Grad school is a completely different ballgame. I expect utahengineer found an advisor at Stanford with whom he could best advance his research interests. For some fields (ie BME) Utah would be considered a top grad program itself, and there are top people working at Utah in a wide variety of fields. Not quite as many as at Stanford, perhaps, but that’s a decision that needs to be made on a very individual basis.</p>
It certainly isn’t limited to engineering, but I’d argue that the rigor and standardization of ABET accreditation requirements makes engineering a somewhat unique case.
You are making some fairly broad claims that really ought to be corroborated with cognitive research. Cites please.</p>
<p>BTW, I find it somewhat interesting that your selling point for MIT is the supposed lack of fun there.</p>
<p>@ Parent, I never said my Utah education was as good as an education I would have gotten at MIT. And yes, I would have gone had it been financially realistic. And yes, I had an admit from Utah as well as Stanford. I chose Stanford because I’ll get better training there. All I was saying is that going to Utah didn’t hurt me in my grad school apps.</p>
<p>I’ll probably get smoked by the kids coming out of MIT (there were several at the Stanford weekend while I was the only one from Utah - and was the first in several years), or maybe I won’t. I was accepted on the same criteria as they were - and I am sure there were more than the several MIT students at the weekend who applied.</p>
<p>Would I have been as pleased with my Utah education if I hadn’t gotten into Stanford? I don’t know. </p>
<p>That said, I sense I bit of defensiveness in your post.</p>
<p>POIH is being defensive about his family’s choices. You will tend to see that here. One one side of the (frequent) debates are those that believe there are only 10 or so schools worth attending. On the other side are those who believe Miami of Ohio was mistakenly overlooked by the Ivy League. Welcome to the World of CC!</p>
<p>I don’t know if it is limited strictly to engineering.</p>
<p>More backstory:</p>
<p>My high school girlfriend (now fiance) had acceptances to a good chunk of the top private schools. Her financial aid package was more realistic. She also chose the full ride to Utah. She majored in the history. While my program (yes, it is BioE) is somewhat well known, history at Utah isn’t (at least, from what I have gathered). </p>
<p>Anyway, she did very well and got into pretty much every top law school. She is currently at Stanford. She has said that about 50-75% of the students are from the Ivies/top private schools. She also has no regrets about her undergrad college.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I’ve any reason to be defensive. But the point of the thread was to indicate if the flag ship is better than the elite schools. If you indicate</p>
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<p>then the point you made is futile. </p>
<p>There are many people who have made it to Stanford for Phd from developing countries who might have gone to colleges that have never sent a student to any US college. Will that make the undergraduate experience at HMSPY futile?</p>
<p>I was just pointing that acceptance at Stanford for Phd not a necessary indication that the experience at Utah was better or even fulfilling over the elite college. Which was the main question of the thread.</p>
<p>“It certainly isn’t limited to engineering, but I’d argue that the rigor and standardization of ABET accreditation requirements makes engineering a somewhat unique case.”</p>
<p>Good point. </p>
<p>My larger point was that i wouldn’t hesitate to match a top student in developmental psychology at Minnesota against a student with that interest at any Ivy; a top classics student from Cincinnati against a classics student at any any Ivy; a student in the Chinese Flagship program at Ohio State against an East Asian studies major at Cornell; a top political science student at Penn State against one from Georgetown; and so on, across a wide range of fields.</p>
Let’s be very clear: arguing whether a school is “better” is futile and stupid. It is a waste of your time, my time, and everyone else’s time. The more constructive question is whether the ROI from the Ivy (or MIT) is worthwhile compared to a flagship. In some cases, there may not be a price difference. For utahengineer, the UofU was significantly cheaper. Therefore, his post is very relevant to the more important question.</p>
<p>BTW, trying to gauge the exact “point” of a thread from the title can be tough, especially given that the OP was very likely being satirical. The first post mostly addressed bball, which leads me to believe that this was not intended to seriously answer that question.
Well, Stanford obviously thought that those students were qualified.</p>
<p>The argument I’m presenting is not that the HYPSM experience isn’t valuable. I’m saying that the cost difference for a full-pay student makes the flagship a smarter investment. I could certainly extend this with a discussion of why the flagship might offer a valuable environment as well, if you’d like.
If he likes skiing, I’m sure living in SLC was vastly more fulfilling than Cambridge ;)</p>
<p>More to the point, you still haven’t addressed anything I wrote in post #121.</p>
<p>Then Graduate school should not be the measure of whether or not the undergraduate experience at flag ship is any way better than the elite colleges.</p>
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<p>I’m not making any broad statements here. The reasons for MIT to publish it’s course content online is that it doesn’t believe that the learning the content is what a student at MIT receive at part of its undergraduate experience.</p>
<p>I didn’t say there is any lack of fun at MIT. The point was the difference between flag ship and MIT education is not fun but the intelectual experience. One might have more fun at UCSB.</p>
<p>For that he doesn’t even need to waste money at flag ship and can have that fulfilling experience staying at home in Utah studying online courses and enjoy skiing.</p>
<p>I really liked Utah’s post. I thought it was balanced. He repeatedly stated that he was repeatedly told that the MIT experience would have been “better” and yet he made the most of the situation he was in and was able to get to the next step in the dance WITHOUT CONSIDERABLE DEBT.</p>
<p>One measure of the quality of an education is the quality of life the graduate can look forward to afterwards. MIT is exceptional in so many ways, no doubt about it, but the reduced quality of life some students might face upon graduation would mitigate the effects, to some degree.</p>
<p>Comparing these two situations is not comparing class work or material vs. class work or material. It is comparing a vast matrix of data, making choices, and coming up with the best personal alternative.</p>
Eh, why not? If utahengineer’s undergrad institution allowed him to access excellent graduate opportunities in his field, that is extremely relevant. His investment in education yielded an impressive return.
Sure, but that doesn’t prove that MIT actually produces different cognitive developments vs. other institutions on average.
The smiley face was meant to indicate that I was at least partly joking. But there’s a serious message here too: personal fulfillment is a broad and difficult-to-measure topic that must be considered holistically on an individual basis. I can’t prove that the UofU is on average more fulfilling just as you can’t prove that MIT is on average more fulfilling because fulfillment is so subjective and involves so many different things.</p>
<p>As the parent of a legacy son at an elite school (though he was fully qualified for admittance, and we certainly were not developmental alumni), what on earth are you trying to say here?</p>
I think this puts in a nutshell pretty well. But I would also add that anybody who makes a decision different from what my family chooses to do obviously did it out of bad motives.</p>
<p>Question: Why do people say that you should save money for expensive grad school? I was under the impression that if you were good enough, you got it paid for by stipends, etc?</p>
Congratulations on your admit and for your good posts. You are probably one of those people who would have done well no matter where.</p>