<p>Many people on this site are literally obsessed. I mean obsessed with what college they are going to and how much prestige it has. At my school, everyone is obsessed. The teachers even hold small in school parties for those who are going or got accepted into Ivy League. If you got accepted into an Ivy League school at my school, your name will not only be posted outside of the guidance officer, but also on the website. And there are around 7 to 10 kids who get this honor. It's great, but is it necessary? If you do anyting Ivy League, you will get way too much recognition. There was a time when a kids got a Harvard Book Award, and he got a short standing ovation after mass. I didn't know what a book award was then and when I found out what it was and its value, I thought to myself why?</p>
<p>People like to brag. Personally, I wouldn’t go to any Ivy League school, as my state flagship has a better engineering program than all of them.</p>
<p>Why do people care so much about celebrities who they have never met and probably never will meet?</p>
<p>These are the imponderables of life.</p>
<p>I understand what you mean, but think about it this way. You’re 30 years and have been invited to a wedding of your valedictorian friend from high school. While walking around, your nearly wedlocked friend introduces you to his classmates from MIT. They laugh and joke about some astrophysics experiment gone terribly wrong and turn to you, noticing that you had no idea what they were talking about. They ask you where you went to school, and you respond with…</p>
<p>In any case, the more noble benefit of going to say…an Ivy League school (besides the right for your mother to brag to her friends) is that the friends you make and the relationships you establish with classmates lasts a long time. These people who once sat besides you in organic chemistry or structural anthropology may be the future presidents of the united states or curers of cancer.</p>
<p>Your school makes a big deal about it because it helps their recruiting efforts for incoming students (I assume since you mentioned Mass that you are in a private catholic school). Prospective parents of high achieving children who are shopping in your town for a private school will want to know how many alums from last year went to an Ivy, a Top 20, a Top 50, etc. It’s all about business! If there is another nearby Catholic private school (or an Episcopal school, or even a secular private school), this might be the deciding criterion for those parents.</p>
<p>I think it is because many people do not understand the difference between cost and value.</p>
<p>Simple answer for all the responses provided: D-a-r-w-i-n-i-s-m</p>
<p>because people care too much what other people think about them. Plenty of kids will give up a school that they absolutely love in order to go to a school that they might not even like if that school has more prestige, just because they want people to be impressed when they say what school they’re going to. It’s pretty disgusting.</p>
<p>Look, you can say as many times as you wish that people care too much about name recognition, and that can be true, but it is also true that many times people are awed by “good” schools because they know that these are good schools. You can get a great education at a top school, so crossing it off your list just because you want to rebel against the concept of prestige is ultimately stupid and self-harming.</p>
<p>Because we live in a nation whose economy has declined drastically over the past 20 years and where upper mid level careers that were the destination jobs for the Texas A& M, Purdue, Cal Poly, Penn St. crowd such as engineering, architecture, and large company middle management (brand managers, controllers, production managers etc.) no longer provide a solid upper middle class living. Today if you don’t make it to top rung and becaome a licensed professional in one of the learned professions (MD, T-14 JD, DDS) or go to a top business school for investment banking, private equity or the like, you will not be able to live an upper middle class life like you could in 1985. Hence, the tremendous competition and obsession in the late 20xxs to get a leg up at one of the top (that is “prestigious”) schools.</p>
<p>“Why Are People Obsessed With Prestige In A School?”</p>
<p>For the same reason they buy designer handbags and wallets. For some people these things are necessary in order for them to feel good about themselves. We all have our idiosyncrasies, and just because you and I don’t have this particular idiosyncrasy doesn’t mean there’s anything wrong with it.</p>
<p>Sometimes prestige is earned either through the academic environment or by the quality and fame of the alumni.</p>
<p>A lot of prestige-chasing and achievement in general can be traced back to the desire for amorous encounters (trying to be clean here). There was a great line in the movie “The Tao of Steve” in which the main character says something like “Once I learned how to get women without being rich or accomplished, I lost a lot of my motivation.” Overcompensation for shortcomings is related angle.</p>
<p>Look at Wall Street. Look at GM and Chrysler.</p>
<p>Ivy educated “connected” people get big bonuses for trying to clean up the mess they helped create. The fact is that Ivy leaguers have destroyed the US economy.</p>
<p>Less well connected managers and engineers get their salaries and benefits cut.</p>
<p>You can’t become a member of the “corporate royalty” caste, immune to concerns of performance and accountability, unless you attend a prestigeous school,either for undegrad or graduate work.</p>
<p>For the same reason that people wear shirts advertising the companies that made the clothing (Hollister, A&F) . . . we are obsessed with name brands.</p>
<p>Given a choice between a no name school that would give great education and a school ranked by USNWR as a top 20, most people would go to the latter.</p>
<p>That’s how you get people on CC who want to be chanced for 6 Ivies; it matters much less the kind of education than the fact that there is a recognizable brand.</p>
<p>Sheep-like and shallow, but far too common.</p>
<p>Kei</p>
<p>Prestige is power.</p>
<p>schrizto has nailed it.</p>
<p>Bingo toast eater, post #6, it’s all about money.</p>
<p>I kind of had to go through this… I got into a top 10 school but didn’t get financial aid. Now I’m going to an honors program at a school outside the top fifty US News report (but close) on a full scholarship. My parents have also said they’ll pay for grad school. Where would I get a better education in the end? Who knows. But where would I get the better life experience? The school I chose.</p>
<p>Common sense > Prestige.</p>
<p>My school is pretty similar to yours (but I haven’t yet heard of teachers giving parties for students; that’s a bit sickening in my opinion.) Seven kids in my class were accepted to Ivies, out of about 110. (About four of them were athletes… so I guess they really shouldn’t count…) A handful of other kids got into other prestigious schools. I was expected to go either the aforementioned top-10 school or another prestigious liberal arts school, but then I shocked some people by going to my safety school. Big deal. In that class reunion or wedding I go to in 30 years, I think I’ll still be able to keep up with whatever intellectual talk the Ivy alumni throw at me :)</p>
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<p>:rolleyes: They got in because of their athletic affiliation? Well duh, The Ivy league was originally founded as a athletic conference before the connotation of “Ivy league” became synonymous with academic excellence, selectivity in admissions, and social elitism. Why shouldn’t you count athletes accepted into Ivy league sports conference? </p>
<p>Not very intelligent > Common sense > Prestige.</p>