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As a New Englander I tend to agree with the OP. Exhilarating scenery within and accessible from the Bay Area is hard to match. Although the “world class” label is wrong: who’s to say Squam Lake, Mount Desert Island and Nantucket aren’t world-class as compared to Point Reyes or wherever? It’s all a matter of personal taste. I prefer the humid forests, pastoral landscapes and warmer waters of the northeast. And, while Calif has pretty towns like Ferndale and Mendocino, nothing compares with the gauzy patina of old towns on the eastern seaboard like Salem and Marblehead or East Hampton or Annapolis.
Last edited by missionhill; 05-14-2018 at 08:36 AM..
Take 95 south and the scenery you'll see from New England, through NY, NJ, MD and down to NC is very similar. Whereas there are several micro climates and dramatic changes in geographic features over the same distance in California.
There are several counties in California with population densities of less than 10 ppsm and they're mostly next to each other, so that's a large area of low density. Maine has 1 county with less than 10 ppsm.
I'm talking about the villages when I mentioned that colonial architecture only lasts a few blocks and then it turns into houses built within the last 100 years and most of these prewar homes here in New England have been remodeled and they've put vinyl siding over them.
Last edited by joeyg2014; 05-14-2018 at 12:26 PM..
One, a bunch of Yalies are about to throw brickbats at you;
two, it's geography more than history that keeps Stanford from "becoming an Ivy." Despite all the shuffling of chairs in the recent past, we have yet to see a coast-to-coast college athletic conference, and there are some practical reasons why we probably won't.
Academically speaking, the Ivies accept Stanford as a peer, along with the University of Chicago, Duke, Rice, Georgetown and (I think) Northwestern. The youngest Ivy school, Cornell, is only 26 years older than Stanford - and Stanford was founded upon the advice Harvard President Charles W. Eliot gave its founder. (Furthermore, Stanford and Chicago were founded two years apart.)
"Stanford is the Harvard of the West" is not an idle boast - it's more fact than fiction.
--MarketStEl, Harvard '80 (AB '82)
Georgetown is not a peer to the Ivy League (I live in Washington D.C. and Georgetown is considered a great school, but definitely not Ivy worthy). Georgetown has a lot of programs that are quite easy to get into. Some of their certificates don't even require admission. On U.S. News Georgetown's at #20. Rice and Vanderbilt are equivalent to Brown and Cornell, but not better than either and they have more regional reputations (by virtue of not being Ivies). They're definitely a tier below the Harvard/Princeton duo.
Here are the universities that rank at least better than 2 ivies (higher than Brown + Cornell):
California Institute of Technology
Duke University
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Northwestern University
Stanford University
University of Chicago
Remarkably (or not), all of them but Northwestern and Chicago are science and tech-focused schools.
Stanford is behind Princeton/Harvard/Yale, tied with Columbia. It's a Top 5 school. But it's not #1 and #2 like Harvard/Princeton (which was my point). Being #5 is nice, but it doesn't have the cachet of being the best, or the history of being the best. Stanford's on an upward trajectory because of its positioning at the nexus of Silicon Valley. But it does not have the gravitas of a Harvard or Princeton on the resume, or the history.
Yale is declining unfortunately. The lack of a focus on tech is killing them. They'll become the next Brown University if they don't get their act together.
Georgetown is not a peer to the Ivy League (I live in Washington D.C. and Georgetown is considered a great school, but definitely not Ivy worthy). Georgetown has a lot of programs that are quite easy to get into. Some of their certificates don't even require admission. On U.S. News Georgetown's at #20. Rice and Vanderbilt are equivalent to Brown and Cornell, but not better than either and they have more regional reputations (by virtue of not being Ivies). They're definitely a tier below the Harvard/Princeton duo.
Here are the universities that rank at least better than 2 ivies (higher than Brown + Cornell):
California Institute of Technology
Duke University
Johns Hopkins University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Northwestern University
Stanford University
University of Chicago
Remarkably (or not), all of them but Northwestern and Chicago are science and tech-focused schools.
Stanford is behind Princeton/Harvard/Yale, tied with Columbia. It's a Top 5 school. But it's not #1 and #2 like Harvard/Princeton (which was my point). Being #5 is nice, but it doesn't have the cachet of being the best, or the history of being the best. Stanford's on an upward trajectory because of its positioning at the nexus of Silicon Valley. But it does not have the gravitas of a Harvard or Princeton on the resume, or the history.
Yale is declining unfortunately. The lack of a focus on tech is killing them. They'll become the next Brown University if they don't get their act together.
Should've read my own Quora answer before writing that last post:
(One of the other two answers refers to a non-official social networking organization known as the Ivy Plus Society; one need not have attended a particular school, Ivy, Ivy extended, public Ivy or otherwise, to belong to that. The other refers to the one formal organzation I can find any information about, the Ivy Plus Sustainability Working Group [or Sustainability Consortium], which focuses on issues of sustainability and environmental stewardship; it has 14 members - the eight Ivies (here are the pages describing this group at Cornell and Yale) plus six peers: Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Stanford and Chicago. (Emphasis added. Caltech's absence here is equally noteworthy given Stanford's presence.) I refer to this group in my own answer, but when I was employed at Penn, there was also an "Ivy Plus" consortium that involved the admissions officers at those same schools.)
I tend to look askance at the obsession with rank among the people clamoring to get into some of these schools, especially from abroad. None of them, not even my alma mater, guarantee you the glittering prizes society hands out to those favored few. But what they do offer, even the less exalted ones, are outstanding educations and access to a network of well-connected alumni who could prove useful as you make your way into a career and along the career path once you're on it. Yes, you'll even do well graduating from Brown. And if it's high finance or the corporate executive ranks you want to go into, you might arguably prefer Penn over Harvard thanks to the Wharton School.
As for that gravitas on the resume: Yes, heads still turn when I name-drop where I attended college. But ultimately, as I wrote in my 10th Class Reunion Report, that diploma is merely a tool, and its value depends entirely on what the user does with it. It will open doors more easily, but you still have to walk through them.
Duke is "science and tech focused"? Yes, it's in the Research Triangle, and yes, it has strong programs in scientific and technical fields, but I'd class it with Harvard, Yale and Stanford more than I would MIT or Caltech - IOW, as a comprehensive university grounded in the liberal arts and sciences. Johns Hopkins' greatest strength in the sciences IMO lies in biomedicine.
Edited to add: I also stumbled across a page advertising an annual "Ivy Plus Housing Conference" held in the fall that brings residential system staff from nine schools together to discuss issues related to housing and student life. That group consists of the eight Ivies plus Stanford.
Generally speaking, I advise anyone seeking advice about colleges to focus not on getting into "the best school" but the school that's best for them. That might be a place like Rice, or like Grinnell College in Iowa.
Last edited by MarketStEl; 05-14-2018 at 09:57 PM..
(One of the other two answers refers to a non-official social networking organization known as the Ivy Plus Society; one need not have attended a particular school, Ivy, Ivy extended, public Ivy or otherwise, to belong to that. The other refers to the one formal organzation I can find any information about, the Ivy Plus Sustainability Working Group [or Sustainability Consortium], which focuses on issues of sustainability and environmental stewardship; it has 14 members - the eight Ivies (here are the pages describing this group at Cornell and Yale) plus six peers: Duke, Georgetown, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Stanford and Chicago. (Emphasis added. Caltech's absence here is equally noteworthy given Stanford's presence.) I refer to this group in my own answer, but when I was employed at Penn, there was also an "Ivy Plus" consortium that involved the admissions officers at those same schools.)
I tend to look askance at the obsession with rank among the people clamoring to get into some of these schools, especially from abroad. None of them, not even my alma mater, guarantee you the glittering prizes society hands out to those favored few. But what they do offer, even the less exalted ones, are outstanding educations and access to a network of well-connected alumni who could prove useful as you make your way into a career and along the career path once you're on it. Yes, you'll even do well graduating from Brown. And if it's high finance or the corporate executive ranks you want to go into, you might arguably prefer Penn over Harvard thanks to the Wharton School.
As for that gravitas on the resume: Yes, heads still turn when I name-drop where I attended college. But ultimately, as I wrote in my 10th Class Reunion Report, that diploma is merely a tool, and its value depends entirely on what the user does with it. It will open doors more easily, but you still have to walk through them.
Duke is "science and tech focused"? Yes, it's in the Research Triangle, and yes, it has strong programs in scientific and technical fields, but I'd class it with Harvard, Yale and Stanford more than I would MIT or Caltech - IOW, as a comprehensive university grounded in the liberal arts and sciences. Johns Hopkins' greatest strength in the sciences IMO lies in biomedicine.
Edited to add: I also stumbled across a page advertising an annual "Ivy Plus Housing Conference" held in the fall that brings residential system staff from nine schools together to discuss issues related to housing and student life. That group consists of the eight Ivies plus Stanford.
Generally speaking, I advise anyone seeking advice about colleges to focus not on getting into "the best school" but the school that's best for them. That might be a place like Rice, or like Grinnell College in Iowa.
Not to derail the thread, but I agree that going to a university for the singular purpose of "prestige" is a poor decision since you are likely to hate the experience.
I live in D.C., however, and in the cutthroat world of 30 second elevator pitches, the first thing people ask is where you went to school and for what. And whether right or not, you are perceived to be as good as your school unless and until you prove otherwise. Master's Degree from Harvard/Princeton/Yale/Oxbridge, etc? Congrats. You are really smart. Bachelor's from UDC? Too bad so sad. I've met dolts from Harvard and I've met geniuses from community colleges, sure. But in the absence of information, where you went to school is a universal barometer to gauge aptitude.
This isn't to say that you can't break out of the mold, but universities today act less and less as tools of imparting knowledge and more and more as brand recognition, networking hubs and ways for managers to easily do a Great Sorting. When you have 15 seconds to review a resume and you have to determine whether a person is smart, what do you immediately look at? Lecture-based education can't survive in a world where I can google the capital of Burkina Faso in 5 seconds. It can't survive a world where Alexa can tell me in 2 seconds that Mammatus clouds were first described in 1894 by William Clement Ley. Colleges today are less and less conduits for imparting knowledge and more and more tools for leveraging connections. This is simply because technology has completed eliminated a university's comparative advantage in "knowledge." Which is why grad schools now focus less on less on rote facts like military strategy in the Battle of Stalingrad and more and more on "practioners" and their "real-world experiences" by feeding students pithy anecdotes about working at the World Bank in Romania in the 1990s for an entire semester.
To quote Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting, "You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late fees at the public library." If you're going to college to learn, you're doing it all wrong in my opinion. I learned more from reading books at the public library than I did getting a Master's at one of the 14 schools above. I can get a better education by walking to the Library of Congress each day for free and reading for 8 hours, than I can by going to Harvard for $130,000 for two years. But that's not the point. The point is that Harvard is a vehicle for meeting the right people and boosting my brand. And that's where I find validity in the rankings. You can't measure which universities have better programs or better professors or teach you more. That's impossible to quantify. But you can certainly measure which universities are perceived to do all of those things. And that's how you get to Harvard/Princeton/Yale/Oxbridge, etc.
Take 95 south and the scenery you'll see from New England, through NY, NJ, MD and down to NC is very similar. Whereas there are several micro climates and dramatic changes in geographic features over the same distance in California.
There are several counties in California with population densities of less than 10 ppsm and they're mostly next to each other, so that's a large area of low density. Maine has 1 county with less than 10 ppsm.
I'm talking about the villages when I mentioned that colonial architecture only lasts a few blocks and then it turns into houses built within the last 100 years and most of these prewar homes here in New England have been remodeled and they've put vinyl siding over them.
Ok, this post is pretty unfair.
For instance, the first paragraph. You take one of the most scenically boring roads in the East, I-95 and compare it to "several micro climates and dramatic changes in geographic features over the same distance in California". Not scenic roads like I-80 or I -76 or I -78 through Pennsylvania. Or I -88, I -86, the Taconic State Parkway or the Adirondack Northway in New York. Or I-89, I-93 or I-91 in Vermont and New Hampshire. Or how about the Blue Ridge Parkway/Skyline Drive and I-81 in Virginia?
Pretty unfair really. Instead of talking about California microclimates, [u] why didn't you compare I-95 to the similar I-5, the main north-south road from San Francisco to southern California/U]? Wouldn't that be more fair?
So lets look at I-5 south of Sacramento and all the way down past Bakersfield through the Central Valley. Want to talk about similar scenery for hundreds of miles? Endless flat factory farms broken only by barren arid grasslands with the occasional oil well. I actually think it is worse then I-95. And there are no cities like NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, or DC on the way to stop and visit.
I do get what you mean about micro climates. Maybe not as much as Northern California but other parts of the country have them as well. Even relatively small states like Massachusetts, New Jersey and Maryland. It is dramatically different from a coastal beach or salt marsh to the inland hills and mountains. Believe me, it is dramatically different from Jones Beach on Long Island to Lake George in the Adirondacks.
For instance, the first paragraph. You take one of the most scenically boring roads in the East, I-95 and compare it to "several micro climates and dramatic changes in geographic features over the same distance in California". Not scenic roads like I-80 or I -76 or I -78 through Pennsylvania. Or I -88, I -86, the Taconic State Parkway or the Adirondack Northway in New York. Or I-89, I-93 or I-91 in Vermont and New Hampshire. Or how about the Blue Ridge Parkway/Skyline Drive and I-81 in Virginia?
Pretty unfair really. Instead of talking about California microclimates, [u] why didn't you compare I-95 to the similar I-5, the main north-south road from San Francisco to southern California/U]? Wouldn't that be more fair?
So lets look at I-5 south of Sacramento and all the way down past Bakersfield through the Central Valley. Want to talk about similar scenery for hundreds of miles? Endless flat factory farms broken only by barren arid grasslands with the occasional oil well. I actually think it is worse then I-95. And there are no cities like NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, or DC on the way to stop and visit.
I do get what you mean about micro climates. Maybe not as much as Northern California but other parts of the country have them as well. Even relatively small states like Massachusetts, New Jersey and Maryland. It is dramatically different from a coastal beach or salt marsh to the inland hills and mountains. Believe me, it is dramatically different from Jones Beach on Long Island to Lake George in the Adirondacks.
That's not really an example of a microclimate given the distance between the two places.
That's not really an example of a microclimate given the distance between the two places.
True, probably better counterparts would be lower Manhattan, Jones Beach, and the Catskills. Those vary quite a bit due to distance from the open ocean, urban heat island effect (Manhattan actually can actually vary strongly from block to block), and elevation.
That's not really an example of a microclimate given the distance between the two places.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
True, probably better counterparts would be lower Manhattan, Jones Beach, and the Catskills. Those vary quite a bit due to distance from the open ocean, urban heat island effect (Manhattan actually can actually vary strongly from block to block), and elevation.
Your right.
I was thinking just vegetation and diversity of land forms.
But anyway, back to him comparing driving on I-95 to microclimates. Its not the same thing. Now if you want to compare microclimates while driving on I-95 to microclimates while driving on I-5, well that is more comparable.
Not to mention, on a thread about weekend/day trips, what exactly does microclimates do for you anyway? It is interesting with regards to wildlife and nature. But does it mean the Bay area has more ski resorts? Or are the Bay area beaches more swimmable?
I was thinking just vegetation and diversity of land forms.
But anyway, back to him comparing driving on I-95 to microclimates. Its not the same thing. Now if you want to compare microclimates while driving on I-95 to microclimates while driving on I-5, well that is more comparable.
Not to mention, on a thread about weekend/day trips, what exactly does microclimates do for you anyway? It is interesting with regards to wildlife and nature. But does it mean the Bay area has more ski resorts? Or are the Bay area beaches more swimmable?
In summer for example if you want to escape the inland heat you head to the coast where it can be 20-40 degrees cooler. Or vice versa, you want the warm sunny weather of the wine country versus the cool, foggy weather of SF proper. It's pretty common for people do to this. During a heatwave I get sick of the 95-105 degree temps sometimes where I live so we head to the coast to get a break for the day.
And yes in winter people can go head up and be in the snow if they want to, not really a microclimate since it's relatively far away (3+ hours) but a completely different climate relatively close by.
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