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It is the name. When you put "Harvard Highschool" on your record it stands out to the right people. We are talking about big time......on paper of course.
I have 3 older siblings that graduated from Ivy league schools but for me personally I was never drawn to the Ivy league mystique.
I went through the application process of multiple schools (including their 3 Ivies) to placate my oldest sister but was obsessed with 1 school in California.
My son just finished his application process (almost as a formality) and my preference is for him to go to school in LA.
I will say this about the Ivy league, while their historical context and the subjective rankings could always be debated, I am not sure the networking power of the Ivy league could be matched by any other group of colleges and I am including the University of California system.
That is the #1 thing that stands out to me is the networking power of the Ivies and how far that networking arm extends.
^^This.
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Originally Posted by Heterojunction
Like someone said, it seems to be an east coast thing. They're great schools for sure, but in my field there are other schools that hold more weight. I'm more impressed when I hear someone went to Cal Tech, MIT, Berkeley, Georgia Tech, etc. Admission to those schools is based heavily on merit; legacy status and old money nepotism can't buy you in. And unlike the Ivy league schools,which are notorious for grade inflation, the tech and public research schools grade very harshly. If I meet a 4.0 from Cal Tech, I know I'm dealing with a very bright person. Everyone and their mother gets an A at some of these colleges...it's a joke.
RE: the bold-I don't think so! Even here in the "wild west", the Ivies are respected. Getting accepted to an Ivy is quite an honor for a Colorado high school graduate.
For the rest of it, as was stated farther down, for engineering, perhaps.
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Originally Posted by GeorgiaTransplant
Please reread my comment. I think I was very clear. I bolded and highlighted the relevant section.
I do know the difference. I am well aware the Ivy League is a specific group of schools, constituting Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Cornell, UPenn, Dartmouth, and Columbia, based on an athletic conference. That does not mean everyone knows the difference, and my comment had to do with the fact that not only Ivy League schools have incredible networking. Several other schools do, and it's probably part of why many-not me, but many-mistakenly think of them as Ivy League.
Yes, we had a lengthy thread about this recently.
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Originally Posted by citylove101
--One reason Ivy graduates are highly respected is, as has been posted earlier, you have to be both smart AND accomplished in a way that most other schools do not require just to be admitted.
--Most Ivies also look for students who they believe can can become leaders in some way, whether in law, medicine, politics, the arts, academia, science, or whatever. They're less interested in producing grads who are mere able practitioners of a craft.
--And Ivy grads tend to be more worldly and more engaged, partly because these schools put a premium on kids who are intellectually curious and engaged to start with, and partly because the schools can offer so many more activities and opportunities than most schools that they want kids who will take advantage of the stuff.
And yes, there are other schools that are the equal to the eight Ivies in all these respects: U of Chicago, MIT, Stanford, the U.S. Naval Academy, as well as some of the small and lesser-known liberal arts schools like Williams, Wesleyan, Amherst, Pomona, or Swarthmore. (Probably a few others you could add, but these came to mind off the top of my head.)
The big state schools can be wonderful and dynamic places, and the Ivies and Ivy-equivalents have certainly produced their share of duds. But on the whole the combination of traits they look for in students, the work they demand of those students (and anybody who thinks kids at these schools don't study hard as hell is just misinformed), and the opportunities those students have means that in general, Ivy and Ivy-equivalent grads have earned a certain amount of respect right off the bat.
Yes, I think being a graduate of an Ivy does indicate that you're pretty intelligent. People talk about "legacies" but the legacies still have to be qualified.
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Originally Posted by Hamish Forbes
I think that your experience is not terribly relevant to the comparison; it certainly differs from mine, also as a hiring manager (not that being a hiring manager gives any special insight into the question at hand). Here's why:
Ivy League schools are not especially highly regarded for undergraduate engineering programs. Many students with Ivy League ability consider the low-level practice of engineering to be more or less a blue-collar trade, and consequently aim higher.
If you have engineering jobs to fill that require only a bachelor's degree, you should expect to attract only the bottom of the class from any really good school. Students from the best schools generally go on to graduate study, and then on to jobs that require advanced degrees (not necessarily the PhD). They are typically not interested in jobs that require only a bachelor's degree (logic design, cad jockey, coding, regression testing, et al.). For example, Bell Labs at its zenith would immediately send any new hire away, full-time at company expense, to a top university for a master's degree before considering him to be a productive engineer.
On the other hand, you may appeal to the top of the class from a no-name school, where students are generally satisfied to go to work in banal jobs straight out of the undergraduate program. So, your experience may be comparing the top of the no-name to the bottom of the truly good schools.
In general, the best engineering programs at any level are in the non-Ivy elites (MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, and the like), and the flagship state universities (eg: Illinois, Wisconsin, Cal, Purdue, Michigan, and so forth).
Now if one looks at other fields, is there any question that a typical math or science graduate from, say, Harvard or Princeton is far better qualified than the typical math or science graduate of no-name U? Anyone who thinks that the two groups are peers doesn't know much about the study of math at an Ivy school. Make the same comparison of Oxford and Cambridge grads with grads from a former polytech recently elevated to university status. The obvious disparity in outcome is why the top schools are so highly regarded.
How about Colorado in that "and so forth"? I do agree in essence.
Please reread my comment. I think I was very clear. I bolded and highlighted the relevant section.
I do know the difference. I am well aware the Ivy League is a specific group of schools, constituting Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown, Cornell, UPenn, Dartmouth, and Columbia, based on an athletic conference. That does not mean everyone knows the difference, and my comment had to do with the fact that not only Ivy League schools have incredible networking. Several other schools do, and it's probably part of why many-not me, but many-mistakenly think of them as Ivy League.
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Originally Posted by Katarina Witt
Yes, we had a lengthy thread about this recently.
I know-I was responding to the poster who implied that I, personally, did not know the difference by demonstrating that I did and do.
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How about Colorado in that "and so forth"? I do agree in essence.
I can say from my personal experience that the educational value at the top tier school was significantly better than when I was at a lower tier commuter school. During my undergrad at the lower tier commuter school, it just seemed that many people were there because that's where they thought they needed to be. Often times, there was no passion for learning. I remember a lot of students moaning and groaning about assignments as if it were high school.
When I was at the top tier school, there was a significant difference between the quality of student. People were far more passionate about their studies. Some of these people went off to great careers or to great grad school programs and are doing very well today. I can't say the same about the lower tier school. There were a lot of people I knew at that school who were on the verge of dropping out or postponing their degree from other reasons.
So, from my experience, I did notice quite a difference between the two environments.
I'm not impressed as much. My first job out of college, all my bosses or higher bosses went to MIT, Yale, Princeton. In fact one was married to a Harvard professor. Thanks to them and their thinking, the company went down the tube. I think this is an East Coast thing. In California, we're less impressed with the Ivy League.
Stanford rules.
Stanford graduated women long before Harvard ever did. My great grandmother graduated from there in 1901.
I'd never have believed it had I not seen the microfiche with my own eyes.
It is the name. When you put "Harvard Highschool" on your record it stands out to the right people. We are talking about big time......on paper of course.
Is that like "the only difference between a Mercedes and a Chevy Vega is the name"?
No they are not. It is unquestionably true that many wealthy kids are in the Ivies. But it is FAR from true that these are "rich kids schools." Take a look at this list of the schools with the largest share of students on Pell Grants, which are federal grants to poor kids and a good indicator of how many of them attend a school.
Of the top ten schools with the most Pell Grant students, five are Ivy League schools: Harvard, Columbia, Penn, Brown and Cornell. (And the other five schools are arguably Ivy-equivalent). Add in to that the total (non-loan) financial aid packages at the Ivies, which can be extraordinarily generous to poor families, and I think it's no longer true to say that these are just schools for rich kids.
Of course poor kids, even very academically talented ones, are so often badly counseled about college that they're unaware that these schools can be far more affordable than they think. But that's another story for another thread.
I attended two Ivies, and anyone who has to read the news doesn't know anything about the Ivies.
First of all, the Ivies are a lot more than undergraduate colleges. Those who have graduate (masters or professional school affiliations or degrees) tend to be high income earners, and they very rarely get scholarships or grants. Generally people pay in cash or get student loans, and I had to undergo a credit check to get a graduate plus loan.
As for undergraduates, a substantial percentage of people at Cornell AND other Ivies have parents who pay in CASH. How do you think Ivy Leagues have such big endowments? There are people who have attended the Ivy Leagues multigenerationally. These people tend to make very generous donations to particularly Ivy League Institution.
Why would Ivy Leagues even bother with the facade of financial aid? They get government grants for research, and therefore they must be somewhat open to the general public.
But in order to do the things that it takes to get into an Ivy League, let's just say poor people are extremely disadvantaged.
But back to this post, what's really ridiculous is everyone things they can read a newsbrief and that they are an automatic expert on something, despite having extremely limited and superficial knowledge about something.
Harvard is the ultimate rich kids school. The children of Presidents and CEOs attend. The majority of people at the Ivy Leagues are not poor people getting extremely generous financial aid package, and there's something of a social stigma to be such a person at an Ivy League school.
The family that owns SC Johnson just gave 150 million to Cornell, and they are the 5th generation to attend. I'm pretty sure if the 6 generation wants to go, they will have no problem getting in. I'm not opposed to this, as these wealthy people are the ones who pay for the university and make it what it is. But to deny that money on multiple levels isn't the primary factor that enables one to get into top schools means that the person has never attended or doesn't know anything about Ivies and other top universities.
Things that look good on an application to such schools (they will want more than good grades and good standardized test scores) such as demonstrated talent in the arts, study abroad/language skills, sports beyond the obvious poor person sports all imply some degree of affluence, and all served to weed out poor applicants.
Its complicated. Cornell University is a wholly private university/entity as incorporated by the State of New York. Several colleges at Cornell, however (the "contact colleges") are also formally part of the SUNY system (the state has a say in the tuition charged at these schools, technically owns much of the property associated with these schools, etc.). But, given that everyone who graduates from Cornell gets a degree from Cornell University (not from SUNY), everyone gets a degree from a private university. There have been numerous court cases that have clarified the University's status over the years, including suits that have clarified that students at the contract colleges are students of Cornell University, not students of SUNY. Really, its legal mumbo jumbo/legal fiction if you will.
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