In some circles they say “the best defense is a good offense”. So could it be the attackers who are really on the defensive?
What is the prestigiosity’s take on a college soliciting apps? I want some points off for Harvard based on how many different emails they have been sending to my kid lately soliciting an application.
Out here in the west coast Stanford is a cut above Harvard, especially for CS majors.
Also I think it depends on the major, for kids into CS the west coast state schools are tops in addition to Stanford, MIT and Caltech - UW, UCB, UCLA. Many top kids who are into aerospace engineering aim for Purdue.
I’m sure if you ask someone from Texas, UT Austin would come out on top or near the top, and someone from Michigan probably UMich Ann Arbor.
I also know of some politically conservative parents who have zero interest in sending their kids to the Ivies, which they consider far too liberal.
CC has a high concentration of prestige hounds, not representative of the real world.
The difference is - when something’s prestige is concentrated in the northeast, it’s nationally prestigious, but when something’s prestige is concentrated in another region, it’s regionally prestigious.
When a little-known northeastern college reaches out to kids elsewhere, it’s naturally extending its reach in accordance with its mission, but when a little-known college in another region reaches out to kids elsewhere, it’s just trying to be something it’s not and trying to insert itself where it doesn’t belong!
And when a college is in a small town in the northeast, it’s charming and rustic and has everything a college student might need, but if it’s in a much larger city in another region of the country, it’s flyover country and whatever will the kids do for amusement!
I say this with love, as a born-and-bred northeasterner!
A simple explanation for some of these observations is that the Northeast has more prestigiosity than other regions of the country.
Stanford may be more prestigious, but only for CS, and only on the West Coast.
“The point is that you’re defensive. It’s like it’s a personal affront to you if every single poster does not affirm Michigan 's greatness.”
Pizzagirl, I do not recall seeing many instances of such behavior outside of the Michigan forum, and on the Michigan forum, such behavior is natural and should be condoned, as it would be on any other university-specific forum.
“A simple explanation for some of these observations is that the Northeast has more prestigiosity than other regions of the country.”
By George, I think you’ve got it!
Maybe you guys are just biased towards the Northeast. I live in California, but I wouldn’t agree that a college is more prestigious just because it’s in the Northeast. Maybe there are a lot of prestigious colleges in the Northeast, but you know what they say, correlation does not equal causation. Plus there are some colleges that are prestigious in the Northeast that many people here in California have never heard of.
Well that’s because the people in the Northeast are much more sophisticated than all the hicks in the South or those darn hippies out West.
Many people in the west coast have never heard of Williams, Amherst, Wesleyan, etc. much less know or care how prestigious they are. I’ve never heard of colleges like Colby or Davidson until I started reading about colleges and discovered this website. Many people I know here in the west coast have never even heard of Brown or Dartmouth, much less Vanderbilt, Emory etc. But mention Arizona State or Univ. of CO, OR, CA, WA…everybody’s heard of them and knows of someone who goes there. Most top kids’ dream school is Stanford. Top engineering kids go to Harvey Mudd or Caltech, rich kids who want to party go to USC, liberals go to Whitman and pot heads go to Weed I mean Reed.
The Northeast has a strong bias for private colleges because these schools are older and better established than their public counterpart, but the opposite is true for the rest of the country. In every state outside the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, most of the top kids aim for their in-state flagship. This is even more true now since the Great Recession and the continued escalating cost of college.
There’s a lot of snobbery about colleges in the Northeast. Everywhere you go you see cars with college decals on their rear windshield, and most upper middle class parents in the Northeast wouldn’t be caught dead with a decal from Big State U. Out in the rest of the country esp. here in the west coast, most people are way too chill to put college decals on their car, and even those who do usually proudly display one from flagship State U. The only people who care about Northeast schools in the west coast are children of Asian immigrants and legacies.
The Northeast clings far too much to tradition, that’s why all the innovations come from the west. You can keep your tradition and your prestigiousity. We are much too busy sunning and innovating to care. B-)
Please. True prestigiousity afficianadoes can’t be bothered with worrying about uneducated plebes who have never heard of Williams or Amherst or Brown or Dartmouth, but have watched Arizona State play basketball. We have to impress PLUs (people like us), not the common filth who never even visit College Confidential.
(ps - I’m a California too, but when it comes to genuine prestigiousity, only Stanford, Berkeley and a couple of the Claremonts truly make that final cut. 
)
Reminder: this thread is not about prestige.
@Hunt - what’s it going to take to change the scale to milliStanfords? Hasn’t Stanford been listed in some poll/survey as the top “dream school” for both parents and students? Wasn’t desirability one of the main, initial criteria for prestigiousity? Stanford’s admit rate has been the lowest for three years now, and this year their yield was > Harvard’s. Besides, there weren’t record-breaking snowfall amounts in Palo Alto this year.
Being so concerned that a joke ranking is measured in milliStanfords instead of milliHarvards just goes to show why these rankings exist. No one has a sense of humor anymore.
@Pizzagirl - I do have a sense of humor. I WAS joking. Just pointing out that the thread is five years old and times have changed a bit. I don’t give a rat’s patooty about a joke ranking or much of any other ranking. Sheesh.
Funny story-when I was taking classes at harvard during the summer, there were tourist taking pictures of me through my window. Happened to others there that I knew as well
Well, in every state all over the country, most kids attend colleges within ~100 miles of home.
Less than 20% attend colleges more than 500 mi. away. When they do, many more travel long distances from West to East than the other way around. Why? First, the highest concentration of top colleges is in the East. Sure, the West has many o.k. state universities, but they give crappy aid to OOS students (then force them to major in CS, engineering, or kinesiology). Second, the entire NE region is like one big megapolitan college town. Like, every run-down former cotton mill is being turned into a microbrewery. You could go bar-hopping from DC to Boston in one long weekend without ever being out of range from Uber. If you want a tip-top university in an interesting town, how many good options do you have west of the Mississippi? Let’s get real, people. Nobody claims Houston or even Palo Alto is the Hub of the Universe.
So, just being in the NE ought to be worth at least 50 milliHarvards. A West Coast location should be neutral, unless it’s the SF Bay area (ok, give it 25 mHs). The Midwest? Subtract at least 10 milliHarvards for every 50 miles from the nearest Chipotle. Between the Rockies and the Mississippi it’s all empty space, end of discussion.
I think prestigiosity should have a ranking like the decibel scale. The further away from a college you are, the lower its prestigiosity ranking. The closer you are to it, the higher its ranking gets. I think this is easily the most scientific way to handle this, and I’m an authority on this matter since I’m a rising freshman engineer who has taken zero statistic classes, but dabbles in pseudo-intellectual debates on Reddit.
Remember, the basic input to the prestigiosity scale is what people on College Confidential say about it. Harvard will only be pushed off the top of this scale when it ceases to be the typical example people use when they want to refer to a super-selective college.