safety net as some people might think.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wrong.......</p>
<p>
[quote]
You know, I can't stand people that say, "Harvard is not overrated, the rest are." I hope you realize that Harvard is, if anything, the DEFINITION of overrated. Harvard spends all of its money and attention on its graduate programs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Oh, I don't know about that. I think it's far more accurate to say that Harvard spends a great deal of money on * certain * of its graduate programs. But believe me, there are quite a few Harvard graduate programs that are quite poor, and for which the undergrads, frankly, are better funded. </p>
<p>To give you a case in point, I know a bunch of Harvard grad students who got to tour the Harvard undergrad Houses, and many of them remarked that they wished they could live there, as frankly, it's better than where they're living now. Better food, better living arrangements, cheaper (yes, cheaper), more convenient location, etc. Harvard undergrads have guaranteed housing for their entire 4 years. Harvard grad students don't get that, and so many of them are forced to live in expensive, inconveniently located, and tiny holes-in-the-wall. Furthermore, plenty of other universities out there also don't guarantee housing for their undergrads for their 4 years. Granted, housing isn't everything, but it is one example of how Harvard undergrads have it better than some Harvard grad students (and also better than undergrads at many other schools). </p>
<p>
[quote]
but MANY 'ivy-caliber' students opt out of even applying to ivies because they don't want to be in a cut-throat atmosphere.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Huh? Cut-throat atmosphere? With that grade inflation. You can't be serious. </p>
<p>If you want to talk about a cut-throat atmosphere, you may want to take a gander at some of the lower-ranked schools, especially the public schools. Now THAT is a cutthroat atmosphere. Particularly so for certain majors. For example, there are students in engineering majors at the UC's who are just trying to avoid academic probation. Forget about trying to get an A, all they want to do is avoid flunking out. </p>
<p>Consider this quote:</p>
<p>"Weeder?? What's That?
At UCLA there is something called a "weeder" class. "Impacted" courses (courses that have strict guidlines about adding or dropping them due to their high demand) are often "weeders." Most majors have at least one weeder course. Many have more than one (called "weeder series"). A weeder is a course that is designed to flunk out kids who aren't good enough for the major, thus "weeding" them out. FEAR THEM. You're at a school with the best and the brightest... and these courses are designed to flunk a big chunk of them out, of course not on an official level. Most of the time you won't know your class is a weeder until you go to UCLA for a while and you hear the rumor. I will do my best to inform you of what classes you may take as an incoming freshman that may be weeders. UCLA is a pre-med school... remember that. Anything here that is pre-med is *<strong><em>ING HARD. All of the chem courses are considered weeders. Computer science and engineering in general is considered one giant weeder. No, they do not get easier as you move up; in fact, they get really *</em></strong>ing hard. To illustrate, I have a friend who is a graduating senior, Electrical Engineer, I quote him saying, "A's? What is an A? I thought it went from F to C-." It's his last quarter here and yet at least once a week he won't come back from studying until four or five in the morning... and yet it's not midterm or finals season....</p>
<p>Why Do You Keep Talking About "Harder As You Move Up?"
Amazingly, many majors get EASIER as you move up. This is because once you get through the weeder, they give you a break and the workload is only as hard as an "average" class. Certain majors aren't so lucky.</p>
<p>Back to Weeders...
I once took a weeder course in North campus (largely considered the "easier" side of campus). It is the weeder for the communications major (Comm 10). However, because this is an introductory weeder (anybody can take it), it is considered by many as North campus' hardest class. I didn't know this and I took it as an incoming frosh. I was quite scared. The material is ****ing common sense; you get a ton of it. I had 13 pages of single space, font 10 notes covering only HALF of the course (this is back when I was a good student and took notes). I was supposed to memorize the entire list including all the categories and how the list was arranged by them. And I did. Fearing it yet? My friend told me about his chem midterm... the average grade was a 16%.. No, they didn't fail the whole class; I'm sure they curved it so only half the kids failed. My freshman year, I met this friend of mine who was crying because she got an 76% on her math midterm. I told her that she should be glad she passed, she told me, "the average grade was 93%, the curve fails me." Weeders can have curves, as these three examples show... but only to make sure some people pass... and some fail. Famous weeders are courses like: Communications 10, Life Scienes 1 (and 2 & 3), Chemistry 14a (and all the subsequent ones get only harder), English 10a (OMG that class was hard), CS33, etc. Oh, and if you're wondering, my friend ended up getting a C- in her math class after studying her butt off. Lucky her!!! "</p>
<p>I would say that, if anything, you should go to Ivies to * avoid * cutthroat competition. At least at the Ivies (with the possible exception of Cornell engineering), you aren't constantly worried about flunking out the way you are at other schools.</p>
<p>this is very true at every UC campus. A poster a few week ago who did undergrad at Cornell and now grad at UCR (the poster child for crap on this site) says the bio sequence (he is a TA i believe, correct me if i am wrong if someone knows differently) is harder than that at Cornell. May not say much. But i have taken the tests even though i am not a student there (don't ask how) and they are rough. I have been reading and comprehending college biology books since 6th grade, so i have naturally remembered a fair amount of negligible text and important concepts. And for me it was still rather difficult</p>
<p>Sakky... your post made me laugh so hard... because it's so true (UCSD CS).</p>
<p>while it may be true that harvard has high average gpa, but the student caliber is also superior. The average incoming student is a 4.0 top 1% student, while harvard's undergrad average gpa is probably around a 3.4, thats still a drop, while it may be harder to fail than at the elite publics, i don't think its easier to get a 4.0 at harvard.</p>
<p>
[quote]
i don't think its easier to get a 4.0 at harvard.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Considering only a handful of people have actually gotten a 4.0 from Harvard College in the last 20 years, it is clearly quite difficult to do. </p>
<p>But like I said, I would be far less worried about getting a 4.0 than in simply passing. After all, the gap between getting a 4.0 and a 2.0, while obviously consequential, is relatively puny compared to the gap between getting a 2.0 and not even graduating at all. The guy going to Harvard and ending up with a 2.0 is not going to get into a decent grad school (in fact, probably no grad school at all). But hey, at least he graduated. If he had gone to, say, one of the UC's instead, he might not have even graduated at all.</p>
<p>I love how threads on this exact topic continue to appear, and the same arguments are made every time, often by the same people.</p>
<p>Ivies are Ivies, its just a group of eight schools that people think are alike for many of the wrong reasons. Nobody ever said any of them were right for everyone, and most informed people know that they are not the only way to achieve success in the working world.</p>
<p>Lets leave it at that.</p>
<p>same reasons? This inst something overly dynamic, you expect the reasons to change day to day?</p>
<p>The thing is, people assume the ivies are better than other schools because top students attend them, but top students often apply because of exactly that assumption. A great number of schools offer equivalent or superior undergraduate teaching to the ivies. Don't get me wrong, the ivies are fantastic, but there are at least thirty schools where the teaching is as good or better.</p>