<p>I was wondering why almost everyone on CC posts threads asking about highly prestigious schools. Why not lower prestigious schools? Why not State schools? Do people generally go to schools because of its prestige? Why?</p>
<p>Oops, this is the UC transfer forum, but still... aren't State schools part of California also? And this discussion can extend to privates too. </p>
<p>Share your thoughts!</p>
<p>“Oops, this is the UC transfer forum”…Which means it pertains to UNIVERSITIES of CALIFORNIA</p>
<p>Your questions should have never been asked. And by the way, UCs are “state schools”</p>
<p>I want to be able to tell my children that I graduated from UCLA :).
And why would anyone aim for the lower prestigious schools? That’s like saying, I studied hard for an exam but I’m only trying for a B.</p>
<p>unfortunately in the academic world (especially if you’re looking to be a professor) the prestige of the school (or more specifically the program) is extremely important and in most cases determines who’s willing to hire you. Of course, through excellent research, high GPA, and other things, you can distinguish yourself from your peers, but this is pretty rare and it’s much harder to do than it seems.</p>
<p>I’m at UCLA right now, and i love it here. But i liked the classes available at CSULB better than the ones available here, but i chose UCLA in part because it’s more prestigious (and in another part because i got pseudo-rejected from CSULB) and because it’s essentially going to give me more opportunities without me needing to prove that i got a proper education in my undergrad.</p>
<p>ban…because that is what s.nobs do. They wouldn’t be able to succeed based upon their own merit so need to rely on the association of perceived prestige.</p>
<p>^ Whats that suppose to mean? Kmazza</p>
<p>I would rather not get into a lengthy discussion about it unless there is substance and honesty, something s.nobs have a difficult time with. Could you narrow the focus of your question?
I’m fine with being called on my claim but would like to know if the person is sincerely curious or feigning ignorance, especially in regards to human psychology and mental constructs such as prestige.</p>
<p>I really want to know what you meant. How is somebody a snob, if he worked his ass off to get into a Prestigious school?</p>
<p>Sorry are you unclear about the word ‘snob’ and personalizing the issue over grasping the logic of it? </p>
<p>Realize many inexperienced students presume prestige of undergrad based upon the quality of their grad schools. For example, graduating with a BA from UCLA is really not that prestigious sorry. UCLA is barely above average for overall undergrad education but is more of a grad school anyways just like Stanford is.</p>
<p>Naive undergrads also mistake prestige based upon quantity of applicants over quality of applicants. Another common theme is basing the prestige of a school based upon sports over academics. Even yet another is basing prestige on the ‘brand name’ of the school over the quality of the schools individual department or professors. Colleges also have studied the issue and found that not only do people attend a school based upon perceived prestige but actually place more importance on non college related issues…i.e. hottie factor, parties, location etc</p>
<p>Do people generally go to schools because of its prestige?why?
Judging by numerous posts that I have seen on this site , yes prestige does prove to be an alluring factor…to some. Why? I don’t know quite frankly…I doubt that everyone chooses a school solely on its amount of prestige / recognition. But as they say, to each his own…</p>
<p>Most care about prestige…younger students are usually able to take advantage of moving in order to attend a better school. It seems like some older students tend to go to a local CSU because it’s not easy for them to move. Most older students have to work fulltime, have kids, in a serious relationship, etc. So sometimes CSU is preferred because of a unique situation…but in the end, the UC’s are the most prestigious and most desired by the majority of students and employers.</p>
<p>why? Insecurity of ones own ability and comparing self to others instead of self to self and where they want to be instead of being influenced by other peoples perceptions or decisions. </p>
<p>If one wanted a prestigious undergrad education they could apply to Dartmouth or other better quality undergrad colleges in the middle of nowhere. The truth of the matter is the majority of young students care more about getting laid and the fun factor while doing their undergrad. You will always get a goody two shoes snob that will get off being an exception to this rule but to deny that it isn’t a major factor for young students is dishonest and really not fooling anyone.</p>
<p>The majority of professors I had that graduated from UCLA GRAD school were from CSU’s because was the overall cheaper path and in the end made little difference. Grad students laugh at these sort of arguments because already know colleges are a business that market themselves to a large young demographic.</p>
<p>kmazza: The quantity of applicants directly affects the quality of admitted applicants. UCLA take a hell of a lot more apps than CSU San Marcos from students with outstanding academic records. If you have a 4.6 in HS, chances are you’re going to be applying to various private/UC schools. </p>
<p>When you have a bigger sample to choose from, you have the ability to be pickier.</p>
<p>If you’re Brad Pitt, you have a lot of women throwing themselves at you, meaning you can be pickier. If you’re 5’ tall overweight Joe Schmoe living in his mom’s basement, you’re probably not going to be pulling loads of attractive women in, meaning your standards can’t remain as high as Mr. Pitt’s. The same is true with schools. UCLA/Berkeley/Harvard/Princeton can be pickier because the perception is that they’re the best schools in the country, and therefore attract top-end applicants, from which they can then select the absolute cream of the crop.</p>
<p>Cal State San Marcos doesn’t have that option.</p>
<p>Haha you must not live in LA. If you did you’d realize that you can be short, fat, balding whatever but if have lots of money and/or a nice car, good chance a hottie is in the passenger seat. </p>
<p>Plus comparing a 20 year old school with a few thousands students with like 50 degrees to a 100+ year old college with 25,000 undergrads and hundreds of degree programs? Come on</p>
<p>University prestige is created by awards to certain professors, grant research, and publications NOT quality of undergrad students!</p>
<p>I live in San Diego, go to school in Irvine and work in LA (Westlake Village.) So yeah, I think I have Southern Cali covered. </p>
<p>Also, I said an unattractive guy living in his mom’s basement, meaning he wasn’t rolling in the riches. Find me a group of balding, fat short guys in LA with no money and gorgeous women clinging to their ankles. </p>
<p>And how about the “flagship” state school: SDSU. Great school? You bet. 100+ years old? Check. Anywhere near UCLA or Berkeley in terms of prestige? No.</p>
<p>As for universities, the prestige is created by many things but ultimately it requires a constant flow of highly coveted undergrads in order to maintain. Does Harvard maintain its status if it starts letting in anyone down to a 2.0? How about Berkeley? Princeton? NYU? UCLA? No. </p>
<p>Attributing the “prestige” of a university solely to its professors, grant research and publications is ignoring what causes all of the above to be there in the first place. Do they play an integral part? Absolutely, but the undergrads are what allow Harvard to boast about how exclusive its admittance process is.</p>
<p>SDSU is a great example on what I’m speaking about. SDSU offers many great programs plus a much better night life compared to UCI or UCSD so tends to attract more prospective students overall. Next to that the point is moot since you can’t earn a PhD at a CSU unless is a joint program, and you need a PhD to be full time faculty at a UC. </p>
<p>Just because a college has high selectivity doesn’t entail prestige either. There are a huge number of people that apply to HYPS even if they think they won’t get in. Why? Personally I don’t know…for fun, tell their peers they did, brand name schools? The truth of the matter with Harvard and Stanford is their undergrad is not their focus nor do they covet or coddle undergrad students. The majority of the students if graded to the historical standards of those 2 schools would be 2.0 students without grade inflation. </p>
<p>Local colleges to Harvard like MIT, BU, and Tufts tend to provide a higher quality undergrad education. For top 5 ivy, in many ways Princeton undergrad is superior to Harvard yet due to perception isn’t recognized except by people who know. Other NE little ivies like Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth, and Wesleyan also tend to have a stronger undergrad than Harvard. In California, even Santa Clara undergrad is stronger than Stanford undergrad and so is undergrad at USF and UCB and that is just the bay area. This is on a broad not specific program level.</p>
<p>Yes, but SDSU gets smoked in overall rankings. It’s behind UCB, UCLA, UCSD, UCSC, UCSB, UCD and UCI. I think the only UC it’s ranked ahead of is UCM. Not saying SDSU is a bad school, on the contrary it’s a good school. It’s also very strong in certain departments, but overall as a school it’s not going to beat out the UCs. </p>
<p>And high selectively is a critical component of prestige. If you let everyone in, you’re not exclusive. Exclusivity is a driving component of prestige. It allows you maintain ridiculously high standards for who you decide to admit. </p>
<p>The Ivy/Stanfords of the world definitely have more at stake with their graduate/PhD programs, but look where the majority of those graduate/PhD students come from… hint: it’s not SDSU. UCLA Law, for example, lists the schools from which they accept most their applicants. Which are they? Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, UCSD, Princeton, Yale, Virginia, etc. So pretty much every national college rankings system puts the aforementioned schools near the top and these schools are from where the majority of graduate programs draw the most heavily. Graduate programs have self preservation at stake, so it would make sense that they’d know where to get the best and brightest. </p>
<p>I don’t know where you’re getting this “higher quality education” from, though. If that’s the case, why haven’t any of the rankings systems caught on? Why is the “prestige” so much higher with Harvard/Yale? MIT is an outstanding university (top 5-6?). Amherst, Williams, Wesleyan, etc. are liberal arts colleges. You see what I’m asking? If all these other universities are that much better for undergrad, why are they ranked lower? The rankings aren’t just drawn out of a hat.</p>
<p>@kmazza you’re making a ton of empty claims. sure, people who go to calstates get into UCLA, but UCLA is also a public institution that’s primary purpose is provide a high quality education for Californians. People options for grad school tend to be limited on where they went to undergrad. If you go to UCLA you can get into many of the ivies if your gpa and hard work are good enough. you wouldn’t have the same opportunities with a school like SDSU. Whether this should be the situation is a different question altogether, this is just the way of things the way they currently are. Anyone who tries to deny this is simply lying.</p>
<p>It’s no coincidence that of the current living billionairres, the top three schools are from harvard, stanford, and columbia. It’s a basic economic principle that quality is associated with price and prestige usually follows after that. For the people smart enough to get into those schools, it shows that they’re able to succeed with challenging difficult classes, and at the end shows that they come from one of the most exclusive, high quality programs in the world.</p>
<p>of the near 60,000 applicants UCLA got in 2010 from transfer students and freshman combined, only 14,000 were admitted, and of those, only like 6,700 actually enrolled. People may come here for the environment, but also for the high quality education.</p>
<p>those graduate researchers and professors which as you said were the only reason worth going to these schools also teach undergraduates. as a results, undergrads get a better quality education than they would have by someone who isn’t an authrority in the field, or at least extremely qualified.</p>
<p>case in point, if you go to a UC, or any other prestigious school, you’ll generally have more opportunities. You can go to a calstate and succeed too, but the odds are against you. generally the people who go to calstates and succeed are people who got accepted into UCs anyway and just didn’t attend because they couldn’t afford it :p</p>
<p>I’m speaking from experience since grew up in Cambridge, Mass so much of my family and my friends families were professors at Harvard, MIT, Tufts, BC and BU which are all close to each other. Many of us sat in on classes or summer sessions at Harvard or mentored at MIT. It is pretty well known that Harvard tends to inflates student grades while BU tends to deflate them. I’ve also lived in Palo Alto/Mountain View for years and worked at Stanford so see what goes on there as well. HYSP has legacy and follows the bell curve in that 10-30% are the cream of the crop whom are highly nurtured while half the undergrad gain entry because their family has money and/or political pull and/or are a top athlete. I’ve also witnessed political pull and special treatment in admissions and grading given to athletes at UCLA. </p>
<p>Graduate school is just a different beast altogether compared to undergrad. People pay the big bucks to take esteem professors who 99% of the time do NOT teach undergrad students. If young students actually had a esteemed professor who didn’t have to worry about some popularity contest (i.e. ratemyprofessor) and taught undergrads to proper standards, many students would drop out and schools know this!</p>
<p>I understand your exclusivity angle but realize getting into a top school does not guarantee future wealth but coming from wealth or a politically powerful family can nearly guarantee gaining admission to a top school.</p>
<p>Sounds like the OP is just p!ssed off that he does not have the work ethic or the grades to get into a UC…</p>