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<p>Uhm, no. There is indeed an order, and quite a large one at that… If we really want to be elitist about this thread, the discussion would end after Harvard. That’s it. The other schools are far behind by a mile…</p>
<p>You are delusional if you think otherwise.</p>
<p>rocket,
Your comments are quite instructive as they perfectly illustrate how an enthusiastic view of a college, formed by geographic proximity and/or personal affiliation, can significantly distort one’s perception of its national prominence. While you referred to Penn State, similar observations could made about posters that we see regularly promoting their college on CC. They have drunk the Kool-Aid and really believe their school is the greatest thing since sliced bread, but they often neglect to appreciate that there are literally millions of folks elsewhere who see it quite differently, if they see it at all. </p>
<p>IMO a limited, partisan perspective is the norm when you talk to people about colleges—college affiliations often create strong bonds and strong impressions at formative times in a young person’s life. In addition, sometimes you have parents who will go to great lengths defending/promoting the schools attended by their offspring. But those impressions may or may not be accurate and, in many cases, may not comport with the view of folks in other regions who feel similarly strong feelings about their own college (public, private, LAC, whatever). </p>
<p>The trick is to move around the USA and see how the perspective changes (and also come inevitably to the conclusion that this country is blessed to have so many darn good undergraduate colleges!). For example, spend some time in California and you’ll find out how prominently Penn State is viewed by residents or employers (it’s not). Flip it around and have a UC Berkeley grad move to Philadelphia or Pittsburgh and see how much interest/support/reverence there is for that school in those cities (it’s not on the radar screen). Doesn’t make Penn State or UC Berkeley bad, but it does show you how regional influences predominate. And, of course, one could make similar observations about dozens of schools. IMO, the only clear exceptions would be HYPSM.</p>
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<p>Exactly. My kids are looking at some schools that are relatively unknown in the midwest – Tufts and Haverford being two examples. So? Doesn’t make them bad schools – it just means that people in the midwest are provincial about midwestern schools, just like people in CA are provincial about CA schools and people on the east coast are provincial about east coast schools. RML’s “insistence” on Berkeley as something that everyone covets and r6l’s “insistence” that Penn State has some special super-duper network are perfect examples. The trick is understanding that beyond HYPSM, prestige is all regional.</p>
<p>Several people on the forum have made the point that anything but HYPSM are either not elite, or their “elite” status is regional. This is an untenable argument. To say the education at:</p>
<p>Dartmouth College
Columbia
Brown
Duke University
Chicago
Pomona
Amherst College
Swarthmore College
Wellesley College
Williams</p>
<p>is not nationally known (amongst educated people) is misguided. Education at the HYSPM institutions is not necessarily superior to these institutions (and others) and may even be inferior for some disciplines. It is certainly far less personal education at HYSPM than at Amherst, Williams, Wellesley, Pomona and Swarthmore, for example.</p>
<p>Why not look at how these schools do at getting students into the “elite” medical schools, business schools and law schools? The Wall Street Journal did this and found the top 15 feeder schools were HYSPM plus these. It would be hard to argue that these are not “elite” institutions.</p>
<p>The feeder-school study has been debunked a zillion times on CC; you’re not bringing anything new to the table.</p>
<p>1) Their choice of the schools to feed into was arbitrary and extraordinarily east-coast based.
2) I continue to be amazed by the narrowness of people on CC who think that the success of a school is measured by med school / law school / b-school and / or i=banking / mgt consulting jobs. Education is not merely measured by whether you can get into any of these places (and the better b-schools take you after a few years worth of experience, anyway). It’s like there is this whole world of the humanities and arts that are forgotten.</p>
<p>
Your forum name is trollnyc, need I say more?</p>
<p>I agree with trollnyc. The “wow” factor of Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT are overly exaggerated on this forum. There are plenty of people from all walks of life in different areas of the country who have either never heard of these four schools or only know them for a specific reason (Stanford for football/Tiger Woods).</p>
<p>Name recognition wise, I think Michigan, Duke, Notre Dame and UNC beat out YPSM because I honestly feel like more people know these schools and understand they are top academic institutions due to basketball/football.</p>
<p>Harvard>>>>>>>>>>>>>every other school</p>
<p>The only school my grandparents in Asia have heard of is Harvard.</p>
<p>
This “wow” factor that most people see in HYPSM is associated with employment opportunities/respect in academic circles, not the ability to namedrop to the uneducated.</p>
<p>
I’m assuming that most employers have a pretty good understanding of the educational landscape and would thus know that Northwestern, Duke, Vanderbilt and Brown are good schools as well. Do you really think an employer will discriminate between a Harvard and a Northwestern degree? A Duke and a Stanford degree? A Vandy and a Princeton degree? All of these elite schools and employers will look at work experience/interviewing ability/personality/ GPA to make their decision.</p>
<p>I like Alexandre’s list of elite schools.</p>
<p>@Jersey13, good point.</p>
<p>When you talk about elite schools, the prestige among layman and uneducated does not matter at all. No offense, but they know nothing about higher education and nobody cares their opinions. For example, one of my friends got into IBD at Goldman Sachs and Citi group last year. He had very hard time to convince his parents that, GS is far superior to Citi, because his parents have never ever heard of GS at that moment. Can you say that Citi is more prestigious than GS because a random layman say so? In my high school, nobody knows Duke, ND, Michigan, etc,. but they do know UNC very well, because of MJ.</p>
<p>Numerous ppl at my college chose Stanford, Princeton and MIT over Harvard without hesitation. Prestige among educated is the only one thing you should consider, since they are your potential employers and they have the real power to affect your career.</p>
<p>
I did not imply that schools below HYPSM are not “good schools” anywhere in my post and I certainly did not state that employers have no understanding of the academics at schools below HYPSM. With that in mind, I am a bit curious as to how you reached such conclusions evidenced in your post. </p>
<p>However, I’ll respond to your questions anyway. Yes, employers will discriminate between students in any of the hypothetical scenarios you proposed. That does not mean that an average Harvard student is automatically hired over an exceptional Northwestern student. It simply means that, all other factors held constant, a degree from Harvard is generally seen as more prestigious than one from Northwestern. Arguing otherwise is analogous to saying that a 2380 SAT score is no different from a 2330; the differences may be minimal, but their certainly is a difference. If you need an example, take a look at opportunities for students at bulge bracket investment banks.</p>
<p>Too many people on CC are uninformed kids who don’t know what really happens in the real world. No employer will say to himself/herself, “wait, I can’t possibly interview/hire candidate X b/c he/she didn’t attend HYPSM but instead went to Dartmouth” Not gonna happen.<br>
Also, too many people feel the need to group YPSM with Harvard when H is unquestionably in a league/tier of its own…there is a reason why there is an H Bomb and no counterpart. H >>>>trumps all other schools when it comes to prestige/elitism/name recognition, etc…
I suspect these people are students who attend YPS or M…</p>
<p>food for thought.</p>
<p>
No one has argued that an employer would do that so you are essentially ranting to yourself.
Harvard is in a league of it’s own in the eyes of the uneducated, which I am beginning to suspect includes you.</p>
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<p>But the employer doing college recruiting isn’t comparing the Harvard student to the Northwestern student and then saying, H > NU. The employer will have already determined what schools “made the cut” by determining which schools he wants to recruit at. Let’s say the employer decides to recruit at 6 different schools for positions at their NY, Chicago and LA offices. The employer will make the determination upfront what schools based on history, where they’ve found good people before, where there are specific programs that are relevant to their field, where they know they’ll attract students who will willingly relocate to their locations (ideally not even requiring relo expenses), and where they can get their staff to travel to for recruiting efforts without taking too much time and effort away from the office (staff time is money). And … what starting salary are they offering and what schools can they afford. One thing’s for sure - it’s NOT a statement that “all other schools except for these six aren’t good schools.” Maybe both H and NU will make the cut; maybe only one will. But if the first is the case, the candidates from H and the candidates from NU will be thrown into the same pool and considered equally. Employers don’t interview at several different schools and then treat them differentially. </p>
<p>It is really tiresome to hear high school seniors and college freshmen assert that employers are “looking at the 3.8 at H and the 3.8 at NU and then deciding H > NU.” They will have made that cut if they are so inclined BEFORE that point. </p>
<p>And it is tiresome to hear high school seniors assume that employers are this mass of undifferentiated people all of whom care passionately about USNWR rankings. Like anyone else – some employers will, some won’t. Many of the people doing the hiring will be state flagship grads themselves who happen to have achieved a position of prominence in a company.</p>
<p>Pbl,
I see where you are coming from and I appreciate your effort, but again I think you’re looking at this through parochial glasses. Heck, to varying degrees, we all do. But try on someone else’s parochial glasses for a moment. </p>
<p>Think about the list of schools you posted and then pretend you’re sitting in Texas, the nation’s second most populous state with 23 million residents and a very dynamic local economy built on energy, technology, agriculture/livestock, tourism, etc. I can’t speak for all of them, but for the most part, Texans couldn’t give a hoot about nearly all of the schools you mention and they certainly don’t judge success by admission to the various law/business/med schools used in the WSJ feeder ranking. </p>
<p>Texans would look at their fine schools like Rice, U Texas, Texas A&M, SMU, etc. or quality schools close by which send lots of grads to Texas and who who have built that fabulous economy (and staff the local offices of those coveted companies from Wall Street and management consulting) and they’d wonder why all the fuss about the “elites” you name. The fact is that they don’t care and don’t spend much time thinking about it. They have plenty of great folks right there. </p>
<p>Now maybe you’ll reply that Texans are dumb and aren’t as smart or educated as people in the Northeast. That’s your prerogative to conclude that, but I think you’d be wrong. Either way, most Texans won’t care what you think. They’re pretty secure about their own schools and aren’t looking for your approval. This would be true throughout much of America’s Sunbelt and the Northwest and, to a somewhat lesser degree, in the Midwest. It just depends on whose parochial glasses you are wearing.</p>
<p>The fact that some people list Penn State as an ‘elite’ school and not Notre Dame shows how silly this thread is. An elite school should be a truly NATIONAL university that attracts students from all over the country, that has immediate name recognition, that has a very strong national alumni network and whose students are at or near the top of the heap in earning power when they graduate. On ANY such list of elite schools, Notre Dame should always be in the top 10. Whenever they do those “dream school” lists, Notre Dame is always a top 5 choice. And when they survey students about what school is thier top choice, Notre Dame places again very high on those lists as a top choice destination. When you are high on the dream school and top choice lists, you are truly an elite school. How many people cite Penn State as their “dream school”, lol?</p>
<p>^ Well that post certainly didn’t take long to become ND propaganda.</p>
<p>Or put another way, ND grads hire Penn State grads to clean their cars.</p>
<p>Everywhere I go on this board there seems to be more and more examples of Notre Dame arrogance. Not that all Notre Dame alumni are arrogant, but that seems to be the trend around here. Notre Dame is not the only great school in this country.</p>
<p>Top 20 schools</p>