<p>Meng 1, WashU 0.</p>
<p>I’m gonna talk from my brothers experience at MIT. There is no way he is not getting a better education then someone at a state school. They work all the time, then they work more.</p>
<p>Wow you are pretty self-confident. You strike me as the person who THINKS that they have seen it all and know for sure (written in stone) what a certain place is like. I am not putting you down, but it looks that you have made up your mind way too quickly.</p>
<p>First of all, by saying that you will get just as good an education as Ivy Leagues in a state school is incorrect. YES, maybe the technical information might be a little similar but that is where the similarities end. Once again, people think just because these schools are hard to get into, they are not worth it, they put them down immediately. For a second, look at it from HYPS perspective. They are as smart as you and I. They can also think and understand why they reject or accept a certain person. The HYPS experience is not just for an education in like engineering or something, it is about the atmosphere.</p>
<p>HYPS provides you with an atmosphere that promotes thinking at a higher level. WHY do corporate companies pay big bucks to people from Ivies right off the bat?? Because those schools have prepared the students in all perspectives. They can be assured that a student from there is matured enough and is knowledgeable enough to think at a level where few can. This along with great leadership makes them prime candidates. </p>
<p>Trust me, I know of people personally from these schools and when I am around them, I just feel that aura. They can analyze and think quickly and efficiently. They have an open mind and are quick to grasp ideas. Most of all they act in such a way, that you just want to be around these kids. I don’t know how to explain it totally.</p>
<p>So if you do get the chance take it. If you are still thinking, well… the avg. salary is not that much higher or smthin like that. Then, you have lost the battle and will not understand my point. Sorry for the grammar and spelling errors. I typed it up too quiks.</p>
<p>^^ Sorry about it being so long. But I wantd to add, if you don’t get in to HYPS, that is not to say, you cannot be as successful. NO WAY! People can and should make their own paths in life.</p>
<p>But my exp. also tells you why perfect scores and gpa don’t make the cut at HYPS.</p>
<p>The Ivy (and other top school) benefits include many schools beyond HYPS.</p>
<p>lolol yea ur rite, but I was just saw HYPS so i went with that. My bad I meant any top 20 or 25 universities of the world.</p>
<p>Connections. Think of how many governors, senators, presidents, investment bankers, etc went to Harvard or Princeton or Yale. The networking among alumni is amazing at Ivy League schools and many students end up getting their first jobs out of college from any alumni connections or other social networking they did while in college. Ivy League schools typically have more internship connections as well along with research opportunities (although some of these may not apply to undergrad or at least would be very difficult to obtain). That’s basically it. You get to interact with the very rich and the very smart, form some connections that can help you in the future. Education wise, I’d say you can get just as good (if not better) at a small liberal arts school and even at some state schools.</p>
<p>^ ditto .</p>
<p>This is an important thread that has been touched on in various threads, and it deserves a thread of its own.</p>
<p>The simple answer to the question is prestige. It is not ranking per se but it is related to ranking, which corresponds more closely to research output.</p>
<p>Prestige comes from the fact that legacies of VIPs go there. The more of them choose to go there, the more prestigious the place is. Because VIPs go there, smart “commoners” want to go there too because they correctly reasoned that it will help them get their first job, which will help them to get into the right law/medical/grad school later on. This of course push up admission selectivity, which in turn add to the prestige of the institution, and so on so forth. </p>
<p>There is no evil intent here, but simply how life is. With some exceptions, these kids tend to be smart and rich, rather than smart or super smart. In short, to improve your chance of getting into an Ivy, go to the “right” high school. While a smart, hardworking and successful joe does not have a great chance of getting into an Ivy, his children will.</p>
<p>To diversify the genetic composition of the class, a few lucky joes do get in, among the thousands waiting at the gate. They are the truly lucky one because, after all, the blue bloods do not need to look for a job, the jobs are there waiting for them. (I suspect that is why they can afford to focus on a “liberal education”).</p>
<p>The lucky joes do not get “free rides” either, prepare to be put in your place now and again by the better-connected classmates. Part of the price of admission, I guess.</p>
<p>Reality as I see it anyway.</p>
<p>Does all this apply to the undergrad school at HYPS, or does it also apply the grad school as well?</p>
<p>The truth is that its much more than just getting into a good grad school. The business opportunities after graduating from HYPS, Dartmouth, Columbia, Duke, etc are the best in the world. You’re on the CEO/ high finance track, a big difference.</p>
<p>There is a lot of Ivy-loving going on here. They are good schools but many many successful people didn’t attend them. Their prestige value is greatest in the North East.
For academic graduate programs, there is no disadvantage to going to a non-Ivy – some of the top producers of future PhD’s are the liberal arts colleges – including Swarthmore, Oberlin, Reed. The ranks of graduate students at Harvard and Yale include many many students from non-Ivy’s, including from public universities. It matters more where you go to graduate school in academia, in terms of future jobs – there is an advantage to attending Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley, Columbia, etc. for graduate school if you want to land a good university job. For law school, there seems to be an advantage to going to Harvard if you want to go to Harvard law school, but there are many fine law schools and you can get a job in a top firm by going to UC Berkeley or Michigan, too. Those interested in IB might fare better in the initial rounds of hiring right out of school if they are from Harvard or Princeton, but not everyone wants to do I-Banking!
There would be no disadvantage to attending U Va; it is a top school.</p>
<p>From what I am told, the undergrads at the Ivies are more blue-blood than those in the grad schools. In order to get into Goldman or McKinsey as an undergrad, for example, you must be in a school that is a feeder. To get into these feeder schools, your chances are best if you are from elite private high schools.</p>
<p>Goldman and McKinsey cast their nets wider for associates at the MBA level.</p>
<p>Of course, coming from Goldman or Mckinsey after undergrad is a great help in getting into top MBA programs. See how incestuous it is?</p>
<p>Canuck guy, let me mention that I go to Duke, and can assure you Duke, Stanford, and possibly a few other non-Ivy’s do better than half the Ivy’s in recruitment for Goldman or McKinsey. The only top tier bank/consulting firms Duke does worse than more than most of the Ivy’s is second tier consulting (ie not the best, but great) such as Monitor, Parthenon, and Kearney.</p>
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<p>with all due respect thoughtprocess, let’s assume Harvard, Princeton, UPenn and Dartmouth are at least as good as Duke if not better,
so “better than half” would mean that Duke does better than ALL of these schools:</p>
<p>Brown, Yale, Columbia, Cornell --now I could agree that Duke might do better than a couple of those schools on any given year, but I won’t agree that Duke does better than every one of those schools consistently, year in and year out (in other words, when one says “better” then generally one means that there is a DISTINCT advantage of X over Y – and I just don’t buy that statement)</p>
<p>look at like this</p>
<p>there are little to no disadvantages…at least for me…at least i hope :D</p>
<p>If you want computer science… ivy is not the place… even MIT isn’t the top there! </p>
<p>Stanford all the way</p>
<p>Honestly, I think that an Ivy league degree is kind of like being born rich.</p>
<p>Sure you get spoon fed everything, sure you have an easy time when you confront life, and sure you get plenty of bragging rights. Like being rich, having an ivy league degree provides you with a springboard and almost ensures a great start. After that it’s all you.</p>
<p>Just as a rich kid might become an alcoholic and ruin his life, an ivy leaguer might fail to live up to his reputation. At the same time, a poor kid might become a brilliant success and a local public school graduate might win the nobel prize.</p>
<p>Obviously it helps to have an ivy league degree, but other than helping you take that first step, it really doesn’t do much else.</p>
<p>I should have said “Ivy” instead of Ivy. The most prestigious colleges are not all in the Ivy League. Some, like Stanford, are equal to the top Ivies. No disagreement here.</p>
<p>There’s an awful lot of Ivy-bashing going on in this thread.</p>
<p>First, not all Ivies are alike. Penn is a very different place than H or Y, with a very different atmosphere, IMO. Harvard and Yale are, IMO, more alike than either is to Penn, but they too have their differences. So, if you actually get into one or more of these 3, focus on the comparison of the school(s) which accepted you with UVa.</p>