The Worthless Ivy League?

Parents Forum
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<p>I don't think this research is saying that an Ivy League education is worthless. It's just that smart, hardworking kids coming from less elite schools can do just as well. And I agree with kluge's point: Maybe top schools are nurturing intelligent kids, but you can't avoid the fact that these kids were brilliant when they got to these schools in the first place.</p>

<p>I guess I've always known this though. My mom was accepted at Princeton and Penn but chose to attend Rutgers because it was the only school she could afford. While she was at Rutgers, she felt she had to compensate for receiving a less elite education, so she worked as hard as she could to maintain her GPA, and she formed close relationships with some of her professors. But, as she pointed at, kids should do that no matter where they go to school! </p>

<p>Anyway, she went on to study economics at Columbia for several years, and then she went to NYU Law. Now, she's 50 years old, works full time in a small NYC law firm, and is the single mother of 3 kids. And she's pretty happy with her life (except when she's yelling at us, of course =P). So has her Rutgers education hurt her in any way? Not at all. </p>

<p>So while I'm thrilled I'm going to an "elite" school next year... I know that, had I been rejected, I would still be the same kid. And if I succeed later in life, it's because of me and not because of my college's name.</p>

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<p>funkyspoon: Exactly! You've got it right.</p>

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<p>Well, she never got back to the "elite" schools for grad school. Who knows, maybe she could be owning that law firm?</p>

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<p>I would agree with the proposition that there are paths to life success and personal satisfaction coming out of lots of different schools. Interestingly, in my region of the country there is still a fairly high level of voluntary nonparticipation in the college "flight to quality," and consequently some very smart kids who never apply anywhere for an undergraduate degree but at their state flagship university. Students like that wouldn't show up in the oft-cited study that was mentioned at the beginning of this thread. </p>

<p>But for all that, I am intensely curious about the selective college experience and what it does for the people who undergo it (for example, many of the parents who post on this site). I am an alumnus of my state flagship university myself--that's the only place I applied, mostly for financial reasons and lack of competent college advising at my high school--and that's the only experience I personally had. By dint of my own studies and effort, lacking all "connections," I had for a time a career that took me on business meetings to Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, Columbia, Duke, Georgetown, U MI, Cal, UCLA, and a variety of other colleges. So I've been on the campuses, I've seen the students and a few of the professors, and I've had time to think about what makes an elite college an elite college. It wouldn't be the end of the world if my oldest son went to the same State U that I went to, but I find it implausible to suppose that he wouldn't gain certain very valuable advantages from going to SOME of the more selective schools I have visited (depending on what his study interests are at the time he applies). In other words, I think there may be some added value in the category of colleges that Marite calls "highly selective." She would agree, as I am sure from her many thoughtful posts here, that young people shouldn't feel crushed if they don't get into the "top" school in their chosen field of study, but I think it hurts more never even to apply than to apply and possibly not get in.</p>

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<p>marite - do the names Amy Carter, Chelsea Clinton, and Barbara Bush ring any bells? How about any of a slew of Kennedy offspring? We can go on to Hollywood starlets but I think you get the drift. How democratized is the the Ivy League? Probably more than it used to be but there is still no shortage of the offspring of Wall Street investment bankers.</p>

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<p>Sure there are. But so what? You focus on the 30% of the glass; I focus on the 70% who are at Harvard on financial aid and get a great education.
Get the boulder off your shoulder.</p>

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<p>There was a quote about HBS years ago that wetn something like " Harvard admits people who are likely to succeed, and then takes the credit when they do so".</p>

<p>Generally, I think thats the case for all the schools discussed. </p>

<p>There are some advantages, though, of going to the Ivies and well known highly selective schools. One is in recruiting. Certain firms and industries only recruit at such places. Another is in grad school admissions. All of the graduate and professional schools like to have representation from the best undergrad schools in their student body. This especially comes into play for those Ivy grads who may not have been in the upper half of their class, and are not getting one of the few spots at Yale Law School. [Granted, it can work the other way too, and I agree with the idea that its easier to get into medical school from a less competitive university]</p>

<p>I don't entirely disagree with Mr Samuelson,.......... but life is not purely meritocratic, and has at least a little bit of luck and bias mixed in. To the degree that you have a hard time "proving" how good you are, or where performance is unrelated to academic ability (this may be a majority of jobs, btw) then your talent will have a hard time shining through.</p>

<p>One thing to be careful about in informal or even formal rankings by recruiters......many of them dislike the Ivies because the graduates don't want the jobs they are recruiting for. This happens at the undergrad and business school level. There are plenty of "up from the ranks with a chip on their shoulder" recruiters who enjoy telling stories of Ivy arrogance and incompetence. The business world (as well as other worlds) is "tiered off" with organizations with varying degrees of desirability as places to work. For many, its not surprising that they have a hard time hring or retaining talented people with attractive alternatives. When I was in the finance business, Harvard Business School was by far the best place to look for candidates, with Wharton and Stanford and six or seven others being very productive also---beyond that, given our needs and time, it wasn't worth a trip to many places. If someone came through the door at the right time and appeared attractive and highly competent, he'd be hired, but he'd have to get to us on his own.</p>

<p>Finally, on the "non-elitist" Ivy aspect, 35 years ago, my high school's admits to the Ivy I attended were a steel company middle manager's son, a welder's son, and a telephone lineman's son. All had very high scores and grades, two went to law school, one to business school. In any case, you can't hold peoples family background against them. More than a few of the sons and daughters of successsful people are highly qualified and talented, even if one sometimes finds that in conflict with his view of the world.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
In other words, I think there may be some added value in the category of colleges that Marite calls "highly selective." She would agree, as I am sure from her many thoughtful posts here, that young people shouldn't feel crushed if they don't get into the "top" school in their chosen field of study, but I think it hurts more never even to apply than to apply and possibly not get in.

[/quote]
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<p>I agree with the sentiments entirely. Again, it really depends on the individual. I think the Ivies and other similar highly selective schools occupy a special niche in higher education. As mid-sized research universities, they are large enough to offer a wide array of resources and not so large as to be intimidating to students used to smaller high schools. To a certain extent, their selectivity is a function of their desire not to expand and thus change the quality of their students' experience. So, calls for HYP to admit more students miss the point.</p>

<p>In most cases, students can get as good an education at highly selective LACs. Often, they can get an even better education at those LACs than they would at HYP. Many other students, by contrast, relish the atmosphere and the resources available at large universities such as Michigan. For students like my S, who does not like large universities but needs more than what a LAC offers in his area of interest, mid-sized research universities are ideal. His list of schools included some non-Ivies, but they were all of similar size and, to my mind, equally excellent. The biggest difference among them (except for MIT) was location. I also believe that over the last 2 or 3 decades, the number of mid-sized research universities that offer excellent teaching and research opportunities has expanded. This is why the term "Ivy" is so unfortunate as it is bandied about in what I consider a most promiscuous fashion, sometimes to mean schools in the Ivy League and sometimes to mean highly selective schools such as Duke, Stanford, Chicago, WUSTL, etc...</p>

<p>On the subject of "worth," I am always amazed at the equation of an expensive education with good-paying jobs, First, there are many many less selective schools that are just as expensive as the more selective ones. Second, not everyone thinks that the goal of education, expensive or otherwise, should be to secure the best paying job on the market. I am in fact surprised by the argument, embedded in the "Worthless Ivies" thread that the most suitable careers for Ivy graduates should be the most-high paying ones and that not making heaps of money renders an Ivy education worthless; this argument is usually followed by Ivy-bashing for perceived elitism. Cake, anyone?</p>

<p>My S has had the good fortune to have had student teachers with undergraduate degrees from Princeton, Tufts, Georgetown. Was their education in these highly selective universities of little value since they are all headed for careers far from Wall Street? Or is it of enormous value to society because they have clearly acquired an excellent education and will share its benefits with high schoolers?</p>

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<p>I have been one who has mentioned the Dale/Krueger study many times on CC and been pooh poohed by many people every time. The primary reason that their study rings so true with me is that I attended both a "second tier" public and an "elite" Ivy league college and have experienced first hand the fantastic opportunities that both universities offered me.</p>

<p>Because I attended that "second tier" public as an undergrad I admit that I approached those first semester graduate courses with some trepidation. But by the second week I knew that I had the academic preparation to compete and by the end of that first semester gained an appreciation for the first rate quality education I had received at "The Big Farm".</p>

<p>That understanding, in an of itself was gratifying but it also helped me as a parent. I was able to take that knowledge and encourage my son to go his own way. For example, his GC pressured him to take a third year of Spanish because many of the colleges he might be applying to required this. And he was encouraged to take several SAT 2 tests for the same reason. He balked at both and we allowed him to make his own decision after telling him that these decisions would place some limits on college choices in the coming year. I was comfortable with his decisions because I knew that he would be able to attend many wonderful colleges if not many of the so called "elite" ones. He had fun filled HS years and is finishing up his first year of college the same way.</p>

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<p>originaloog:</p>

<p>Did you, as an undergraduate take more advanced courses? Because this is often what happens to excellent, highly motivated students in schools with a large and educationally diverse student population. </p>

<p>A case in point is our high school, which, several years ago, abolished honors (now reinstated). The effect of this policy was to push students who, otherwise would have taken honors classes especially in areas which were not their areas of interest, into AP classes. Meanwhile the less motivated students (or students whose parents put less pressure on them) took unchallenging heterogeneous classes together with the struggling students. </p>

<p>I have heard profs who have taught at large state universities and highly selective private universities that at the former, the best students are equal to the best at the latter. The main difference from the profs' perspective was the more rapid drop-off in quality below that level of excellence. So I am not in the least surprised that you excelled at your state U and did very well in grad school. In fact, the wider range in student quality may push the better students into taking more challenging courses and thus coming better prepared than many students who went to more selective schools. </p>

<p>The state universities do have the advantage over LACs in that they offer a wide range of courses at different levels of difficulty, thus being able to address the needs of their larger and more diverse student body. A student who is comfortable in a large university can thus have access to as good an education as can be obtained anywhere.</p>

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<p>Originaloog: I think the reason the study gets "pooh poohed" is not that anyone doubts what it says, but that the information isn't germane to a lot of people's college searches. I really don't give a rat's *** how much my kids make when they graduate. my D, (who graduated near the top of her class from a top LAC) is happily doing a job now which does not require a college degree. Do I think that degree is wasted? Absolutely not! That experience is part of who she is, and can never be taken from her. (Lexuses and big houses are just things, but an experience changes you.)</p>

<p>She and I both started our college careers in places where academics were not valued by most of the students around us, and both transfered to places where they were. It changed the quality of the teaching, the class discussions, the out of class interactions, etc., in what was for us both life-changing ways. Both transfers meant sacrificing better financial deals, but the value we both got can't be overstated.</p>

<p>So the study is fine if what you're looking for is return on your dollar, but if you're not, it's meaningless.</p>

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<p>Those who pick a college with a goal of securing a well-paid first job can take comfort in these studies, CEO lists, etc. I always thought that the "value" of a first rate liberal education is to teach the value of things that money can't buy.</p>

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<p>Marite, regarding your comment about the quality of the student is quite true. The better students at OSU were on a par with those anywhere however those in the bottom half were certainly not. Because of the frosh hell that engineering students must endure, this was not as striking in the College of Engineering.</p>

<p>No, I didn't take any grad level courses because the CoE curriculum was excellent. Senior year CE students were required to take 3(we were on a quarter system) design project courses which taught application of theory, teamwork(they were group projects), data gathering/research, technical writing, report preparation, and public presentation. But other parts of the curriculum were excellent too. The 60's was still the slide rule era, but we had to take computer programming(Fortran 4 baby!), we had to write working programs in our Hydraulics 2 course and we had a Wang minicomputer lab. As a result I came to Cornell with computer knowlege far better than most and as good as any. I knew how to write well, not because of Frosh Comp but because of the technical writing course I took junior year. I seemed to more than hold my own in maths also, from calc to diffeqa to statistics. The concept of analogs was easy for me because we built analog systems in my EE for engineers lab(another required course). I knew the theory and application of groundwater flow nets because of my soils engineering course(yep, required too).</p>

<p>With the exception of well selected electives, I took a very standard undergrad curriculum. It was the curriculum itself that was excellent. And it was interesting, I had two close friends who were in engineering at Cornell(I'm from the Southern Tier of NY about 45 minutes from Big Red) and frosh year we were assigned the same calc(Zeber & Fisher-my Calc 1 prof), physics(Halliday & Resnick) and chem texts. Actually my primary chem text(Mahon?) was much harder, the Sienko and Plane text we had in common was our supplemental text.</p>

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<p>Originaloog:</p>

<p>Thanks. Hard to believe that Halliday& Resnick has remained the standard text since the 1960s (it's now used for AP-Physics). </p>

<p>I did not mean to suggest that one needed to take graduate-level courses in order to be challenged. But, once past introductory classes, the quality of students alters markedly. It is absolutely possible to take upper-level classes at a large state U that will be terrific and attract highly dedicated and well-prepared students, just as it is possible to take mandatory courses at highly selective colleges where the students will vary greatly in their degree of motivation for the course and level of preparedness.<br>
To us, the biggest factor was the size of the college rather than the label. Had my S thought he would be comfortable at a large state U, he could have applied to Michigan, Wisc-Madison, UIUC and some others. Maybe for grad school.</p>

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<p>If you prefer a non-Ivy school, then feel free to apply and matriculate. The college a person decides to attend is, contrary to popular belief, usually NOT dependent on elitism. In fact, most kids who DO attend Ivies do not go around for the rest of their lives boasting that they went to Columbia or Harvard. They're just normal people.....</p>

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<p>Garland- I agree that income is only one measure of career success and not necessarily the most appropriate one. It is merely one of the more objective standards available.</p>

<p>And I am by no means denigrating private universities or LAC. Oberlin was at the top of my son's list until the finaid packages came in. He could not justify spending his entire $78k college fund at Oberlin versus about $18k total at Rensselaer where he would have better opportunities in his compsci major. We would have been as delighted seeing him head off to Oberlin as we were "The Tute".</p>

<p>And the big public university is indeed a different experience than a small LAC, particularly the first several semesters. And one size does not fit all.</p>

<p>However one thing most people do not understand is how intimate a huge public university can be. A typical LAC department with 6 faculty may graduate 30 majors each year. I am sure the profs know each student fairly well. At OSU there were about 25 faculty in the CE Department and I was one of 32 students in my graduating class! At least 10 profs knew me quite well from either class, concrete canoe, ASCE field trips, s/f basetball games or the pregame BBQ's we had outside Hitchcock Hall before each home FB game. I kept in touch with several for many years after graduation.</p>

<p>A student will not experience this first or even soph year and of course upperclass students in the most popular majors like polsci will probably not either. But upperclassmen in the less popular department will if they so choose.</p>

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<p>I totally agree that a big public U can be a wonderful place. In my letter above, when I said I transfered from a bad situation to a wonderful one, the academically unchallenging and disappointing situation was a tiny LAC (Washington College) and the challenging, life-changing one was UMich.</p>

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<p>My S choose the University of Chicago not because of its "elite" standing and some hope of a better job, but because of its daunting and unparalleled core curriculum. He wanted Chicago, well, because it was Chicago. He knew from my personal experience that where one goes to undergrad school is of little importance. His cousin a (top) Yale graduate, doesn't feel his education was superior to others (friends and relatives) who went to state and other less elite schools. He went on to graduate work with folks from those schools and saw no advantage in his preparation. He even remarked that they used the same textbooks. What he appreciated was the "Yale experience." </p>

<p>I think that is to what it all boils down; each college and college type has a particular "feel" or aura. My S wanted the intellectual challenge of Chicago, others may want the thrill of Big Ten sports mixed with great academics and dream of Michigan, others like the idea of Harvard Square and years of tradition and choose Harvard, etc. Whereas, hope that where one goes to school will ensure or give one a leg up on the future is not supported by the data, it does provide a unique experience of a type that is provided by no other school. I began school at a community college, I eventually ended up at one of those elite schools. Nothing, after years of education, has ever equalled the excitement and quality of education I received that one year at a community college. </p>

<p>I post this again, but it is worth seeing for those who haven't read it. This speech is simply the best description of why one should go to college at all, "elite" or otherwise: <a href="http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0310/features/zen.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://magazine.uchicago.edu/0310/features/zen.shtml&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p>

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<p>The people demanding proof of Clayleas citation obviously have not bothered to read the Dale and Krueger article, the references therein, or the other literature on the subject. It is hardly just one unconfirmed study.</p>

<p>Economists focus on income because it is an interesting economic question, it is measurable, and you have to pay for college. Sure there are lots of other goals in life, but measuring and valuing them would be almost impossible.</p>

<p>I wonder if CC would agree to post Clayleas's note everyday from now on? A little reality testing would go a long way.</p>

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<p>The article link I posted also contains other data that show that college has little affect on most anything commonly thought to be the reason people attend a college.</p>