<p>PG:
FYI - In Texas, and not merely in Texas, but especially in Texas, </p>
<p>UT Austin IS Elite.</p>
<p>" The rankings exacerbate the status anxiety that afflicts so many high school students. "
-Well some people will get very much down because their dog is not as good looking as the neighbors. Anybody can feel anxietyfor any reason at all, just choose how you want to feel at the moment. Do you want to enjoy your moment because it will be gone and never repeats or you want to worry about the rankings of yours and your friends UG’s? Well, believe it or not, it is vastly overrated by parents and most very smart kids do not care one way or another and very many do not even apply to top colleges, even top 50 or whatever, they do not care. They simply choose the school that fits them the most, enjoy their 4 year immensely, do their best, and accomplish their goals and never ever look back with any regrets. They are simply at peace and keep enjoying their lives the best they can. Why is it should be so hard and stressful?</p>
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<p>As much as this kills me, I think this is exactly right.</p>
<p>…and I think even for those kids who did care, by Thanksgiving of freshman year, they are happy they wound up where they did.</p>
<p>^^^^^^ I would guess that those who succeed in a “desperate chase for Ivys” more concerned with proving they are succeeding in their efforts toward upward social mobility than proving that they are established elites. And the proof is probably meant mostly for others who are also struggling to become upwardly mobile (perhaps fellow immigrants), not for the established elites. Those who feel they are already elite would not want other elites to think they are just striving to become elites, and so they would not want to be seen as trying to prove anything.</p>
<p>“They also appeal to people who have an attention span longer than 20 seconds.” </p>
<p>I would totally disagree with that except I have already forgot what you said.</p>
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<p>Not all students are seeking prestige or upward social mobility. My son sought out elite schools because he wanted to be surrounded by smart peers and assumed, rightly or wrongly, that the instructors teaching such students could teach at a higher level since instruction is typically geared toward the median student in a class. In reality, he was tired of material being taught at a snail’s pace.</p>
<p>^ I was responding to PG’s claim that those in a “desperate chase for Ivys” are somehow “wannabe elites.” They may be striving to advance their positions to possibly become elites, and they may succeed, but I doubt many of them delude themselves into thinking they have already arrived. Those who are interested in the Ivys, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, or comparable schools for the academic excellence, I wouldn’t think of as in any kind of desperate chase.</p>
<p>help…i can’t navigate this site. I want to find the best colleges for vocal/classical music. All i can do is post to a post…Help!</p>
<p>OMG</p>
<p>Now I am waiting for AD to jump in and say that both Miami and PG are exactly right</p>
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<p>Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear regarding my reference to immigrants, and if so, I apologize. Having worked so much with immigrants (especially from Asian countries), I have observed that what motivates those families (regarding the Elite U’s) differs from what may motivate others. It’s not so much (i.m.o.) social status which they seek but employment status.</p>
<p>There is a great mythical divide among many of them, a divide that is irrational and which does not respond to intellectual argument or data. It’s a dualistic world view. On one side:</p>
<p>Harvard</p>
<p>On the other side:
…Ignominy and poverty </p>
<p>Further, they see college admissions as a somewhat random lottery. Thus, the more unrealistic reaches to which you apply, the “greater your chance” of nailing just one. Except that if “your chance” is minimal to begin with (if you don’t have the academic goods), then your chance is **greater<a href=“hello”>/b</a> that you’ll be rejected by all of them than that you’ll be accepted by one of them.</p>
<p>I am far more patient with families whose students are in the ballpark for one reach school. It seems to me that some people, given that, would choose a heavily weighted list of reaches “on the chance.” But that’s the minority of cases. The majority of cases consist of students who have dim prospects for ivy admission but excellent prospects for schools “a rung down.” And the parents will hear none of these alternatives. When you present the data (admissions statistics, etc.), they counter with “but it’s a dream.”</p>
<p>(Yes, my point exactly. That’s called fantasy.)</p>
<p>U Texas Austin is a very good school.</p>
<p>Some people are also confusing academically elite performers with social elitism and class distinctions that include the economically elite. Mix those oftentimes diverse categories together in an argument and the outcome can be a confused mess with a principally invalid premise.</p>
<p>I never said UT Austin wasn’t a good school. That wasn’t my premise.</p>
<p>I strongly believe tht there is practically no such thing as “good school” or “bad school”. There are few schools that fit particular student well, some better than others, and there are schools that to not fit him/her at all. And you hear all this stories when kids transfer because they are so misearable there that it affects their academics…and that was there “dream” school. I advise everybody to research deeply. Internet info and opinions of others and all the ranks in a world will not replace visiting several times, staying overnight, “get a feel” of the campus and a student body, talk to kids in your major, stay with potential sport team, get your own personal opinion in regard to how school matches your personality, your goals, your wide range of interests, not somebody else’s.</p>
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<p>I think that is basically true, and for good reasons:</p>
<p>[Do</a> employers care about a university’s reputation? - The Globe and Mail](<a href=“http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/frances-woolley/do-employers-care-about-a-universitys-reputation/article2313152/]Do”>http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/economy-lab/frances-woolley/do-employers-care-about-a-universitys-reputation/article2313152/)</p>
<p>Where these parents go wrong is that they don’t understand the odds. Having the goods of an average student of an elite is not enough, they have to compare their darlings to the unhooked students.</p>
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<p>Many years ago a fellow classmate told me he was not being challenged by the school. I suggested he switch to theoretical physics because that is where his equals are. He has not talked to me since. There is a grain of truth, however, to what I said. If students frequently moved down to easier majors when they find their major too hot to handle, why not move up when they find their classes too easy?</p>
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<p>Very true. I suspect the elites and the ranking agencies actively encourage this type of “fuzzy” thinking. That is why I focus on the major, not the school attended. Sure helps me to cut through the nonsense.</p>
<p>Most of my D’s current class came from Ivy’s and other colleges at the very top. She graduated from state public along with few others. They are all in the same place now, no difference whatsoever, very difficult academically for every single student, including PhD from Harvard, few lawyers and few Masters of science in her class. Again, I am saying attend this college or another. I am saying that at the end it does not make much difference. Specifically, in D’s case, the ones who got in were accepted because of their stats (high college GPA/decent exam score). Name of their college did not play a major role at all and it continues to be basically the same. If you want to succeed, need to work hard, there is no other way. Name of your school simply will not do it for you.</p>
<p>That’s because you’re talking med school, MiamiDAP. Where you are correct, every incoming med student starts out at square one alongside one another and not knowing a darn thing, regardless of whether they went to East Directional State U or Harvard. Other fields are different from medicine, though.</p>
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<p>I can’t imagine how frustrating that might be. Don’t you ever tell them to look around? That if the goal is upper middle class financial security, that Harvard and a handful of other colleges don’t even REMOTELY have the lock on that? That in any city in this country, the vast majority of people who “do well” financially (I don’t mean multi millionaires, just comfortable enough to have a nice standard of living) went to a state university (if they went to college at all, which some might not have) and not an elite one? </p>
<p>What happens when you challenge their beliefs? What happens when you say, “I know you think anything below HYPSM means your child will be sweeping floors the rest of his life, but that simply is absolutely not true in America”?</p>
<p>I suspect that what complicates this mindset that Harvard (and a few other schools) are the only schools good enough is a sense (which I think is strong in many immigrant families) that hard work is what is rewarded. So, if Junior works hard enough, why shouldn’t he get into Harvard? Won’t Harvard care about how hard he studied, and how many hours he practiced the violin, and all the sacrifices he made? The answer, of course, is “Not really.” But that’s hard to take. People don’t easily shed these kinds of cultural attitudes.</p>
<p>In other words, I suspect that when some of these parents are told that their kid may not have the credentials to get into the most selective schools, their first reaction is that the kid should work harder, study more, do more test prep, drop those useless fun ECs so he can practice his instrument more, etc.</p>
<p>My W is an immigrant from China who has had the “Harvard or bust” attitude for our S (I’ve been trying to talk her out of that for years). At least from my knowledge of her and her perspectives, I don’t believe the attitude is being fairly or accurately described here. </p>
<p>My W grew up with the belief that Americans are stupid and lazy people who have had the good fortune of being born into wealth. She also believed, along with a great many other people in her native country, that any intelligent Chinese person with a good work ethic who grew up in the US should easily rise to the top of the mediocre American pile. In addition, books authored by parents of Chinese students who were able to gain admission to Harvard and go on to have great success in life were quite popular in China. So the formula for success seemed pretty straightforward: Immigrate to the US, have a child, raise the child to have a good Chinese work ethic and ambition, apply to Harvard or maybe YPSM, get accepted, move on to a great career. If by some freak accident the child is not accepted into HYPSM, the back-up plan is for the child to go to the state university, have a decent career as an ordinary doctor or engineer, and then have children that can apply to HYPSM…</p>
<p>Her attitude may not be representative, but I would be surprised to find it were very far from the mark.</p>