<p>I don’t think much of this discussion is helpful to the OP. Judging by what I read on this site there are many kids, often the children of Asian immigrants, being placed under tremendous pressure by their parents to gain acceptance to a handful of schools that are extremely difficult to get in to. There is simply not room for all of them. They are being made to feel that they are failures and that their life is over or whatever other melodrama they prefer if they don’t get in. And if they do get in, they will have gotten the lottery ticket to immeasurable wealth and lifelong happiness. </p>
<p>And so they spend their high school years in a chronic state of miserable depression, unhealthy sleep deprivation, doing activities they don’t want to be doing, self-studying AP tests in an arms race to rack up more APs than the next kid, and in every waking moment frantically trying to make themselves into the perfect candidate so that their life will not end miserably at age 18 should they not be accepted to any of the magic colleges.</p>
<p>Kids, work hard, challenge yourself, get a good education, get involved in things you really enjoy doing. But stop worrying so much about what will look good to colleges. Don’t be afraid to do the things that you want to do, that interest you. And try to enjoy your high school years because you will never get them back. It’s your life.</p>
<p>I appreciate the irony of the situation. I chose not to name the ranking that I was talking about, and someone else did. Perhaps ccco2018 will return to rage at you for mentioning it.</p>
<p>It looks much different and more interesting when you remove all of the metrics having to do with Financial Success. Appalachian State University above Princeton; Centre, Sewanee, and some HBCUs near the top; seven of the nine Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, UChicago, Duke, Williams and Swarthmore not in the top thirty; four military schools in the top ten… I must have alienated all of the “■■■■■■” on these boards with that ranking. </p>
<p>Ironically, Yale is the only “elite school” that’s where people expect it to be.</p>
<p>@coolweather:
<a href=“http://www.nytimes”>http://www.nytimes</a> .com/2013/12/26/education/getting-out-of-discount-game-small-colleges-lower-the-price.html?pagewanted=all
(Take out the space)</p>
<p>““About a quarter of students at independent colleges are full-pay, and at institutions with small endowments and small name recognition, it’s single-digit,” Mr. Warren said.”</p>
<h1>41 My kid stole the book, so I can’t check, but there is a page where they explain the rankings where they list all 19 categories and show the R value which is basically a method of weighting for assembling the overall ranking.</h1>
<p>Mathyone tried to bring this back to the OP.</p>
<p>It is difficult to offer advice when it is actually the parents who need to change. I wonder if there is counseling available that can include sensitivity to cultural attitudes but bring the parents up to par on their knowledge of college options.</p>
<p>"My parents pressure me to get good grades and take all the hard courses because they believes unless I get into top tier schools, my future will leads to nowhere because I will not get a good job. Is this really true ? Do I really need to graduate from some prestigious schools to get a chance at being successful at life ? "</p>
<p>It continues to floor me that there’s no cultural transmission in place in these communities to tell them – “Yes, I know that back in our home country, where you went determined your station in life, but it’s not like that here in America, so put that out of your head.” All of these people seem to have to learn this lesson anew and there’s no mechanism, so it’s got to be repeatedly learned, individually, again and again, the hard way. Why doesn’t the meme ever spread in these communities that America is different, and hey, that’s part of why you moved here in the first place (often at tremendous personal sacrifice) – because we don’t have that social stratification based on universities?</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl, do you know if the alumni factor rankings in any way control for household income of the students’ parents? I wondered whether it was truly that alums were making more money because of the fantabulous education they got at School X, or whether they were perhaps wealthy to begin with and their wealthy parents used their connections to get them a great job at graduation (i.e. The speaking fee which Chelsea CLinton gets, which would certainly skew the data for her class at Stanford). The point here is that the wealthy kids happened to go to school X but most certainly would have made the same money even if they went to Podunk U. (You’d almost have to take out all the development admits when you ran the numbers to get rid of that problem.)</p>
<p>@Pizzagirl, do you know if the alumni factor rankings in any way control for household income of the students’ parents? "</p>
<p>I’m not sure why I’m being asked this – I don’t have whatever book they’re referring to, I haven’t even clicked through to the links, I don’t know the methodology, and I don’t particularly care what schools come up to the top or don’t, other than in a general-interest sense. You might want to redirect your question to one of the posters who seems engaged in these ratings. </p>
<h1>49 the rankings are based solely on survey responses, and they do not seem to have asked that.</h1>
<p>And yes, I wondered the same thing - how much or income/ net worth is due to parents’ wealth.
Btw, the survey was of all alums, regardless of year of graduation, so you also have to bear that in mind - although they do provide breakdown of responses by age.
Personally, I would not consider the alumni factor rankings as definitive, but they provide an interesting look at colleges that traditional rankings lack. Taken together with traditional rankings,they help give a more complete picture of the colleges they cover.</p>
<p>@scholarme Oh, I misunderstood. That’s not the same as weighting each category differently from the beginning though. </p>
<p>@Momzie It’s not clear. That’s why I ignore all of the income metrics. In theory, a school that admits only people with billionaire parents would rank #1 in all of those metrics, and probably in “Value for the Money” and “Alumni Giving.” The ranking of alumni appraisals of their college experiences is less favorable to the elite schools…</p>
<p>If you have any other questions, you can PM me, I guess. I don’t want to derail this thread any further.</p>
<p>OP: There is no black and white answer here and as you can see some parents on this forum have very strong opinions. There is value is working hard in school and taking a challenging curriculum. That will certainly open the most doors to college. However, that does not mean you should be miserable or give up every other aspect of your teen years to succeed. You should be working hard, but have time to pursue extra curricular activities, exercise, and even some time with friends. </p>
<p>There are around 3000 colleges in the States and you can get a good education at many of them. Even the definition of top tier may be in dispute. On CC that may be limited to about 40 schools or less (the top 20 Universities and Liberal Arts Colleges (LACs), but other fine schools may be ranked a bit lower. With decent grades and coursework, you can probably get into a fine school, even if it is not in the top 20 or even the top 50 and have a very successful life. </p>
<p>But there is certainly a difference between a school ranked in the top 100 or so and a local, unranked college with a low graduation rate. You may find some of these schools to be similar to high school in tone and many poorly prepared students. That may not be to your liking either. But you can be successful - financially and in many other ways - with a degree from a wide variety of colleges. It is great to aim high, but you (and your parents) have to be realistic as well. </p>
<p>I hope you find a nice balance in the coming school year.</p>
<p>“And yes, I wondered the same thing - how much or income/ net worth is due to parents’ wealth.”</p>
<p>Of course, there’s a world of difference between being, say, an “average” full -pay student – which means, yeah, your parents did well, but you don’t start out your career with any money of your own, just the luxury not to have to pay off student debt, but you still have to work for a living – and being a Kennedy or (insert other wealthy family) where you don’t ever have to really work again. Conflating the two is stupid.</p>
<p>The renowned professors are a huge asset that elite schools have. Unlike a lot of people think, most of them in my experience are very approachable and love to share their passion for their subject with students. This has been my experience in undergrad at a middle Ivy and the open house I attended at Harvard where I am starting my PhD in the fall. You could argue that this is because I am now going to be a grad student, but I found in undergrad that if you showed to a professor that you had a genuine interest in their subject, they would be more than happy to talk to you and even mentor you throughout undergrad. I continued to keep in touch with professors I met freshman year.</p>
<p>This author is bitter since he didn’t receive tenure at Yale.</p>
<p>Students are not “retaking the same classes” because a HS AP class is NOT the same as a class at a top tier school. Transfer students are presenting actual college classes, not HS classes. And even some of them may not transfer, depending on the institutions involved.</p>
<p>When a school awards a degree, it should mean something. Not that the student has managed to scrabble together a bunch of credits here and there that minimally meet graduation requirements. Some schools take that seriously.</p>