<p>Now for those who are only concerned about prestige go to harvard,stanford,Yale or princeton.Those are the most prestigious american universities in the world....I'm tired of this sh*** about which is the best....There is NO THE BEST!!!! Best in what way?academics?job placement?enviroment?....
I want see someone here prove me that going to a university top 10 IS GOING to make me more successful than going to a top 10 or 30....</p>
<p>^ There have been NUMEROUS debates about those topics both in this forum and even in the Cafe. I suggest you utilize your "search" button. It's there for a reason.</p>
<p>Many of the top consulting firms only recruit at about 12-15 schools and if you don't go to one of these schools it is very difficult to nearly impossible to get a job at one of them. Investment banking is somewhat similar except the list is more diverse than 12-15 (more like 30-40) and it isn't quite as hard to get a job off the board if you don't go to one of these schools. </p>
<p>The example people have posted on here that over 70% of Harvard and Yale Law school came from one of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Brown, Dartmouth, Columbia, Williams, Amherst I think has more to do with much higher numbers of people from these schools applying and a higher % of very accomplished students attending these schools than these same students unsuccessfully applying if they had chosen to go to Penn State or Rutgers instead, but haven't seen this one proven out definitetively either way.</p>
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I really only think UC Berkley, UCLA, UMich, UNC, Rutgers, UW Madison, and UVa.
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<p>Poor William & Mary, it's so often left out. :p</p>
<p>Wait....Rutgers? Good school, but not a public Ivy.</p>
<p>Mich
Wisc
UMD
UVA
UNC
UCLA
UCB
W&M
UT</p>
<p>All up there.</p>
<p>id say(in order of selectivity) :</p>
<p>UC Berkely
UVA
UCLA
UMich
UNC
W&M
Uwisconsin madison
UCSD</p>
<p>idk why I forgot UWash, but it's up there.</p>
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sakky: I find your comment that "the one thing that kills the undergrad programs at Berkeley and other public schools, relative to the Ivies, is that, frankly, at those publics, there are a lot of undergrad students who aren't that good. They're not highly talented, they don't want to work hard, in short, they're not high quality students," both mind-boggling and ignorant. </p>
<p>I can only assume, then, that you must believe the opposite of the Ivys--that because they are so selective and "exclusive," that all undergraduates at those schools are (must be!) "highly talented, don't mind working hard, and are all high-quality students." ?? If so, you are also delusional.
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<p>Don't put words in my mouth. I never said that you couldn't find some lazy people at Ivies too. But that leads to a sidenote. Just because Ivies have some bad students, so that means that public schools should have them too? So if your friends decide to jump off a bridge, you should also jump off a bridge too? </p>
<p>More importantly, my point is, the AVERAGE undergrad student at the publics is not as good as the AVERAGE student at the Ivies. That's the problem. Obviously you can find bad students anywhere. The issue is where do you tend to find them STATISTICALLY. Just like I know a guy who smoked 3 packs a day and still lived to be over 90. But even he would tell people that smoking is unhealthy and he wished he could quit. </p>
<p>What I would ask you is, why are the public school PhD programs so good relative to the public undergrad programs? I would argue that it is precisely because the PhD programs are more selective - in fact, just as selective as the Ivy PhD programs (and sometimes more so). Why can't the public undergrad programs be like that? </p>
<p>Look, obviously no school can get rid of absolutely every single bad student. Just like nobody can be guaranteed healthy life. But what you do is you try to statistically maximize your chances. If I eat right, don't smoke, exercise properly, wear seat belts, drink in moderation, and generally take care of myself, I will probably live a long healthy life. Not guaranteed of course. I could do all that and still get hit by a bus. Similarly, nobody is saying that there are no bad students at the Ivies or other top private schools. Of course there are. But the odds are reduced by the selectivity. </p>
<p>Seriously, buddy, if you want to argue that there are no statistical differences in average quality between the undergrad student bodies at Harvard and at UTAustin, then THAT, I am afraid, is mind-boggling and ignorant.</p>
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Just like at Berkeley, I'm sure there are plenty of students at UT who don't go to class, don't do the reading, don't know what is going on in their classes and don't WANT to know what is going on. </p>
<p>Er, I go to an 'elite' private and I see these kinds of students too. </p>
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<p>And, like I said above, that justifies it? So if O.J. is allowed to get away with murdering his wife, that means that other guys should also be allowed to murder their wives? </p>
<p>2 points to be made:
* Just because other schools do something bad doesn't mean that your school should do bad things too.<br>
* It boils down to relativity. Smoking 1 pack of day is not healthy, but it's still better than smoking 2 packs a day. Harvard has some lazy undegrads, but a lot less than Berkeley or UT do. If you can't completely eliminate all your negatives, you can at least try to reduce them.</p>
<p>Well if your point was about the quality of the average undergrad, then you should have said that the first time around rather than going off on how there are - omg - BAD STUDENTS at public universities. Now, if past experience on CC is any indicator, you've just started an argument about how important a student's peer group is. Not to get into that myself, but it's no coincidence that I do hardly any work for the class in which most of my peers are football or basketball players. Nice guys, but uh, it's not exactly difficult to beat the curve they happen to set. Which is too bad, since I feel I could've gotten a lot more out of the class if other people had taken it at least a little bit seriously. Yeah I do the reading on my own but when it comes time for in-class discussion and everyone else is more interested in talking about which classes they're going to drop to maintain their 2.2 GPA, well, there's not much I can do.</p>
<p>Sakky, your opinions are not relevant to this topic. Go play in your own sandbox and quit trying to hijack the thread.</p>
<p>Michigan isn't one such state school. I don't think Michigan even has a football team! Hehe!!!</p>
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Sakky, your opinions are not relevant to this topic. Go play in your own sandbox and quit trying to hijack the thread.
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<p>barrons, i don't see why sakky's comments are not relevant to an overall discussion regarding public vs. private education nor how sakky is trying to somehow hijack this thread.</p>
<p>let's be frank, 99.99% of the posts on this board are merely just "opinions" - rarely is a post put up that is 100% "fact" - this IS indeed the nature of a "discussions" board.</p>
<p>further, the nature of any thread is to start at one place and meander here or there ... that's thy its called a "thread" in the first place.</p>
<p>simply put, your attack on sakky is wholly unjustified.</p>
<p>Penn State Honors last year sent people to Harvard Law and medicine among others.<a href="http://www.scholars.psu.edu/prospectivestudents/process/2006FactsandFigures.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.scholars.psu.edu/prospectivestudents/process/2006FactsandFigures.pdf</a></p>
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i don't see why sakky's comments are not relevant to an overall discussion regarding public vs. private education
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<p>Well, to be fair, this thread was started to discuss only the best public schools. But it's not like it's unheard of for fans of certain public schools to hijack threads about elite privates.</p>
<p>Alexandre - LOL. What scares me a little is that my school is supposed to have "smart" football players. Or at least that's what they say to justify having such a bad team.</p>
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Well, to be fair, this thread was started to discuss only the best public schools.
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<p>Well, actually, the title of this thread was what are the "Public Ivies" rather than, "Let's discuss public unis - only public unis, and nothing but public unis"</p>
<p>In fact, it's a thread that defined the best public unis within the context of a private label (Ivy League) --> so how does one engage in a meaningful conversation about publics within this context without discussing private unis?</p>
<p>It should be pretty obvious from the OP that they're using the mainstream definition Ivy, i.e. a very prestigious university, rather than a more literal interpretation, i.e. which public schools could be in the Ivy League. In the case of the former I don't think it's neccessary to discuss the actual Ivy League. </p>
<p>But that's not to say I agree with barrons' repeatedly telling people to shut up about private schools. I've yet to see a long thread on CC that actually stayed on-topic the whole way through. OT-discussion is the nature of the beast and it's kind of silly to whine about it when it doesn't go the way you want.</p>
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It should be pretty obvious from the OP that they're using the mainstream definition Ivy, i.e. a very prestigious university, rather than a more literal interpretation, i.e. which public schools could be in the Ivy League. In the case of the former I don't think it's neccessary to discuss the actual Ivy League.
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<p>Well, I don't know if its really 100% obvious, but let's take that assumption for a moment... still in order to have a complete discussion about the best publics it makes perfect logical sense to compare and contrast them vs. the "overall" best unis in the US (which obviously includes many privates)... therefore, my point still stands that within the context of discussing the best publics, one is fully justified to measure them against the best private universities.</p>
<p>Hmm. You sure you'd still be saying that if this were a thread about the best privates that suddenly became overrun with Berkeley fans? After all, Berkeley can make a claim to be one of the overall best schools in the country. :p</p>
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Well if your point was about the quality of the average undergrad, then you should have said that the first time around rather than going off on how there are - omg - BAD STUDENTS at public universities.
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<p>Uh, why not? The reason WHY the average student quality at the public schools is lower than that of the top private schools is BECAUSE of the presence of more bad students. One creates the other.</p>
<p>Imagine somebody saying that they live a very healthy lifestyle, except for the fact that they smoke 3 packs a day. Wouldn't that fact, by definition, mean that you don't live a very healthy lifestyle? </p>
<p>I have always been a proponent of the public universities decreasing the number of bad students they have. If they want to match the student quality that the Ivies have, then that's what they have to do. </p>
<p>Now, I know what you are going to say. You are going to say that the private universities have some bad students too. Sure enough, but so what? Just because others don't fix their problems doesn't mean that you shouldn't fix your problems. Put another way, if the public schools fix their problems and the private schools don't, then the public schools will be better than those private schools. </p>
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Sakky, your opinions are not relevant to this topic. Go play in your own sandbox and quit trying to hijack the thread.
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<p>You got a problem with my threads, barrons? Then the answer is simple - don't read them. But what gives you the right to go around telling other people what they can and cannot talk about? Do you own this website? Are you trying to impinge upon my right to free speech?</p>
<p>If you don't like my posts, then don't read them. But let the people who do want to read them be allowed to read them.</p>