<p>I wasn’t meaning to mock the guy I had that conversation with. More present the attitude “Local is great, the farther away you have to go the less great it is.” He had no idea why one college would be “better” than another, and if I had told him he would have considered the whole idea offensive.</p>
<p>Imagine my shock to learn that my son’s boarding school classmates think the “M” in HYPMS stands for a school other than “Michigan”.</p>
<p>(Where I come from, Harvard is the Michigan of the east.)</p>
<p>M = MIT? Here I was, thinking is was Mich. I just looked it up and google filled in hypmsc-- I assumed Columbia. Nope, Caltech.</p>
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<p>Please, not that again. It’s obviously a different applicant pool. What are their average SATs compared to Yale applicants? How many even take the SATs?</p>
<p>By that same logic, it’s harder to get into most AA nursing or dental hygienist programs than medical or dental school. After all, you can get into medical or dental schools with a few "B"s in your “prerequisites”.</p>
<p>I think the “C” in HYPSMC IS Columbia. Caltech doesn’t fit as well. Chicago, either. Maybe all three, though; that could work.</p>
<p>As for South Puget Sound Community College, I think mini would agree that it is harder to get into its nursing program than into medical school. It may be easier to get into nursing programs you have to pay a lot more for, though.</p>
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<p>These two fit far more than mocking IMO. Around here, if you’re a newly minted engineer you’d best have graduated from Penn St or VA Tech - esp in this economy. Rankings don’t matter nearly as much as local experience with grads and the work they are ready to do. If you have work experience, that counts for more than where you graduated, but for that first job… I wouldn’t want a college few recognize in the area where you plan to settle down.</p>
<p>Obviously, for a few professions there are many folks knowledgeable about several geographically different schools, and in any profession, some will be knowledgeable, but for the majority…</p>
<p>I like to tell kids at school, if they know what they want to be doing, ask those who are hiring for that position NOW where they recommend for the best advice. If you want to settle elsewhere, check with someone in that region. Most people are very willing to share their thoughts with inquiring teens. If they don’t know what they want to be doing, try for respected schools in the area they want to settle. When there are 50 - 100 applications, not all get interviews. Those with locally known colleges (or those well known in the field for some fields) have an edge over any US News list.</p>
<p>:Please, not that again. It’s obviously a different applicant pool. What are their average SATs compared to Yale applicants? How many even take the SATs?"</p>
<p>We wouldn’t know, because they don’t require SATs. What they DO require is pre-reqs in nine required college courses, that you can take anywhere you like. You can’t get in on your high school grades. There are no legacies, no football players, no developmental admits. No one cares about your hobbies. To get into the applicant pool, you need eight As and one A-minus. If you don’t have them, you don’t even make it into the applicant pool. Once in the pool, then they look for your level of commitment, your previous experience, your recommendations. </p>
<p>Selectivity is greater than Yale’s. Deal with it. And yes, lots of people who get into medical school couldn’t get into the nursing program (just as it is harder in most places to get into veterinary school than med. school.)</p>
<p>I wish my kids could get into HYPMSPSCC!</p>
<p>I do wish, however, that SPSCC offered automatic admission to USAMBO medalists. (That’s USA Milton-Bradley “Operation”.)</p>
<p>JHS, it was from Urban Dictionary- and just goes to show.</p>
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<p>Selectivity is certainly greater to get into many musical theater programs, the Plumbers Union, some assisted living facilities, and seasons tickets for the Green Bay Packers (in the latter two, usually someone has to die for you to get off the waiting list).</p>
<p>Where’s the edit button when you need it? I guess there’s a narrow window. : P I got caught up in some posts and clearly missed the OP’s intention in her original thread.</p>
<p>Audiophile, I meant UCF. The Orlando area has a lot of attractions for internships.</p>
<p>Honestly, the average person probably does not differentiate between Columbia, Cornell, Caltech, or UChicago. For the few of us, a “C” is terrific.</p>
<p>I had probably heard of Caltech, but I thought my neighbors grandson who played basketball for Cornell was in Iowa.</p>
<p>The saludatorian in 2010 went to Cal Tech, and most students thought she was going to an ITT Tech type school, and kept telling her she could do much better. </p>
<p>Another friend goes to Pomona College and most people think it’s either a community college or Cal Poly Pomona and ask why she’s going there if she did so well in school.</p>
<p>“Selectivity is certainly greater to get into many musical theater programs”</p>
<p>I’m sorry that you’re upset that so many Yalies couldn’t hack the academic requierments. (Neither could my friend the magna cum laude biology graduate of Mt. Holyoke, at least before she retook courses the second time.)</p>
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<p>My HS/neighborhood tended to have the opposite mentality. </p>
<p>With the exception of Columbia or NYU Stern/Tisch, there was some stigma to staying in the immediate NYC area for college as the rest of NYC area colleges were ones that were academically average or those who didn’t have better options due to dismal grades attended and/or the few excessively overprotective parents who wanted to continue to treat their now adult children like immature adolescents. </p>
<p>Most of the parents of HS classmates were of the mind that leaving NYC to go elsewhere for 4 years was a good way for us to learn how to be independent and to grow. </p>
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<p>Among most HS classmates/recent graduates I’ve known/met, the C is always Caltech. If you add an additional C, CMU. </p>
<p>Columbia and Chicago wouldn’t be regarded as the tippytop…especially 10-15+ years ago. Granted, part of that is the hometown familiarity == some contempt for the former and the fact the latter isn’t regarded quite as highly and doesn’t have an engineering school.</p>
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<p>Count me among those seeing this statement as quite a stretch. The two paths are totally different. If the Yalies had opted for the CC route or small state college route and taken their classes there (as many in local nursing programs do), there’s no doubt in my mind that they’d have had all As. Instead, they opted for a higher level college where the courses/competition ARE tougher and perhaps got Bs.</p>
<p>Don’t try to say the classes aren’t different even if they are just Bio 101. They are different. I have a kid NOW in a CC Bio class and another in a Top 50 school Bio class (both are entry level Bio classes for college credit). The CC kid sat in on his brother’s Top 50 class. The differences, especially in detail, are immense. He said his CC class just skimmed the surface.</p>
<p>As others have mentioned, there are many things that are competitive to get into. Getting the lead in the school play can be competitive. We don’t disagree there, but to compare the two above is really, really, stretching things beyond any comparison that should be made.</p>
<p>Chuckling at #114.</p>
<p>It is interesting to see the different interpretations of the ‘C’ in ‘HYPSMC’. </p>
<p>According to award winning high school counselors, it is Cornell!!</p>
<p>This is how award winning high school counselors rank them:
<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/high-school-counselor”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/high-school-counselor</a></p>
<h1>1 Cornell, Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Yale (Alphabetic)</h1>
<h1>7 Brown, Columbia, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, Penn</h1>
<h1>12 CalTech, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, Georgetown, UC Berkeley, Notre Dame, Vanderbilt</h1>
<h1>19 Northwestern, Chicago</h1>
<p>I think if anyone wants to ask to compare these top schools the high school counselors who are dealing with prospective students for top schools EVERYDAY are the most credible. They tried so hard to get their kids in, so they know their students work, whose has chance to get into which one, and what shools got their best students.</p>
<p>USNWR general ranking include 22% financial related factors (like faculty salary, etc.) and messed up the academic so badly.</p>
<p>Though the difference between #1 and #19 is only 0.3 point out of 5; convert to a scale of 100 they are: #1 at 98, #7 at 96, #12 at 94, and #19 at 92 … right at the A+ and A- difference.</p>
<p>This thread is a year and a half old…</p>