<p>" At the moment some of the old traditional top schools sill carry their strong name because those that went there 20-30 years ago are now in a lot of top high profile positions. However, with the expansion in quality and quantity by many others schools, in 20-30 years time we'll see a much broader range of schools represented by top officials... "</p>
<p>I think in many regards we're already starting to see early signs of this. For example, consider the groups of Marshall and Rhodes scholars selected each year (a cross section of the US's top students that, historically, will go onto become leaders across a broad range of sectors in America). 30-40 years ago you could probably count the vast majority of different schools they came from on your fingers whereas now there are many many different schools (including many public schools) that feature at least one Marshall or Rhodes nearly every year. That sort of effect will continue to translate in the decades to come...</p>
<p>I think that would depend on what your definition of 'prestige' is. In terms of the general public will it still be considered prestigious to go to an Ivy League school? Yes, I can't see that changing... they will still always be smallish schools that are hard to get into. The comments were in line with how they will compare with other schools both in terms of the quality of the education they provide and the quality of the students they attract. In that department, I think we've seen a lot of movement and the top students no longer automatically go to the Ivy League (yes many still do, but there are now many more equally good and often less expensive choices available). There is a lot of evidence of this both in student output (as highlighted by yuiop) and the increasing pressure on Ivies and other expensive private schools to justify their much higher costs given that many would now question if, in today's world, the education is actually any better. Harvard's now taken that question off the table now with their aggressive subsidies towards tuition. However, financially many other schools facing similar situations can't afford to do that and I think they might struggle to attract top students in the future. </p>
<p>If one feels that other places now gaining much more prestige takes prestige away from currently prestigious schools then yes I suppose it would take away prestige, but I don't think that's really has to be the case. At the end of the day, it's the individual person and qualities that matter the most anyway.</p>
<p>I think it is very healthy for top schools to increase class size. </p>
<p>Consider this. Many top schools like to diversify their student body when it comes to student activities - sports / clubs / etc.. When entry class size is limited, they have to sacrifice top score/stat applicants for the more minority - specialized (not to be confused with in an ethnic minority context) students.</p>
<p>That means that the great piano player with excellent stats can bring a more diversifying contribution than your typical extracurricular non-genie with top notch stats/perfect scores. Or the young black women who wants to persue literature at MIT with good (not top) stats is just more attractive to the adcoms then your typical joe with perfect stats who wants into Math.</p>
<p>To recho my thesis, when limited entry and a diversifying ideal exists at top schools - healthy students are sometimes sacrificed to make the school look more well-rounded.</p>
<p>This is one of the reasons it would probably be easier for a female to get admitted into MIT than a male (given they both have similar stats/ EC's). </p>
<p>CMU Masters in Financial Engineering has nearly doubled since it's first introduction resulting in increased success / placement / popularity and ultimately more money and reputation for the program. </p>
<p>I think that applying this same principle to undergraduate programs will result in similar results.</p>
<p>Of course, to circumvent this problem; a student need only either 1)an all-star (top stats and great at sports) or 2) someone actively participating and winning state competitions. When you get a first or 2nd place state award for high-school biology research; you've proven your self worthy of bypassing the whole "well-rounded enough" adcom way of thinking. For the reasoning in my post, I'm assuming that most (at least 70% of the applicant body) have not demonstrated significant all-star / competition virtuoso's performance.</p>
<p>Well lets think about it. According to the psat, 55,000 students are commened or higher. So we can expect most of these students compete for top spots. Also there are some who just did bad on the psat, but they do well on sat etc. However not all the 55,000 go to tops, so lets say there are 55,000 students who are gonna be in tops. WEll there are 8 ivies, with avg 1,500 frosh. maybe more. so 8*1,500 =120000. For teh top 25 colleges say, the rest 17 take avg 2,000 (coservative guess?) -34,000
12,000+34,000=46,000 spots left for top universitites
this is extremly conservative guess. I am guessinf it will be more than 55,000. Though, # of people applying is increasing, and i would be cool with an increase in spots, there are so many universities that its not urgent right?
Well then there are left the liberal arts colleges, more than supplying the need for spots.</p>
<p>More students = more teachers = less teachers at lesser schools. In the long run, it hurts more people than it helps. The larger/better the ivies get, the worse off lesser schools, especially public schools, get.</p>
<p>^basically, education is either gonna get bad if Ivys expand, or more people will be disappointed if they don't expand, leading to severe income divisions, class divisions, and ultimately revolution.</p>
<p>rocketman08: You make some good points, but you leave out one crucial detail which ivy league graduates have an advantage with: connections. I remember reading a quote somewhere(I can't place my finger on it now) from an accomplished alumni. It was something to the effect of "The most important thing I got from Harvard was not my education, but my rolodex." This quote sums up perfectly why ivy league attendees are at an advantage. They have access to connections. Whenever there is a job available, these ivy league attendees with first-rate connections will be the first to know - not some person attending a huge public school. In terms of brute education, I think we can both agree that many other schools are comparable to ivy league schools. However, a huge public school simply cannot match the connections provided by an ivy league institution. </p>
<p>All that said, you're not GUARANTEED to gain connections just because you went to an ivy league school -- but you're much more likely to attain them at an ivy league school than a public one.</p>
<p>^^^^^ That's certainly a fair point but it's not quite so simple. Good connections are not unique to the Ivy League (nor would I say that one can't get good connections at large schools... in fact in more technical subjects I'd almost say you'd tend to get less important connections from smaller schools). </p>
<p>As you point out though, connections and contacts are extremely important in today's world and will certainly help... but whether or not they're 'Ivy League' connections is irrelevent... a friend you know from the local golf club could help you out just as much as an alumni from school. It's important to have good connections, but I don't see how an Ivy League school vs. a non-Ivy League schools makes much difference in that regard. Someone whos good at networking and building contacts will be good at that regardless of where they went to school.</p>
<p>By your logic, though, it's not enough for the schools to expand. Each student would have to pledge to take on additional friends. In my experience, people tend to have the same number of people in their social circle whether they are at a large school or a small school. I don't think your rolodex gets bigger because your school is now accepting more students.</p>
<p>I think expansion would both dilute the value of having a degree from these schools (just as having everyone and his brother take APs has diluted the value of APs) and hurt other schools. What would be better would be if philanthropists stopped pouring money into these already over-endowed schools and started investing in the next tier of schools so that there was an ever-increasing number of Ivy-quality schools.</p>
<p>sbergman, re philanthropists who decide to give money to non-Ivy schools: </p>
<p>Recently a former ambassador, cousin of President Bush, alum of two top Ivy schools, gave a large donation to Webster University (St. Louis, MO) School of Business and Technology. He said his former schools have plenty of money, it is time to beef up smaller regional schools that serve a wider population. The link below is a video, but will include links to some print versions of the story.</p>
<p>Of course, Webster U. is not "the next tier" you refer to, and the immediate goal is not to turn it into an Ivy-quality school, but your suggestion jogged my memory about this story.</p>
<p>Rocketman08: Your points on making contacts have some validity. However an advantage that an expensive elite school has over a large public school from the standpoint of contacts are the contacts that the student makes while in school. Its the students that you meet in your classes who's parents are powerful that are the connections that are cultivated. I suspect that there is a greater tendency for wealthy powerful people to send their children to expensive elite schools than to inexpensive public schools. If you're a typical middle class person, you're not going to be playing golf at the same golf club as these people. These colleges are in some sense an equalizer that brings people of all socio-economic classes together.</p>
<p>Yes, DocT summarizes(and further elaborates) on my points perfectly. The contacts you'll make at an ivy league school will ON AVERAGE be much more well-connected than at your average public school. If you have hundreds of millions of dollars, where do you want to send your kid? State U? No, you want to send your kid to Harvard or another Ivy League school. Therefore, we can look at it like this: Almost all obscenely rich people's kids will go to Ivy League schools. Almost all Ivy League schools are significantly smaller than an average state school. Therefore, an Ivy League school provides a smaller environment(bigger chance to meet everyone), with a significantly higher percentage of rich, well-connected people than your average state school. It follows that attending an Ivy League school will afford you more opportunity to meet these rich, well-connected people.</p>