<p>I've been researching colleges and I really don't understand why a lot of people would want to go to an Ivy League school for their Undergrad.
Did you know that Harvard was going to elimintate their Undergrad program because in reality they are a graduate school but did not because of the fanatics and money they got.(what a suprise.)
If you are looking at Ivies as an undergrad prepare yourself to compete with graduates which the Ivy League schools really are centered around especially Harvard.
College is a place where you find yourself, who you are and your interests and from my research places like Harvard and its Ivy companions are the last place to do that.
I just find it funny that many administrators who know dirty college secrets have been seen stating that Harvards education isn't even top 20. (Its undergrad anyway.)
Through my thorough research it has been stated Harvard is fake with people who only care about money and are full of princes,princesses, sons/daughters of ambassadors and politicians who are nowhere near the so-called smarts the Ivies claims it contains.
Lets not forget about the career and self-centered professors who are to important for the undergrads and even the graduates.
There is the grade-inflations and the famous idea of the lowest grade at Harvard one can get is a B.
The kids are not as smart or ambitious as they claim and only got in by lies or money.
Search for true smarts and intellects and you won't find it in these schools though there are exceptions.
All this porpaganda seems to be working with kids who want to go to the Ivies but really don't realize that their acadeimc experience can be much better in their state universities.
And lets not forget about the social aspect which I'm not even going to talk about because we already know about the robots that walk these Ivy League Schools.
To finish off FACT: The only reason why Harvard and Ivies are ranked so high are because of their graduate schools. Their undergrad schools are truly HORRIBLE!!!1
I JUST DON"T UNDERSTAND WHY YOU WOULD GO HERE AS AN UNDERGRAD!!!
PLEASE EXPLAIN!!!</p>
<p>OK, all you Harvard defenders who are ready to rebut. Save your keystrokes. This post is a classic troll if I've ever seen one. :)</p>
<p>Because your information is way off base. First of all Princeton and Dartmouth are the top undergraduates schools in the country by many accounts. The object is to get an education that prepares you for a JOB, if you don't think a Harvard degree would be a tremendous help I guess thats the world you live in. Sounds to me like you have an ax to grind.</p>
<p>As someone who went to a university renowned more for its graduate programs and often criticized for its lack of undergraduate focus, I found my school offered the best academic program for the cheapest price (for me). A lot of factors go into making a college choice. If you prefer a college that gives its undergrads more "care and feeding", there are many to choose. In fact, I would include some Ivies in that category ... particularly Dartmouth and Brown.</p>
<p>Okay gadad first I’m not a troll and for you people who call Dartmouth and brown good undergrad programs why??? Unless you yourself or your kid goes there how do you truly know? Like I’ve said there is no such thing as a universal good undergrad program. EVERYONE IS DIFFERENT!! I'm tired of these US NEWS Rankings which don't truly rank the top schools. Do you know what these rankings are based on?? The select few yes I've said it the select few just like you asking a rich white boy how there life is at this point in the economy but in actuality many are suffering. Like I've said and it is not just the Ivies these rankings are lies. The student-to professor ratios, retention rates and etc. And you know what is sad a lot of kids and there parents base their colleges on acceptance rates. This is the worsest stat to do that. DeVry has around a 23% acceptance rate but does that make it a top college. NO! Guess what people open your eyes all these stats about the colleges are produced by the colleges and they can lie however they want to because they are more unregulated than the stock market. Those brochures we get from those colleges and those pictures in it that have been air-brushed are selling the colleges and we are buying it so hard! I'm sorry for only bagging on Ivies because other major colleges do this but do you not realize how much is spent on advertising but how limited financial help is. It is all jacked-up how people want to go into debt for something not guaranteed and for four years of misery. I will say it again COLLEGE IS TO FIND YOURSELF, WHO YOU ARE. Harvard and the Ivies are probably the most polluted in terms of dishonor, cheaters and their academics are way over-rated not to say they are not good. A kid says they got a degree from Harvard and they expect you to think they are God. Harvard and the Ivies are like any other school and I'm tired of this so called prestige and these dumb words used to describe these schools. It is real funny, THAT WE CAN"T OPEN OUR EYES AND SEE there are other schools greater than and as great as these Ivies. This just shows the shallowness of human nature. I bet very likely if a kid tells you he/she went to Ivy that kid is more dishonorable, cheatable, and less-rounded than a well-rounded and humble kid at a state university that is just the way it is. We talk about these fabricated good things about Ivies but never the bad. I'm not going to lie yes Ivies are for some but the majority at them now it is not for. It is just crazy how kids are pushed to these schools and they will most likely become our nations leaders but at what cost. Think about why there are a lot more suicidal and dropout rates at Ivies. Bet that is something you don't know. WHY?? Because like all its other bad area Ivies don't want you to know this and show only the irrelevant stats like acceptance rate which has nowhere near anything to do with quality of education. But in the end the shallowness and ignorance of human minds only care about the name, A NAME. Wow what an existence!</p>
<p>Despite the fact that you won't get into any of these programs until you master the art of paragraphs, I'll go with the first two sentences of post #5.</p>
<p>I go to Brown, and the undergraduate program here is excellent. My experiences have not only been better from a student/social perspective, but also from an academic perspective because I'm at Brown.</p>
<p>I get opportunities here my friends do not get. I have carved a unique path here that could not exist at another school. I have sat in on classes elsewhere with friends and compared our experiences.</p>
<p>As a senior at Brown, the bottom line is it's been worth every second over anywhere else.</p>
<p>You are rambling on and on about stuff you don't have a clue about. Brown has a 99% retention rate from freshman to sophomore year and over 95% of our students graduate within 6 years of entering college (allows for gap years, semester leaves, and various other common experiences which delay students beyond four years but have nothing to do with the "negatives" of not graduating).</p>
<p>So basically:
a) Learn to write.
b) Learn not to make as many assumptions as those you are accusing of failing due to making assumptions.
c) Stop thinking Harvard is the Ivy League.
d) Take your own advice-- unless you yourself or your kid is there you don't truly know, so stop pretending.</p>
<p>/thread</p>
<p>GTFO troll.</p>
<p>Guess what man **** unless you know about me. I'm currently a junior and oh did I forget to mention I'm tired of your schools companion U of Penn, Columbia and Dartmouth coaches trying to contact me. Oh also my mom is an alumni of Columbia so as I see her still attempting to pay her school payments don't tell me what I know and don't know. Please don't describe my writing prose because if you have even a hint of your so called Brown undergrad education you'll know paragraph form isn't the only form (DON'T LIMIT YOURSELF LIKE SOCIETY WANTS YOU TO PLEASE!). Oh and where did you see and hear those retention rates from your OWN SCHOOL! Well that’s a reliable source, one that has a rep to uphold. What I came on here is to find out why undergrad in these schools when I know for a fact the majority of students hate it. Oh and trust me my sources are a lot more reliable than yours seeing as I have information from an admissions officer who knows the down and dirty of the college process. What do you have? A US NEWS ranking, BS talk about academic environment, lies from admission officers, and a 99% retention rate which you throw out and don't truly know is true. It is like telling me my birthday. Do I truly know it? Nope. I have to depend on my parents and the hospital to know it for me. I will never know 100% myself if I was born on that day only others will know. THAT IS THE GAME YOUR TOP COLLEGE BROWN IS PLAYING ON YOU with these retention rates. And again please don't limit your minds like society and academia wants you to. It truly is a paradox isn't it and people like you don't even know it and that is where the college’s strength lies.</p>
<p>Right. Troll.</p>
<p>Paragraphs are a way society limits me? Sorry, untrue. They just make your rambling nonsense more coherent.</p>
<p>Keep proving to me that you don't know ****.</p>
<p>If you want to know who I am and why I know more than just US News, feel free to search this site. I'm going to feel free to report your posts as trolling.</p>
<p>Yep and that is where you are limited. You can not accept the fact that you are. You think because you went to an institution such as Brown you have the world out there to conquer. Its funny isn't but yes that limits you AND YOU DON'T KNOW IT. What is your major? Do you realize the world we live in? The BS all around us. Those who rise to the top can only do it by selling their souls. How do you rise to the top??? Well if you think in terms of college there are the Ivies. It is a constant cycle and I am seeing it happen to my parents. I am just tired of what a top school actually gives. You can't tell me it was everything you expected. Give it couples of years and just like those close to me see if it was worth it. It is not going to happen to me you see and I want to know why undergrad at these schools? It is everywhere you see I'm going to report you, I'm going to this college, I can't pay for it, I have to study for it, I will major in this. Evidence of our limitations which these schools exemplify. Colleges like these are not for the individual’s success but to fuel the machine and keep it going and I don't want to be one of those people. So with the limitations you have go and report. By the way do you mind me asking what a Brown undergrad is doing arguing with a high school junior, an intelligent one at that?</p>
<p>It was everything I expected and more. I'm not trying to conquer the world and I don't think the world owes me anything. I think you're generalizing an experience you have not even had. I'm concentrating in chemistry and receiving a master's in urban education policy.</p>
<p>And I'm on here arguing with an irrational high school junior who's acting immature because I'm bored.</p>
<p>I'm on this webpage to inform students about Brown (spend most of my time on those boards) and to talk about higher education in general, since I have considerable academic interests in higher education.</p>
<p>I just spent the last week at a state school and the difference was not only apparent, but astonishing and unnerving.</p>
<p>Oh, and I've written extensively on this website about "Why Brown" for an undergraduate. If you're wondering, go look instead of making assumptions.</p>
<p>OK, I'll try to bring a bit more civility to the tone of the discussion. I have daughters who are a junior and a freshman at Harvard. In her first two years of college, the junior's found courses and professors who have significantly impacted her view of her role in the world and her aspirations for her life after college. She's had no trouble getting the attention of the faculty and has benefitted, if anything, from the types of programming the graduate schools bring to campus (such as the Institute of Politics speakers sponsored by the JFK School of Government). Her peer group has been dazzling and for the most part, pretty humble and easygoing. The vast majority of them are public school students of average means (and sometimes, little means) with no political connections, but extraordinary and unique achievements.</p>
<p>In the past two years, she's also traveled to South America and to China on Harvard-sponsored programs, getting most of her way paid each time. She's been hired as a peer advisor. Some of the visiting speakers she's met have inspired her to reevaluate her life priorities. She's joined a singing group and toured several cities. She's become a student manager for a program that tutors the middle-school aged children of new immigrants. She joined the leadership team of a Model Congress program and presided over a congress of hundreds of top high school students visiting the city in which she goes to school. Her freshman sister is still putting together the full range of her college experience, but she's finding the same wealth of resources and availability of amazing peer-initiated activities.</p>
<p>Haitian, I checked your other posts, and yes, you have discussed other topics besides this, so I can see that this post wasn't all trolling. But I also saw that you're interested in Wake Forest, a smaller university which is my alma mater. The richness of the undergraduate environment and the availability and willingness of mentoring for my daughters at Harvard exceeds anything that I experienced at Wake in the '70s (which I loved, BTW).</p>
<p>The one area in which Harvard life may differ is that it requires students to reach out for what they want or need. I don't perceive that this is a function of disinterest in undergrads - on the contrary, there are faculty families and live-in tutors and advisors in all the upperclass houses. But Harvard students tend to be handpicked for initiative, so they not only tend not to need to be guided to resources, they'd probably perceive attempts to hand-hold them as condescending.</p>
<p>Frankly, no one ever did much personal guidance and hand-holding for me at Wake Forest either. No faculty ever stopped me on campus and said "I missed you in class yesterday - is everything alright?" I think that would be more typical of a small LAC than even a relatively student-centered university, but that's something that would be of value to certain students and no value to others.</p>
<p>Okay then modestmelody tell me why I should go to Brown. While I must admit acceptance would be hard I want a great college experience not just a degree that will get me places. Also I must admit that I can not argue with a student at the institution who has had the experience, although we may not be the same people in terms of colleges that would fit us tell me. </p>
<p>While my G.P.A currently a 3.3 and my ACTs a 36 (second time taken and first time a 33) show my great lack of work ethic I am easily now maintaining straight A's. My fluency in four languages (French, Haitian Creole,English,Louisana French) and current studies of Italian and Armenian(because of a friend) show my ability to learn languages and I would like to think can be a great asset to any University/College/Job.</p>
<p>My physical fitness of a 1:52 800, 4:12 mile, 9:12 two-mile and 15:15 5k show the athletic abilities I would provide for a college.</p>
<p>Captain/President of the National SkillsUsa/QuizBowl team,French Club, Track/Cross Country, Word of Difference shows my leadership</p>
<p>My volunteering through community races and racing money monthly for those who are anemic and other blood-related diseases show my involvement. There is also the library I help out a lot.</p>
<p>My nationally-published poems show my true-self (NOT IN PARAGRAHP FORM (:)</p>
<p>My club founding’s also show my involvement in school and the 100+ members though I must say there is some resume padding going on with some of the members in the club.</p>
<p>I read a lot. Loved Catch-22 and I think Nietzsche has made me real liberal somehow.</p>
<p>I've worked for Barnes & Nobles and currently for a Comedy Club where I regularly express myself through poems. Pretty snazzy jib if I do say so myself.</p>
<p>My top college for a long time has been Wake Forest though. The profs I've met have been so inviting and kind. I even have their numbers already.</p>
<p>So my weakest area is the G.P.A. which does nothing but tell how a kid works in high school. I think it is a real bad indicator of college performance when someone is bound to change though there are some exceptions. I'm not one of them. Like I've said in my rampant post earlier my moms alumni Columbia has a place for me and Dartmouth and U. of Penn also though I would honestly rather go to hell before I go to any of these places. My mom actually thinks I slacked because I wanted to have a reason not to go Ivy donc. my G.P.A.</p>
<p>So tell me why Brown?</p>
<p>I can't sum up why Brown in a single post nor do I have the time, but I can say that if you search my posts you'll find a lot of information about it.</p>
<p>For starters, look here:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/385841-brown-curriculum-university-college-explained.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/brown-university/385841-brown-curriculum-university-college-explained.html</a></p>
<p>Though I wrote that long ago and it's outdated and needs some serious improvement, there's a lot of good valid information in that post.</p>
<p>A second point that may be close to your heart is that Brown does not calculate a GPA or officially recognize GPAs as an institution. It's against policy to block honors in a concentration due to an imaginary GPA. Any course can be taken pass/fail and there are only four grades possible when taking a class for grade-- A, B, C and NC-- the belief being that grades are a totally imprecise measure and not super meaningful, and become less meaningful as the greater distinction is attempted. So it sounds like your own feeling that GPA has misrepresented you is present in Brown's undergraduate education philosophy.</p>
<p>I'm not here to convince you to go to Brown-- but Brown offers a rich undergraduate experience that is, in fact, the entire focus of the university. To suggest we're resting on our graduate programs is to be completely unaware of Brown.</p>
<p>Wow that really touched me. I never knew that Brown did something like that. Definitely got some respect for that. I've always though G.P.As was the dumbest things ever.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I've always though G.P.As was the dumbest things ever.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Moreso than proper spelling and subject-verb agreement?</p>
<p>Some of us employers (and grad schools!) like to review an applicant's GPA as part of their overall job application. And some of us employers believe that there is a lot of information contained in a B+ or a B- when the median grade in the class is a B-.</p>
<p>^^Which is the reason why to satisfy the mundane needs of some of you employers (and grad schools!) Brown reports the needed information and how the student excelled.</p>
<p>If you look at a transcript and see all As or S with distinctions on the courses relevant to the evaluator in question, it should be more than sufficient. There are plenty of stupid and irrelevant classes in every college that can help you boost your GPA. That in fact, renders GPA a lot less meaningful.</p>
<p>But, I guess some employers can be lazy and not that bright.</p>
<p>Wow!!!
I like how people on this forum look for the smallest things to try to discredit you like cayugared2005. Look man I'm only human and by the way since you seem to be looking for mistakes in my grammar why don't you go over any spelling errors or other grammatical errors in my earlier posts that is if you haven’t already. How I despise people like you.</p>
<p>Thank you myopinion, I know for a fact the number two kid in my class has gotten so much extra credit to bolster up his grade that it’s so artificial and not actually what he has learned.</p>
<p>
[quote]
If you look at a transcript and see all As or S with distinctions on the courses relevant to the evaluator in question, it should be more than sufficient. There are plenty of stupid and irrelevant classes in every college that can help you boost your GPA. That in fact, renders GPA a lot less meaningful.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is why, as an employer and interviewer, I prefer that candidates provide transcripts with their marks as well as the median grade in each class.
[quote]
How I despise people like you.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, now you have a Brown student complaining about your lack of paragraphs and a Cornell alum pointing out your grammatical lapses. </p>
<p>I think you are fighting an uphill battle in terms of trying to discredit some of these institutions. And while across the Ivies you may find we disagree about the proper way to evaluate students, I think you would have to look very hard to find an Ivy alum who attended their school on "lies and money" and does not believe they were able to "find themselves and their interests" at their alma mater.</p>
<p>First the Brown undergrad and now you man do I attract arguments.
My true intention was never to discredit it was to just explain why I felt the way I felt. As a young adult I have my arguments and questions and opinions and the Brown undergrad slightly changed them just by showing me a post on Brown. And that is pretty stupid bringing in the Alum seeing as they are the ones who actually liked the colleges. We seem to be forgetting the transfers, dropouts, suicides that major colleges lead in. On top of that don't speak for every alumni please seeing as how this includes my mother and you don't know how she feels about Columbia. As a matter of fact I highly doubt you know what 99.999% alumni truly feel about their college.</p>