<p>The faculty at a university like Princeton are sort of above the happenings at the undergraduate level. Probably the very top undergraduates at a school like Princeton have close to no chance of rising to the stature of the faculty at Princeton in several disciplines! </p>
<p>As for top students, well I think Princeton will continue to attract academic excellence as long as the faculty and academics stay how they are, which they will. It may become less of a “popular top school” or it may not, but in my eyes, Princeton is quite different from Stanford, and it’s quite clear that certain kinds of students will gravitate towards it naturally.</p>
<p>The relative prestige of Princeton and Stanford 20 years from now will likely have virtually no effect upon the life of someone who had graduated from one of these schools 15 years previoulsy. Both degrees will open doors, but by that time in your life, whether you can take advantage of opportunities will depend upon your skill set at that time.
What you might regret in 20 or 20 years is having enrolled in the school which was the worse fit for yourself simply because you perceived it might become more prestigious decades down the road. In other words, pick the school that will be best for you in the next four years. In the foreseeable horizon of the next ten years or so, the relative rankings of the schools will not change dramatically. No one can say with any degree of certainty what a Princeton vs. a Stanford degree will signify 40 years from now. What will significantly shape your life is your college experience, not which school ranks higher in USNWR in 2040</p>
<p>Remember, over time there is an ebb and flow to all these rankings and perceptions. </p>
<p>X number of years ago Yale’s engineering almost lost its accreditation. Their sciences were also waning. What did they do? Raised a billion jillion dollars and reinvested it into those areas. So if you had gone for those majors during those “dark days,” you may not have had the best educational experience there, but were you to go for those today, it would be a different tale. </p>
<p>Which spins into this “prestige” thing. The person who went to Yale for engineering or the hard sciences during that weaker period might not have been as “well respected” at that time, but once things improved, even though this hypothetical person never benefited directly from the improvements, he or she would suddenly be looked at in a brighter light today by employers, friends, etc. </p>
<p>I guess the point is, HYPS, etc., are all very wealthy institutions, run like businesses, with very active and wealthy alums. They will have relative up years and down years, but in the end, they will likely right their respective ships and continue to lead forward.</p>
<p>This is absolutely true. Graduate school degree is far more important than UG.
However, Many Princeton UG have been rejected by top graduate , professional schools. </p>
<p>At Harvard Law 300 Harvard UG enrolled, 60 from Stanfrom about 50 from PrincetonUG
At Yale Law 88 from Yale UG, 70 from Harvard UG, 33 from Stanfrod UG and only 24 frrom Princeton UG. </p>
<p>Stanford Law, Med, Business, PHD programs will never admit more Princeton UG than Stanford UG. </p>
<p>(and I am sure Princeton Law, MEd , Buisiness schools will admit more Princeton UGs.) </p>
<p>10-20 years ago, having only undergrad degree was sufficient enough. Nowadays, graduate degree carries far more prestige. And the best way to get Jd Phd MD from Harvard Yale Stanford is to get UG degree from those schools. </p>
<p>In addition, many students , after they get into a college, start worry about graduate schools and they no longer care about princeton. However, Stanford’s name will continue to remain as top graduate school for several years.</p>
<p>Jomjom, I try not to even acknowledge the idiocy of your posts anymore but sometimes its hard to ignore them.</p>
<p>“I belive many of the Harvard undergrads are already smarter than profs… and they don’t need great faculty. They all have ability to learn by themselves.”</p>
<p>First off, this is just so unbelievably wrong. I would probably say that as a whole, any university faculty would be smarter than the UGs at any school…if only for the simple fact that a tenured professor was typically one of the smartest people in a solid UG program…</p>
<p>"However, P grad won’t have any chance at HYS grad/professional schools. "</p>
<p>I don’t even know where this is coming from, I’m personally at a top H professional school and I was by no means anything special in my UG class. I have a ton of friends spread out at HYPSMCaltech grad schoools. In fact, most everyone I know at a grad or professional school from Princeton went to a top notch program. </p>
<p>And as for the main topic of this debate, Stanford is of course a wonderful school and along with Princeton, the only wellrounded schools of HYPSM. Princeton has always been a top college and a university’s prestige is rather sticky. It still has one of the best faculties in the world, top notch departments across the board and for whatever it counts, the best athletics program in the ivy league and of any non-scholarship program. </p>
<p>Jomjom, stop bashing a school that you don’t attend and have limited knowledge of, its really just getting ridiculous.</p>
<p>Of course some Princeton grad are at top Grad Professional Schools. </p>
<p>At Yale Law school last year, 90 are from Yale UG, 70 from Harvard UG, 33 from Stanfor, 32 from Columbia … and … only 24 from Princeton</p>
<p>At Harvard Law, 300 students are from Harvard UG and about 50 from Princeton UG…</p>
<p>Stanford Law MEd Business PhD will NEVER admit more Princeton UG than Stanford UG</p>
<p>HYS UG have much higher chance of getting MD PhD JD MBA degrees from top grad school than Princeton UG… mainly because Princeton has no Med, Law, Business schools and tiny PhD program… and I think everyone agrees with this fact…</p>
<p>I do hope you intend on taking an intro logic class when you finally do get to college…</p>
<p>Jomjom, you continually choose to ignore that at all these schools, your beloved Stanford, despite having a larger undergrad population than Princeton does, tends to have about the same number of students at these schools. Raw numbers are meaningless, look at how many Princeton students apply to these programs and then you’ll see that they’re all roughly the same.</p>
<p>I am not talking about admit rate here… Maybe only 24 Princeton UG applied to Yale Law and all 24 got in…</p>
<p>For some reason, significantly less number of Princeton UG end up getting JD MD PHD MBAs from top schools like Harvard Yale Stanford Columbia…</p>
<p>At Harvard Law 6 times more Harvard UG enrolled than Princeton UG.
At Yale Law 4 time more Yale UG enrolled than Prince UG.
At Stanford/Columbia law , 4 time more student from Stanford/Columbia UG then P UG.<br>
Even Cornell law/med admits significantly more Cornell UG than Princeton UG…</p>
<p>I don’t think Harvard is 6 times bigger than Princeton…
Maybe smaller number of Princeton UG are applying to professional/grad schools.</p>
<p>As someone in this board mentioned, the undergrad degree does not carry much prestige after a few years after graduation, graduate degrees like JD, MBA, PhD, MDs carry far more prestige. </p>
<p>Ok, so you will get an excellent education at Princeton, but you are significantly less likely to get top really prestigious advanced degress. becaus somehow many P UG don’t even apply to grad schools. Princeton UG must be really happy with the job that requires only Bachelor’s degree…</p>
<p>You do know that the following (bolded) isn’t logically true at all right?</p>
<p>“Ok, so you will get an excellent education at Princeton, but you are significantly less likely to get top really prestigious advanced degress. becaus somehow many P UG don’t even apply to grad schools. Princeton UG must be really happy with the job that requires only Bachelor’s degree…”</p>
<p>And sure, maybe Princeton UG are really happy with just the Bachelors’, after all Princeton and Dartmouth did top the WSJ salary survey for graduates.</p>
<p>jomjom, calling into question the legitimacy of WSJ rankings and numbers is quite hypocritical of you, given the fact that you bring ridiculously biased rankings and numbers into the conversation…</p>