Which students have the greatest inferiority complexes about their school?

College Confidential Community
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<p>GQ just released a funny slideshow "douchiest colleges in america" whee cornell is described as having sensitive/insecure students regarding the prestige of their "fake ivy" school. I know this is comedy, but it seems like some schools have more Ivy envy than others.</p>

<p>From what I've seen, Emory, Cornell, and Duke suffer from this in their student bodies, more than other peer schools.</p>

<p>Also, most schools in america (big random state schools) don't seem to suffer from this type of envy; they seem generally less insecure in that regard. I think the schools in the top 25-50 probably have the most prevalent insecurity, even if it's somewhat subdued.</p>

<p>What do you guys think? Remember, this is nothing more than opinion</p>

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<p>A few notes…</p>

<p>(1) This thread borders on being flamebait. It is all well and good to blithely ask for opinions, but a call for opinions necessitating the bashing of certain schools is rarely productive.</p>

<p>(2) The vast majority of students at ALL top colleges are very pleased with their educations and happy to be at their current universities.</p>

<p>Take Cornell, for instance. On CC it is often criticized as the “least selective Ivy,” a “lower Ivy,” and other such nonsense. Slightly over 60% of Cornell students classify it as their first choice, however, and 93% consider it one of their top 3 choices. 80% of Emory students consider it their first or second choice. At another frequently bashed school, 80% of USC students consider it one of their top 2 choices, and 92% of USC students consider it one of their top 3 choices. </p>

<p>These numbers seem in line with publics. For example, 62% of Berkeley freshmen report being either completely unconcerned or only a little concerned with whether it was the right choice for them.</p>

<p>(3) School pride (certainly a plus in my book) should not be confused with feelings of inferiority/superiority (definitely a negative). For example, Stanford has little to fear from any college except possibly Harvard for cross-admits, and I doubt its students suffer from inferiority complexes. Nevertheless, I think most of us have heard “directors’ cup,” “top 5 programs,” “only Harvard and Berkeley…”, “internships in Silicon Valley,” “elite engineering programs,” etc. ad nauseam from Stanford posters.</p>

<p>(4) The only schools I can think of with a decent case for “inferiority complexes” are the public universities typically taking a backseat to the flagship public. In North Carolina, for example, you have NC State taking a backseat to UNC Chapel Hill, something exacerbated by it being virtually overshadowed by the Carolina-Duke rivalry. You have something similar in Michigan, where MSU generally takes a backseat to Michigan and its rivalry with Ohio State. Even in such instances, however, I think the problem lies much more with students at the flagship looking down on other publics than students at the other publics being inherently insecure about their choices.</p>

<p>(5) On CC, colleges that are not Harvard, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, or Yale are frequently expected “know their place” and to back down and grovel before the feet of those five. Posters who neglect to do so (poster hawkette, for example) are often quite promptly declared uppity/arrogant/etc. and leapt upon in a manner strikingly and somewhat disturbingly reminiscent of the alpha wolves I viewed recently on a nature documentary.</p>

<p>There is a tendency on CC, and perhaps with high schoolers in general, to demand to know “the best” - whether it be for overall education, a program, weather, sports, or some other factor. Many posters are more inclined to skim the US News and NRC rankings than read the Fiske Guide or Insider’s Guide - whether through laziness or merely ignorance, I am not quite sure. One thread recently had a poster asking if she had a shot at an excellent LAC she was passionately in love with and to which was applying ED – the people in the WAMC forum told her to apply ED elsewhere because she “could do better”! Until the focus shifts from “the best schools” to “the best schools for each person,” I think there will continue to be a number of rather petty arguments.</p>

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<p>^ Wise words from a wise man.</p>

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<p>The folks at Brown SHOULD have an inferiority complex, but they don’t seem to be objective enough to see that their open curriculum is really a ploy to increase applications, especially from rich people who think they are enlightened but who are in fact just afraid of taking classes outside their comfort zone.</p>

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<p>I like how students who go to state funded schools often consider their schools prestigious because everyone in their region does.</p>

<p>Average quote: “University of California _________ is so much better than University of California ___________.”</p>

<p>No sweetie its a state school, if it has a States name in the title… it is a state school.</p>

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<p>So Massachusetts Institute of Technology is just a second rate state school?</p>

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<p>don’t get me started on the state frat boys over at the u of penn.</p>

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<p>^^^Just like The University of Pennsylvania.</p>

<p>Oh wait.</p>

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<p>University of California, Berkeley is better than University of California, Merced.</p>

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<p>Some good to great California State University schools:</p>

<p>Cal Poly SLO</p>

<p>San Diego State University</p>

<p>California Institute of Technology (because if it were a UC, it’d be University of California, Institute of Technology)</p>

<p>bowtiefratty is obviously not a CA resident, but must be one of those … eastcoasters. Because if he (hopefully not, because he called me “sweetie”…) can’t distinguish between UC Davis and UC Irvine, then he’s really out of the loop.</p>

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<p>Snowflake?</p>

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<p>BowTie come on, USC is a rich up-and-coming very very private school, you ought to know better.</p>

<p>Oh and sorry, just for kicks… I really couldn’t help it:</p>

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<p>Come on man…</p>

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<p>Sure, yeah, lots of college students have inferiority complexes.</p>

<p>Not trying to offend anyone here (obviously), but this is how I think about it:</p>

<p>These ‘inferiority-complex’ schools have lower ranks on USWNR, which carries a lot of weight (and really unnecessarily so). These schools also usually offer Early Decision. As you’ll notice, HYPSM all do not have ED, although some have EA. I hear that some will be employing ED/EA in the future, but that’s another discussion.</p>

<p>Most of the top schools that trail HYPSM have ED, and let’s not beat around the bush: one big reason for ED is to protect a school’s yield percentage, which factors into USWNR rankings. And for some of these schools, about 50% of their incoming class is accepted (and obviously retained) through ED. </p>

<p>So if you were to poll current students, at least around 50% would respond that x school was their first choice, since they got in ED. </p>

<p>Anyway. There are plenty of ways to feel insecure about your school, your program within your school, etc. In the end, it’s the student, not the school. The less time you’re wasting feeling inferior and trying to justify how ‘amazing’ your school is, and the more time you spend trying to use the resources you have, the more successful you’ll be.</p>

<p>And like warblersrule said, school pride isn’t the same thing as an inferiority complex. </p>

<p>But yes, I have heard the phrase that “I go to x, the BEST ivy, obviously!” a few too many times from hyper-insecure friends… on facebook statuses/profiles (at least twice per month), at least 10 facebook groups titled “The Ivy League” or “Members of the Ivy League” or whatever. Prestige-envy is real, it’s usually annoying, but it is what it is.</p>

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<p>I’d say inferiority complexes tend to come from schools that are “almost but not quite as good” as a school or group of schools just ahead of them; or from schools that share many characteristics with a school that’s just ahead of it. So I’ll say what the school is and what it compares itself to (and feels inferior to).</p>

<p>Duke - HYPS
Cornell - the other Ivies
Columbia - HYPS
Princeton - Harvard
Berkeley - Stanford
WUStL - the Ivies/SM
Caltech - MIT
Harvey Mudd - Caltech
UCLA - Berkeley
USC - top-20 schools</p>

<p>At the same time, this is a compliment to the schools who feel “inferior”: the only reason they feel that way is because they are legitimately similar to the schools just ahead of htem, even if they aren’t quite as strong. IMO these schools should be happy to be compared to the ones they feel “inferior” to.</p>

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<p>So true - I once saw someone who had on their facebook “Harvard is the Stanford of the East” - and I was embarrassed for the person. (Stanford’s my alma mater, fwiw.)</p>

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<p>“Also, most schools in america (big random state schools) don’t seem to suffer from this type of envy; they seem generally less insecure in that regard…”</p>

<p>That’s definitely not true for the UC/CSU systems here in California. There is a very apparent hierarchy of the individual campuses for each system. For instance, UCLA and Berkeley generally sit at the top of this hierarchy for the UC campuses, with UC Merced and UC Santa Cruz hovering towards the bottom. For the CSU campuses, Cal Poly SLO, CSU Fullerton, and CSU Long Beach come out on top, while less popular campuses such as CSU Dominguez Hills and CSU Stanislaus are almost glued to the bottom of the list. Where each person views a particular campus, however, is obviously up to them.</p>

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<p>Do you say that because hawkette’s two favorite schools are Stanford and Duke, and she frequently likes to equate them (to which other posters often respond negatively)? :rolleyes:</p>

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<p>I would say a good number of small liberal arts schools have inferiority complexes because they are rather obscure.</p>

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<p>I agree with part of your view but strongly disagree with the basic premise. Yes, small LACs “are rather obscure” to the general population. However, I think the students at small LACs go to them because they are small LACs (small student populations, great ratios such as student/professor, academic freedom to find a niche, etc.). Many of these schools are not at all “obscure” relative to the goals of the students (e.g., graduate school, specific areas of academic interest).</p>

<p>On the other had, it may well be that there are inferiority complexes with the general small LAC universe. I would be curious to here what others thought about this.</p>

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<p>When I went to an LAC, there were three things I noticed.

  1. People constantly had disparaging things to say about ‘State school’ kids. At a state school, you’re just a face in the crowd, and you don’t have to go to classes but you can still get a degree. This lead to the collective conclusion that all state schoolers were stupid.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Because you are at a liberal arts school with arbitrary graduation requirements, you will be much more prepared and much more ‘well rounded’ for the real world than your big school counterparts. You will be able to easily attain a job, (in reality) as long as its an internship at a museum or as an administrative temp).</p></li>
<li><p>The college ranking publications are pretty much the Gospel for LAC students. With such super subjective categories as “Most Beautiful Campus”, LAC students rush to their facebooks and post links and give themselves a pat on the back for going to such a ‘beautiful school’, but they won’t be able to get into a required class for their major next semester because of faculty cuts.</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>I would have to agree with phantasmagoric, schools feel inferior to their peers who are slightly stronger overall. However, the fact that schools like Duke and Columbia want to compete with HYPS on equal terms is in fact a compliment. They are not content with resting on their laurels, they want to be the best.</p>