The Ivy League has done a great job, but there is great quality around the country

College Search & Selection
81

<p>To Hawkette:</p>

<p>I concur that branding, location and the media play a HUGE roll in how many of these Ivies have gained the upper hand in attracting the creme de la creme of applications, though they also get a surprising number of applications from kids just throwing their names in the hat and seeing what happens. Yes, schools like Rice get hurt by their location, even WashU has that problem, and to some extent UChicago and Northwestern.</p>

<p>Not that Dartmouth wins the winter weather award! Or Harvard for that matter.</p>

<p>The US government for years fed into the Ivy mythology by recruiting diplomats and spies from HYP. Many Presidents, even more Supreme Court Justices also come from HYP. Success breeds success.</p>

<p>But in 1940 an abysmal small number of Americans went to college, whereas now, its a huge number. In my D's highly competitive LARGE public high school, more than 85% are attending a college and of those about 78% are attending four year colleges. Which makes all these selective colleges even more selective. Whoever got into Harvard et al even 20 years ago, might well not get in today. That is certainly true at Duke and many other elite schools. The standards of admission have risen dramatically in the past 10 years alone. </p>

<p>I just want to spread the GOOD NEWS that there are hundreds....even thousands of good schools out there and people have tremendous choices to make. Isnt this a GREAT country? Every year tens of thousands of international students apply to colleges in the United States LARGELY because the university admissions systems in their home countries are even more unfair and elitist. That is VERY true in Western Europe.</p>

<p>I want people to expand their search for schools and spread the wealth so to speak....the wealth of knowledge if you will. And to be proud of where they are attending school and why they are there.</p>

<p>There will always be someone who thinks they have to go to an Ivy in order to be a complete and successful human being. I say, let them go if they can get in and hope they learn to think outside the box while they are there.</p>

<p>My D is happier than she has been in years, enjoying herself immensely, sufficiently challenged in school, and making new friends for life....and that is a greater measure of success than the average SAT score at any school if you ask me. And that is what I wish for every applicant...to find a great school where they will be truly happy and fulfilled, not worried about what its rank is in USNWR next year.</p>

82

<p>I feel like we have several conversations going on here in the same thread....</p>

83

<p>
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USC is in SouthCentral LA

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Not true. </p>

<p>What amazes me here as the father of a May USC graduate is how well USC is treated in this thread as compared to 2002-2003 when I first started on CC. Boy did people bad mouth it then. A big change in perception in a fairly short time.</p>

84

<p>tsdad,
I was not here on CC in 2002-03, but I agree that USC's student quality has improved quickly over the last 5-10 years. The school clearly has benefited from many of the trends that friedokra references as there has been a great spreading out of the student talent as the demographics have pre-destined. I hope you are right that the USC image has changed, but I suspect that there has been a lot less movement in the minds of Ivy-affiliated partisans. I don't see many Cornellians rushing to accept USC as a qualitative peer and many still think of the college by its alternative name (University of Spoiled Children). </p>

<p>Prestige and public perceptions are lagging indicators, however, of a college's real-time status and quality. Prestige-seekers will always favor the Ivies and their wonderful brand and justifiably so as the colleges are all among America's best. But IMO many others can now lay claim to equivalent or even better status for undergraduate students. This is a less appreciated fact that academia is slow to accept (if PA scores are a reflection of academia's views of prestige). By contrast, most employers willingly embrace the idea that undergraduate student quality is well distributed and that prestige of undergraduate college is overrated. Certain industries may buck these trends to some extent-eg, the corporate finance/M&A sides of investment banks-but the individual, any individual, if sufficiently skilled, will perform to his/her individual level regardless of the undergraduate school.</p>

85

<p>Hawkette:</p>

<p>Frankly I don't care what ivy league partisans think. Most people don't. They're nice schools, but so what? They're are lots of nice schools with great facilities, plenty of money, and interesting student bodies. USC is one of them. USC was the right school for my son. Most people who go there seem to love it to death. </p>

<p>I'm in my middle 60s, and I know how much your life is determined by how well you do what you do with skills you learn on the job and not in school; how nice you are to people; simply showing up on time; and luck, being in the right place at the right time. In the long run where you went to college means very little. </p>

<p>Most of the young people on CC haven't a clue as what it means to be a successful human being. They think it's about money. It's not. Money's nice, and I really like it, but being a decent human being; carrying out your civic responsibilities; being a loving spouse and parent; and enjoying what you do is really what success is all about.</p>

<p>Hawkette--you do a wonderful job in providing quantifiable data. But in the long run it's not the college, it's the person, and people who go to Harvard are not better or likely to be more successful than people who go to the Madison Area Technical College.</p>

86

<p>Great, set up a straw man and then spend 6 pages of posts debating it.</p>

<p>Since at least when I was applying to colleges it has always been the case that there were other colleges that were as/ more selective, or "better" in some ways, for some students, than various colleges in the Ivy League. Many people may not be as familiar with them before their college hunt commences, but by the end of it most people who are smart enough to actually gain admission to some of these schools are also smart enough to adequately investigate and evaluate their alternatives. It has also always been the case that the schools in the Ivy League are different from each other too. SO??? </p>

<p>If you believe colleges should be ranked based on selectivity, and that's all there is to it, just publish the US News selectiivity ranking column and be done with it.</p>

<p>If you believe colleges should be ranked based on evaluated quality of undergraduate instruction, just publish the findings from this study you cited and be done with it.</p>

<p>In point of fact though, most people evaluate more factors than these, in more complex ways, to arrive at their list and establish their priorities. Per post #6. If somebody thinks each of the Ivy league schools have some blanket superiority, irrespective of each individual's individual priorities, they deserve what they get. But I don't really know a lot of people like that, after the process is over. </p>

<p>As for USC, it is, like Wash U and NYU, relatively speaking a "nouveau selective". Circa 1970 it was accepting over 80% of its applicants; evaluated close to the bottom in selectivity of the top 100 (by me). To make a strained analogy, the crass newcomers who buy their way in to the ritzy neighborhood never have the same patina as the old money brahmins who have been loaded forever. Even if they live there for years. </p>

<p>I don't know, one way or the other, whether their selectivity jump has been accompanied by an equal jump in every other factor one may want to consider. I'll leave that for each applicant to establish, and evaluate, what factors are important to them. But for many I would imagine that their evaluation will not start and end with selectivity figures as the sole criteria.</p>

<p>"My daughter went to the law school, and it is cold and gray in Ithaca for most of the year,which she really disliked...The summer, however, is glorious.So my son, seeing all of the gloomy weather, was accepted for undergrad school, but turned it down for another option (Hopkins) which appealed to him more. The location and the weather played an enormous part in this decision, something I hear from lots of kids."</p>

<p>Different strokes, but I personally would not choose JHU over Cornell because I thought I was upgrading my environment, quite the contrary. Hopefully your "lots of kids" are not missing something. I certainly saw it differently.</p>

<p>First of all, summer is in fact nice, that's a fact, but you're missing the real point.. The FALL
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ithaca_Hemlock_Gorge.JPG%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ithaca_Hemlock_Gorge.JPG&lt;/a>
<a href="http://www.pbase.com/unexplained_bacon/taug&page=all%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.pbase.com/unexplained_bacon/taug&page=all&lt;/a>
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ithaca_Hemlock_Gorge.JPG%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Ithaca_Hemlock_Gorge.JPG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Sometime in the next 1-3 weeks Ithaca will probably be about the most beautiful place I've ever been to. At least that's typically the case.</p>

<p>And the natural beauty of the area, with four magnificent state parks
<a href="http://priweb.org/ed/finger_lakes/taughannock_falls.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://priweb.org/ed/finger_lakes/taughannock_falls.html&lt;/a>
and the campus itself.</p>

<p>You almost feel like you're walking to classes through a state park. The fresh air fills your lungs, you can feel it, and the natural beauty inspires you.</p>

<p>It's the most beautiful place I've ever lived. I was able to appreciate it more fully in the later years after I got a car, but the same is true even if solely on campus.</p>

<p>Winter is real there, but I've experienced worse.
It did rain/ drizzle a lot there, though. I like rain.</p>

<p>post #85: here, here.
You will get to the workplace, and a good number of you will find, at some point or other, that you are reporting to grads of the local state u you spurned contemptuously. And, wait a second, those guys are actually smarter, and better at their jobs than you are. That is a wake-up call that still awaits many of you. Believe me, I know.</p>

87

<p>USC may indeed win the award as the "most floated boat" over the last decade.
My copy of the 1997 USN&WR lists USC as having a 25th-75th percentile SAT range of 1070-1310, a 70% admissions rate, and with 44% of students in the top 10% of their high school class.
By comparison, today Drexel's numbers are 1070-1300 with a 72% admissions rate. Clark's are 1090-1310 with a 60% admissions rate.
Just a mammoth change for USC.</p>

88

<p>My point is--USC, Drexel, Clark, it's all irrelevant in the long run in determing who becomes a successful human being.</p>

89

<p>tsdad,
I liked your comments very much. I agree with your views on the very minor role of undergraduate college in the overall story of an individual's life. Unfortunately, I also agree with your comment that "most of the young people on CC haven't a clue as what it means to be a successful human being." I read many, many, many threads and posts which have such a yearning for prestige without proper consideration of personal fit. Hopefully, your and others' comments will have some value for them and their college search process will be driven by their individual needs and not a need for approval from others. I'm glad that your son has enjoyed his time at USC and hopefully more top students will find their way to this much improved college.</p>

<p>monydad,
Sorry you had to liken USC, Wash U and NYU to "crass newcomers" in the neighborhood, but it might be a very appropriate analogy. Elsewhere I have posted that I doubt that there is anything that Wash U could ever do to raise its Peer Acceptance score to the level of ANY Ivy college as status quo attitudes in academia are extremely hard to change. I think your comments make that point more eloquently than I ever could. </p>

<p>I agree with you on the scene in and around Ithaca this time of year. It is a beautiful sight. I've often wondered if students should go for their visits to Northeastern colleges in October…or in February…if they want a true view of a college.</p>

90

<p>Those of you who think the huge appeal of the Ivies, over the next eight or ten schools, is mostly empty reputation or name cache' are mistaken. The Ivies "name", "brand", "reputation", whatever you want to call it, has developed over a long time and for good reasons.</p>

<p>For, example, the Ivies collectively probably have at least twice as many top academic programs as the US News "next eight", excluding MIT and Caltech. This is when you compare program by program. And, Cornell has as many or more top academic programs as the other Ivies, not counting Cornell's unique programs.</p>

91

<p>i agree completely.... people focus so much on entering an ivey league college that they forget about the rest of them.. ther are also great colleges that dont entwr this league such as NYU, Cornell,BU</p>

92

<p>ha, ha, good one.</p>

<p>Got cut off before I got this one in.. don't want to lose it.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.asergeev.com/pictures/archives/2005/475/browser.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.asergeev.com/pictures/archives/2005/475/browser.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

93

<p>^ Beautiful! </p>

<p>Camila, Cornell is in the Ivy League.</p>

94

<p>It's a great day here in Madison. I just went outside and it's in the 70s and Bascom Hill is filled with students studying, sleeping, talking all the way down to Park St. Do you know how great it is to be at a University, get paid, go to free lectures, have millions of books to read, AND YOU NOT HAVE TO TAKE TESTS? What a wonderful retirement job. </p>

<p>And as a footnote to nothing (warning--unconscionable bragging to follow), my son's script is one of the five finalists for the best new script at the LA Screamfest, <a href="http://www.screamfestla.com/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.screamfestla.com/&lt;/a>. He wrote it with another USC film school grad. And, btw, neither he or his co-writer were in the production or screenwriting tracks. Like Bryan Singer, they were in Critical Studies. So there all you people who think you have to get into the production track to be successful.</p>

95

<p>^ Heck yeah! Madison would be a great place to retire.</p>

96

<p>I know I'm repeating myself, but to collegehelp and others, it's not that the Ivy colleges aren't terrific academic institutions. No one is claiming that. But there are more and more colleges that have grown and developed over the last 10-20 years and now have student quality and undergraduate experiences equal to or better than many of the non-HYP Ivies. And as for the academic rankings of various departments, for some of us (including me), that is just a continuation of the PA problem. I don't really expect the academics to rank Rice's English program ahead of Dartmouth's or Wash U's Psychology Department over Columbia (and so on), it's never going to happen and I don't think it matters. Outside of a few select programs (eg, U Penn's Wharton), the differences are negligible. These are all terrific schools; students can do equally well going to and graduating from either. Unfortunately. the historical brand benefit of the Ivies obscures this fact. </p>

<p>And, for the record, while New England may do a better job of publicizing its autumnal colors, I hope you realize that the same thing happens all the way down the East Coast into northern Florida. And if you want more color and don't want to wait until May to see it, then look at some of colleges in the Sunbelt where spring begins in early March. And if you want sun all year round, then USC is a pretty good place.</p>

97

<p>


</p>

<p>Of course, hawkette. LOL...you seem to think everyone on here lives in their own little world. Why not give props when props are due?</p>

98

<p>LOL-sorry if being too dense and literal. I'm just trying to spread the props around. </p>

<p>Props to Cornell and thanks to monydad for taking the time to post those photos. They really are quite stunning.</p>

99

<p>tsdad:</p>

<p>USC is NOT in South-Central? Huh? </p>

<p>I hang with a bunch of Trojan fans, and no one thinks otherwise.</p>

<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Los_Angeles%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Los_Angeles&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

100

<p>USC is in the West Adams/Exposition Park areas and just a couple of miles from downtown. It is an area that used to be one of the wealthiest in the city and contains a great housing stock. It will probably be gentrified within the next couple of decades. It is an urban, gated campus. </p>

<p>as one commentator wrote in another thread: </p>

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USC is pretty well bounded on all sides. North by student housing, the row, university village, west by a working-class [Hispanic] community, south by museums and exposition park, and east by USC parking structures and the freeway.

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