Would love to see those stats and broken out regionally. In my neck of the woods I don’t think it would be statistically insignificant number. Many of my D’s peers turned down HYPMS level schools for full rides elsewhere. Others who would definitely have been in the running didn’t apply at all because they knew they couldn’t afford it.
“This is why Bruni’s book, which was meant as an antidote to the admissions mania, fell on deaf ears for the most part,”
Where are you getting this from? The biggest increases in applications over the last five years have been to non-prestigious schools.
“People are naturally drawn to prestige, elitism and brand.”
That is just not true, you may be conditioned to prefer prestige or elitism, but it’s not there from birth.
“Until, that is, accessibility to a luxury car is available.”
There are a whole of wealthy people that do not drive luxury cars, because guess what, they want to remain wealthy. As ucbalumnus points out, the maintenance costs of a BMW or Mercedes make people that can afford it prefer a Honda or Toyota. Here’s some research on that:
“That’s because, according to a study done by researchers at Experian Automotive (and published on Forbes), 61% of wealthy people(over $250K) actually drive Hondas and Toyotas and Fords, just like all the rest of us.”
“Because there’s a world of difference in their experiences”
Sure, no one disputes that. Even Bruni says up front that the experience at Harvard is going to be different than a regional state college.
“The car analogy is a very poor one and not comparable to a 4 year college education; something that stays with you the rest of your life and is really the building blocks of your future career. Much more important and complex that some silly analogy of car brands (material objects).”
lol, I agree, which is why I was surprised it was brought up.
Many posters on CC live in a financial bubble. I suspect the most vocal of the “buying the student” posters would be surprised by the students who comprise competitive merit cohorts. They fit @momofboiler1’s description and there are far more of them than those who are vocal about elite schools “only” recognize.
Yep, family friend’s D19 is at Harvard, with a concentration in Government. In the past year she has had impromptu lunches on campus with members of congress, has attended numerous speeches and Q&A with U.S. and other world leaders, has met speaker of the house of reps, Nancy Pelosi and this past weekend had a one on one conversation with Elizabeth Warren. For a government/political science type major you get unfeathered access to some of the key government power players, what a wonderful and life changing experience for someone studying politics. These “intangibles” (e.g. access) don’t just happen at every college in the U.S. and really drives home the point that where you go to college might have a profound effect on your college education.
It’s best to just stick with facts. Fact #1 is that all 4 year universities are fully accredited bachelors granting institutions. Fact #2 is money. Fact#3 is that grades are a reflection of you, not the school. Fact #4 is that employment has a relationship with what job skills you acquire, so what you study matters. Everything else is subjective opinion.
This depends on soooooo many factors so I thought I’d share a perspective from a graduate/academia perspective. It seems to me, and I was also told in interviews, that undergraduate institution only matters at the department level. For instance, my undergrad has a very solid mid-sized department in my focus area. Several researchers from there are known in the community and the school has a reputation for solid industry placements in my research area. That, combined with supplemental summer research at other programs, was apparently a deciding factor for my application. Only about 1/2 of the faculty I’ve spoken with at my graduate institution had heard of my undergrad but if I mention a couple of names of PIs there, they’ve heard of those people. However, this is also in engineering where the program is accredited by ABET, so it provides at least a standard minimum set of requirements. I was on a full tuition scholarship and loved my experience at my undergrad l, and it got me into the most prestigious graduate program in the country (and probably the world) for my research area and my PI has been a productive scientist for over 25 years. So, if you’re going to grad school from an accredited program, undergrad doesn’t matter that much. Grad school, however, is a whole different beast in STEM because that’s really where you make connections and establish yourself.
In the video, it says 2/5 of “successful” people have elite degrees. 40%! It’s shockingly high!.
Not all four year schools granting bachelor’s degrees in the US have regional accreditation.
Same. Plenty of families here don’t understand financial aid and the price differential until later in the process. The ones that do don’t have their kids apply to need only schools.
Let me just say that I love this thread. I am kind of in the middle on this one… Coming from elite schools can bring about connections that can help guarantee success, but students with the profile of a top student are probably pretty successful no matter where they go to school. I enjoy the back and forth discussions, but the one thing that I focus on with my kids at this point is getting the best college experience (that is affordable), because I will always bet on them making the most out of any opportunity, no matter the school.
So my mindset is to “make it happen” whether you go to a state directional or attend a top 10 school. The person matters most. But a school with resources and connections can be a big help too.
This is an old thread, but in 2011, 93% of Stanford admits ended up going to a HYPMS school. Only 7% of Stanford admits went to a non-HYPMS school. Stanford’s yield has gone up, so we should expect the percentage of admits choosing non-HYPMS schools to have gone down over time. Someone who gets admitted to HYPMS and then chooses the full ride at some non-elite, public school is a statistical rarity.
Of course it matters. The different exposures to a vast array of mental and sensory stimulations during 4 prime years of one’s young life has to count for something. College is usually the first time a kid is living away from home. Even the local climate can have a major influence on a malleable brain during these early adult years.
So, choose wisely.
“Stanford’s yield has gone up, so we should expect the percentage of admits choosing non-HYPMS schools to have gone down over time”
This doesn’t follow at all. If Stanford’s cross-admit success with HYPM has increased, which seems plausible, then the percentage of admits who turn down Stanford for financial reasons and take a full ride elsewhere could be the same or even higher, especially since the cost differential for full pay families is increasing every year. We certainly see more CC threads from students having difficulty choosing between Stanford and a full ride than between Stanford and HYPM.
And that doesn’t even consider whether the number of qualified students who don’t apply for financial reasons has increased.
Sorry, but the vast majority of people’s careers are determined by their parent’s socio-economic status, modified by their own abilities and choices, as well as by a good amount of luck.
Now, you will tell me, “but the 2017 NYT article showed that low income kids at top universities did better”. However, these are a tiny percentage of the poor kids, with fewer than 2% of all kids in the bottom 20% attending a highly selective or elite college. In fact, in the bottom 80% of the population, barely 5% attend a “highly selective” or “elite” college. So about 3% of all students will have their socioeconomic status raised by attending an “elite” college. Many many more than that will have their socioeconomic status raised because they attended one of the much lower ranked colleges which have a much higher percent of poor students, colleges like those in the CUNY system.
Moreover, graduation rate among poor students (have Pell grants) at “elite” colleges (acceptance rate >25%) is about 79%, while at “selective” colleges (acceptance rates between 50% and 25%), it is 57%*. So for about 2.5% of all kids, attending an “elite” college" is important. As for the other 97.5%, including 90%-95% of all kid who attend an “elite” college. attending that college provides no benefits in their careers.
Of course, there is also an issue of poorer kids tending to major in concrete, higher income majors when attending “elite” colleges - poorer kids at elite colleges tend to major in business, pre-med, or engineering, and those who do major in humanities or social sciences tend to continue to higher degrees**. So a large part of the increase in the income of poorer kids attending “elite” colleges may be the result of their choice of major, not their choice of college.
That is based on actual data collected from a large number of students.
So those are MY arguments. Where are YOUR arguments. Please bring actual data, not a “my cousin’s brother in law attended Harvard and he says that it changed his life, while his brother attended Rutgers and hated it” type anecdote.
@socaldad2002 My experience exactly ( only 30 years ago). If my kids can go to an elite and actually meet the thought leaders in their field, why wouldn’t they?
It’s great that there are now honors programs in many places but it’s not comparable.
Also, what some people on CC consider elite, I would consider a good school. Really depends on your perspective.
The stats on yield really are the only stat that matters. And that tells us, if given a. choice most chose the highest rated.
Look, we will agree to disagree. You don’t think it matters at all based on your studies and I will not be convinced otherwise having helped with new hire recruiting for over 15 years for a Big 4 firm in L.A. and they/we highly favored candidates from 2 colleges (USC, UCLA) and didn’t even do on campus recruiting at many CSU colleges (ex. CSUN).
I don’t need a study to tell me what I already know and experienced in the “real world”. If you want more specificity, feel free to PM me but I have a feeling no matter what I, or anyone else, says you will never be convinced that it’s advantageous to go to some colleges over others. I do wish you and your family the best and happy new year.
“Also, what some people on CC consider elite, I would consider a good school. Really depends on your perspective.”
The perspective most commonly found on CC is that an “elite” school is defined as the college you (or your kids) attended plus those ranked above it.
Ha, good one! @Twoin18
For high school seniors who are applying to college, the definition of “elite” typically means any which are an admission reach for them.
The stats on applications show that only a very small portion of students apply to HYPSM type “elite” colleges. Some studies have found that the majority of high achieving lower SES students do not apply to any selective colleges at all. An example study is at https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/2013a_hoxby.pdf .
Instead the primary reason why yield rates tend to be strongly correlated with selectivity is due to self selection. For example, suppose half of the top students in a MA HS prefer attending Harvard over UMass, and half prefer attending UMass over Harvard. Many of the ones who prefer attending Harvard also apply to UMass as a backup in case they don’t get in to Harvard, so the ones who get admitted to Harvard may drive up Harvard’s yield and drive down UMass. However, the students who prefer attending UMass over Harvard are extremely unlikely to apply to Harvard as backup in case they get rejected by UMass. If they felt a need for backup, they’d choose a not as selective college. They don’t apply to Harvard, so they can’t drive down Harvard’s yield. However, they might drive down the yield of whatever less selective than UMass college they chose as a backup. In this way yield generally follows selectivity, rather than overall group preference.
Yield also is notably influenced by early action/decision policies, quality of financial aid and general affordability for admitted students, use of holistic admissions, and brand name uniquenesss. HYPSM type colleges do well in most of these criteria, particularly with generous FA.
Yield can be more interesting when yield differs from expectation based on selectivity, early action policies,and financial aid. For example, in a recent year the 10 colleges with the highest yield as listed in IPEDS were as follows. Does this mean most students would choose U of Puerto Rico or U of Ozarks over Harvard if given the choice? Or does this mean they have different self selective samples of applicants that are not representative of the population as a whole?
Colburn – 100%
USMA – 98%
USAFA – 97%
USCGA – 95%
U of Puerto Rico – 88% (flagship RP)
USNA – 87%
Ozarks – 84%
Harvard – 83%
Stanford – 82%
BYU – 81%