<p>What are the sample sizes for schools like Lafayette? If only 18 grads reported earnings data to Payscale, such a ranking is completely meaningless.</p>
<p>@whenhen </p>
<p>You are right, but even a large sample is meaningless because they are self-reported.</p>
<p>You’ll likely disagree but that is ok.
This list- It is one more tool. No more No less. The more lists the better. No one list is that important but there is converging evidence that separates the better from the mediocre schools. You’ll see there is a lot of overlap across lists. But I assure you that there is a big difference between the schools that consistently show up as strong, say in the top 25 or so, on many (but not all) lists and those that consistently show up as less strong, say at 101 and above. I know both types of schools very well. I have kids in one kind and work in a different kind. Yes there is a big difference.</p>
<p>The majority of students at top schools are very bright and very accomplished. They have often done pretty amazing things before they went to college. (to anticipate the cynicism, no not their parents-the kids). They often persist at things after their peers, who completed tasks only to get credit/grades, have moved on to the mall. For instance, in class they may have not only conducted a study like everyone else but they refined it and submitted it to a competition. Everyone in an AP language class may have read an article but this student wrote a review of the article and submitted it to the journal that published the original. In high school these were the students who preferred to get together to build something, say a robot, then hang at the mall. Given a choice between a party and an academic challenge, they’d usually choose the challenge. These are the students who, once they develop an interest, pursue that interest with passion. The top schools, and I mean the very top schools (that show up repeatedly) have enough of that kind of student that the schools serve as idea incubators. That is why you hear about new start ups coming out of these schools so often. Yes it can happen at any schools but it far more common of students at top schools. Put in the same place, top students fuel each other and create amazing things and that does not happen as much when a school has a significant population of mediocre students. That is probably the biggest difference between the top schools and the middling ones. The middling colleges (with ratings consistently in the 100+ on multiple lists) serve a purpose but germinating ideas by putting the energized students together isn’t one of them. </p>
<p>But it isn’t just the students. My daughter has been treated to talks given by people who are considered to be in the forefront of the latest developments in all fields. I’ve been amazed by the speakers she has been able to hear. Her professors are frequently the ones that are writing things that are disseminated on the news or they are involved in creating important policies or they are asked to comment on various events/inventions. I can watch one of her professors on a debate (tv) hours before she sits in class listening to that very same professor. Before November my daughter had a summer internship lined up, as did her friends, at places like Microsoft, Qualcomm, Google, Facebook, and others. They recruit at her school aggressively and early. Last April the school sponsored a trip for about 15 students to visit various successful businesses started by graduates. They all flew across the country and stayed for a few days on the school’s dime. The school’s atmosphere is electric. All the excitement that some schools generate with their sports teams, this schools funnels into academic opportunities. There is not one field of study or one new innovation that is not impacted directly and influentially by people associated with my daughter’s college. And she gets to go to those people’s talks, workshops. Yes that happened in all colleges. Just not every week. A “B” student with few academic passions will simply not take advantage of what this school offers.That’s ok because they are not there. The students at the schools that are most highly rated are almost uniformly amazing. So students fortunate enough to attend these kinds of schools have, as their peers, people who will probably make a significant impact on the world in the future.Obviously that is not uniformly the case and most people who make an impact on the world don’t go to these kinds of schools. A higher proportion of the students at these schools will be the movers and shakers of the future. It isn’t about the salary. </p>
<p>I have another daughter at a different kind of school. A school rated in the top 10 by many lists is not necessarily a school that every student would benefit from attending. She’d get little from the school her sister thrives at. It is about fit. These lists can help provide a limited amount of information. That’s all.</p>
<p>Goodfor you and your daughter, Targus2 So, if colleges are supposed to be the great equalizers, why cant these elite schools open franchises around the country so more good kids can get in? Why do they just continue to build up their application numbers, decrease their acceptance rates, instead of letting more talented kids in? </p>
<p>fallenchemist Self-reported like ECs and essays on college applications? Colleges don’t verify the ECs or whether the applicant actually wrote the essays. It’s all self-reported but it doesn’t mean it isn’t inaccurate. Because the information to Payscale is self-reported it doesn’t make it meaningless nor does that mean that the information is not also accurate.</p>
<p>I agree with those who question the data of Payscale, but these same questions are present with every ranking entity. If you have better data, provide it, but to declare the Payscale data as “meaningless” because it is self-reported is over the top.</p>
<p>Proudfather believes that college should be for those who wish to improve one’s SES and finds it hard to understand why students and their parents are so enamored with “elite schools” that will stress their finances when the numbers say a degree in Theology or French Literature won’t yield a high paying job after graduation. I don’t think that he has an issue with those families that can afford pay $60K/year schools without blinking an eye but wants to inform students and parents to more carefully assess the value of college. He just places a greater value on how much a recent graduate will earn after getting that degree.</p>
<p>If I were to put it to a vote, I believe that most parents and students would agree with Proudfather that the most important factor to consider in the college selection process are how much a graduate will earn after acquiring a degree and how quickly a graduate can obtain employment after graduation.</p>
<p>
Because the elite schools didn’t become elite simply by plopping UGs in a classroom with a professor and blackboard. All of the top schools have extremely expensive facilities which range from particle physics labs to humanities archives. These can be vital for the education of those selected, and would be extremely costly to build elsewhere. The elite schools by the way are already franchising out their course content via distribution platforms like iTunes U and Youtube. However anyone who’s seen the virtual lectures and attended the same campus as a student knows that the two just don’t compare. </p>
<p>I checked the data for Colgate and Babson and both have fewer than 200 respondents, and even then some of them listed jobs as an attorney/lawyer (impossible without a post bac degree) as well as other professions where a graduate degree is all but required. So yes, I’m quite skeptical about the veracity of the data and what conclusions we can draw. </p>
<p>
Sorry, you lost me with this comparison. EC’s and essays on applications compared to an “authoritative” claim being made nationally? It’s beyond absurd. The point isn’t that we know it is inaccurate. The point is that we have no way of knowing if it is accurate. Ever seen all those reports about how many exit polls are so far off? It’s because people lie. That does indeed make it meaningless unless and until they have some way of verifying the validity of the data, even if it is random sampling. Anyone familiar with surveys and polls knows this stuff.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In effect, that is what the USA does in maintaining a system of public universities with BA/BS programs that more or less mirror what the famous private schools offer. It isn’t the Ivy League’s responsibility to support that system. It’s yours and mine, as taxpayers.</p>
<p>@ElMimino, it may have been a good idea by your kid to not listen to you.</p>
<p>The energy industry is . . . volatile. </p>
<p>Look, Payscale is a datapoint.</p>
<p>Are there flaws with their methodology? Sure. So (even if you are concerned purely with post-grad success in professional fields), you look at other measures/rankings such as LinkedIn’s career-specific rankings. You look at different Forbes subrankings. You explore different colleges and research them. Then, since you have a brain, you synthesize all that information and decide what the best course of action is.</p>
<p>fallenchemist stated “The point isn’t that we know it is inaccurate. The point is that we have no way of knowing if it is accurate.” This is the point I was making with college applicant’s ECs. Colleges don’t assume the ECs are inaccurate, they accept the self-reporting as true unless the college has information otherwise. </p>
<p>Your position is that because you believe the Payscale data collection is flawed therefore you conclude that the data is “meaningless”. But you provide no data that the information provided by Payscale is actually inaccurate. Proudfather takes the same position that all colleges take with self-reported ECs of its applicants, that the data has meaning in the context of what Payscale is doing and he assumes the data is accurate unless he has information that shows that the Payscale data is wrong.</p>
<p>We would all like better data reliability, but in the absence of such data, Payscale has the next best thing. You state “Ever seen all those reports about how many exit polls are so far off? It’s because people lie”, this may be true, but if people lie about their income, do only the non-elite graduates do it or do all graduates do it. If you believe the former, where is your data. If you believe the latter, then the data may still be accurate relative to the actual incomes.</p>
<p>In fact looking at your “lying theory”, who do you think would be more prone to exaggerate their incomes? The non-elite graduate or the elite school graduate? Don’t we all already assume that if you graduate from an elite school such as Harvard that one should earn more than if one graduated from non-elite school such as Montana State. Who has the greater pressure to lie about their income?</p>
<p>I agree with you that any unverified data should be viewed cautiously, but I don’t take the position that the data is “meaningless” absent contrary information. As I stated in prior posts, every ranking entity has its own formula of ranking the numerous colleges and universities. Proudfather happens to like the Money Magazine’s formula better because it weights graduate income more heavily than other factors. He just doesn’t articulate his position as clearly as he could. </p>
<p>But that is no reason to shoot his position down by using words like “meaningless” or to misrepresent his position by stating that “@proudfather is advocating, which in essence is that everyone should major in engineering, accounting, computer programming, or whatever is paying well and offers good employment prospects.” He is not saying that, he wants people to be able to make informed decisions given the high cost of a college education and for him salary data is an important factor that most ranking entities seem to fail to incorporate into its ranking formula. He wants families to put a great deal of thought into the cost vs benefit analysis in choosing colleges or even choosing not to attend because the costs outweigh the benefits. Not all of us have luxury to send our children to the best college that they get accepted to without consideration of the costs to attend.</p>
<p>I believe that most parents and students would place at the top the factors of job placement rates and average income of a college graduate broken down by majors so that they can compare and evaluate where to attend a college. Money magazine is trying to provide such information in its rankings with the data that is available.</p>
<p>
Excuse me, but that is impossible and absurd without my going out and duplicating what they have done PLUS putting in the correct controls. Bad methodology usually leads to bad data, but in any case you continue to miss the point. We cannot trust their data, so it should not be cited by proponents as representing anything. It is exactly the same as if I just made up data completely, put in on the internet, and everyone cited it as fact. Unchecked, uncorroborated data that comes from people just answering a survey about their salary is not factual data. This is so obvious, I will not argue it with you any further. People can think for themselves. Here are a few that mostly seem to agree with me, just in a cursory look. <a href=“https://www.quora.com/Is-salary-data-from-websites-like-Payscale-com-reliable”>https://www.quora.com/Is-salary-data-from-websites-like-Payscale-com-reliable</a> Not that my citation is worth a whole lot either, but maybe their arguments will be more understandable to you.</p>
<p>And yes, by the nature of his posts and the advocacy of this particular ranking as truly representing “the best” way to approach attending college, he is indeed saying that going to college for anything other than high paying majors is a waste of money and time. His extremely limited idea of “benefit” is exactly what I disagree with.</p>
<p>An accountant from random local U will most likely earn more than a Columbia divinity graduate or Stanford education graduate.
However, I don’t believe salaries are deal breakers when choosing a college. The field of study matters most.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan … That’s true on so many levels! Thanks for a thoughtful grin. </p>
<br>
<br>
<p>I would not bet too much money in an education major from Stanford being outearned by an accountant from à random university after a few months. I suggest you take a closer look at the School of Education at Stanford. It has NO parallel to your typical school of education that contributes to the annual yield of horribly prepared aspiring teacher. </p>
<p>But that is obviously beyond the point raised that most evaluate a school based on the expected salary at graduation. A point raised before in this thread that is highly questionable. Some do but hardly everyone. Some do value education. </p>
<p>Proudfather, who says the colleges are great equalizers. They are not at all! They allow students to rise to the level they are capable of reaching though. Sort of the opposite of equalizers. And students are not all equal. A Student with 600 scores, As and a smattering of ECs is not the same as a student with 800 scores and national awards showing that the student is exceptional. Oh yeah, and A’s since everyone has A’s. And a college with 4,ooo students with 800 scores and national accomplishment is simply going to be different than one with a few exceptional students and the majority in the range of what used to be considered “B” students, which is now those with SATs in the 600s (and straight A’s since everyone has straight As). This is going to be tough to read for those with 600s, typical ECs and A’s who view themselves as Brown worthy (remember the Wall St Journal letter by the Brown reject?). Exceptional is exceptional. Meaning not the same as everyone else. Funny how most high school students are desperate to “fit in” and be “popular” until they get to applications and then those that spent their entire youth trying to "fit in’ to the mall scene all of a sudden want to stick out. {I just read that somewhere and liked it because it is so true). Thing is,10 years of crafting yourself so that you are exactly like the “popular” kids means that you probably are-and you are not exceptional. Good for you. But now it’s a drag for the college applications cause you don’t stick out. But, there are students who do stick out.</p>
<p>Proudfather, here is the paradox. You would not want Harvard if Harvard took 10,000 students. First off, since there are not that many exceptional students, what is exceptional about Harvard would be gone. Once a school is less selective, those that want a more selective school but lack the credentials for the most competitive ones, no longer want that one,they want the more selective one. They want the ones that are looking for only the very best students. There is no shortage of schools in the US. So those complaining that they are shut out of college because there are too few slots are being disingenuous or lack insight. They only want the schools that are for the elite/exceptional student. But they lack the credentials so they think more slots in those schools would be a good thing. But there are tons of schools with more slots-but those wanting Harvard don’t want the schools with slots for them. Most colleges are still looking to fill their rosters in May for the following September. But most students will not be selected by the very selective schools. And those very selective schools have the very strongest students who rise to the top. And controlling for major, they make the most because they are recruited first by companies that want the very best. </p>
<p>And about ECs and checking them out. I doubt they matter for most students. Do you think CalTech cares of a student early worked on the school newspaper? For the very competitive schools, the ECs that count are those that have national visibility…national awards and accomplishments. For the less competitive schools that might like seeing lists of nonessential ECs, like that the students worked on the school newspaper and was on booster club, the grades and recommendations are more important. The social EC’s only suggest involvement in activities and usually teachers and the guidance counselor will comment on whether or not the student was involved. </p>
<p>I dont know where or how to respond to all of this. Hope you all had a great Christmas and your kids get into whatever college they want and do well!</p>
<p>Hi, sorry I not read all posts above, but I have question; why do people only care about money? i think this magazine is very baised and only consider money when rank college, just look at their name. maybe their survey not complete or bias, because how can they reasonable survey sufficient proportion of grads? or what if some grad from “Babson, Webb Institute” get very lucky like win lottery or get obscene high salary by chance, then statistics will be biased by outliers? </p>
<p>I know people go to MIT and Ivyes, all very smart and want to learn, not only money. I think we should not trust money magazine too quick.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Harvey Mudd isn’t elite? Just because you haven’t heard of it doesn’t mean that it isn’t considered elite by just about anyone who knows anything about top schools. And it is no cheaper than any other “elite” school.</p>
<p>When you get right down to it, the Money list isn’t that different from every other “top” list except for the occasional headline grabber like Babson and Webb being the top schools.</p>
<p>I don’t know why people are upset by this article. Babson is a very fine BUSINESS school whose alum go on to work in entrepreneurial projects or start companies. </p>