<p>People talk about wanting the best college for their child, but don't most (perhaps many) people think that the "best" college experience means attending the "most prestigous" school? As stated above, it can be (or perhaps always is) important in hiring, promotion, etc. </p>
<p>I think, unless finances is an issue, most kids and parents cannot turn down the most prestigious school to which a student is admitted in favor of a lesser ranked school even when is it just slightly lesser ranked. Just last night I was out to dinner with friends and heard the horror of a mother whose daughter wants to turn down her admission to Yale in favor of either Columbia or Penn. "A big mistake" most at the dinner agreed.</p>
<p>I come from humble roots: BS from Michigan State. Yet, especially in recent years, I've worked at two elite universities as well as competed with their grads in the workplace. I can't say my "humble roots" have made any difference. Indeed, I can only observe that, ultimately, the only ones who care about Harvard are, ultimately, other Harvard grads.</p>
<p>This topic has been dissected at lenght on these boards over the past few years. I guess the best summary is that the college label seems to matter to some people some of the time. Most have felt the advantage, if any, fades pretty quickly over time. For most folks, a decade or so out of college the focus becomes "what have you done recently", not "where did you go to school".</p>
<p>Now, the fabled alumni networks of a few elites may matter, again, for some folks some of the time. At the same time, some state U's have fabulous networks for the local folks. Loot at U. of T, or A&M for example. It is easy to be misled by the educational dynamics of the northesast, a region that does not have a strong public university tradition.</p>
<p>Odyssey, I know you're speaking generally but I want to be clear about my own post. I don't equate "prestige" with "best fit" but I do see it as a legitimate and important consideration. My kid is definitely not focused on HYPSM and is carefully looking at schools that seem to mesh with her personality and interests. I am the one concerned both with matching with intellectual peers and with prestige as one of many factors.</p>
<p>This is an issue I have thought about a lot. I went to an Ivy--- Brown. I also did part of my post grad training at Brown Med school, and a fellowship at Yale. I am in private practice and have been for twenty years. My patients parents never ask where I went for school.</p>
<p>However, my education was outstanding. I was able to work with primates at Brown and publish a paper as an undergrad.</p>
<p>Dr. Nancie, I'm surprised. People--including docs checking out other docs-- routinely look to see where doctors have done their training. The undergrad is less important but it factors in. Perhaps your patients' parents have done the research before they ever see you.</p>
<p>
[quote]
My patients parents never ask where I went for school.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Doctors, dentists, lawyers I've dealt with all have their diplomas on their walls. Granted, it's not their college diplomas, but one assumes that where they went for undergraduate education has some bearing on where they were admitted for professional school. Profs don't hang their diplomas on their walls, but they distribute their cvs very freely.</p>
<p>Both my kids went (go) to prestigious undergrad programs, though I really feel we used "fit" as the primary variable, over prestige. This attitude prevailed when my daughter selected a grad school: she turned down Columbia, where she was selected to be in an entering class of 8 students (PhD in clinical psychology), over another generally less well-known program that she felt offered her a better education in the areas she was interested in pursuing. In that she ultimately wants to be in private practice, she did not feel the "prestige" factor was as important as having the best clinical training. However, perhaps if she was more interested in university teaching, it would have been better to have gone to the "name" school.</p>
<p>I went to a prestigious college because my mother fell in love with the place. I hated it. My folks wouldn't let me transfer because the school was "so wonderful". I got a good education, and no question, the name on my resume did help with some early jobs. But would I suggest to my junior d that she do the same? No way! We're looking for fit. Hating your school for four years is a terrible price to pay for the admiration of strangers.</p>
<p>And I've seen Harvard grads crash & burn because they come out of school thinking that their hard work is done and the world will come and bow down to them. Lasts about a year, and then they find that they actually do have to prove themselves, just as much as the schnook who went to State U does.</p>
<p>The child-centered culture that has emerged the last several decades can be understood as an outgrowth of the creative self-expression of the 1960's. Parents came to see themselves as artists, and their children as canvases or lumps of clay. The problem, of course, is that children are not made of canvas or clay and are likely to resist being filled in or pummeled into shape. </p>
<p>In light of this resistance, the obsessive focus on college can be understood as a form of artistic desperation, a last-ditch effort to validate parental creativity: "Well, maybe Jenny isn't exactly what I had in mind, but at least she got into Duke." A great college can also be enlisted to finish the work begun by parents. The credit here might read: "Jenny Jones by Jeff and Amanda Jones, with assistance from Duke University." </p>
<p>The credit here might read: "Jenny Jones by Jeff and Amanda Jones, with assistance from Duke University." </p>
<p>I didn't mean to say having gone to Brown didn't help me. In fact, I think having gone to Brown helped me obtain my internship at Brown post grad school. I just meant people are more likely to ask me what is my treatment success rate, and questions about how I work than where I went to school. </p>
<p>Interestingly enough, referring docs don't generally ask where I did my training.</p>
<p>I have never worried about prestige, but until recently I did worry about quality. And why wouldn't I? We are constantly bombarded with "crises in education" stories. How the US students test scores are dropping further and further behind other countries. How kids in high school can name the latest rapper but not the Vice President. How teachers are so beaten up by parents and the system that they don't have the energy to give anything below an A. There was a recent article in Time or Newsweek about how almost a third of high school kids drop out...often not because the work is too hard, but because they are bored in school. There was a posting on CC that read something like "California public colleges can't be that good because they are filled with kids that graduated from the CA public high schools". It should be that a kid who wants to learn is given plenty of opportunity at school. But parents don't receive a lot of assurances that they will. How often do you read a story about how wonderful the education is in the US? </p>
<p>Sometimes I wonder if parents don't look at prestige as a "guarantee" to a quality education because they just don't know if they are "guaranteed" it elsewhere. I read lots of posts by students wanting to be challenged...to be with like peers, etc. Perhaps it is driven more by fear of poor quality than desire for prestige.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"California public colleges can't be that good because they are filled with kids that graduated from the CA public high schools". <<</p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>The kids who go to California public colleges are a pretty selective bunch. At our middling suburban public high school, only about 25% of the kids go directly into a 4 year college. A lower % than that go to the UCs. So the "quality" of kids who are at the UCs doesn't mirror the general student population. I certainly wouldn't worry about the peer group at the UCs.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>People talk about wanting the best college for their child, but don't most (perhaps many) people think that the "best" college experience means attending the "most prestigous" school? As stated above, it can be (or perhaps always is) important in hiring, promotion, etc. >></p>
</blockquote>
<br>
<p>I think almost no one thinks the above except on the rarified atmosphere of these message boards.</p>
<p>I think "most people" think the best college experience for their child is some combination of good fit + affordable + comports with their family values in some way. The big state U attended by one of my children has at least 100s of kids who could easily succeed at any Ivy, but their families think that $60,000 is a much better price tage than $180,000 and that the state conenctions are more valuable than any they could make at Harvard or Berkeley. Many families prefer a school close to home. My dd just laughed at the cost of her "most prestigious" admit in contast to the scholarships she was offered elsewhere and didn't give it a second thought. </p>
<p>And as someone else said, the only people who really care whether you went to Harvard are other Harvard grads.</p>
<p>DH and I are both Brown grads. We got great educations, but so did our friends and colleagues, who went to every kind and "level" of school imaginable.</p>
<p>RE: an earlier post referring to the college education as "another consumer purchase". This really bothers me with the generation of students (& maybe parents) I see around our campus. Not all, but many of them seem to feel that "i paid you my tuition, now give me my classes...give me my grades...give me my diploma!" A prof told me a story of meeting with a student who complained, "Why did you give me this "D"? His response: "I didn't GIVE you that "D" - you earned that "D".
I think it sad if people really feel that college education is simply another consumer transaction...I pay my money and take home my product. The 4-yr college degree is not a product.</p>
<p>Shedevil: Thank you! Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I worry less about prestige than I worry about the quality of the education my kids will receive and about the peers my kids will have in school. My eldest has complained all the way through high school about kids not doing required reading for classes, putting little effort into thought and discussion, not wanting to be in classes to learn. She is a very passionate, bright student who usually wants more than she can get. If this is her experience in AP classes, shouldn't she be careful about finding the school that will meet her intellectual needs? </p>
<p>I do consider the prestige of the school too but it's a much less important consideration.</p>
<p><< So driven by a sense that Cornell is underappreciated, some of them banded together to form an "image committee," making it their mission to press the university into marketing and branding itself more aggressively, and to help it climb higher in college rankings.</p>
<p>Their fear is being viewed as a country cousin to Harvard, Yale and Princeton, more like a Midwestern flagship state university than a core member of a prestigious club. "Because of when most people go to college, their identity becomes closely associated with the identity of their university," said Peter Cohl, a committee founder who graduated last spring and is now working on Madison Avenue. >></p>
<p>Yes, mom of Incas, there is a kid on another thread already planning his transfer because he "only" got accepted to Penn and Columbia and truly <em>must</em> go to Yale. I believe his parents are part of the impetus.</p>
<p>Wow, that's sad. I can't imagine sending my kid off to college with the intention of transferring (due to prestige). Different priorities, I guess. </p>
<p>I wonder if parents such as these are just practicing "branding" the way that marketing firms do with products?</p>