Top student at average school vs average student at top school

College Search & Selection
1

<p>I spoke with a family member today, who went to a top ranked school. When I told her I was still applying to more schools, and the ones I am already in at do not rank as high as some others, she told me not to apply to more competitive schools. She said I would be far better off being a top student at an average school than an average student at a top school, especially when it comes to grad school applications.</p>

<p>I kind of have a hard time believing this. But, obviously, I wonder if she is right, or I would not be posting. What do you think? I get worried that the schools I have good scholarships at will not be stepping stones to good grad schools like some higher ranked schools. And I will qualify for financial aid, so, the aid would likely be better/equal at the higher ranked schools than the scholarships I have now at the lower ranked schools.</p>

2

<p>I would bet that that if you were an “average student at a top school,” you would be motivated to work even harder. Who says you can’t be a top student at a top school?</p>

3

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This old chestnut? The majority of how you do is based on YOU. Look at this list of PhD producing schools:
[REED</a> COLLEGE PHD PRODUCTIVITY](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/ir/phd.html]REED”>Doctoral Degree Productivity - Institutional Research - Reed College)
See some surprises, like Wabash, Spelman, Earlham, NMex Tech…</p>

4

<p>Students often assume that they will be a top student at an average school or an average stuent at a top school, but I wouldn’t make those assumptions. I was a pretty average student at an average school, despite being in the top 5% of applicants when I began as a freshman. This college was excellent and I learned a lot, and was very well prepared for grad school. However, students weren’t competitive (which was one reason I decided to attend here) and the goal wasn’t really to get the top grades, but to learn. Plus I realized didn’t have to work very hard to make good grades - I was literally the top applicant at my LAC. So I became sort of lazy and was totally satisifed with Bs, especially since I had been a top student in high school and worked my butt off for that. In college, I could care less about being in the top 10% or whatever, I just wanted to do well. I still graduated with honors, but my GPA was a 3.42. (FWIW, I’m getting my PhD at a top 5 Ivy League program and was an NSF fellow…so it all worked out for me.)</p>

<p>On the other hand, I’m currently a graduate student at one of the top schools in the country, and the undergrads here are mostly hypercompetitive. Even the students who are “laid-back” here would be some of the most competitive students at my undergrad. So that hypercompetitive atmosphere makes even middle-of-the-pack students work hard and really strive for the top grades. On top of that, the grade inflation here is pretty serious. Papers that would get Cs at my lower-ranked undergrad - a writing-intensive LAC - get Bs here (and I know because I’ve graded many of them!) There are jokes about the grade inflation at Harvard and Yale, but they’re rooted in truth.</p>

<p>There are also fewer social life distractions - not in an actual sense (this university is in a very large city, which narrows it down a bit, right?) but in the student body sense. My undergrad college had a very vibrant social life, so the ethos was ‘study as much as you need to do decently well and then have fun!’ Classes were mostly over by 5 pm, and campus would just flood with students. Some people were really involved with their student groups but many students (like myself) were doing absolutely <em>nothing</em>, just hanging out and talking. This university’s undergrads aren’t really like that - I held a staff meeting for my RAs at 10 pm and every semester I would have at least one student who had to show up a few minutes late because a class ran over or because they were running from another student group meeting. It’s not uncommon for students to be in class until 8 pm. I remember one time there was a fire alarm in the library on a Sunday afternnon and the fire department showed up and were bewildered at the large number of students flowing out of the library. They were cracking jokes about how nerdy they were!</p>

<p>Anyway, tl;dr is that don’t assume you’ll be a top student just because you go to an average school, or that you’ll be an average student at a top school. High school is over, and college is a whole different ball game. At schools like Yale or Swarthmore, ALL of the students were top students in high school and the differences in your class ranks and GPAs are probably more due to the idiosyncracies of the classes you took and the schools to which you went than actual ability differences. So it’s anyone’s guess as to who will become the top students - a student who is technically the “middle of the back” in their freshman year could very well become the valedictorian of the class because he works hard and finds his niche.</p>

<p>On the other hand, at most colleges there are lots of distractions. Besides, sometimes the high school valedictorian will decide she’s tired of working her butt off to be the TOP student and is fine with just being a good student. So the student who may have had the highest grades and SAT scores upon admission may decide to spend more time on her sorority, or on SGA, or her internship, or volunteering in the community, and get a 3.4 GPA. Which is still good, just not enough to make her the valedictorian - but she doesn’t care about that and her resume is banging and she’s made lots of connections, so win win for everyone!</p>

<p>Besides all that…grad schools care less about where you went to college and more interested in what you do there. Like I said, I’m a former NSF fellow, currently on another top external fellowship I received for my dissertation, at a top 5 Ivy League PhD program. I went to the LAC ranked #68 on the U.S. News list. But that’s because I did the other things I needed to do (good grades overall, better grades in my major, research, great statement of purpose, top GRE scores) to get into graduate school.</p>

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<p>all you doing is nice it wil help your in future</p>

6

<p>Malcolm Gladwell’s recent controversial take is germane to your question:</p>

<p>[Malcolm</a> Gladwell’s David And Goliath - Business Insider](<a href=“http://www.businessinsider.com/malcolm-gladwells-david-and-goliath-2013-10]Malcolm”>Malcolm Gladwell's David and Goliath)</p>

7

<p>Gladwell is important to consider, but take his idea with a grain of salt. He’s basically arguing that he’s right and everyone else who is trying to get into top schools is wrong - and it is very rarely correct that one person is right and the market is wrong.</p>

8

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<p>Actually, it is not that rare for much of the market to be “wrong”, as in speculative bubbles.</p>

<p>However, what is the “correct” decision for a given student in this case is not so clear cut as Gladwell argues, since choosing a college involves many more “it depends” factors than other choices that one may make.</p>

9

<p>Grad/professional schools: GPA matters. Go where you’ll be certain to get that 4.0 and seize all the research opportunities available (i.e. less competition).</p>

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<p>I acknowledge the bubble problem, but how anyone is able to recognize a bubble vs. a rational market is usually only obvious in retrospect. And how one profits from a bubble is another problem, particularly an “education bubble”. How is one supposed to “short” Harvard? </p>

<p>The other problem with Gladwell’s argument is that for 99.9% of us, we get one shot at going to a college - do you really want to take a chance on his theory, given there are no do-overs? The downside of attending Harvard and being in the middle of the pack are pretty minimal, I think most of us would agree. If you want to take his advice as “Life is not over if you don’t attend Harvard”, well, that’s actually pretty good advice.</p>

11

<p>I have seen Gladwell’s google talk (forgot what they call the conference) and found the theory interesting. However, I don’t put any stock in it since it seemed quite dependent on what people with different grades produced as research publications based on what grades they got at a top school vs a regular school and eventually going on to become professors.</p>

<p>There are multiple issues with it. Not everyone becomes a professor and not every B student coming out of Harvard, Yale etc is messed up for the rest of their lives. If that is the case, we wouldn’t have any congressmen, senators, a few presidents, upper level management in many of the companies, and the list goes on. It is quite possible those who go on to faculty positions with less than stellar grades became unsure of themselves or they were coasting in Harvard as well as coasting as faculty.</p>

<p>At any college, you are required to rise to the occasion. You can be a stellar high school student getting Bs in directional U or a top 20 school based on not putting in the hours you need to put in which may be 5 vs 10 to get that A. Knowing what effort is needed is what gets you the grade but if you are happy with a B at Harvard, you may be happy with not being at the pinnacle when you take whatever job you end up with.</p>

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<p>while I enjoyed the few lectures I have listened to by Gladwell, just because he looks a little out to lunch and has crazy hair, does not make him smart or knowledgeable. I have very similar hair and no one listens to me.</p>