Ivy's overrated?

College Search & Selection
81

<p>in response to the topic:</p>

<p>education? marginally better at best
resources? obviously better because of the larger endowments, but how many books can you read in 4 years anyways
room? dorms are supposedly the nicest around, at least at HYP
board? same old ok foodstuff you can find anywhere, so i hear
affordability? people complain about this all the time.... its only the full 50k a year if you are rolling around in enough money to pay for it. otherwise, they do help you (with grants, barely any loans), and it all works out ok. for me, its only gonna be a couple thousand more per year to go to stanford than my state school (only because of higher cost-of-living expenses over there), and i'm what they call "middle class".
prestige? people talk about it like it's a negative thing. no matter how you want to spin it, a name will get your foot in the door in a lot of places, not just career-wise, but socially too in some cases. prestige is just the confetti sprinkles on top of the endowment frosting on top of an already intellectually rich cake.</p>

<p>what it really comes down to: people, people, people. you cant put a price on being in a place where every single last person has some kind of extraordinary reason to be there. whether it be athletic skills, rich parents, or pure genius, everyone has SOMETHING more than just status quo straight A's and high SATs. compare that to a state school where theres a good chance that half the class is made up of mary jane and michael marijuana who just barely pulled that 3.0 in high school and are now out to get stupid, have a good time and maybe secure a comfortable little desk job after college (not that there wont be people like at the ivys, but not in such vast numbers). i'll go with the former.</p>

<p>i guess ivys and ivy-caliber schools are overrated in the sense that a lot of people think its the end of the world if you dont get in. but they're not overrated in any other respect, and to prove it, all you have to do is ask yourself where all the ivy grads are complaining about how it wasn't worth it (besides those one or two bitter people who became authors and now have books on amazon.com).</p>

<p>if you get in, you go, end of story, unless you have some extremely unique and attractive offer somewhere else... not just full scholarship $$$, but a truly unique academic program kind of thing that you cant find anywhere else. how can you put a price on the best years of your life? things work out financially in the end no matter what, unless you're just a mindless spendthrift, and in that case you're screwed no matter what school you choose. </p>

<p>everyone loves to cite that study by krueger and dale about how it doesnt matter where you go, hard working kids make just about the same money and are just as successful... but that fails to address one very important thing... their definition of "success" and the lifestyles of the two groups of people they were comparing, and overall happiness with their lives. i dont know of any statistical way to measure that kind of stuff. </p>

<p>if you're just going to college for the salary you COULD get afterwards, by all means, you might as well go to the cheapest school... or just not go to school at all... i know plenty of retarded high school graduates who figured out how to make big bucks doing whatever shady, scheming yet legal things are out there nowadays, its not that hard if you want it bad it enough. but if you're into a little more than the greens and want an intellectually... blissful environment, i think your best bet is taking the most "prestigious" offer you get, not for the prestige, but for the intellectual magnet the school serves as. otherwise, its going to be that much tougher picking out the kids who care about more than how much alcohol they can stomach and how crunk they're going to get over the weekend.</p>

<p>well thats my little rant for the year. you could say im a little biased, but i've thought these things before i got any college acceptances.</p>

82

<p>sakky, </p>

<p>Your friend had an excellent high school record and was able to get into Berkeley and some Ivy's. So I find it hard to believe that he would not do excellent in a community college. To me that is a very low risk option considering his exemplary hs record. But regardless of whether this plan is (was) feasible, your observation still holds- and it is a sad case, although I feel you are pushing it a bit.</p>

83

<p>vicissitudes,
For USNWR data, they do not consider transfer students at all. Graduation rates represent the percent of entering first-time first-year undergraduates who graduated by the end of the summer following their sixth academic year.</p>

84

<p>
[quote]
Your friend had an excellent high school record and was able to get into Berkeley and some Ivy's. So I find it hard to believe that he would not do excellent in a community college.

[/quote]
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<p>Yeah, maybe he would. But like I said, even if he did, his record at Berkeley is still going to haunt him. After all, every single school out there that I know of has that infamously deadly question on their transfer application of "Have you ever been dismissed or put on academic probation at another school, and if so, please explain". He will always have to answer 'yes' to that question, and that fact might disqualify him from being admitted, no matter how well he did in CC. Granted, it might not, but the point is, we DON'T KNOW. Nothing is certain. </p>

<p>Contrast that to how he was when he was 17, just graduating from high school. He had a pristine academic record and could have gone to plenty of other schools. Now, because of his experience at Berkeley, everything is uncertain. And that's sad. </p>

<p>The bottom line is that his choosing Berkeley has undoubtedly damaged him. We can argue about how much it is damaged him and whether he can do things to undo some of the damage, but the bottom line is that he got damaged, and he would have been better off if had simply never gone to Berkeley at all. </p>

<p>And that's the crux of the issue. I am not trying to single Berkeley out. I am well aware that this same thing happens at plenty of other schools. That's because there are a lot of 'dangerous' schools out there. If you go to one, you might end up like him. Why do that, if you have the choice of going to a safer school, ceteris paribus? The Ivies are safe schools in which, with the possible exception of Cornell engineering, it is almost impossible to actually land on academic probation - or, at least, far far less likely than it is at other, more dangerous schools.</p>

85

<p>Sakky and I had this conversation a while back and he brings up good points. </p>

<p>In many cases, name branding does help you, it's part of society/life and that's just how things are.</p>

<p>Now, that being said it depends also on what you're learning. Yale has a Meteorology program, however i'd choose PSU, ISU, OU, and many other public schools before Yale if that was my major, because of the program strength.</p>

86

<p>
[quote]
sakky,
My understanding of the USNWR graduation data is that they are for 6-year graduation rates from the same institution. They don't give credit for students transferring to another school and graduating from there, right? If my interpretation is correct, then your argument of graduate/not graduate is not applicable as you do not know the outcome when the student goes elsewhere to complete his/her studies. Granted, a transfer situation is less desirable than completing one's studies at a single school, but it is not nearly the catastrophe that you paint of not graduating at all.

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<p>First off, that only leads to the next question, which is why do so many more students feel the need to transfer out of Berkeley than out of Harvard (if that is in fact the explanatory phenomenom)? </p>

<p>But secondly, this is an entirely different phenomenom from what I've been talking about. Those who flunk out of one school find it extremely difficult to transfer to another. And that's precisely what I'm talking about - how likely is it that you might flunk out? There are certain schools out there - Ivies being among them - that are almost impossible to flunk out of. At other, more dangerous schools, it is relatively easier to flunk out. </p>

<p>The option of avoiding risk has economic value. Investors are willing to pay higher prices for a less risky Investment A over a more risky investment B, even if both investments offer the same average expected return. Most people are will take a sure million over a 50/50 bet of getting 2 million or zero.</p>

87

<p>^^^I think that is your perception about the % of those who flunk out of college. Do you have any data to back that up? A transfer application is very, very often NOT precipitated by academic difficulty.</p>

88

<p>lols. and i wanted to go to Princeton. well reading all these posts has changed nothing. i am still in shock about that guy who has had to work 10 years doing menial jobs? are you exaggerating a little bit?</p>

89

<p>re vic:</p>

<p>
[quote]
As to your complaint about majoring in something easier, Berkeley has a policy in which engineers who are performing poorly (i.e. below 3.0 GPA) has to apply to the college of letters and sciences and the college may not admit them. That means if you are performing poorly in engineering you may be stuck in engineering.

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<p>to clarify, i meant that after dropping out of berkeley, he could have gotten a degree in nursing/allied health at a community college or vocational school. dropping out of berkeley is not an excuse for being unable to make a good living.</p>

<p>re sakky:</p>

<p>
[quote]
Granted, it might not, but the point is, we DON'T KNOW. Nothing is certain.

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<p>sorry this is going to sound confusing, but i think it is something certain, even though i don't know the answer myself. what i mean is, even though i don't know, i'm pretty sure it's something that can be researched. many institutions admit students who are adults returning to school. i have friends who flunked out from schools less prestigious than berkeley, but they can still start again from the bottom.</p>

<p>
[quote]
The option of avoiding risk has economic value.

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<p>the chance i have of not flunking out is not the only variable i take into account in the decisions i make about where i want to attend.</p>

<p>as i random aside, i feel like i should say i do think you make a lot of excellent points, and i'm not trying to defend berkeley.</p>

90

<p>
[quote]
^^^I think that is your perception about the % of those who flunk out of college. Do you have any data to back that up? A transfer application is very, very often NOT precipitated by academic difficulty.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I never said that it was. In fact, I specifically said it was not. We are confusing 2 different issues. OF COURSE, most transfer candidates are not having academic difficulty. That's not the point. The point is, what about those students who ARE having difficulty? What do they do? </p>

<p>What I think you meant to ask is whether graduation rates are tied to rates of flunking out. Of course the rates are not perfectly aligned. But they are correlated. Every school has some students who do well, but still want to transfer out. Every school has some students who do well, but drop out anyway, like Bill Gates. So all of that washes out. But then some schools have a conspicuous percentage of students who flunk out. </p>

<p>So the correlation between graduation rate and 'flunkage' is imperfect, but a correlation still exists. </p>

<p>
[quote]
i am still in shock about that guy who has had to work 10 years doing menial jobs? are you exaggerating a little bit?

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<p>Well of course, he didn't HAVE to work menial jobs. Nobody HAS to do anything. For example, he could have just gone and picked up a blue-collar skill like plumbing or auto repair. Or he could have, as others suggested, restarted at community college and then tried to work his way up.</p>

<p>But what I am asking is, why did it even have to come to this point? When he was in high school, he was a very good student who could get into a multitude of colleges. So why should Berkeley take all that away? More generally, why should going to a school make you worse off than if you had never gone at all? </p>

<p>There are 2 takeaways from his story. #1, (which is irrelevant to this thread), Berkeley should be doing a better job of managing its students, either in supporting the students it does admit, or simply doing a better job of admitting only those who will actually make it. And #2 (which is relevant to this thread), prospective students should think twice about attending a dangerous school if they have the choice of attending one that is safer, ceteris paribus. After all, you might end up like that guy. Think of it this way. If he had gone to one of the Ivies instead of Berkeley, he probably would have graduated. Maybe with mediocre grades, but he still would have graduated. And hence he would be a LOT better off than he is now. At least he would have a degree. </p>

<p>Like I said, because he chose Berkeley, not only did he not end up with a degree from Berkeley, but the chances of him getting a degree from any other school is reduced. That's sad. He is indisputably worse off than if he had never gone to Berkeley at all. I believe that no school should actually make you worse off than if you had not even gone at all. </p>

<p>
[quote]
the chance i have of not flunking out is not the only variable i take into account in the decisions i make about where i want to attend.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Of course! Which is why I have utilized the ceteris paribus descriptor, or if you prefer, mutatis mutandis. Of course there are multiple factors involved. But we cannot deny that safety is one of those separate factors. All other things equal (which is what ceteris paribus means in English), the safer school is a better choice. </p>

<p>But the bottom line is this. The reason I even brought up this entire point about this guy is to emphasize the importance of safety. It was asserted by hawkette that the Ivies/Ivy-caliber schools should be reduced in rank because their curriculum is so safe that rarely does anybody flunk out. I would assert that in fact the diametric opposite is true - that these schools should actually be INCREASED in rank because rarely does anybody flunk out. That indicates to me that the school is quite safe. Meaning that if you get in and choose to go, you stand a very high probability of getting a degree, which, let's face it, is the main reason for most people to go to college at all. Contrast that with the choice to go to a more dangerous school where not only might you not get a degree from that school, you might hurt your chances of getting a degree from any other school also. </p>

<p>I'll put it to you this way. Ask yourself - why should you have to risk your academic career if you don't have to? If you are going to place yourself at risk, you should be demanding something in return, just like investors who buy riskier investments demand higher returns in exchange. That's why risky bonds have to yield more than safer bonds to attract investors, because you have to factor in the possibility that the risky bond won't get repaid at all. So it is reasonable for somebody to trade risk for, say, greater prestige. For example, if the choice was between fairly dangerous Caltech and some safe no-name school, I would probably choose Caltech. But if you don't have to trade away anything, why should you? </p>

<p>Schools should not be proud of flunking lots of its students out. In fact, they should be ashamed of doing so. That just tells me that you didn't do a good job of choosing who to admit, and you're not properly supporting your students. Those schools who insist on doing this anyway should have their ranking reduced. That's exactly the way it ought to be. The message is then clear to the school - do a better job of choosing your admittees and of supporting your students. The message is also clear to prospective students - that if the school refuses to change its policies, maybe you should prefer another school. </p>

<p>Now, don't get me wrong. I am only using Berkeley as an example because I know it best. But this should not be construed as 'Berkeley-bashing'. I am well aware that Berkeley actually has one of the top graduation ratings in the country, and that there are plenty of other schools that are just harsh, if not harsher, in their curriculum. But like Einstein might have said, it's all relative. Berkeley is still not as safe as schools like the Ivies or Stanford, or (surprisingly) even MIT. MIT is certainly no picnic, but at least they have a policy where failed freshman course grades are hidden from your internal transcripts. So if you fail all of your courses in your freshman year, evidence of that fact will never be shown to anybody outside of MIT, which allows you to easily transfer to another school. Why can't Berkeley have a policy like that, at least within the College of Engineering? Why can't other schools?</p>

91

<p>Your posts are just so long. Just write that Berkley owns all the UCs and be done with your arguement!</p>

92

<p>No, they are not overrated.</p>

93

<p>
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Your posts are just so long. Just write that Berkley owns all the UCs and be done with your arguement!

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<p>If you don't like my posts, feel free to not read them. Nobody has a gun to your head.</p>

94

<p>I think where it matters (in high level academic and corporate circles), the Ivies aren't overrated. They are considered excellent, as are schools like Amherst, Cal, Caltech, Chicago, Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, MIT, Northwestern, Pomona, Rice, Stanford, Swarthmore, UVa, Williams etc... </p>

<p>However, on CC, the Ivies (and other top private uiversities) tend to be slightly, but no overly, overrated. </p>

<p>One thing is certain, Ivies deserve the respect they have earned. Harvard, Princeton and Yale have few, if any peers (Cambridge, MIT, Oxford, Stanford maybe another 2 or 3 universities on Earth). The remaining 5 Ivies (Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth and Penn) are as good as they come. The Ivies truly are awesome. But they are not unique. Other colleges and universities offer equally good educations and opportunities.</p>